Selling art Huang family

Author: Huang Zongjiang, Huang Zonghui, et al.
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2004-04-01
Features: The Huang family, known as the "Literary and Artistic Family," has produced a new generation of actors. Driven by the times and their own passions, the siblings ventured into acting and became successful performers. The term "Selling-Art Huang Family" refers to the four siblings: Huang Zongjiang, Huang Zongying, Huang Zongluo, and Huang Zonghan. "Selling-art" means acting. Each sibling excelled in their craft and achieved great success. In contemporary China, whether in literary creation or acting achievements, the siblings are renowned as "the ones everyone knows." The "Selling-Art Huang Family" is a unique family in China's entertainment industry. Huang Zongjiang is a playwright, actor, professor, and cultural ambassador; Huang Zongying is a celebrated writer and actor; Huang Zonghui is a versatile actor known for his small roles; and Huang Zonghan is a prominent cultural entrepreneur. This book primarily tells the life stories of the Huang family, composed of reflective essays by family members such as Huang Zongjiang, Huang Zonghui, Huang Zongying, Huang Zongluo, and Huang Zonghan, covering topics like art, life, and friendships. Excerpt: Eating, Art, and Character – A Talk About My Father, Huang Zongjiang (Excerpt) / Dan Tie Someone wanted to write about my father and asked me what his most distinctive trait was. Without hesitation, I replied, "He loves to eat." That's true; a love for food is one of my father's defining characteristics, and he has even dedicated himself to the art of eating. In his view, eating should be an art, achieving perfection in color, aroma, and taste. Every dish and its accompanying plate must be carefully designed. Especially when hosting guests, he enjoys studying menus—it's his greatest joy. He would sit on a chair, smoke a cigarette, and painstakingly consider a menu before presenting it to everyone. If the meal met his expectations, he would proudly smile after finishing his meal. But often, it fell short. In such cases, he would lament the destruction of his "artistic unity" and regret that the meticulously prepared meal had lost its charm. My mother would gently say, "Don't make a fuss—how can it not be eaten?" My father sighed, "But this is art!" He claimed that the art of eating is both a science and an art, believing that the general principles of all arts can be applied to gastronomy. Thus, his views on eating align closely with his insights into art. Understanding his approach to food is like appreciating his artistic style and his character. Eating, my father has always advocated tasting a wide variety of flavors. Whenever possible, he would try anything he could eat. He claimed to have tasted everything from Colombian ants and Shandong scorpions to Vietnamese hedgehogs, foxes, and elephants. And he wasn't exaggerating—my father had traveled to countless places throughout his life, from the northern regions to the Jiangnan, the Gobi Desert to the plateaus, and across Asia, Europe, Latin America, and the Americas. Wherever he went, he ate. These places left not just his footprints but also his taste buds. Yesterday, he was praising Xinjiang's hand-picked lamb; today, he was admiring Shanghai's pickled tripe; tomorrow, he might recall his childhood favorite, fried bean dregs. He might even talk about Tokyo's sashimi or the fried banana shoots of rural Vietnam. Fast food like KFC and hamburgers were already insignificant to him! "Travel ten thousand miles, taste a hundred flavors." My father had long put this into practice. He demanded perfection in meals but didn't believe that the more luxurious, the better. What he pursued was uniqueness and authenticity. He often enjoyed eating "common folk" dishes, such as the pancakes my mother loves, the stir-fried liver my sister prefers, the popped corn my grandson had just made, or even the bean juice that none of us would touch. My father never favored southern or northern cuisine, Chinese or Western. He summarized his eclectic eating habits as "emphasizing both north and south, embracing both Chinese and Western." He considered this a major advantage in the art of eating. As a man known for his eclectic tastes, my father also gained recognition in the art world for his diverse knowledge. Listen to the titles given to him in recent years: "Film and Stage Artist" – a general term. "Truly Talented Playwright" – a compliment from those who knew him well. "Renowned Actor" – a nostalgic label from old friends. "Famous Drama and Film Critic" – a recent honor from the art world. Yet, he resisted these titles, simply calling himself a "jack of all trades." Indeed, "jack of all trades" perfectly summarizes his decades-long artistic career. My father was a playwright, but he had also been an actor. I loved watching his filmography: this was Jianxin from A Family, Zhou Chong from Thunderstorm, and the elegant woman from The Mandarin's Sword, also played by my aunt Huang Zongying. There was also the ugly matchmaker and the old boatman—his stage persona was truly diverse. Whenever we talked about his stage career, my father had so much to say. He once told us about how he and my aunt performed in Shanghai, how he played three roles in one play in Chongqing, and how he was known as one of the "Four Great Comic Actors" in Chongqing's theater scene alongside Xie Tian, Lan Ma, and Shen Yang. As he spoke, he would get carried away and even perform spontaneously. My father truly loved the art of performance, still "addicted to acting" even in his old age. When a German friend, Uwe, led a film crew to shoot a documentary in our courtyard, recording my father and Uncle Ying Ruocheng performing A Visit to Measure Characters in English, my father suddenly did a somersault off the bench and then squeezed out from under it. We were all stunned, fearing he might get hurt. Yet, he said matter-of-factly, "My master, Wang Chuanong, used to do this—I couldn't skip it." His love for food and art was equally undeniable. "He just can't help himself," as they say, "stubbornly indulging in his passion, even when it's serious." No matter the circumstances, he never forgot about food. Even during the Cultural Revolution, he remained the same. According to Uncle Yan Jizhou of the Eighth Film Studio, when they were labeled "counter-revolutionaries," there was a period of relative leniency. He suddenly noticed a row of small medicine bottles in my father's shirt pocket, like a Cossack's cartridge. At mealtime, he fumbled with them, busy as ever. It turned out that each small bottle contained my father's "weapons": soy sauce, vinegar, salt, MSG, and pepper. His love for art was just as undeniable. At the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, my father had just returned from the southern front of Vietnam. During the tense guerrilla warfare, he wrote a play titled South, Oh South, which he considered a masterpiece and believed would be staged soon upon his return. But he never expected to be met with critiques and interrogations, eventually being labeled a "counter-revolutionary." After being "crushed and disgraced," the "revolutionaries" forbade him from writing anything that could "poison the masses." Yet, my father, true to his old habits, used the scraps of paper from his self-criticism materials to write a Peking opera script titled Southern Clouds and Waters. Despite being trapped in prison and cut off from the world, he refused to give up. After his "liberation," he went all out. When the story of Zhang Zhixin was exposed, he couldn't sleep at night or rest during the day, determined to bury his long-written "Dunhuang" and set aside his well-developed idea for "Hou Baolin," rushing to Shenyang to write about this great communist. The film script A Lament was quickly completed. Some had predicted that this script would never be adapted into a film, but my father remained unwavering in his admiration for this heroine. A decade later, he is still as "stubborn" as ever. He is deeply passionate about this land of art, tirelessly cultivating and reaping. In recent years, he has taken his eclectic approach to writing to new heights. Drawing on his "embrace of both Chinese and Western" philosophy in the art of eating, he combines tradition and modernity, striking both east and west. He has performed traditional Chinese plays in English, which was just the beginning. Next, he adapted Eugene O'Neill's masterpiece Anna Christie into a story set in China, calling it An Di—a play that has already been brought to China by an American director for rehearsals and performances. The previous year, he went to the United States to lecture for a year, and before leaving, he adapted Zhao Family Orphan and The Peony Pavilion into plays, taking them to the U.S. for his foreign students to perform. Upon his return, both plays were eventually staged on Chinese stages. My father loves writing plays, acting, and watching plays. He appreciates almost every form of performance art, watching all kinds of shows, "emphasizing both north and south." His primary mode of transportation for watching plays was once a dilapidated bicycle that, as Hou Baolin's crosstalk described, "could ring anywhere but not at the bell." On this bike, he traveled almost everywhere. As he aged, he replaced it with a new "" (Permanence) bicycle, but it quickly became old again. After watching plays, he often went on stage to shake hands with the actors and take photos. When everything was over, the leaders and celebrities would head off in their cars, but my father would still be riding his "" down the main street. If meetings lasted longer, he would even lose his bike when leaving the theater. The elderly woman who watched the car thought it was an unclaimed vehicle and had already taken it away. Some troupe leaders kindly asked him, "Where is your driver? We've left a ticket for him." My father blinked, "Driver? I'm covering for him." After the play, he had to ride his bike to attend a symposium, followed by writing articles. Of course, by then, he had long forgotten the fatigue of riding. When he wrote with passion, it seemed as if the play was his own, and he was the one performing. But with all that, how could he find time to write his own scripts? We felt so sorry for him that we once discussed whether we could "petition" for him or buy him a car. But no, no—don't dream of it. Let's be practical—buy him some Tianfu sauce meat, bamboo shoots, or pea sprouts, and he would be overjoyed.