Ye Zi's Xiaoshan of Manuscripts

A Memoir of a Canoe

In ancient China, there is a record of "routing wood for a boat", which shows that a canoe should be made of "routed wood", but how does a canoe become a boat from "routed wood"? How to become a boat, the process of which may only be known to the ancient craftsmen. So, I was a little surprised when I saw the canoe at the Cross Lake Bridge Museum.

If you use monotonous and boring numbers to describe it, it looks like this:

The canoe is now 560 centimeters long, 53 centimeters wide, with a maximum internal depth of 15 centimeters, and a lateral side thickness of 2.5 centimeters, and several black scorched surfaces in the side.

This is an excerpt from a volume of "Xiaoshan Xianghu History" in my hand. The author, Cai Tanggen, an expert on Xianghu Lake.

However, it is this small canoe, carrying too thick and deep cultural significance. Its groundbreaking, together with the excavation of those stakes, wooden paddles, opened the door to explore the culture of the bridge across the lake, the history of civilization in Zhejiang a whole 1,000 years forward at the same time, opened the lower reaches of the Yangtze River and the southeastern coast of the history of human civilization of a brand-new chapter. Of course, the more important significance lies in the full proof that China is one of the first countries in the world to make canoes, but also for China's oar culture and the world of shipbuilding research has produced a significant and far-reaching historical significance. Its practical significance is, caused a strong stir in the academic community at home and abroad and the high degree of attention of the news media, that year was named "2001 National Top Ten Archaeological Discoveries", and four years later in May 2006, the site of the Cross-Harbor Bridge was identified by the State Council announced as a national key cultural relics protection units.

The canoe is a great achievement.

Canoe, as the name suggests, is a boat made of a piece of wood, although simple and somewhat shabby, but without shame to take up the ancestors of the ship. Ancient Chinese canoes, there are roughly three types, one is a flat-bottomed canoe, the bottom is flat, or close to a flat bottom, the head and tail is square, there is no upturned; a kind of pointy head and square tail canoe, but the bottom is also flat; and a kind of pointy head and sharp tail canoe, the head of the boat is upturned, and the tail is also upturned.

The canoe at the Cross Lake Bridge site belongs to the first type.

So, why did the ancestors who lived around Xianghu Lake in ancient times build such a small canoe? Although archaeologists believe that this canoe is "in the process of processing or repair process" of the boat, but their labor must have benefited from the leaves floating in the river, Xianghu Lake, or the Qiantang River revelation. So, they worked tirelessly with stone axes, stone adzes, shovels and other tools to flatten the round ponytail pine - they even found it more convenient to use fire than stone axes to process the wood - canoe head of about a meter of a large area of black scorched surface, is the Xianghu Lake! The first people of Xianghu Lake used the fire scorching method to cut the body of the boat as evidence.

In the archaeological history of Zhejiang, in addition to the canoe across the lake bridge site, there are Liangzhu Maoshan site of the canoe as well as the Yuyao Tianluoshan site of the mini boat. These canoes, the canoe across the lake bridge site has the longest history - these ancient canoes just proved the Hangjiahu distinctive water cultural characteristics, but also proved the ancient Yue of the "boat as a car, oar as a horse," the daily life of the custom.

"Poetry - Wei Feng" said: "Who says the river is wide, a reed hangs.

Although the poem recites the homesickness of those who live in other countries, it also reveals the anxiety that human beings can't help but feel when faced with the river - the anxiety that comes from the vast expanse of the water is one of the emotions of human beings. By extension, the reason why the ancestors around Xianghu Lake built a small canoe is also a survival instinct in the face of the vast waters. This instinct, in turn, is the fire of survival that can ignite the firewood of wisdom. Perhaps this boat, and the later emergence of larger boats, for them to transport rice, firewood, wine, and even beauty without stopping, but in eight thousand years later today, when I face this small canoe, it will take me to where?

Looking back into the river of history?

Or look back to the lakeside of Jiangnan?

Meet the Egret

In the fall of 2012, I went to Yangqi Mountain for the first time, and although I missed the egret, I smelled the fragrance of osmanthus flowers on Yangqi Mountain. Although the strong and elegant fragrance of osmanthus was a pleasant surprise, I was still disappointed - after all, I was longing to meet an egret. This disappointment is the reason why I went back to Yangqi Mountain in 2013, the egret nesting and breeding in Yangqi Mountain is like a dream in my heart, and if I can't meet it, the slightest bit of disappointment always hangs in my heart.

Well, the second time I was not disappointed, and the egrets of Yangqishan met.

I went there early, and there were a few egrets in the morning sun, some dancing, some leisurely foraging by the river. I found that these egrets do not seem to be afraid of people, so I picked up small stones and threw them into the river, and a few egrets just flapped their wings and stopped in the river, not panicking.

Liu Yuxi's "Egret" cloud: "Egret, the highest style. The sweater is new, the snow is no match for it, and all the birds are clamoring to be alone and silent." I especially like this little poem with a bit of ballad, but it is not as famous as Du Fu's egrets. When I was a child, I first encountered this bird when I learned Du Fu's poem "A line of egrets goes up to the blue sky". At that time, I wondered why egrets flew in neat rows. Were they afraid of being alone, so they flew in groups? When I recalled these past events, there were egrets gently flying over in front of my eyes, and they were a flock, one after another, spreading their wings and flying over, then landing on the trees beside the path on the mountain plateau - countless egrets not far away in the depression, like a white flower, dotted among the green branches. Fixing their eyes, they again have a small range of activities, a moment to fly sideways, a moment to dive downward, a moment to hold their heads high ......

Egrets are nationally protected wildlife and one of the most charming wetland ornamental birds, so it is a high demand for the environment, and even a place of good or bad quality of the environment barometer. So, why are there so many egrets around Yangqishan? It must be related to the fact that Yiqiao is located at the confluence of three rivers, the Qiantang River and the Fuchun and Puyang Rivers, and that the area is densely forested, which provides the egrets with a good habitat. As early as the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, Xiaoshan County Records recorded the egret in the poet Mao Wanling's pen, which is called "Xianghu Lake Cloud Shadow":

Outside the city of Pinghu quiet, the scenery from the poor.

The clouds fall into the rain, and the water half floats in the smoke.

The three houses outside the bridge are all gone, and a mirror hangs in the mountains.

The first time I saw this, I saw a fishing boat in the distance, and a white egret rising from the sky.

The egrets flying over the "distant sky" are a beautiful sight.

Xiaotao, who accompanied me, is a Hubei girl who plays the flute. She told me that the egrets go out every morning at six or seven o'clock to feed, and then fly back to the depression in the afternoon. They sometimes fly to play in the seedling forest west of Lian-San Village in Yiqiao Township, and sometimes chase and forage with wild ducks in the pond to the north. Egrets can often be seen in the farmland after the rain. At first, people were quite surprised, but now they are slowly getting used to it. The egrets are in the farmland near Dingjiazhuang, and you can see them standing on the edge of the field or hovering in the air when you are plowing, and they are not afraid to come and peck at the earthworms and other bugs that are turned up in the field.

An egret, flying over Xianghu Lake from Yangqi Mountain in the morning color, is not just a bird flying, but interprets the beauty of nature vividly and concretely with its traces across the sky. I know that, as Krishnamurti said in The True Meaning of Relationship, "You can't change the outline of a mountain, the flight path of a bird, or the speed of a river, so it's enough just to observe it and discover its beauty."

An egret flying over Xianghu Lake, in my heart, will never be satisfied with just discovering its beauty.

Four Tea Paintings by Ren Bonian

Ren Bonian's paintings, no matter whether it is figures, birds and flowers, or landscapes and beasts, all have a fireworks - this fireworks is like the daily life of firewood, rice, oil, salt, soy, vinegar, and tea, ordinary and meaningful, which is one of the painting styles of his painting style, which is very different from that of the Maritime School of Painting.

The Spring Festival of 2015, the Spring Festival, was a time of boredom, and I had to go back to my hometown to see my friends. In the Spring Festival of 2015, when I was bored, I went back to his albums and came across several tea-related paintings, namely, Picture of Sham Fu, Bo Ying's Forty-Year-Old Portrait, Cooking Tea, and Weaving under the Lamp.

Picture for Shenfu, from the name of the painting, we know that it is a gift. The deep Fu, who is also? I can't find any information, but I think it must be a familiar friend of Ren Bonian. In the painting, Shenfu, dressed in a long robe and holding a lamp, sits on a rock, with a faraway gaze, looking ahead - where is the front? Where is the front? It is the opposite bank of a small stream in front of him. On the right side of the boy bowing down to cook tea, slightly fat, messy hair, seriously cooking tea, the wind stove is hidden in a pile of grass - if there is a light wind blowing, it may not be able to blow away the flavor of the idle clouds and wild cranes.

There is an inscription on the lower right of the painting, which reads:

In the spring and March of Tongzhi Gengwu, Bonian Renyi made up the picture. Inscription in white seal: "Seal of Yi".

- such an inscription, it is hard to avoid speculation, Shenfu when the tea guests, is in the mountain stream to try new tea.

"Bo Ying forty years old portrait", the master is also sitting on the stone, but in the hands of a fan. This is a very common fan in Jiangnan. Of course, there are also children cooking tea, but the layout of the stone is strange and craggy, as if hanging, but because of the bamboo behind the more quiet, especially the crane, can remind people of "cooking tea crane to avoid the smoke," the sentence. Cooking tea to get the crane's elegance and fun, is a typical portrait of the literati study life, but also with the painting, "Tea stove idle support, light smoke rippling bamboo. A ou incense boiling snow, not less fishing wind" inscription is extremely compatible.

Comparison of these two are rocky tea paintings, Ren Bonian must be the illusion of rocky mountains to convey the flavor of nature's freedom, reflecting the cultural characteristics of the unity of man and nature. But a closer comparison, the former is indifferent, there is a calm atmosphere, while the latter in the calm atmosphere clearly more a flavor of freedom.

In contrast, the "Boiled Tea" is closer to the original meaning of tea.

"Cooking Tea", fan, gold paper color, vertical 15.5 cm, horizontal 55 cm, the upper right has a paragraph: "Zi Ru Ren brother adult elegant belonging to, that is, please can be. In the fourth month of the summer of the Tongzhi reign, written by Ren Yi, Bounian." Inscription: "Ren Yi," seal in white. It is now in the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts.

In this painting, the master is seriously watching the boy making tea, and the boy is between two big trees, and a bushel fan can be seen. The most interesting thing about this painting is that the rock on which the master sits is quite ethereal, as if it is going to float up. How did he sit on it? In contrast, the old tree in front of him has new shoots, as a kind of paradox.

The purpose of the other painting, "Weaving under the Light," is different from the first three.

A woman sits outside the hut, busy with machine weaving, which is one of the most common scenes of life in old times. The traditional Chinese culture has a lingering shadow of agricultural civilization, so the ploughing and weaving of a man and a woman in a normal house is the most typical and common scene of life. As early as in the Han Dynasty, there was a ballad "A husband does not plow or suffer, a woman does not weave how to or suffer from the cold", which is the importance of a woman to hold the family weaving. Therefore, the thatched cottage tea and oil lamps, reflecting precisely the hardship of life, that an oil lamp, that cup of tea, such as thirsty to drink, as lips that can speak, talking about the hard life of women in the countryside. If the first three paintings express the harmony and beauty between tea and people, then the tea in "Weaving under the Lamp" is a symbol of human suffering. Perhaps, this is the most grounded work in Ren Bonian's tea paintings.

Reading such paintings always reminds me of my mother's busy scene by a butterfly sewing machine many years ago, distant and clear.