First, the status and role of bamboo culture in China.
(1) China bamboo culture is an important part of China's traditional excellent culture, which constitutes the unique color of China culture.
China's traditional culture is a huge carrier of the wisdom and soul of the Chinese nation, and it is the foundation and foundation for the survival and development of the Chinese nation. Since its birth, China culture has been exerting a profound influence on China's politics, education, literature, and the deep psychological structure and lifestyle of the nation.
The Chinese nation is a nation with a long cultural history of over 5,000 years. It is a nation that loves life and life, so it is also a nation that loves forests and creates forest culture. Forest is the source of human civilization, in which civilization was born and developed. All the ancient civilizations in history were born in forests, and they developed and prospered in the world. Forests play an indelible role in the development of human culture and civilization. But also plays an increasingly important role. China's forest culture is based on the traditional culture of China and the unique customs of China. Long-standing forest culture is an important part of the excellent traditional culture of the Chinese nation, and bamboo culture is a unique branch of forest culture.
Su Dongpo, a famous writer in the Song Dynasty, famously said, "Eating without meat is better than living without bamboo", which revealed a special phenomenon in the history of Chinese civilization: bamboo, as a special plastid, has penetrated into all aspects of the material and spiritual life of the Chinese nation. Bamboo is an important resource for the construction of material civilization. It permeates and condenses into spiritual culture, forming a unique color of China culture, thus forming a unique bamboo civilization in China and accumulating into a long-standing bamboo culture in China.
(2) Bamboo is a symbol of oriental civilization and represents the character and sentiment of the Chinese nation.
Joseph Needham, a famous British scholar and authority on East Asian civilization, pointed out in the History of Science and Technology in China that East Asia used to be called "bamboo" civilization, while China was called "the country of bamboo civilization".
The appearance of bamboo symbols in Oracle Bone Inscriptions and the creation and development of bamboo characters reflect the historical evolution of bamboo civilization in China from an important aspect. Yin Shang and Jin Wen? Zhou, Shuo Wen Jie Zi? Eastern Han Dynasty, jade? Liang, vocabulary? Ming, Kangxi dictionary? The number of bamboo characters in important dictionaries of Qing Dynasty and later generations. According to the unearthed cultural relics and related ancient books, this paper discusses the close relationship between bamboo and China's ancient industrial and agricultural production, transportation, military weapons, culture and art, music and people's daily life. China culture has been soaked with traces of bamboo. The growth, expansion and prosperity of the Chinese nation for five thousand years is also a poem about the proliferation and development of bamboo culture. Therefore, China is called "the country of bamboo civilization".
As Su Dongpo said: "People who eat bamboo shoots, cover bamboo tiles, carry bamboo rafts, cook bamboo firewood, wear bamboo skin, write bamboo paper and walk bamboo shoes really cannot live without this gentleman for a day." Taking "bamboo paper" as an example, from the lettering on bamboo slips of Yin Shang Dynasty to the bamboo paper invented in the Six Dynasties, bamboo is the carrier of China's cultural spread and accumulation.
(3) China bamboo culture plays an important role in the economic, social and cultural development of China.
"Bamboo culture in China, which has lasted for 5,000 years, is related to bamboo everywhere." Bamboo is evergreen all the year round, elegant in posture and developed in whip root, which not only has high economic value, but also has good ecological, tourism and ornamental values, and plays a unique role in greening the environment and plays an important role in economic and social development. The development of bamboo culture not only meets people's needs on the material level, but also cultivates people on the spiritual level.
Second, the connotation and extension of bamboo culture in China.
China bamboo culture is China culture with bamboo as its carrier, which can be divided into bamboo cultural landscape and bamboo cultural symbols. Bamboo shoots, bamboo writing tools, handicrafts, musical instruments, dance props, daily utensils, production tools, buildings, transportation, etc. are all material materials that constitute artifacts. The cultural connotation is not expressed by bamboo itself, but by artifacts and their usage norms, which can show the humanistic nature of culture. Or the scene created by the Chinese nation consciously using bamboo for specific practical needs is a kind of bamboo cultural landscape. "Bamboo" in religion, literary painting and ethical norms directly expresses and symbolizes people's feelings, thinking, ideas, values and ideals, and is a symbol of bamboo culture.
(A) Bamboo cultural landscape
Bamboo cultural landscape refers to the Chinese cultural nature displayed by humanized bamboo, or a scene consciously created by the Chinese nation to meet the needs of life, production, writing and aesthetics. Bamboo cultural landscape not only shows the psychological tendency and characteristics of the Chinese nation, but also reflects the degree of cultural evolution of the Chinese nation. In the daily life of China people, bamboo is closely related to people's clothing, food, shelter, transportation and use.
Clothing-bamboo clothing is one of the bamboo cultural landscapes in China. From the aspect of clothing, bamboo shoes and hats made of bamboo cloth, bamboo crown and bamboo rain protection appeared in Qin and Han Dynasties, and they have been in use ever since. Bamboo sticks, bamboo combs and bamboo hoops used by the ancients are all ornaments made of bamboo, which shocked the cultural relics unearthed at Mawangdui at home and abroad, and the bamboo sticks were inserted in the bun.
Eating bamboo is the second landscape of bamboo culture in China. From the point of view of diet, according to the Book of Songs, Gong Yu and other documents, bamboo shoots have become a kind of delicious food in the Western Zhou Dynasty and have been enduring for a long time. Until today, bamboo shoots are still a famous dish on the Chinese table. Bamboo can not only satisfy hunger and appetite, but also be endowed with a strong cultural connotation, pouring into the Chinese nation's special love for plants.
Living bamboo architecture is the third largest bamboo cultural landscape in China. From the residential point of view, bamboo is regarded as the building material of all parts of the house by the Chinese nation, even to the point that "the building has no tiles and is covered with bamboo;" Not a brick wall, but a bamboo wall; If you don't come to the door, the door is bamboo. If the rest are rafters, blunt objects, windows and walls, you can't be a bamboo. The bamboo architecture in China embodies the Chinese nation's concept of life based on agriculture, frugal and simple life interest, beautiful harmony and ethereal and elegant aesthetic ideal.
Travel-Bamboo transportation is the fourth largest bamboo cultural landscape in China. In terms of transportation, bamboo is an important building material. People use bamboo to build roads and bridges, build ships and make cars. The traffic facilities and vehicles invented and created under the constraints of demand and conditions have been handed down from generation to generation in a specific environment and become a prominent cultural particle. On the one hand, bamboo transportation facilities and vehicles show the indomitable will and imaginative creative spirit of the Chinese nation. On the other hand,
Uses-Bamboo is the fifth largest bamboo cultural landscape in China. Bamboo is widely used by people in China to make various daily necessities, such as cooking utensils, summer utensils, furniture and so on. The manufacturing technology, shape, size and use system of bamboo daily necessities constitute a unique picture of China's national life customs and China's cultural landscape, which shows the strong rational characteristics of China culture and embodies the artistic interest of China's national life.
Bamboo production tools. Agriculture, handicrafts, animal husbandry and fishery are the main industries in the traditional society of China. In the ancient production of China, bamboo was an important material, whether it was a simple or complex production tool. On the one hand, bamboo production tools reflect the slow development of traditional social productive forces in China and the imbalance of regional economic level; on the other hand, they also show the wisdom, courage and ideals of China people in understanding and utilizing nature, and reflect the local conditions of China culture.
Bamboo writing tools. China's writing tools are unique, and the writing materials are quite unique and creative, in which bamboo plays an indispensable role. Bamboo pen is the earliest writing tool of the Chinese nation. As a tool to create the art of calligraphy and painting, it lasted for a long time. The pens of Xu Anbi, Huxi Pen, Xiangbi and other famous pens were all made of bamboo. As early as the beginning of China culture, in the late Shang Dynasty and the early Zhou Dynasty, bamboo began to become the writing material of the Chinese nation-bamboo slips. In the Spring and Autumn Period, bamboo slips became the main writing materials of the Chinese nation. It was not until the Southern Dynasties that the main writing of the Chinese nation, which was popular for about two thousand years, was completely replaced by paper. However, the close relationship between bamboo and writing materials has not been interrupted, and bamboo is no longer used as a direct writing material. But at the latest in the mid-Tang Dynasty, as the raw material of bamboo paper, it became an important factor in writing materials. Bamboo writing tools and materials, especially bamboo writing tools, are the important motivation to make Chinese characters artistic and form calligraphy art and Chinese painting. Bamboo writing tools and materials are permeated with the aesthetic taste and cultural concept of China culture.
Entertainment-Bamboo entertainment is the sixth largest bamboo cultural landscape in China. Handicrafts are the result of the change from practical to aesthetic objects and the increase of human spiritual needs. They have both practical and aesthetic functions, which are not only the concentrated expression of material production skills, but also the cultural character and aesthetic pursuit. These two aspects need to rely on the changes in the shape, color and modeling of its constituent materials. Therefore, to understand and analyze the cultural character and aesthetic pursuit of handicrafts, we can't ignore their structural materials. Among the works of art in China, bamboo handicrafts are quite distinctive and varied, which embodies the delicate, fresh, elegant and feminine aesthetic taste of the Chinese nation.
Bamboo musical instrument. Bamboo is an important material for making national musical instruments in China. It is listed as one of the "eight tones" in the classification of ancient Chinese music, and even "bamboo" is often used to represent wind music and "silk bamboo" to represent music. Bamboo musical instruments reflect the attitude of the Chinese nation towards the "harmony between man and nature", and also show the simplicity and flexibility of China traditional music.
The living environment of bamboo. From the perspective of human living environment, bamboo has also played a special role. Its unique biological and ecological characteristics determine that it has a wide range of ecological benefits: water conservation, soil and water conservation, wind and sand fixation, climate regulation, air purification and noise reduction, and providing living environment for other biological resources. It has been favored by people, and people have been using it to protect and beautify the living environment of human beings.
(B) Bamboo cultural symbols
Cultural symbol refers to the phenomenon that a certain social environment symbolizes a certain meaning. Bamboo is endowed by China culture with the functions of symbolizing religious ideas and ideal personality, expressing aesthetic feelings and ideals, and the inner feelings and ideas of the Chinese nation are often symbolized and expressed through bamboo, so bamboo has become an important symbol of China culture.
The religious symbol of bamboo is one of the symbols of bamboo culture in China. China culture began to sanctify and worship bamboo in the Warring States Period. Tianshidao regards bamboo as "spiritual grass" and has mysterious power to send children to prolong their lives. People often worship bamboo, praying for the healthy growth of children, driving away diseases and prolonging life. Yi, Dai, Jingpo and other ethnic minorities regard bamboo as their own plant or something to save their ancestors' lives, as ancestors and protectors.
Bamboo folk symbol is the second symbol of bamboo culture in China. Bamboo plays an extremely important role in folk culture. Bamboo culture is related to oral literature and art, entertainment activities and folk customs. Sacrifice, weddings and funerals, communication, festivals, court rules and other community cultures constitute important elements of folk bamboo culture.
The symbol of bamboo poetry is the third symbol of bamboo culture in China. As early as ancient times, bamboo was regarded as the description content of primitive songs. Later, the literary works of the pre-Qin and Han Dynasties, such as The Book of Songs, Songs of the South, Yuefu of Han Dynasty, Nineteen Ancient Poems, etc., described bamboo and bamboo wares in large quantities, but bamboo or bamboo wares were only the elements of artistic conception and had not yet become the central image. In the Southern Dynasties, he was accompanied by landscape poems, and his representative works were Xie Tiao's Zhu Qiu Qu and Zhu Yong. Since then, scholars of all dynasties have been chanting bamboo and created a large number of literary works of chanting bamboo. The tall and straight evergreen color, swaying sound and clear shadow of bamboo are all in the poem, which symbolizes and expresses feelings and thoughts such as modesty, nobleness, frankness, firmness and yearning, and constitutes emotional attachment to bamboo images and thoughts.
The symbol of bamboo calligraphy and painting is the fourth symbol of bamboo culture in China. China's painting and bamboo painting began in the Tang Dynasty, and Zhu Mo painting, an important branch of Chinese painting, appeared in the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. In the Northern Song Dynasty, Wen Tong, Su Shi and others began to draw a large number of bamboos and perfected the art of bamboo painting. Zheng Xie, a painter in Qing Dynasty, devoted himself to bamboo painting all his life, not only left us a lot of bamboo paintings, but also made many innovations and theoretical summaries in bamboo painting.
Bamboo landscape symbol is the fifth symbol of bamboo culture in China. Bamboo is an important plant material in China classical gardens. Bamboo landscape is recorded from Shanglinyuan, Wangchuan to Shoushan Genyue. There are many examples of bamboo landscape in the existing classical gardens in the south of the Yangtze River, such as "a branch outside the bamboo" in Wang Shi's garden, "Cuilinglong" in Canglang Pavilion, "Wu Bi Qifeng" in Lingering Garden and "Spring" in Geyuan.
Bamboo personality symbol is the sixth symbol of bamboo culture in China. Bamboo is personified in China culture, and it has become an important personality symbol symbolizing the Chinese nation's personality evaluation, ideal and goal. Confucianism and Taoism, the backbones of China's traditional culture, have designed two completely different life paths and personality ideals: making contributions and living in seclusion in the mountains, being upright and enterprising, and being indifferent to adaptation. These diametrically opposed binary personality standards constitute the traditional ideal personality system of China, and bamboo personality symbols are inclusive and unique.
Thirdly, the core and characteristics of bamboo culture in China.
(A) the core of bamboo culture in China
Bai Juyi summed up the characteristics of bamboo in bamboo cultivation, such as firmness, straightforwardness, ethereal and chastity, and compared it to a virtuous gentleman. Liu Yanfu endowed bamboo with rigidity, loyalty, righteousness, modesty and virtue in planting bamboo.
Zheng Xie's poems, such as "Insisting on green hills and not relaxing, are rooted in breaking rocks. They are still strong after many trials and hardships, regardless of the prevalence of east, west, north and south winds. They all use bamboo to express their feelings or express their personality ideals. ChristianRandPhillips's tears make bamboo a portrayal of women's faithful love. Wang Wei, who enjoys a good reputation, is best at expressing his Zen with bamboo: "I am sitting alone in a secluded place, playing my lute and humming a song, and the voice is too low for anyone to hear, except my companion Mingyue." From the materials for production and life to the scenery with natural ornamental value, and then to the aesthetic carrier to express the pursuit of human spirit, bamboo has undergone qualitative changes in people's lives. From nature to "humanized nature" and then to "humanized nature", the change from practicality to aesthetics shows people's ultimate concern for the nature that is closely related to them.
(B) the characteristics of bamboo culture in China
Bamboo culture is a part of China national culture. Compared with other types of culture, bamboo culture has strong characteristics such as literature and aesthetics, religion and folklore, life and local flavor. It not only has the attached significance of moral personality, but also has the symbolic significance of ideal love, and it is also the carrier of Zen.
Bamboo culture in China has outstanding ethical characteristics. Bamboo culture is a cluster of China culture, which embodies the overall brilliance of China culture. The ethical characteristics of bamboo culture are the reflection of China's cultural ethics. The reason why bamboo culture permeates so widely and the condensed national spirit is so profound is that some characteristics of bamboo are "heterogeneous and isomorphic" with China's traditional philosophy. Bamboo culture is an eclectic idea of ancient China. The strong ethical spirit of China's traditional culture puts forward the cultural demand for bamboo and endows it with rich connotations, while the analogical thinking of "harmony between man and nature" combines bamboo with people and their culture.
Bamboo culture is an important symbol that distinguishes China culture from other cultures. Whether it is the building materials, modeling features, or the cultural atmosphere it embodies, whether it is the signifier of bamboo culture, or the meaning it symbolizes and expresses, it can clearly and prominently show the characteristics of China culture and reveal the profound connotation of China. A pair of bamboo chopsticks, a bamboo building, a bamboo bridge, a bamboo flute, a bamboo fan, a bamboo brush and a bamboo brush. The motto of life, "If there is no bamboo, people will be vulgar" ... all of them are permeated with rich China cultural atmosphere different from European culture, African culture and Latin American culture: bamboo chopsticks are the symbol of Chinese food being different from western food, tube cars are the unique means of transportation of ancient people in China, bamboo fans are the masterpieces of skilled craftsmen in China, bamboo brush is the symbol of ancient culture in China, bamboo flute is the unique musical instrument in China, bamboo poetry is a kind of chanting poems in China, and ink bamboo painting is the representative. Bamboo's metaphor for personality is unique to philosophers in China ... Without interpretation and labeling, people will see things, think of people and see scenery. It is through bamboo and other cultural events that the basic characteristics of China culture are revealed, which makes it different from other cultures.
Fourth, the origin and present situation of bamboo culture in China.
(A) the origin of bamboo culture in China
In the 5,000-year history of the Chinese nation, bamboo is closely related to people's lives, and the formation of bamboo culture is a historical necessity, which is reflected in many aspects of material civilization and spiritual civilization. Archaeological and historical documents confirm that in primitive times, the distribution of bamboo forests in China started from Qilian Mountain in Gansu Province in the west, reached the northern part of the Yellow River Basin in the north, Taiwan Province Province in the east and Hainan Island in the south. It is in the bamboo ecological zone that our ancestors created a splendid history and culture, which was formed and developed in this bamboo ecological environment. Bamboo has deeply influenced China's writing, production, literature, art, religion, customs and daily life, and its influence is as deep and wide as that of stone tools and metals, so that it has accumulated into a long-standing and colorful bamboo culture in China.
The exact record of the use of bamboo originated from Yangshao culture. 1954, Yangshao cultural site in banpo village, Xi 'an was excavated, about 6000 years ago. The symbol of "bamboo" can be recognized on the unearthed pottery, which shows that bamboo has been studied and utilized by people before, that is, the history of China people's research and utilization of bamboo can be traced back to a new era five or six thousand years ago. Chinese characters originated from Yangshao culture which collapsed in primitive society. The original symbol of the word "bamboo" should have appeared before this. The research shows that the Shang Dynasty in China already knew the various uses of bamboo, one of which was used as bamboo slips, that is, writing on bamboo pieces and stringing them together with ropes became "books", from which Chinese characters "books" came. Bamboo slips have preserved a large number of precious documents before the Eastern Han Dynasty for us. For example, The Book of History, The Book of Rites and The Analects of Confucius are all written on bamboo slips and wooden slips. Books written with bamboo slips in Shang Dynasty are called "bamboo books", and letters written with bamboo slips are called "bamboo newspapers". The invention of bamboo pen is also a pioneering page in cultural history. Oracle Bone Inscriptions, jade tablets and pottery unearthed in Yin Ruins all have Zhu Mo's brush calligraphy. Zeng Houyi is a native of Hubei.
As early as the ninth century, China began to use bamboo to make paper, which was about a thousand years earlier than Europe. Paper-making with bamboo was recorded in detail in the Ming Dynasty's Heavenly Creations, with pictures of bamboo paper-making. Making paper with bamboo marks the great development and achievement of ancient paper-making technology in China, and promotes the prosperity of China culture. With the development of the times, bamboo has played a huge role in life, and its relationship with people is getting closer and closer.
(2) The development of bamboo culture in China.
China is the country with the richest bamboo resources in the world. Abundant bamboo resources provide abundant material resources for the emergence and development of ancient bamboo culture in China, which is the material basis for the emergence of bamboo culture in China. China has cultivated and utilized bamboo for more than 6000 years. With the strengthening of human environmental awareness, the excellent characteristics and development value of bamboo have been re-recognized and gradually pushed onto the historical stage of ecological environment construction and mountain economic construction.
Bamboo has many characteristics and advantages that other common trees can't match. Developing bamboo resources and bamboo industry can organically combine ecological construction and industrial development, and promote industrial construction and sustainable economic development while promoting ecological construction.
In recent years, a large number of bamboo parks and museums have been built in China. Typical bamboo parks include Beijing Zizhuyuan Park, Shanghai Wanzhu Park, Nanjing Juhuatai Park, Chengdu Wangjiangta Park and Guangzhou Xiaogang Park. The gardens with bamboo as the scenery mainly include Jixiu Garden in Beijing Botanical Garden, Zhu Fang Garden in Hangzhou Huanglongdong Garden Folk Garden and Wanzhuwu in Caishiji Park in Maanshan. China Bamboo Museum, located in Anji County Bamboo Seed Garden, is the bamboo museum with the largest exhibition area, the richest exhibits and the most advanced facilities in China.
China Bamboo Industry Festival-1997 Since then, the successful holding of China Bamboo Culture Festival every two years and the selection of the first ten "Hometowns of Bamboo in China" have added a lot of color to the bamboo culture in China. 10, the first international intergovernmental organization headquartered in Beijing, the International Bamboo and Rattan Organization, was formally established.
Bamboo culture research institutions, scientific research achievements and monographs have mushroomed and flourished.
Bamboo culture in China has a long history, colorful, magical and simple. After thousands of years of historical development, it has left a deep historical projection in the long river of Chinese national spirit. It combines the practice of tenacious cultural tradition with modern culture, thus forming the cultural consciousness and character of the Chinese nation to keep pace with the times.