It is a great honor to have such an opportunity to talk about the sports culture of the Tang Dynasty. Starting from the commanding heights of an era culture, I often have such an impulse, "It's time to write something!" What I want to say is a culture expressed by the Tang people through sports in this historical period. It is not only a summary of this knowledge, but also a search for a specific cultural breakthrough in this era.
This course is not so much the history of sports culture in the Tang Dynasty, but I think it is better to call it the sports culture in the Tang Dynasty. Under the historical background of unprecedented economic prosperity and eclectic cultures of all ethnic groups in the Tang Dynasty, sports, as a cultural symbol, has existed in all aspects of life in the Tang Dynasty. Sports is no longer a simple entertainment and fitness activity. As a superstructure whose cultural form is purely based on economy, this superstructure has developed quite mature aesthetic ideology. For example, the performing arts in sword dance, graceful movements such as cuju and swimming polo, etc. Obviously, people have looked at this kind of sports activity from the angle of artistic aesthetics. Once aesthetic, there is bound to be an ideology, so it is not an exaggeration to call it culture. Of course, this is just my personal opinion.
The most realistic significance of studying the sports culture course in Tang Dynasty is that it can objectively reflect the spiritual outlook of the people under the prosperous Tang Dynasty. Of course, this kind of reflection is related to modern multimedia teaching and teachers' ingenious teaching methods, so this article will not discuss it. Let's talk about a spirit, which is the source of a traditional culture. In today's society, some traditional cultures in China are strongly impacted by foreign cultures. Some teenagers have formed a rejection of China's traditional culture. I think this is the influence of "de-China" since the reform and opening up. Theoretically, the spiritual life of modern people, especially teenagers, is quite rich, but why can't they have such strong cultural insight as the Tang people? Why can't we realize the organic integration of local culture and foreign culture? It is worth pondering. Let's stop here.
Seeing Chang 'an is some information pieces that the teacher let us watch before each class. I like it very much. After that, I went to check this cultural propaganda film, which is worth watching by everyone in China, especially teenagers. The film's producer, Mr. Yang Xiaomin, visited Sina Video Live Studio. When talking about Tang culture, he said that "the culture built with Chang 'an is called Dadong subculture or Confucian civilization, the cultural circle of Datang". He also said, "The people of the Tang Dynasty were very strong and open at that time, and China was an imperial image. That open era may have never been experienced in the history of Chinese civilization, and I will add that it has never been experienced until now. Indeed, the opening up of the Tang Dynasty decided the prosperity of sports culture in the Tang Dynasty, which was reflected in two aspects in sports.
On the one hand, there are various forms of sports in the Tang Dynasty, both in the local sports forms and in the absorption and assimilation of foreign sports forms. I remember Du Fu once wrote a poem about Gong Sundaniang's fencing, "The audience is like a mountain lost between them, and the world moves back and forth with her movements!" This poem objectively describes the subjective feelings, from which we can appreciate the rough beauty of Gong Sundaniang. As we all know, this rough beauty stems from a kind of Hu culture.
On the other hand, this openness is also reflected in the unity of the gentry and the people, and the openness to the gender of sports athletes. Folk sports activities are basically the same as those of literati. Through the investigation of sports history in Tang Dynasty, we can easily find that sports activities of different classes are basically the same, and the only difference is the scale and size of the activities. Have you noticed that a standard polo factory in the Tang Dynasty was as big as three modern football fields? It is not difficult to imagine the grand occasion of the activities in the Tang Dynasty. Exceptionally, as mentioned above, the openness of sports culture in the Tang Dynasty to gender reached an unprecedented level. Portraits of women playing polo in the Tang Dynasty can be seen everywhere in the handicraft shops of modern Xi. And Gong Sundaniang, a sword dancer in Du Fu's works. Imagine that in the Tang Dynasty, a dynasty with profound Confucian culture, such a sports phenomenon appeared, which was completely accepted by the people and expressed through poetry, ceramics and other artistic forms. We can't help but admire the opening of Tang culture.
Generally speaking, the Tang Dynasty pushed sports to a cultural height with its unique open mind. This is the infinite reverie space left by the Tang people. Based on the understanding and knowledge of this course, a deeper analysis of the cultural form of sports culture in the historical period of Tang Dynasty, I think this is not a waste of teachers' painstaking teaching, but also a lofty praise to traditional culture!