Cultural differences caused by regional differences in China

The differences in Chinese regional culture

A regional culture is the accumulation of history

It is actually the "regional culture". Of course, in China's "regional culture" in the middle, Wu culture, Suzhou culture occupies a particularly important position.

What is "regional culture"? Since our country has a culture, why do we still emphasize "regional culture"? In my opinion, the type of culture that best reflects a certain geographical area and a certain spatial scope is "regional culture". This is because it is distinctly different from other geographical regions and other spatial scopes. More than 2 000 years ago, Sima Qian's "Records of the Grand Historian" contained a line called "A hundred miles of different winds, a thousand miles of different customs", and the concept of "customs" that we usually talk about existed more than 2 000 years ago. The so-called "wind", as I understand it, is what is popular today, while "custom" has become a habit, a way of life. Not all winds have become vulgar. So, you must be very concerned about how "regional culture" is formed. For example, how did Suzhou, as a typical place of Wu culture, come into being? What is its relationship with other cultures? The formation of a cultural area takes a long time, and once formed, it has a long continuity. Why is the Wu Culture Zone called "Wu"? As we all know, in the earliest times, Tai Bo went to Wu, and later on, after Qin and Han, there were also Wu named after Wu, such as Wu County, and later on, Wu State, which constantly evolved and continued. Similarly, the culture of Wu-Yue can be traced back to Ningbo and Shaoxing, the earliest Yue people, and the Yue state established by the Yue people, and later the Yue state, which formed Shaoxing prefecture, which also had a long-term continuation process. Therefore, although the history of China is quite complex, and some places such as "Wu" have changed a lot, and even the local population has changed a lot, but a "regional culture", it can certainly trace its historical tradition. All the places that we call "regional culture" today are generally formed over a long period of time through the accumulation of history.

The four characteristics of different regional cultures

What are the most prominent manifestations of "regional culture"? I think one of the most distinctive features is the dialect. Just like modern Chinese, there are different dialects, and they are distributed over a wide area. The differences between the dialects of modern Chinese are manifested in various aspects of speech, vocabulary and grammar, with the phonetic aspect being particularly prominent. However, since there are certain correspondence patterns phonetically between each of these dialects and *** homonyms, and many similarities in vocabulary and grammar, they are not independent languages. According to the characteristics of the dialects, in connection with the history of their formation and development, and the results of the current dialect survey, the dialects of modern Chinese can be divided. At present, the linguistic circles in China have not fully agreed on the division of modern Chinese dialects, and most of them believe that there are seven major dialects of modern Chinese: Northern dialect, Wu dialect, Hakka dialect, Min dialect, Cantonese dialect, Xiang dialect, Gan dialect, etc. Because of the vastness of China, there are many dialects in the country. Because of the vastness of our country and the great differences in geographical conditions, there will certainly be different living environments in the process of long-term development. Under such circumstances, coupled with the influence of humanities and nature, and in a fairly long period of time, the transportation between people is not very convenient, so a region will form its own dialect. This affects not only daily life, but even political life.

The second characteristic is different diets. In a society where the standard of living is not very high, food is always put in front of wearing. Dietary habits vary from place to place, especially folk around in order to adapt to their own needs, try to use the local specialties, and to improve the life to make it good, so that the formation of a lot of local specialties of the diet. Just like the southerners to rice as the main food, so have dexterity of mind, at the same time, "rice cultivation tends to promote dispersed centrifugal force rather than cooperative centripetal force" (Joyce White language), so the southerners scattered indifference to the political personality is more prominent. Lu Xun once said: the merits of the North is heavy, the merits of the South is smart, but the disadvantages of heavy in the stupid, smart disadvantages in the cunning, from the appearance, the North long South face or the South long North face of the person is better. Wang Guowei's evaluation of the South and North people is: "the South human nature cold and recluse, the North human nature hot and into the world, the South people good fantasy, the North people heavy implementation.

The third characteristic is different wedding and funeral rituals, including festivals. The daily life of a place can be sloppy in normal times, but not during festivals. Therefore, in comparison, the "regional culture" is also reflected more in the wedding and funeral rituals and festivals.

The fourth characteristic is the difference in folk beliefs. China is not a religious country and has never practiced the unification of church and state on a national scale. Because of this, the Chinese people tend to have all kinds of beliefs, and such beliefs have folk characteristics.

The last important feature is reflected in the differences in folk dwellings. Just like the southern architecture, the residential courtyard is very small, the surrounding houses are connected as one, the southern folk dwellings are mostly used through the bucket structure, the combination of houses is more flexible. In the south, the house of the mountain wall shaped like a horse's head, the southern building more pink walls and tiles, light color. The north is large and vast, beautiful mountains and rivers, the population is relatively sparse, so the settlement site is often in the flat section, most of which belongs to the plains type of composition. The same region of the vernacular architectural form of exceptionally uniform, coupled with the cold climate, the need for adequate sunlight, the main house are striving to sit in the north to face the south. The colder the climate, the more generous land, the mansion of the street facade is also very simple, usually showing a large plain courtyard wall or inverted seat of the house of the rear gable wall, relying on the door and the doorway of different specifications of the system and different degrees of modification, in order to obtain the mansion's different elegance of the facade. Suzhou, some of the original residential housing, not to mention with the north has a big difference, that is, with the south is also different. Now some people in some places, hoping to casually change the residential, casually introduced outside the architectural style, nine times out of ten is to fail.

Three, six factors that create different regional cultures

People want to ask, why is there a different "regional culture"?

First of all, one reason is the difference in the natural environment. "Regional cultures" are formed in historical times, and many of them would not have existed if transportation had been as advanced as it is today. For example, the Yangtze River, if today there are many bridges, tunnels, trains, airplanes and automobiles, it is very convenient to come and go, there will not be Jiangnan, Jiangbei, because in the past it was very inconvenient to go back and forth once, but also take into account that our country has been poor and backward for a long time, and the culture has been accumulated. In addition, transportation conditions limit the exchange of people and materials.

The second reason is migration. When you go to a place, see where there are more people who moved here, where the people who moved here hold the initiative, their immigrant culture tends to become the dominant culture of a place. As we look at history, Suzhou was moved by immigrants from the north one at a time. During the Southern Song Dynasty, a large number of immigrants moved south, and Suzhou, Hangzhou, Jiaxing and Shaoxing were all places of immigration. The emperor was also from Henan, the ministers were from Henan, the monks and Taoist priests also came here to settle down, so everyone learned Henan dialect, so in Hangzhou there was an island of northern dialect, which was different from the surrounding Wu language.

Additionally, the third reason for the emergence of "regional culture" is the influence of political power and administrative division. China's "regional culture" circle, in addition to the natural environment, big rivers, mountains, terrain, often with the long-term continuation of the political district coincides. Between Suzhou and Changzhou, usually separate from each other, not only now, that is, before the Qing Dynasty in China, often a lot of things are to the government level of the political region, including the county as a unit, a short period of time does not usually have such an impact. I think these three aspects of Chinese "regional culture" are more important.

The fourth reason is ethnicity. As we know, population migration is not necessarily ethnic migration. If it is an inter-ethnic migration, it has a great impact on the distribution of ethnicity.

In recent times, another reason is the influence of foreign cultures. China is not a closed country, if we put national culture and foreign national culture together, China has long been influenced by foreign culture.

The last influence is religion. The influence of religion, Buddhism has been localized, Islam, Catholicism, Christianity, and some other religions, its influence is greater. The influence of religion in some special areas can not be ignored.

Four, protect the value of regional culture

Our country's culture is rich and colorful, the reason why there is such a strong vitality, one of the important reasons, is the tenacious survival of the "regional culture", so that foreign cultures have not systematically entered the history of China. Historically, some nomadic peoples have entered China, such as the Xianbei, the Khitans, and the Manchus, and they can conquer you militarily, but they will be conquered by us culturally in the end.

Secondly, "regional culture" has great development value and irreplaceable humanistic value. Culture is characterized by diversity, if the "regional culture" seen in Suzhou, to the north of Jiangsu, Shandong are the same, then what is the point? It is precisely because of the differences that there is a great attraction between different regions of China. For example, Suzhou is proud of its Kunqu opera and pianoforte, which have a great influence on people like us. There are many other crafts, food and festivals, but if they all follow the same pattern, their appeal is limited. Now the "regional culture" of each place, you develop it, it is a very precious tourism resources, cultural resources, but also conducive to the construction of the local culture.

This "regional culture" also has a lot of bad, there are dregs, how to do? We need to change these, or we can no longer promote, but we should also be preserved, preserved in order to let future generations know that there was such a culture, it can be compared. Chinese women used to have their feet wrapped. If we have never seen it, how can we know why it is so? We let people know that there used to be such a thing, so that they will know the preciousness of today's culture, its value. There are still some that we can't tell the difference between favorable and harmful today? If they are all abolished, it will be too late to realize later that they are valuable to human society, but it is better to keep them first.

Fifth, the new regional culture needs to be guided

"Regional culture" has no future? Just said the conditions, now no longer, the original transportation is not developed, is now developed. The original progress is slow, now faster, the original culture is relatively single, now the culture is very rich. If this continues, will the "regional culture" still exist?

Of course, "regional culture" is indeed in the process of gradual weakening. For example, the dialect, and food, now in Suzhou, Shanghai, to eat foreign things have. The current situation, "regional culture" is more and more negative characteristics, there is no future? No matter how negative it is, a new "regional culture" will be created. Although this "regional culture" will not be as different as in history, it is absolutely indispensable to the local culture and local natural conditions, which are also part of the ****together with the Chinese civilization and the world's civilization, and are also part of the Chinese civilization. These cultures are also part of the Chinese civilization and part of the world culture, as long as they have their own vitality.

Now back to the beginning of the words, what is the "wind", the wind is popular, fashion, what is the "common", the common is already formed habits. Today we have a lot of new "regional culture", but to a large extent, it is still a "wind", so it is changing rapidly. How to turn it into a "custom" that is beneficial to our development in all aspects requires the efforts of all of us. Culture is a process of free choice. By human nature, it cannot be forced, but the government and the mainstream of society have the obligation to guide it. For example, we are very worried that the development of commodity economy will weaken the culture, but when we look back at the history of Suzhou, it can be said that Suzhou has been the economically developed place in China since the Five Dynasties, but its culture has been equally developed, and it is getting more and more developed. It can be said that it reached a new peak during the Qing Dynasty, which proves that the development of commodity economy is not completely contradictory to the market economy and culture, what is the reason? What is the reason? It is that there is a good tradition that people do not forget to improve their cultural quality even after they become more affluent. In turn, the demand for culture promotes economic development. In order to make our country build a harmonious society, and to make the Chinese civilization have a lasting vitality, we have to continue to seriously explore and explore the good tradition and advantages of "regional culture", and carry forward its advantages. We also believe that with the reform and opening up of our country, China will be able to have a more splendid and diversified "regional culture".

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