Cultural connotation
Lingnan culture includes Cantonese opera, Chaozhou opera, Lingnan painting school, Cantonese, Cantonese embroidery, Guang Cai and Lingnan architectural styles.
Geographically, Lingnan culture can be divided into Guangdong culture, Guangxi culture and Hainan culture, among which Guangfu culture, Chaozhou culture and Hakka culture are the main components of Lingnan culture.
Religion is an important part of Lingnan culture. Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Catholicism and Christianity all spread in Lingnan history and played an important role in China's religious history. Lingnan is the first stop for foreign religions to be introduced into China, and it is also an important bridge for religious and cultural exchanges between China and foreign countries. In a long historical period, Lingnan region has become one of the most powerful regions of foreign religious forces in China.
The film was first introduced from Lingnan, with Zheng Qiuzheng, an important founder of China film industry, and Cai Chusheng, the founder of China realistic film.
Lingnan education started late, but it was popular to run academies in Song and Ming Dynasties. For example, there were three academies in Chaozhou Prefecture in the Song Dynasty, of which Hanshan Academy and Yuan Gong Academy were relatively large, which took the lead in leading the modern educational revolution.
Ge Hong established the Taoist alchemy theory in Lingnan alchemy, and made contributions to chemistry and medicine.
Islam and Buddhism were introduced to Lingnan by sea earlier, and Huineng founded China Buddhism-Zen Nanzong, which influenced the whole country and even the world.
Agricultural technology, handicraft technology and medicine in Lingnan have a certain position in the history of science and technology in China. Sangji Fish Pond in the Pearl River Delta was the earliest ecological agriculture in China in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Chaoshan people worked hard and cultivated fields like embroidery. Zheng Zhu's Record of Agriculture and Mulberry is a rare ancient agricultural book. Western medicine spread to the east, and western hospitals, schools and doctors in China all appeared in Lingnan. Lingnan folk customs and Lingnan diet are different from the north and full of local characteristics.
The artistic part of Lingnan culture is quite distinctive. Take Cantonese opera, Chaozhou opera and Han opera as examples. They are rooted in southern Xinjiang and absorb the culture of the Central Plains and surrounding areas, which is worth exploring. There are yangko in the north, Ying Ge in the south, and Ying Ge, a wonderful flower in the southern art forest, is also worthy of attention.
Traditional culture and arts, from Cantonese, Cantonese opera, Guangdong music, Guangdong Quyi, Lingnan calligraphy, Lingnan painting school, Lingnan poetry, Lingnan architecture, Lingnan bonsai and Lingnan crafts to Lingnan folk customs and Lingnan food culture, all reflect the rich connotation and unique and colorful local characteristics of Lingnan culture.
Modern Lingnan culture is deeply influenced by Hong Kong culture. Lingnan culture in a broad sense originally included Hong Kong, but due to historical and political reasons, our concept of Lingnan culture basically retreated from the Pearl River Basin and the Han River Basin. Therefore, it is easier for Guangdong and Hong Kong to achieve cultural harmony and form isomorphism. Therefore, if you don't understand Hong Kong, you can't examine the modernity of Lingnan culture. The rise of Hong Kong in the 1960s and 1970s made Hong Kong culture a high-level culture in the eyes of Cantonese who valued "reality". At the same time, Hong Kong's outstanding economic characteristics and hedonism in cultural character have also deeply influenced Guangdong.
Lingnan architecture
Lingnan architecture and its decoration are a wonderful flower in the architecture forest of China. For thousands of years, through the hard work of architects of past dynasties, it has made full use of the natural resources in southern China and combined with the living characteristics of people in southern China to form a unique architectural art, which occupies an important position in the architectural forest of China. It is displayed in the southern land in a concise, simple, transparent and elegant style. Mainly divided into Guangfu architecture, Chaoshan architecture and Hakka architecture.
Lingnan architecture is characterized by heat insulation, shading and ventilation; The top of the building is often made into a multi-storey sloping roof; The facade color is mainly dark gray and light color; And the use of square columns. The layout and decorative style of Lingnan architecture are very free and natural. Because of the mild climate, people's activity space moves outward, so open spaces such as terraces, verandas and halls are fully arranged, which makes people move from the closed indoor environment to nature, forming the characteristics of free, smooth and open architectural decoration space in Lingnan.
craft
There are many kinds of folk arts and crafts in Guangdong, and artists of all ages have inherited the original art of the ancient Yue people in Lingnan, making constant progress and striving for innovation, making the unique arts and crafts in the south more refined and practical. Guangzhou's three carvings, one color, one embroidery (ivory carving, jade carving, wood carving, wide color and wide embroidery), Guangdong embroidery (wide embroidery and tide embroidery), Zengcheng blue carving, Chaozhou wood carving, Chaozhou ceramics, Chaozhou paper-cutting, Chaozhou porcelain inlay, Shiwan craft ceramics, Foshan paper-cutting, Foshan autumn color, Chaozhou embroidery, Fengxi porcelain carving, Zhaoqing Duanyan, Xinhui, and Chaozhou porcelain carving.
Tea drinking culture
"Drinking tea" is called "drinking tea" in Cantonese, and Guangzhou people love "drinking tea". Tea culture is both a folk culture and a food culture. It is said that when Emperor Qing Qianlong went down to the south of the Yangtze River to Guangzhou, he took his personal bodyguard to the teahouse to have morning tea. Mao Zedong has a poem "I can't forget drinking tea in Guangdong". In Guangzhou, it has become a courtesy for people to treat each other with tea. If the guests arrive, the first thing to do is to offer a cup of "beautiful tea", and the first sentence is "please have tea" to show the host's enthusiasm, friendliness and courtesy. Due to the value orientation of "attaching importance to business" in Lingnan since ancient times, "drinking tea" has also moved from family to market, which makes the tea culture in Guangzhou integrate ornamental value, experience value, service value and commodity value. In a sense, drinking tea has gone beyond the category of "tea" and become a social way. Drinking tea constitutes a distinctive feature that distinguishes Lingnan culture from other cultures.
Guangdong culture
Cantonese is also called Cantonese, Cantonese and Vernacular, English is Canton, and French is Cantonaise. It is a kind of tonal language, belonging to Sino-Tibetan language family. It is widely used in China, Guangdong, south-central Guangxi, Hongkong, Macao and some Southeast Asian countries or regions, especially in Chinese communities in North America, Britain and Australia. Its name comes from China's ancient appellation "Yue" for Lingnan. Cantonese is one of the seven dialects of modern Chinese (the seven dialects of Chinese are Northern Dialect, Wu Dialect, Xiang Dialect, Cantonese, Min Dialect, Hakka Dialect and Gan Dialect). One theory is that Cantonese is a mixture of China people and ancient Vietnamese. On the other hand, the ancient Vietnamese language combines Chinese elements and becomes a brand-new language.
Overseas Chinese hometown culture
Guangdong is the core area of Lingnan culture, the largest hometown of overseas Chinese in China and a typical representative of overseas Chinese culture in China. Overseas Chinese hometown culture is an important part of Lingnan culture. There is a cross relationship between overseas Chinese hometown culture and Lingnan culture, which is a unique part of Lingnan culture and will form a complementary pattern with Lingnan culture.
Guangdong is divided into Chaozhou, Hakka and Guangfu, and there are several sub-regions below. For example, Guangfu Overseas Chinese Hometown is divided into Guangzhou Overseas Chinese Hometown, Jiangmen Overseas Chinese Hometown and Zhongshan Overseas Chinese Hometown, and Jiangmen Overseas Chinese Hometown is subdivided into Taishan, Kaiping, Heshan and Xinhui Overseas Chinese Hometown. Each level of regional culture has its own characteristics.
The culture of hometown of overseas Chinese is obviously open and inclusive. People in the hometown of overseas Chinese are not complacent. They are good at accepting what is useful for their own development from foreign cultures, and do not blindly exclude foreign cultures and regard them as heresies. On the contrary, they respect the cultural values of other nations and live with them.
inscape
Lingnan culture is extensive and profound, and it is one of the most distinctive and dynamic regional cultures in China traditional culture. In a word, it has three main sources and consists of three parts:
One is the local culture:
Like the Yellow River Basin and the Yangtze River Basin, the Pearl River Basin is the birthplace of Chinese civilization. Located at the southern foot of the subtropical Wuling Mountains, surrounded by mountains and seas, there are Pearl River basins and criss-crossing rivers. The ancestors of the ancient Baiyue people living here, from the early fishing and hunting civilization to the later commercial civilization, are inseparable from the river and sea traffic. They like to flow and are not conservative, which is the true color of South Vietnamese culture that distinguishes it from inland civilization or river valley civilization.
Second, the Central Plains culture moved south:
After Qin and Han Dynasties, Lingnan and China were unified, and Lingqu and Yuling were built. The communication between Lingnan and the Central Plains is increasingly close. First, the army was demoted and there were a large number of immigrants in several wars. The powerful and advanced Chinese civilization in the Central Plains swept across the Pearl River like the "Han Dynasty and Su Hai", and then constituted the main body of Lingnan culture.
The third is foreign culture:
Since the Qin and Han Dynasties, the Maritime Silk Road has been opened, and Lingnan, as the birthplace and even the only big commercial port, has always been a platform for cultural exchanges between China and foreign countries. The commercial culture, scientific and technological culture, religious culture and political culture of the East and the West have all landed here and been introduced, and their trend has been even worse since modern times. Foreign culture injects new vitality into Lingnan culture.
Since China was forced to open its doors in modern times, Lingnan culture, which has always been regarded as a marginal culture, has fully demonstrated its strong vitality. Before gaining popularity, Lingnan people competed to learn modern science and democratic ideas from the West and seek the truth of saving the country and strengthening the country. From Hong Xiuquan to Liang Qichao, and then to Sun Yat-sen, Guangdong became the cradle of democratic revolution, and the innovative Lingnan culture radiated from Guangdong to the whole country, which played a great role in the historical process of modernization and democratization in modern China.
culture trait
First, be good at absorbing the open atmosphere of foreign cultures.
Judging from ancient folklore, it has a unique open mind. Today, there is still a statue of Ambassador Daxisikong of the Baltic countries in Nanhai Temple, and there are relics of the founder of Dharma in the west. The famous Lingnan School of Painting was formed on the basis of inheriting traditional Chinese painting techniques and drawing lessons from western painting techniques. The world-renowned Cantonese cuisine not only absorbs the skills of the eight major domestic cuisines, but also absorbs the essence of western food. Especially since the reform and opening-up, it is no accident that Cantonese people have played their potential in this respect, opened the door first in the country and played an important role in foreign economic and cultural exchanges.
Second, strive to surpass the enterprising spirit of "traditional orientation"
Lingnan area is far away from the core of China traditional culture, and there is an enterprising spirit beyond the "traditional orientation" everywhere. Zheng Xin established the Lingnan culture of the Wu Dynasty in Thailand.
Guangdong people, in the modern cultural history, emerged a group of cultural celebrities who tried to transcend the traditional orientation, such as Gao, the founder of Lingnan Painting School, Sun Yat-sen, a democratic revolutionary, Liang Qichao, a pioneer of enlightenment thought, and so on. These bright stars represent the thoughts of Lingnan culture, and their words and deeds and achievements can also show the unique features of Lingnan culture.
Third, the cultural tendency of emphasizing business reality.
Guangdong's unique geographical conditions made it an important foreign trade zone in China during the Tang and Song Dynasties, radiating outward from the Pearl River Delta and Hanjiang Delta. Especially after the mid-Qing Dynasty, with the increasing demand for tea and silk in the international market, it stimulated the development of local commodity economy. In addition to Guangzhou and Foshan, Chapman has traveled as far as Singapore and Siam. With the development of commodity economy, Lingnan culture tends to emphasize practicality and commerce.
Lingnan Culture and Guangzhou
As the center of Guangfu culture and Lingnan culture, Guangzhou has a long history. From 4000 to 5000 years ago in the Neolithic Age, there was Baiyue culture before the city was built, and there was the integration of Chinese and Vietnamese cultures and the integration of Chinese and Western cultures after the city was built. Constantly formed its own unique style and distinctive regional cultural characteristics. From archaeological relics to documentary records, from ancient cultural relics, architectural culture, folk culture, garden culture, commercial culture, religious culture to various cultures and arts, there is an open humanistic consciousness, especially the consciousness of change, business, pragmatism and common people, which embodies the open, compatible and reform concepts of Guangzhou people. Since the Ming Dynasty, Guangzhou, as the capital of Guangdong, has been established as an unshakable political, economic and cultural center of other provinces.