Huang Yongyu and His West Hunan (Condensed Version)

Author: Zhuoya
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-04-01
Features: After seeing the sample of this book, I was truly delighted. My own written materials are actually not very good, but thanks to the thoughtful effort of Ms. Zhuoya and the elevation of her exquisite photographic works, they have become something that even I feel proud of. This reminds me of a saying: A person has a broken chair at home that is (troublesome), so they take it to an auction house. The auctioneer praises the chair to the hilt, and the person who is most moved is the original owner of the chair. They happily buy it back. This person is naturally like me—Huang Yongyu.
Having interacted with Huang Yongyu frequently, I have gained a deeper understanding of his character. Compared to Shen Congwen’s "heart like fire but appearance like still water," Huang Yongyu possesses a unique straightforwardness and magnanimity characteristic of people from Western Hunan. As someone who calls himself a "wandering nomad of culture," he has taken this straightforwardness and magnanimity to an even greater extent in his deep connection to his hometown. In his later years, his nostalgia for home grew stronger, and he returned to it several times a year. When talking about his hometown, his admiration and praise were always overflowing: "Our hometown is truly wonderful! Too wonderful!" "Phoenix is one of the two most beautiful cities in the world." Based on this belief, when he learned that his hometown was not included in the list of "Top 100 Historical and Cultural Cities in China," he tirelessly campaigned to get Phoenix included.
The Guanqi Temple in the county is an ancient temple. Two years ago, during its renovation, Huang Yongyu returned to his hometown despite the harsh cold to sculpt a magnificent and unique Guanyin statue and left behind eleven exquisite murals in the temple walls. It’s hard to imagine how an octogenarian could complete such a monumental and arduous task in such a short time! It is said that Huang Yongyu was suffering from diarrhea while painting the murals, yet he persisted until he was bleeding. He was an artist who never gave up.
When an artist’s achievements reach extraordinary heights, people often see only their works, but I was fortunate enough to meet the person behind the works. At the age of 12, he left home with a backpack to study in the outside world, becoming a "kite flying in the sky, with the other end of the string tied to the shadow of his hometown in his heart." What I did was use my camera to capture this shadow as much as possible and insert it into thick book pages. If this helps people understand more about Huang Yongyu’s true and essential self, then my efforts will have been worthwhile.