-"Art Life" is a special program dedicated to National Day.
Ma Weidou: The Power of Traditional Culture
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Sixty years ago, I didn't hear President Mao Zedong announce the establishment of the China people and the Central People's Government on the Tiananmen rostrum, but I can feel that everyone is not excited to listen to this great voice on the spot. I have never experienced the poverty of the people in old China, nor the bloody war in China's modern history, but I can feel the suffering of life and the cruelty of war at that time; Our generation is luckier than the previous generation because we grew up with the Republic of China.
Born in the 1950s, people's first memory must be vigorous socialism, and adults are busy building a new China, which is true. When I was a child, I clearly remember that my teacher led us to visit the Monument to the People's Heroes, the Great Hall of the People and the Museum of Chinese History. Those magnificent buildings are still monuments in the architectural history of New China.
Ten buildings were built in Beijing on the 10th anniversary of the founding of New China. Among these ten buildings, there are five museums, namely the Chinese Revolution Museum, the Chinese History Museum, the China People's Revolutionary Military Museum, the National Agricultural Exhibition Hall and the National Cultural Palace. These museums reflect the cultural and historical needs of the people of New China.
China people have a museum complex. I think the reasons here are very complicated, but for more than 100 years, the plundering of the rich motherland by western powers has deeply hurt the self-esteem of the people of China, which is the fundamental reason. The people of China have stood up. It took only ten years for the whole world to see a vibrant new China, and the people of China have also established their own determination: We can do anything.
Many predecessors have made efforts and dedication to this. After liberation, Mr. Zhang Boju donated his national treasures such as Zhan Ziqian's You Chuntu to the Palace Museum. Mr. Zhu Jiajin also donated the priceless collection of his ancestors to the country; Mr. Liang Sicheng's call for the protection of the ancient city of Beijing is admirable. These intellectuals from old China have a deep understanding of China culture, deep feelings and pure hearts.
Our cultural genes constitute the glory of our culture. What are our genes? It's our Chinese character. When our ancestors carved the first word on the tortoise shell, they didn't expect it to span thousands of years and transmit information to today. We are very happy! Can communicate with ancestors. An American sinologist said to me, "You China people are so lucky that you can understand articles thousands of years ago, but you can't understand English." The reason is that our Chinese characters are ideographic and English is phonetic. The human voice has been changing, and the human emotion has been continuing.
For example, we often say that "the wise enjoy water and the benevolent enjoy Leshan" comes from The Analects of Confucius; "If the skin does not exist, the hair will be attached" comes from Zuo Zhuan; "Make the past serve the present and seek truth from facts" comes from Hanshu. As for the book of songs, "a gentle and graceful lady, a good gentleman of Hezhou" is still kind to read today. The wisdom of the ancients, through the accumulation of words, cast a monument.
The form, sound and meaning of Chinese characters are unique in the world. Beautiful Chinese characters have four tones, one word and one sound, flat and progressive, cadence. Du Fu has a poem: two orioles sing green willows, and a row of egrets go up to the sky. The confrontation is rigorous and smooth. Yellow, green, white and blue, four colors, one picture. The first sentence satisfies hearing, and the second sentence emphasizes vision. Its description is so rich and it is so pleasant to arouse the senses. It only takes fourteen Chinese characters.
The six official languages of the United Nations are Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish. All documents must be published in these six versions at the same time, with the same effect. Of these six documents, the Chinese text is always the thinnest. This shows the extraordinary expressive ability of Chinese.
We often say that country, country, country and home is the word home. In the traditional Chinese characters, there is an "or" in the middle, or the domain is false, which is the territory, and the country is framed by the territory. Simplified characters have changed the word "or" of the country into "jade" in jade, which has existed since ancient times. There is a famous Song Dynasty porcelain pillow in the British Museum, which reads "My country is Yong 'an", and this "country" is a simplified word. The ancients changed the territory from "domain" of jade to "jade", and they must think that China is a beautiful jade.
Say "home". People in China usually ask each other, "How many people are there in your family?" Westerners say, "How many people are there in your family?" Why do we say "mouth"? Because solving the problem of eating has been a top priority since ancient times. In ancient China, population growth showed that the country was strong. Today, we have successfully solved the problem of eating for ordinary people. When I was in the countryside in my early years, I often saw that farmers did not have enough to eat. At that time, I had a good meal alone and talked for several weeks. The word "home" actually refers to raising pigs under the house to solve the problem of eating.
Since Oracle Bone Inscriptions, Jinwen, Dazhuan and Xiaozhuan, Han Li, Weibei and Tang Kai have evolved with the development of the times. In the eyes of China people, the sky is still the sky, the moon is still the moon, the mountain is still the mountain, and the water is still the water. These simple Chinese characters can be understood by people with a little training.
Qin Shihuang unified Chinese characters, and his merits were boundless. In the past, the storyteller often said: great events in the world will be divided for a long time, and they will be divided for a long time. No matter how divided the Chinese nation is in history, it will eventually be unified. This is due to the cohesion of Chinese characters. We have to thank Qin Shihuang. Under the cultural gene of Chinese characters, China people can communicate effectively wherever they go, although their pronunciations are different. In the early days of the founding of New China, it was also a great achievement to popularize Putonghua immediately. Today, no matter where we go in the motherland, we can communicate in Putonghua without obstacles. When I was a child, when I traveled all over the country, I often had jokes caused by language barriers!
What has our culture brought us? Since the Han, Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties, our motherland has become the most powerful country in the world several times and made great contributions to the process of world civilization. At that time, all foreigners who had been to China were amazed at the level of civilization in China. Italian Kyle Polo praised China's prosperity, industrial and commercial prosperity and prosperous city. The travel notes written by Kyle Poirot fascinate every westerner with China.
However, since the19th century, just one hundred years, due to various reasons, we began to decline, accumulated poverty and weakness, and failed again and again; 1840 Opium War, 1860 British and French allied forces burned books to bury Confucianism, 1900 Eight-Nation Alliance's invasion, all of which opened the mysterious door of the East that the west coveted for a long time and plundered it. Today, most China cultural relics in museums around the world were lost during this period.
This pain of One Happy and Fifth is unbearable for China people! We mistakenly blamed the beating on the heavy culture, as if China people could no longer afford it. China people have paid a heavy price for treating their own culture as a backward mistake. We are always looking for a new way out. After more than a hundred years, we suddenly look back and find that the way out is still our culture.
1995 10, an important cultural relic unearthed in Niya, Xinjiang, with eight Chinese characters woven on it, and the official script is "Five Stars Out of the East, Benefiting China". That was the Han Dynasty! The concept of five-star red flag and the concept of new China have not yet formed. But God seems to have issued a prophecy, an act of God. Look up "Hanshu" and it says: "Now that the five stars have gone to the East, China has benefited greatly and the foreigners have been defeated." Then, it is no accident that the five-star red flag and the new China.
Today, 60 years have passed since the New China. The importance of 60 years to China people is the traditional chronology of China people, and it is a cycle. Laozi said in the Tao Te Ching: "Everything works together, and I will watch it." Everything grows at the same time, and I see you go round and round.
The achievements of the new China are obvious to all. We can't imagine that 1999 will have today's achievements; I can't imagine that today 1989 is like this; More importantly, in 1949, when President Mao Zedong announced the founding of People's Republic of China (PRC), the life of China people was as colorful as it is today. Road, step by step, is the people of China step by step.
Today, we can proudly say that our splendid culture is infinite and inexhaustible. Today's China people, to accept and enjoy this belated pleasure, put their own culture to a new height, which is the embodiment of the maturity of a person, a nation and a country.
We have clearly seen today that the creativity of culture and the soft power of culture. The genes of Chinese characters constitute our splendid culture and bring us joy in life. Traditional culture not only creates wealth for the people of China, but also teaches people how to respect and treat culture well. The charm of culture not only brings us sensual pleasure, but more importantly, it brings inner dignity to everyone in China.