The Cultural Status of the Grand Canal Culture

The Grand Canal culture is the most important development history containing the contents of ancient China society, and its cultural status is obviously more important than the Great Wall:

In 486 BC (the thirty-fourth year of the week), Fu Cha, the king of Wu, dug it;

B. 1293 (30 years from Yuan Shizu to Yuan Dynasty), the artificial grand canal in the north and south of Hangjing was built;

C across: Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Shandong, Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces;

D. Access: Qiantang River, Yangtze River, Huaihe River, Yellow River and Haihe River;

E. More than 2,000 years earlier than the Basu Canal;

F Total length of the Grand Canal1.782km (excluding the East Zhejiang Canal and some small canals);

G 2 1 times the length of Panama Canal (19 14 completed, with a total length of 81.3 km);

H The length of Suez Canal (1869 completed, total length 172.5km) is 10 times.

The Grand Canal culture is a "regional culture of canal city group" and a comprehensive city group culture created by ancient agriculture in China. The excavation of the Grand Canal has created a new environment, connecting several small independent natural environments into a system and transforming it into a humanistic environment. These include: new natural environment, new ecological environment, new production environment, new culture, new logistics environment and so on. Formed a famous and developed "Canal Social Regional Economy". For example, the ancient channels of "transporting grain from the south to the north" and "transporting salt", and now the trunk line of "transporting coal from the north to the south" are the mainstream of contemporary flood control irrigation. The specific reasons are as follows: (1) After the Sui and Tang Dynasties, the canal promoted the exchange of agricultural technology between the north and the south, improved crop varieties, and the "commercial circulation" of agricultural economy covered the vast rural areas of China beyond the canal basin and beyond. (2) In the middle and late Ming Dynasty, Suzhou and Hangzhou with developed commodity economy sprouted capitalism, which directly stimulated the rise of "Canal Commercial Urban Agglomeration": Beijing, Tianjin, Cangzhou, Dezhou, Linqing, Liaocheng, Jining, Xuzhou, Huai 'an, Yangzhou, Zhenjiang, Changzhou, Wuxi, Suzhou, Jiaxing, Hangzhou, Shaoxing and Ningbo-Sui and Tang Dynasties: Chang 'an. Northern Song Dynasty: Kaifeng; Southern Song Dynasty: Hangzhou; Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties: Beijing is the hub of the whole country. Canal economy is "shape" and canal culture is "spirit", and the two blend with each other to enhance the soul of the canal.

The Grand Canal culture is "the product of national integration (ringing in the whole process)". The Grand Canal culture can be divided into three levels: advanced culture, including architecture and literature; Popular culture refers to the customs, etiquette, food, clothing, housing and transportation, and lifestyle along the way; Deep culture refers to the orientation of values, that is, the national spirit extended from the Yellow River culture, which has already penetrated into the depths of the Grand Canal culture. Then, as a living fossil culture, the essence of the Grand Canal culture will inevitably return the spirit of the Grand Canal to a living fossil. Because she is in the same strain as the Chinese national spirit. The advanced culture of the canal is the product of the declining feudal era, and the popular culture of the canal is rooted in the profound culture of the canal. As a custom or lifestyle, the concept of canal deep culture still exists in canal folk customs, canal cultural sites, ideal geographical location, superior economic conditions and humanistic environment:

(1) The Grand Canal is the political link of the unified situation and the most important area in all dynasties. Control the north and south, the political situation will unify the whole country and maintain centralization. The Sui and Tang dynasties moved northward, and it was not until the Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties that there was a great division, which proved that the assimilation of the Grand Canal culture existed. The Grand Canal culture, as a whole of different regional relations in the past dynasties, presents a trend of integration.

(2) The Grand Canal culture and the pluralistic culture of the Chinese nation promote each other. The Grand Canal culture is inclusive, unified, diffusive, open, cohesive and centripetal. While communicating material exchanges, the Grand Canal greatly cut off the imbalance of regional culture centered on the Yellow River civilization and assimilated and integrated the differences of multi-ethnic cultures. As a result, almost all the southeast culture, Lingnan culture, Jiangnan culture, Qilu culture, Middle-earth culture, Jianghuai culture, Yellow River culture, Yanbei culture, Western culture and so on are intricately integrated into the time and space of China's long-standing traditional thought. At the same time, it also formed a unique Grand Canal culture. The Grand Canal culture and its surrounding cultures have always been based on Chang 'an, Luoyang, Kaifeng, Hangzhou and Beijing. In other words, the Grand Canal culture is inseparable from its mother-the pluralistic and integrated culture of the Chinese nation.

(3) The Grand Canal culture is "the sum of material wealth and spiritual wealth created in China's water transportation practice (Zhang)". The ideology of feudal society, the corresponding economic system and grain transportation institutions made the Grand Canal culture an ideological culture, which was deeply reflected in ancient politics and economy. The productivity of the canal has promoted the prosperity of the canal culture, but the canal culture has a certain nationality, which is suitable for the national contradictions of that era. For example, in the Yuan Dynasty, Mongolian nomads established the central government. They were not good at farming, so they transported rice from the south of the Yangtze River to the canal. For another example, when the Northern Song Dynasty perished and Jin attacked the Southern Song Dynasty, he went south through the grain and grass in the canal. Anyway. The Grand Canal culture has been developing with the development of material production in feudal society, and the Grand Canal culture has always maintained the continuity of development and historical inheritance. Because of the continuity of the development of canal productivity, it determines the continuity of the development of its superstructure.

(4) The Grand Canal culture is a system with the ideas and values of all ethnic groups in China. The culture of the Grand Canal is closely related to the social life of that era. Without that era, there would be no Grand Canal culture. Within the same society contained in the Grand Canal culture, the culture is diverse and inconsistent. There is also' sub-cultural difference', which is one of the driving forces of the Grand Canal culture (in Jinmengxue). For example, the religious and cultural landscapes on both sides of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal were built in the Yuan Dynasty, because Tibetan Buddhism was the state religion in the Yuan Dynasty. Canal culture has become a huge and complex cultural symbol system. The symbolic basis of canal culture-the most important is Chinese language, including image totem, living habits, customs and other symbolic symbol systems. Therefore, the essence of the Grand Canal culture is an important research field of social disciplines such as Sinology and Sinology. The Grand Canal culture is a window for the spread of China's ancient culture, which has expanded China's influence on the world. For example:

A. With the opening of the Grand Canal, the southeast coast is more directly and closely connected with all parts of the country;

B the canal area is prosperous in economy and culture, and it is the frontier area for foreign exchanges and exchanges between China and foreign countries;

C. Countries and regions around China and countries in West Asia, Europe and East Africa sent delegations and caravans to China;

D berthing at coastal ports and reaching all parts of Beijing along the canal, with frequent economic and cultural exchanges;

E. Move directly into the Canal Zone and become a concentrated place for all ethnic groups, foreign envoys, businessmen, monks, overseas students and people from all walks of life;

F. The spread of foreign culture in China enriches the content of the regional culture of the Canal;

G. With the establishment of New China, the state listed the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal as one of the key inland navigation trunk lines;

H. Reform and opening up have further accelerated the pace of canal construction. The traffic is busy, and the comprehensive benefits of flood control, irrigation, water supply and tourism are remarkable.

The Grand Canal culture belongs to a unique "living" cultural heritage. Jump out of the concept of "point" to divide it into levels-including the material culture of the Grand Canal and the intangible culture of the Grand Canal (literature, geography, water conservancy, art, history, institutionalism, politics, folk customs, ethnology, food, clothing, housing and transportation, lifestyle, code of conduct, etc.). ). Material culture refers to all kinds of material civilizations created in the process of digging the Grand Canal, which is a visible dominant culture; The intangible culture of the Grand Canal belongs to intangible recessive culture. The Grand Canal culture is rich in ancient information, and it is an encyclopedia of the Grand Canal to study China's ancient society, geography, history, politics, economy, military affairs, culture, science and technology, diplomacy and nationality. It is a "Canal Museum" to study traditional cultural concepts such as lifestyle, behavior habits, cultural attitudes and aesthetic values of all ethnic groups. The latest edition of UNESCO Convention for the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage-A Guide to Action summarizes the cultural characteristics of the Grand Canal as "it represents the migration and flow of human beings, the reciprocal and continuous exchange of multi-dimensional goods, ideas, knowledge and values, and the resulting cultural exchange and mutual nourishment in time and space." . In a word, the Grand Canal culture is a living fossil culture stored in the Grand Canal ruins culture. The internal structure of the Grand Canal culture includes the following levels: material culture, institutional culture, behavioral culture and psychological culture:

A. Material and cultural layer: the total wealth left by the material production activities of the Grand Canal, and the tangible cultural and material entity of the Grand Canal;

B. Institutional culture: because the social behavior norms established by the practice of canal economy are sustainable, for example, the contemporary canal is still navigable;

C. Behavioral culture: The Grand Canal is a cultural regional model in the form of customs and folk customs in interpersonal communication;

D the values, aesthetic taste and way of thinking of the Grand Canal culture, such as spiritual culture and social consciousness, are the cultural soul of the Grand Canal.