China News Service, Hangzhou, September 25th. Title: The story of "co-construction" in the ancient city of Liangzhu over the past five thousand years.
Author Qian Chenfei Zhu Ziyang
In July 2019, the "Liangzhu Ancient City Ruins" was successfully included in the World Heritage List. Also this year, Hu Junchao, who grew up in Liangzhu, became a social education specialist at the Liangzhu Ancient City Heritage Park.
He has been working here for many years since he first introduced Liangzhu to the public. Facing tourists from different places and nationalities, he told the stories behind the city walls, palaces, water conservancy systems and unearthed cultural relics again and again, and also remembered the moments when many tourists met Liangzhu.
One scene left a deep impression on him to this day. A group of tourists wearing national costumes came to the ruins. The weather was hot and the group was already sweating profusely, but they still insisted on walking to the high platform of the ruins to take a group photo. "They said it was very meaningful to be able to display their national culture in the holy land of Chinese civilization." Hu Junchao recalled.
People of all ethnic groups visit Liangzhu Ancient City Heritage Park. Photo courtesy of Liangzhu Site Management Committee
Such scenes are not uncommon. Some people paused for a long time at the jade articles, some asked how people completed large-scale water conservancy projects five thousand years ago, and some started from their own hometown and national culture to feel the connection with the history of Chinese civilization in Liangzhu.
In Hu Junchao’s view, what touches people in Liangzhu is not only the exquisite jades and grand ruins, but also the story of “co-construction” behind an ancient city.
City walls, palaces, large-scale water conservancy projects... Five thousand years ago, the ancestors of Liangzhu built a large-scale city. The ancient city of Liangzhu and its surrounding water conservancy system involved a large number of earthwork projects. Archaeological research believes that such complex projects reflected the strong social organization and mobilization capabilities at that time.
Different divisions of labor are connected with each other, and food production, engineering construction, resource allocation, etc. jointly support this ancient city. The carbonized rice found in the ancient city of Liangzhu also shows that a relatively complex grain storage and supply system had been formed at that time.
Hangzhou Liangzhu Ancient City Heritage Park. Photo courtesy of Liangzhu Site Management Committee
This kind of exchange and connection has also left a broader cultural imprint. Archaeological discoveries show that as an important part of Chinese civilization, Liangzhu culture, especially the jade culture of Liangzhu, had a wide-ranging influence on the Longshan period and surrounding cultures of the same period and later, with its distribution reaching more than half of China.
From the construction of an ancient city to cultural exchanges between different regions, people five thousand years ago have left rich traces of their interactions.
Today, these historical memories are retold in real encounters again and again.
The "most beautiful family" from Aksu, Xinjiang, came here to study, exchange family traditions and share their lives; students from the Aksu Special Education School touched replica jade congs and experienced archaeological simulations; when a delegation from the Zhejiang-Gansu Youth Tongxin Camp from Ganzi Prefecture, Sichuan, visited the site, a young student said after listening to the explanation: "The ancestors of five thousand years ago have worked together to build their homeland, and now we must hug each other as tightly as pomegranate seeds, work together in unity, and create a better future."
These tourists and children from different places and nationalities have also created a new connection between Liangzhu five thousand years ago and today. A cultural relic and a story in the ruins become a window for people to get to know each other and understand their common cultural memory.
At the same time, how to tell such stories more vividly is something that the Liangzhu Site Management Committee has been thinking about.
Visiting ruins, studying historical materials, and shooting promotional videos are the daily routine of Gao Xiaochuan, a young man from the Tujia ethnic group. As a member of the Micro-Integrated Media Center of the Liangzhu Heritage Management Area, he and his colleagues are constantly looking for narrative methods that are more suitable for contemporary communication.
"I grew up in an environment where various ethnic groups interacted and blended. The development history of the Tujia people also featured large-scale community collaboration and inter-ethnic interactions. This gave me a unique empathy for the past where many people gathered and coexisted in the ancient city of Liangzhu," Gao Xiaochuan said.
In his opinion, the story should start from a site, a cultural relic, and a visit experience, so that people can first "feel" the history and then understand it.
Starting from such a narrative, Liangzhu is also taking five thousand years of cultural memory further afield. The series of short videos "Awesome!" "I'm Surrounded by Liangzhu Culture" uses a game to show the life of ancestors five thousand years ago. It has been selected as an outstanding project for the promotion of new media communication of Chinese cultural relics. This year, the Liangzhu Site Management Committee has also held overseas themed exhibitions in France, Germany, Egypt, and Russia, and entered London, England to carry out civilized dialogue activities... From exchanges in the ruins to cultural dissemination overseas, Liangzhu is giving more contemporary expressions to the memory of an ancient civilization.
In recent years, this narrative of shared cultural memory has been further integrated into the practice of national unity and progress. Liangzhu Ancient City Heritage Park was rated as a national model group for national unity and progress, selected as a pilot project of the tourism promotion plan for exchanges, exchanges and integration of various ethnic groups, and built the Liangzhu Chinese National Community Experience Center, etc.
The city wall is silent and the jade is silent. What Liangzhu left behind is not only evidence of the five thousand years of development of Chinese civilization, but also a historical memory of joint construction, joint living, exchange and integration. Today, this memory still continues through encounters and narrations. (over)
