What is a cultural desert?

All along, consciously or unconsciously, many mainlanders always like to regard Guangdong as a "cultural desert", and many Cantonese people seem to have more or less accepted this evaluation. Is Guangdong really uneducated? Is it really lacking in cultural details? The answer is absolutely no, Guangdong will never be without cultural background! Since ancient times, Guangdong has never been worse than anyone else in terms of culture, if not better than other provinces.

Of course, here we must first understand: What culture? What exactly is a culture? As we all know, culture is just a concrete manifestation of human activities carried on various carriers. Although it is an abstract thing, it is by no means an empty thing. It has many carriers that can be seen, heard and felt, which can make us feel its existence personally. Therefore, I always agree with the saying that "where there are people, there is bound to be culture, and the difference lies in whether they are advanced or backward, and it doesn't matter whether they have culture or not." Our historical and traditional culture in Guangdong is much richer than most people think, and its accumulation is no worse than anyone else's. It has created a "Cantonese culture" that is very different from other places by combining regional characteristics.

Lingnan is a regional concept. Every place in China has its own characteristics and forms its own cultural characteristics, and Lingnan is no exception. Lingnan area and Pearl River Valley have long formed their own artistic characteristics and spiritual outlook, and Cantonese opera, Hakka music, Chaozhou opera and other artistic forms have a long history. So when it comes to history and culture, the Central Plains is rich, and Guangdong is not bad. The Nanyue King and Nanhua Temple in Guangdong are very representative. Among the seven ethnic groups of the Han nationality, three ethnic groups in Guangdong account for three of them, namely Hakka, Guangfu and Minnan, and there are many sub-ethnic groups. How can any province have such a rich ethnic culture as Guangdong?

If we count from the Maba people 12, years ago, from the Maba people in Qujiang to the Tomb of Nanyue King in Guangzhou; From Han Yu's tide management (Chaozhou) to the rationale of Baolong map (Duanzhou and Zhaoqing); From modern times, Guangdong, as the source of revolution, exported various revolutionary ideas to the Guangdong storm that swept the north and south of the river after the reform and opening up; Fashion culture exported from Shenzhen to food culture in Guangzhou (how many kinds of tea houses are there in China now? ）； From the congou culture of Chaoshan people, the only tea ceremony inheritor of the Chinese nation, to the Hakka migration culture, which can represent the thousand-year migration history of the whole Chinese nation, has Guangdong ever lacked culture?

Therefore, those who come to the conclusion that "Guangdong has no culture" are themselves the embodiment of no culture. These people who hold "Guangdong culture is illusory", except for a few people who made this statement because of "red fever", most of them are ignorant of historical and cultural reality and parrot-like, so they will make this ignorant judgment.

from Zhang Jiuling and Hui Neng, the sixth ancestor, to Huang zunxian, who advocated the revolution in the poetic world, to many cultural masters such as Liang rengong and kang Youwei in modern times, Guangdong geometry has lacked cultural celebrities for more than a thousand years? In addition, from Han Yu to Su Shi and Bao Zheng, there are still a considerable number of cultural celebrities who have been demoted to Guangdong, just as few cultural celebrities who have made great achievements in Beijing and Shanghai are really born and bred, and they can also be counted as cultural celebrities related to Guangdong.

However, even if we put aside the past, even after the founding of New China, cultural celebrities in Guangdong have emerged one after another. For example: there is an outstanding music master Ma Sicong; Chen Canyun, a master of literature; Zhong Jingwen, known as the "father of folklore"; Gao Jianfu, Li Xiongcai and Guan Shanyue, representatives of Lingnan School of Painting; The famous sculptor Pan He; Famous writer Liu Sifen; Sin Nui Hung, a Cantonese opera performer, etc ... Even today, these names do not fade with the passage of time, and he (she) still resounds through the sky and has far-reaching influence. Aren't these cultural soils deep enough? How can Guangdong lack cultural background?

So, for thousands of years, Guangdong has never lacked "culture", which has always existed in the hot land of South Guangdong. Guangdong culture originated from the grafting of local indigenous culture and Central Plains culture, so it often draws nourishment from the Central Plains, but it also feeds back the Central Plains culture from time to time, bringing fresh breeze to the Central Plains and injecting many new blood. It is the tolerance of Lingnan culture, which not only absorbs the nutrients of countless Central Plains cultures, but also absorbs the essence of many overseas cultures. After all these are mastered by Lingnan culture, they are continuously fed back to the land of Central Plains, so that Chinese culture can continuously absorb the breeze and inject new blood without being completely rigid and old. Therefore, it can also be said that the reason why Chinese culture can survive for thousands of years is also due to Lingnan culture headed by Guangdong. In short, it is better to say that Guangdong has failed to fully tap this thick cultural heritage and really play a "cultural card". What Guangdong lacks is the packaging of these "cultures" and the publicity of these splendid cultures.

What decent publicity has Guangdong done for such masters as Xian Xinghai, Ma Sicong and Zhong Jingwen? The same folk songs, after the movie "Sister Liu", when people mention folk songs, the first thing that comes to mind is Guilin, Guangxi, rather than Meizhou, which is the hometown of folk songs. (It is said that the folk songs that Liu Sanjie and others hummed in the play "Liu Sanjie" came from Meixian County.) Why is it that it is originally from Guangdong, but it can't be eaten in Guangdong at all, rather than being carried forward in other places?

Therefore, Guangdong is misunderstood by outsiders, to a certain extent, it still lies in itself. As we all know, Guangdong's commercial culture is developed, which is a pragmatic cultural circle. Generally speaking, it is difficult to see the benefits in a short period of time when writing novels, so it directly leads to the difficulty of producing high-quality "big books" in Guangdong, and it is difficult to produce novels, movies and other cultural products that can have great influence on promoting the culture with Guangdong characteristics. Naturally, this makes the outside world have a huge deviation in the way of understanding Guangdong, because they mostly come from the intuitive understanding of fast-food cultural media such as TV and radio (a few years ago, even the central-level TV media outside the province liked to portray Cantonese as "nouveau riche" spokespersons? ）。

I remember someone once summed up this situation and said, "It is not easy to see novelists who write" big books "in Guangdong, but there are a lot of" columnists "who seem to have unlimited scenery." This is because of Guangdong's commercial culture, but it also shows the helplessness of Guangdong culture in its inheritance from another side.

In addition, in recent years, Guangdong has only followed Hong Kong and made some very crude bubble TV programs. However, Zhang Jiuling, Hui Neng and other real masters (Hui Neng is a little better, while the Taoist masters Luo Fu Ge Hong and Ming Confucian Zengcheng Zhan Ruoshui of the same level are not mentioned) rarely have anything to promote them. Even the Cantonese themselves, younger or not paying attention, have no idea who is "Mrs Xian" and who is "Song Xiang".

Also, when it comes to the site of the ape-man, Chinese people usually count the "Yuanmou Man" in Yunnan. "Beijingers" in Beijing; Zhejiang's "river crossing people"; "Lantian people" in Shaanxi, but how many people know the early homo sapiens "Maba people" in Qujiang, Guangdong? Here, there is a great problem of propaganda missteps. Another example is the "People's Land in Lu" in Huang Gongdu, Meizhou, which was a good project to improve the cultural level, but it was left in obscurity. ("Habitat for Man" is owned by Huang Zunxian, a famous Guangdong person in the Qing Dynasty. It is located on the bank of Zhouxi in the suburb of Meizhou, and its meaning is taken from Tao Yuanming's poem "build house is in the habitat of man, but there are no chariots and horses". )

Generally speaking, compared with other major cultural provinces and strong cultural provinces, Guangdong's efforts to promote and publicize literature, art and folk customs are still very insufficient, such as Lingnan architecture with distinctive features, Lingnan painting school and Hakka music, Chaoshan congou tea, etc., which failed to rise to the due height to attach importance to its development. At present, it is an urgent task for us to attach importance to local culture and pass it on. Guangdong will not be mistaken as a "cultural desert" again until more people understand the local history and recognize the local culture.

finally, I admit that there is still a lot of work to be done in Guangdong at the cultural level, and there are still considerable deficiencies, but I can never agree with the argument that Guangdong culture is "nihilistic" on this basis. Guangdong is by no means a "cultural desert", not in the past, not now, and not in the future! Guangdong culture not only exists, but also affects us all the time. The reason why we don't feel strongly about this today is only because we are far from really developing this rich mine, and there are still quite a few things waiting for us to know silently.

Here, let's finish with a sentence "Keep in a boudoir and treat others well"! Friends, let's "discover" the hidden "Guangdong culture" together!