Heavenly Huizhou: The Ten Major Schools of Huizhou Culture

Author: Wang Qimin, Jian Wenle
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-10-01
Features: The long-standing Huizhou culture is the sum of material and spiritual civilizations created by the ancient Huizhou people, as well as the crystallization of Chinese national culture, possessing extremely high cultural and aesthetic value. For thousands of years, the Huizhou region, nestled in the mountains along the upper reaches of the Qiantang River, has been like a massive furnace, continuously absorbing various nutrients. The distinctive original indigenous culture, the "mountain Yue" culture of mountain-dwelling and slash-and-burn farming, as well as the Confucian culture brought by northern scholar-gentry families, successively took root, interacted, and merged here, ultimately forging a unique socio-cultural system. After the Song Dynasty, especially during the Ming and Qing periods, Huizhou became renowned for its literary traditions, scholarly schools, commercial guilds, and refined customs. The outstanding achievements of the Huizhou people in economy, society, education, academia, literature, art, craftsmanship, architecture, and medicine left the world in awe, giving rise to the admiration, "Huizhou is in the heavens!" This book introduces the ten major schools of Huizhou culture—Huizhou merchants, Xin'an Confucianism, Huizhou pragmatic learning, Xin'an medicine, Xin'an painting school, Huizhou architecture, Huizhou woodblock printing, Huizhou seal carving, Huizhou opera, and Huizhou cuisine—in a clear and engaging language, complemented by rich illustrations. These schools are not only the essence of Huizhou culture but also hold significant positions in Chinese cultural history, and some even in world cultural history, having exerted profound influence. The authors of this book are deeply rooted in the fertile soil of Huizhou culture, possess abundant firsthand materials, and have long dedicated themselves to Huizhou cultural research. Therefore, the book is well-documented, rich in content, highly readable, and holds certain academic value, appealing to both scholars and general readers. This book introduces the mainstream of Huizhou culture in an accessible language and visually engaging form, covering the emergence, development, and evolution of the ten major schools: Huizhou merchants, Xin'an Confucianism, Huizhou pragmatic learning, Xin'an medicine, and more.