Poetic Interpretation of Jiangnan Culture

Author: Liu Shilin
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2004-10-01
Features: "Where is Xizhou? Across the bridge by the two oars." The desire to do a good job of writing about Jiangnan has been quite a long time. Every time I climb Qingliang Mountain, stand by Zixia Lake, and see the splendid brocade of Meihuashan, listen to the bustling market noise of Qinhuai River, this idea becomes even harder to suppress. Not to mention watching the boat girls' slender waist swaying and creating ripples all over the lake in Yangzhou's Slender West Lake, listening to the artist's soft lips whispering "The moon falls, crows cry, frost covers the sky" in Suzhou's Wanshi Garden, or imagining many of the "souls etched on the Three-Life Stone" who have long scattered by the Duan Bridge in Hangzhou. This is a land that is particularly prone to evoking leisurely sentiments, even a touch of desolation. Any dilapidated courtyard might have been the home of the wealthy Wang and Xie families in the past, and a small, unremarkable tomb on the mountain top might be the resting place of a shocking and earth-shattering pool of blood. Among all the poetic details of living in Jiangnan, the feeling of returning home is certainly the most unbearable. Especially on moonlit nights or stormy evenings, accidentally stepping into a strange water town will surely evoke the vicissitudes of life: "Leaving home in youth, returning in age." Under the temptation of this mood and scenery, a traveler can easily fall into a beautiful illusion, unable to distinguish which self—this one who is now in the mortal world or the one who was just toiling in the red dust—is more real, whose appearance and voice are more familiar and gentle. However, after all, green mountains cannot hide flowing water. Just as Jiangnan beauties are inevitably subject to the fate of "red cheeks aging with the spring's end," the withering of this poetic Jiangnan in the bustling mortal world seems like a sorrowful contract signed in a past life. For those fleeting passersby who were born into this era, the intertwined emotions are not something a poet can simply resolve with a line like "I want to speak but hold back." On one hand, there is the old moon of "Passing the women's walls late at night"; on the other hand, there is the person watching the moon by the river, who finds "Crossing the Changle Gate again, all is no more." On one hand, the street calls of osmanthus flowers and the clanging of osmanthus wine jars remain the same; on the other hand, the longqan, Hengtang, and Nanpu of youth are long gone. On one hand, the drizzle in the yellow-rain season and the frog drums by the green grass pond still arrive as scheduled; on the other hand, the people who once picked lotus, washed silk, and farmed in the rain or sun have long "gone to unknown places." On one hand, the fresh bamboo shoots, perch, water chestnuts, and lotus roots in the spring and autumn seasons are still vivid in memory; on the other hand, after sunset, there are no more storytellers with hoarse voices singing Cai Zhonglang at night, nor the old courtyards in fine weather and the lonely boats in stormy evenings, nor the little red and Xiao Niang singing softly, nor the colors of the spring fields and the painted candles in the autumn courtyard, nor all the vibrant sounds, shapes, colors, and scents that once flourished on Jiangnan. If their existence cannot rise to eternity, then what else is worth preserving for the world? For all things that exist in this world, Su Dongpo's "Preface to the Red Cliff Ode" says it best: "If you observe from the perspective of change, then heaven and earth cannot even last for a moment; if you observe from the perspective of permanence, then both things and I are endless." And for all past things that have lost their material forms, their existence and clarity can only be upheld through language and sound. Constructing a living classical humanistic Jiangnan with a modern Chinese discourse is the highest concept and practical force that encourages us to plan and implement the "Jiangnan Discourse." Just like (Tatsuo) drawing nature, as we stroll through the beautiful Jiangnan landscape, we always hear a sorrowful plea, "Quickly show me." Sometimes this gentle plea becomes as stern as an absolute command, which is precisely the reason why we must abandon many other tasks and prioritize this one. I remember Hegel once said that ancient Greece was "the spiritual homeland of all Europeans," and the beautiful Jiangnan undoubtedly can be seen as the spiritual homeland of the Chinese nation. Although this damp world, which is now the focus of attention, has been more and more categorized as a historical and nostalgic object, the speaker themselves are living, breathing beings, and therefore their narratives also carry a modern humanistic significance that is not easily seen in other discourse spaces. Let Jiangnan remain as she is, let Jiangnan transcend time and space in discourse, and become an eternal spiritual homeland for the Chinese nation—this is the goal and persistent humanistic ideal that "Jiangnan Discourse" hopes to achieve.