The more vulgar, the more artistic, the more learned and the more culture.
The study of Yue culture can start from three aspects: vulgarity, art and learning, which are rich in connotation and can reflect the characteristics of Yue culture. Systematically combing and summarizing them will help us to fully understand the overall features of Vietnamese culture and grasp its inner spirit.
Su Yue
Yue custom refers to the folk custom in Yue area, which is a part of Yue culture with the most regional cultural characteristics, and it retains the traditional genes of ancient Baiyue custom culture. This is not limited to the primitive customs of the ancient Yue people recorded in ancient books, such as tattooing, gnawing teeth, sitting on a dustpan, loving raw food, being good at wild sounds, and attaching importance to witches and ghosts. It also includes various lifestyles and folk beliefs handed down from later generations, especially the simple, brave and pioneering psychological characteristics of the Yue people reflected from these customs and beliefs, a spiritual temperament with some wild elements. It is this temperament that makes the Yue culture not only significantly different from the Chinese civilization that emphasizes etiquette, music and decoration in the Central Plains, but also shows its own personality compared with the Wu culture in the surrounding areas.
As we know, the ancestors of Wu people are a branch of Baiyue in ancient times, so the customs and habits of Wu people are similar to those of Yue people. Wudi is close to the Central Plains, developed earlier, and deeply infiltrated by Chinese civilization, so the genes of Baiyue culture are not well displayed. Located in the plain of Taihu Lake basin, it is a typical "land of abundance", with rich economy and stable life, which is easy to cultivate people's mentality of seeking stability and fearing chaos. Let's look at the regime established by Wu again. Since the failure of Fu Cha, the king of Wu, the rulers of past dynasties have often felt a sense of "partial security", and they are often satisfied with the separatist regime in Jiangdong instead of seeking progress. Until Eight-Nation Alliance invaded in the late Qing Dynasty, there was still a call for "self-protection in the southeast". Wudi residents are often satisfied with living a "small life" and are not used to leaving their homes to start businesses. The situation of Vietnamese is different. The economy and culture of Yuedi are mainly developed between mountains and islands. The word "the land is narrow and the people are poor" remained unchanged in the Southern Song Dynasty, forcing the residents of Vietnam to struggle for survival and take risks, which was far more common than that of Wu people. Yue Jue Shu records the revenge story of Gou Jian, the king of Yue, and there are many stories about struggle in folklore. If we link it with the tradition of swordsmanship in modern times and the ideological character of Qiu Jin and Lu Xun, it is not difficult to see the unique brave temperament of the Yue people.
Vietnamese are also good at expanding outward, especially along the coast, or going north to Shandong, Liaodong, Korean Peninsula and even Japan, or going south to Fujian, Taiwan Province, Hainan and Southeast Asia, spreading the imprint of Vietnamese culture everywhere. As far as Japan is concerned, we used to pay more attention to Japan's acceptance of Chinese civilization in the Central Plains, but that was only after Shoto Kutaishi came to power in the 7th century. Long before this, Japan had formed its own folk culture, ranging from the lifestyle of basic necessities of life (such as eating raw food, frugal clothes, dry fence buildings, graves and tombs) to various folk customs and beliefs (such as the openness of love between men and women, evocation, paranormal and ghost marriage). Is this closely related to the rice planting and ironmaking technology introduced to Japan by Jiangnan in 200 BC?
The pioneering spirit of the Yue people has continued until recently, and there are three examples to illustrate it, that is, Shaoxing master in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Ningbo Association in the Republic of China, and the current Wenzhou model. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the economy and culture of Vietnam were developed, and the number of scholars suddenly increased. However, due to the quota system in various places, many talents from Vietnam failed to pass the imperial examination, so a considerable number of people were transferred to the staff team, forming a unique "Shaoxing master" landscape. "Shaoxing master" is famous for his glib tongue and sharp mind in literati's works, which is close to evil, but not simple. To learn to be a "master", we must abandon the stereotyped writing of habits, be familiar with various conventions such as money, grain and criminal law, and be familiar with the world, so as to become a good hand at writing official documents. For people in the practice industry, it is tantamount to a complete transformation, and it is impossible without pioneering spirit. In modern times, after the opening of Shanghai, a large number of foreign immigrants poured in, most of whom were from Zhejiang. Ningbo immigrants from Zhejiang even set up a "Ningbo Hometown Association" in Shanghai, which not only played a role in connecting homesickness and exchanging heartfelt wishes, but also fought against the Shanghai Concession to defend the rights and interests of villagers, creating a great reputation at that time. Then there is the "Wenzhou model" that has emerged since the reform and opening up. Wenzhou people made a fortune by individual small-scale production, and now their business footprints are all over the world. Many regions and cities have places where Wenzhou people live or operate, such as "Wenzhou Street" and "Wenzhou Village", which has obviously become a model of adventure and development. Everyone is familiar with this phenomenon, but if we look at it from the perspective of folklore and link it with the cultural and psychological characteristics of the Yue people, we may have a deeper understanding.
Yueyi
In addition, music art is a long and prosperous artistic culture produced in the promised land. Yue art is slightly different from Yue vulgarity. It is the product of grafting Chinese civilization in the Central Plains and Baiyue culture in the south. Its artistic form is influenced by Tao Zhu in many aspects of Chinese civilization, which is far from the original and simple style of Baiyue culture. However, Yuedi art and culture still has its unique spiritual temperament in its bones, which can be said to be a major feature of Zongshang, and the anti-naive interest reflected from it is still related to the genes of Baiyue culture.
The popularity of Yue art is natural, which is first manifested in the development of landscape literature and art. The tradition of China landscape literature was formally formed in the Six Dynasties, and its beginning could not be separated from the mountains and rivers all over the country. For example, Xie Lingyun, the founder of Landscape Poetry School, is famous for his poems. Another example is Sun Chuo's Poems on Mount Tiantai and Wu Yun's Poems on Siyuan in the Song and Yuan Dynasties, all of which are the earliest existing landscapes. Landscape painting has been seen in Gu Kaizhi in the Eastern Jin Dynasty. Although the painting doesn't exist, we can observe the beauty of mountains and rivers from Gu Kaizhi's comments, which can be described as "a thousand rocks compete for beauty, and ten thousand valleys compete for flow, and vegetation covers it. If clouds flourish, Xia Wei can be seen". There is an indissoluble bond between mountains and rivers and cross-border art, and this trend has been maintained to this day, which fully shows the personality of Vietnamese culture.
Naturally, there is another important manifestation of the worship of Le Yi, that is, expressing the spirit. If mountains and rivers represent the nature of things, then the spirit of nature means the nature of people, that is, the nature of emotions, and there is often a close relationship between them, so carrying forward the spirit of nature has become a national artistic and cultural tradition. It seems that the source of soul thoughts can be traced back to Ji Kang at the end of Wei Dynasty, which was echoed in the activities of making friends with seven sages in bamboo forest. Let's look at the five-character poems written by scholars since the Han and Wei Dynasties. The first wave of Jian 'an poems, with strong poetic style, belongs to typical Central Plains culture. The second wave of Zheng Shi's poems has an air of expressing his spirit, such as "waving five strings to see Hong Fei", which is rare in previous poems, which is inseparable from the influence of the literary master Ji Kang, because Ji Kang himself can embody this "Wei and Jin demeanor". After Ji Kang, Guo Pu's poems about immortals may be mixed with the shadow of landscape and spiritual culture, and the metaphysical poetry tide in the Eastern Jin Dynasty has shrouded the natural and suitable purpose. A considerable part of metaphysical poems were carried out in the activities of landscape banquets in Vietnam, and Lanting Banquet Collection is a famous example. This trend has continued since the rise of landscape poetry, and the spiritual orientation in Vietnamese culture has also been highlighted. After the Tang Dynasty, the focus of the literary world moved to the north, but there were still "four scholars in the middle of Wu" in 1912. Among them, what are the four Ming people? Their poetic style is clear and natural, which is different from that of northern poets. Over the years, there have also been a number of poets in eastern Zhejiang, many of whom tend to express their spirit, such as Qin, Zhang, monks, Qingjiang monks, etc., which is unique in the Tang Dynasty. In addition, for example, the "Yongjia Four Spirits" in the Southern Song Dynasty opposed Jiangxi and advocated the late Tang Dynasty, which affected the whole country; Another example is Yang Weizhen and Wang Mian at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, Xu Wei, Zhang Dai, Wang Siren and Tao Wangling after the middle of the Ming Dynasty, and Yuan Mei, Zhao Yi and Gong Zizhen after the middle of the Qing Dynasty. It can be seen that the tradition of attaching importance to spirit has a long history in Vietnam and is indeed a major feature of Vietnamese art and culture. Not many people have noticed this.
Besides mountains and rivers and spirits, Yue Yi's worship takes many forms. For example, the celadon and white porcelain produced in Song kilns are different from the "Three Colors of Tang Dynasty", and the sparseness of Yue Emperor's Garden is naturally different from the resplendence of the Summer Palace or the exquisite craftsmanship of Suzhou gardens. Even the simplicity and popularity of the Southern Opera in Song and Yuan Dynasties, the bold and unconstrained folk songs in Ming and Qing Dynasties, and the bold and straightforward Shao and Wu operas all show the characteristics of returning to nature in varying degrees.
Xue Yue
To study Yue culture, we should pay more attention to the work of cleaning up and summarizing Yue academic thoughts and achievements, because it has formed a system, or it can be called "Yue learning". It is true that the culture at the academic level cannot have a distinctive and unique local color like custom culture and art culture, because academic ideas and achievements are always open to all regions of the country, and it is inevitable to communicate with each other. However, the family origin, the inheritance of teachers and friends in the region, and even the spiritual admiration and tracking of the sages by future generations have always played a role, which is the basis for the establishment of Xue Yue.
The origin of "Xue Yue" is roughly marked by Wang Chong's Lun Heng in the middle of the Eastern Han Dynasty. In view of the superstition of divination prevailing in the Han Dynasty, Lun Heng flaunts the purpose of "confusing the truth with the false", vigorously criticizes all kinds of conservative and ignorant habits, and promotes the cognitive spirit of seeking truth from facts. This guiding ideology of seeking truth from facts has laid a foundation for the future development of Xue Yue. After Wang Chong, after Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, Sui and Tang Dynasties, there were no great thinkers and scholars in Vietnam, and the inheritance of "Xue Yue" was between survival and death. In the Northern Song Dynasty, after Fan Zhongyan, Wang Anshi and others began to study in Xue Yue, the tradition of ""began to rise again, and Confucianism such as "Four Bachelor's degrees in Mingzhou" and "Mr. Yongjia Jiu" appeared in the world, which generally inherited the two-way Luoxue and had their own characteristics. However, Xue Yue really matured after the Southern Song Dynasty and Xichun. Yongjia School represented by Ye Shi, Yongkang School represented by Chen Liang, Jinhua School represented by Lv Zuqian Brothers (or Wuzhou School), and Siming School represented by Emperor Wen of Sui and other "Shang Yong Zisi" gathered for a time, which was unprecedented. Among these schools, except for Emperor Wen of Sui and others who directly inherited Lu Jiuyuan's theory of mind and nature, Chen Liang and Ye Shi are both critical of the authentic Neo-Confucianism, which talks about mind and nature blindly. Although the Jin Hua Xue advocated by the Lu brothers is not so sharp, it is also a style of study that advocates erudition and generalism, and advocates "stressing practical principles and cultivating practical materials." Therefore, they parted ways with Zhu and Lu, forming a tripartite confrontation in the Southern Song Dynasty. This pragmatic route of Jinhua Confucianism continued to spread in the Yuan and Ming Dynasties, and it was connected with the academic system in eastern Zhejiang represented by Huang Zongxi, Quan, Zhang Xuecheng in the late Ming Dynasty and the early Qing Dynasty. Although the latter takes history as the main body, its original intention of learning the world remains unchanged, and it also shows a bright future beyond the popular learning of Han and Song Dynasties in Qing Dynasty, and its stamina reaches its neighbors Zhang Taiyan and Cai Yuanpei.
The above brief description shows that Yuedi's academic culture does have its own inheritance system, which not only refers to the tangible inheritance between family and teachers and friends, but also includes the intangible inheritance of academic theory, style of study and even academic spirit. Generally speaking, its core is the word "truth", which is what Wang Chong called "seeking truth and being pragmatic"; It is embodied in the critical spirit in concept (criticizing all false and untrue statements), the combination of history and theory in content (facts and facts) and the application of learning in style (applying what you have learned). This is the ideological value of Xue Yue, and it is also a precious legacy left by the ancestors and scholars in Vietnam. Seriously summing up and absorbing their experience will play a very good role in promoting today's academic construction. Ningbo is a treasure trove of geomantic omen, and it is good in all aspects.