Chapter 101 end

After entering the country, I stopped writing the diary, but the inertia I had formed couldn't stop for a while, and I wanted to write it down and tell the readers when I felt it.Then let it go and write a few more sentences. After such an investigation, when we look at the cultural relics in China, we have a different look. For example, that day I stood in front of the Dunhuang Grottoes again.The biggest absorption of foreign cultures in Chinese civilization is Buddhism, but in the process of absorption, it shows its own cultural choices.Leaving aside the obvious difference between the Dunhuang sculpture and the Indian Buddhist image, from a broad perspective, it also proves the artistic and landscape orientation of Chinese Buddhism.That is to say, Buddhism went to China's secular people through beauty as an intermediary.Beauty makes Buddhism popular, and also makes it ambiguous, free, and flexible, and avoids its unfortunate encounter in its own hometown.

Just as I was thinking so happily, the Buddhist scripture cave appeared in front of my eyes again.This year marks the 100th anniversary of the discovery of the Buddhist scriptures cave. In the past 100 years, this small cave has swallowed the sadness of many ethnic groups.I saw this time in several other ancient civilization countries, most of the ancient relics there were excavated by Western archaeologists in the 18th and 19th centuries, and some cultural relics were also transported to Western museums, but those countries do not seem to be as sad as we are , There are also statues of Western archaeologists standing beside some ruins.

How to look at this difference? The answer was also given to me during this investigation.It is not because the Chinese are narrow-minded and stingy, but the fundamental reason is that other ancient civilizations have long been interrupted, and there is no smooth cultural blood relationship with the people who later lived in this land, but the Chinese civilization has not been interrupted.Therefore, when Western archaeologists such as Stein, Pelliot and others took away the cultural relics from the Dunhuang Library Cave, it was like chopping off a piece of a living body connected by blood, and of course it was extremely painful.What's more, in terms of time, eighty days before the discovery of the Dunhuang Buddhist scripture cave, the Allied Forces of Eight Powers invaded Beijing and burned the Old Summer Palace. The Chinese civilization has just suffered a great humiliation.Therefore, contemporary young commentators cannot speak too chicly and lightly about this issue.

It was very cold to go to Dunhuang this season, and Zeng Jingyi and I often shivered when standing in the cave.The choreographer, Ms. Huang Xiaoyan, was so cold that there was snot dripping from her nose, but she didn't feel it. We made fun of it again and again. Seeing Wu Xiaoli was already after the convoy entered Sichuan. Let's go to see Sanxingdui together.It is difficult to tell the ins and outs of an ancient civilization, and there are countless beautiful and weird metal castings buried in it. If you don't go to the excavation site, you will almost doubt its authenticity.But after inspecting the sites of so many ancient civilizations, I have a freer idea of ​​the ecological flow of early humans in my mind.

Archaeologists and historians try to incorporate all newly discovered things into the logic of what has been discovered, but it turns out that this kind of retrospective attempt is the easiest to lead to insinuation.Did the Minoan civilization really come from Egypt?Did Egyptian Civilization Really Come From Two Rivers?It's all just vague, hard to tell. The ancient Chinese liked to record history too much, which is an advantage, but all history is too clear, which makes people suspicious.There is such a strange Sanxingdui, let us know that the poems of silkworms and yufu in Li Bai's "The Road to Shu" are not random, we know that the beauty of Chu Wu described by Qu Yuan has a distant source, and we know that Qin Shihuang unified There should have been a large number of civilized communities in various poses and with different expressions in China before, and that is enough.

All greatness is somewhat mysterious, and it is good to leave a little mystery, that is, to leave a little possibility for Chinese civilization to continue to be explored and explained. Another thing I did with Wu Xiaoli was to go to Sichuan University to meet college students. This is the first time we have met college students since we returned to China.On the dangerous long distance abroad, I held back a lot of words and always wanted to find a place to talk, and the best person to talk to seemed to be a college student. The students of Sichuan University were full of enthusiasm. They heard that we were coming in the afternoon, so they came to take up seats in the morning.As a result, there were so many people that even the principal and vice-principal could only be buried in the corner behind countless standing crowds.I gave the lecture, except for Xiaoli, Guo Ying and most of the team members were present.

The students had good sensibility, laughed loudly, and gently wiped away their tears.It's a pity that there is not enough time for the speech. We made an appointment to talk again when we have a chance, and we struggled out of the dense crowd. Just after he breathed a sigh of relief, a group of reporters surrounded him and asked questions like cannonballs: Some people say that you went out this time because China cannot join the rich clubs in the West, and you want to coyly set up a club for the elderly, right? After you left, many people in China suddenly published articles scolding you. When are you going to fight back?

Someone criticized you for exposing piracy in your speech at Yuelu Academy, please respond! Someone published an article saying that TV stations are advertisers, is it appropriate to marry them as a cultural person? These questions have nothing to do with Sichuan reporters, they just relayed and asked questions, but I still ran away with my head in my arms, just to keep my partners from hearing.These partners, who have suffered so much along the way, have become my life-and-death friends. Now the journey is not over. If I know that someone has already said something like this in the newspaper, I don’t know what kind of rough reaction I will have.

I can't answer these questions, but I seem to know all about their occurrence.They let me quickly understand that I am really back. Their appearance will not change the conclusion of my investigation, nor will it affect my good mood to report to compatriots at home and abroad about the new understanding of Chinese civilization.But the obvious contrast exists after all, and this contrast is also related to culture. In fact, almost all Chinese people are deeply touched: as long as someone walks a relatively difficult road and does a relatively decent thing, he will always be buried by some voices immediately.

Therefore, many people will repeatedly ask the Chinese civilization: You are so great, why do you make people so tired? Mr. Liu Changle gave me a book called "Orientalism" yesterday. I flipped through it and read a passage about a man named John.Buchan's people said in 1922: Have you ever thought about the example of China?There are millions of good minds in China, but their creativity is exhausted by empty fancy stuff. They have no direction and no drive, so all their efforts add up to nothing, and the whole world laughs at them. This was 1922, and Mr. Buchan didn't know China's past and future.The strength of Chinese civilization does not lie in never being ridiculed, but that sooner or later the state of being ridiculed will end.

However, there are some articulations in this passage that are still worth noting.During our investigation, we repeatedly praised ancient China’s efforts to avoid trauma (such as expeditions, enslavement, etc.), and this passage describes a structure of internal friction.In this structure, all clever minds must be nothing together, and the reasons for attacking each other must be empty and fancy. How can this phenomenon happen? I am reminded of a statement made by the late cultural scholar Liang Shuming.In the mid-1980s, Mr. Liang, who was over 90 years old, spoke at a cultural seminar. He said that he did not agree with the idea that China’s progress was too slow, because slowness would also accumulate progress. There are no planes and satellites, so the key is not to be slow, but to take a sidetrack, not to focus on material civilization, but to focus on interpersonal relationships and human relationships. There is nothing wrong with focusing on interpersonal relationships and human relationships at the beginning.Two thousand and five hundred years ago, Greek philosophers pondered the relationship between man and nature by the sea, Indian philosophers pondered the relationship between man and God by the Ganges River, and Chinese philosophers pondered the relationship between man and man by the Yellow River.In contrast, the attitude of Chinese civilization seems so popular and healthy, which is at least an important reason for its longevity.However, due to too much emphasis on interpersonal relationships, interpersonal relationships have become an important survival resource over the past two thousand years.It is resources that will inevitably cause competition, and the main method of competition is to damage the other party's connections and reputation, which turns the right path into a fork. Later, on this fork in the road, I encountered the philosophy of struggle. Many people became more accustomed to hunting all explorers and creators, and honed their skills of picking out the subtleties, seeking out the hidden, chasing after the wind, and piercing through them. This is the impurity of Chinese civilization. , not worth playing. This time abroad, I have repeatedly asked my partners to pay attention to a question: Do these countries with their own dangers have some common advantages that surpass Chinese civilization?After repeated observations, everyone finally came to a conclusion that the citizens of these countries are generally simpler than the Chinese. It is a bit painful to come to this conclusion, because we have already understood that the civilization ecology of some countries is difficult to deal with, but they are simpler than us!In fact, none of us know that their innocence is to only care about themselves and not to think about others, and the result is that they are easy on each other. According to Mr. Liang Shuming's opinion, we must recall the principles left by early philosophers: mutual respect and mutual courtesy. All kinds of missions, as long as the interpersonal relationship is complicated, nothing can be done; on the contrary, the mountains are high and the road is far away, as long as the interpersonal relationship is simple, nothing can be done. Therefore, I put the discussion of the future of Chinese civilization behind the ecstasy of simplifying interpersonal relationships. As I write here, the convoy has arrived at the ancient city of Pingyao in Shanxi.Seven years ago, in order to explore a major loss of Chinese culture, I came here to find the former site of Rishengchang, the first bank in China, and the figure of Lei Lutai, an outstanding financial master.Today, everything has changed. Rishengchang has been turned into a museum, and a passage from my article "Shame on Shanxi" is solemnly engraved, and Lei Lutai's former residence has also been sorted out.All kinds of local people, from officials to ordinary citizens, always thank my article for promoting the tourism industry in Jinzhong. In fact, it is me who really want to thank this land for providing me with the opportunity to investigate and write. . There are still many places like Pingyao who have been expressing their gratitude to me publicly but should actually accept my gratitude in return, and I have encountered several along the way.The team mates were amazed that I had such close ties to so many distant places.I said, for many years, I first put my footsteps, then thought, and finally integrated my life into these places, so you will also understand what I said goodbye to and what I escaped from.I probably won't be walking much again, but it's impossible for me to return to those escaped places and listen to those annoying voices again. Before arriving in Pingyao, we paid homage to the Yao Temple in Linfen.A few days ago, we paid homage to Huangling in Shaanxi.When worshiping Huangling, there is such a sentence in our sacrificial oracle: tell the ancestors, this trip is complete! Yes, the trip is done. February 2, 2000 in the ancient city of Pingyao