Blog, me and couplets

I have been attached to this pair of partners since childhood. It was1the early 1960s, when I was still in primary school, and the village elders who adhered to the concept of "farming and reading" often held elegant parties in the evening; People from neighboring villages also came to join in the fun. Most of them belong to the last generation of students in the old countryside. Although he is a farmer, he has a certain knowledge of Chinese studies, and he can instantly create and sing the folk songs of Yazhou with elegant style and distant artistic conception. There are also strange people with extraordinary memories. Their parties are usually dominated by poems, songs and lovers. My late master Zhao Kuigong took me to such activities from time to time, which aroused my strong interest in poetry, folk songs and couplets, and eagerly "learned from time to time" and completed the "original accumulation" of relevant knowledge. Aside from poems and songs, this article only talks about my "friendship" with couplets.

The first pair I contacted when I set foot on this road shocked my heart with its grandeur. Until today, more than 40 years later, I have been eager to read all the strange stories in the world, and I still rarely see anyone who can match it in style. It comes from a story my father told me. It is said that when Emperor Qianlong traveled to the south of the Yangtze River, he was very happy on the way, but he drew up a plan and asked his staff to give an order-

The jade emperor marched, thunder and lightning flashed, and it rained, arrows and wind knives arrayed.

Courtiers scrambled to "perform", but no one passed. It was a folk Confucian who made a bottom line that satisfied Qianlong-

Dragon king banquet, stars, lanterns, candles, mountains, food, sea and wine.

In just 30 words, all the most magnificent things in the world are put into the net, and a magnificent picture is formed by static braking and relaxation.

In Yaji, I listened to two interesting couplets told by other seniors that left a deep impression on me. This anecdote is related to celebrities in our village. One is about Zhang Ying, who took the entrance examination in Beijing in the late Qing Dynasty and later became the editor-in-chief of Asia Journal. It is said that when he 15 years old, he went to a village to handle affairs. A Gong Sheng in the village bullied him because he was young, so he took his surname as the object of ridicule and threw him a copy of the letter:

The bow is two feet long and the stride is high, so it is difficult to shoot birds for half a day.

When Zhang Ying asked the other person's surname, he was in no hurry. He also took the "symbol" as the target and retaliated with an "arrow"-

Pay a pole of bamboo, covered with amulets, and attract the spirit of ten aunts.

"Caring for the soul" is a low-level name for the romantic female ghost who died before marriage by the Hakkas in Yazhou. This pair of couplets is vicious and superb, which makes Tang lose face. His eyes turned white with anger, his hair was torn, and he died soon.

Another anecdote is about Zhang Zhang's Chen. When he was young, he used to teach at Jinghu Lake, the hometown of Ju Dawen. Because one thing offended the Kikuji Palace, the Kikuji Palace was asked to issue an expulsion order. This combination of traditional Chinese medicines is skillfully made, and it also includes the name of Chen Ermei Rong:

Chenpi, Erdongmeiwu, Danggui and Radix Rehmanniae Preparata

Want to send him back to his hometown. Chen was incompetent, but with the help of his brother Park Gong, he made a bottom line-of course, it was also linked with the name of Chinese medicine into a sentence, embedded in the name of Ji Dawen:

Platycodon grandiflorum, jujube and Anemarrhena asphodeloides Olibanum

This couplet uses "orange" as the homonym "Ji", openly mocking Ji as "wet behind the ears". Although his words are sharp, Ji Gong is generous and not as knowledgeable as that. After reading that pair, I knew that Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, but I had to smile and nod, and I formed an unforgettable friendship with Chen.

There are many such strange couples in my hometown. Some are made up of place names, such as:

The white dog chased the mountain pig and ran to Lingtou Highland.

The red dragon turned into the water and held the road to the sea.

Except for the verbs "affix" and "fan", the other 20 words in Lianzhong have been included in the place name of Yaxi 10, which can be proved to be the handwriting of Confucian scholars in Yaxi. Some pairs contain profound feelings about life, such as:

Those who carry a heavy load, gently carry a heavy load.

Long road, one short foot, one president.

Juren Zhang Ying also left many beautiful couplets. More interestingly, after he went to Beijing for the exam, he wrote a pair:

Spring is full of Yingzhou, not especially willow green and pink, but also a silver lamp of fire tree, Phaeton North Que;

It is not only singing, but also listening to Huang Zhong and Lu and shaking the South.

The spring breeze here also shows the blockbuster ambition of this Tianya talented person.

Most of the above couplets come from rural areas, which not only have the general characteristics of Han farming civilization, but also have the special birthmark of Asian and Zhou regional culture. In material poverty, they provided me with a free spiritual meal, which nourished my childhood and adolescence. Pairing with elders from time to time, fighting with skills such as "spelling" and "hiding the head", and getting endless fun. During the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution, the traditional couplets became "sealing the capital and repairing black goods"; My elders passed away one after another, Ji Ya was gone, and the couplet garden was Xiao Sen. Since then, my resume has turned over a page of freehand brushwork, opening up another life: stumbling on the mountain road, getting lost in the white clouds and dogs, being exhausted and physically and mentally hurt, and losing the elegance and conditions for playing couplets. It was not until the end of the Cultural Revolution that the reform began; The couplet garden is gradually recovering. So, Zhang Lang came again today-I can revisit my old garden.

At that time, there was a couplet, which was read in the same order, backwards-

Shanghai tap water comes from the sea.

The second part requires the use of names, and the writing format should be similar to that of the first part, which stumped many experts for a while. And I was still working in a small town in the hinterland of Wuzhishan. I live with my back to mountains and rivers, and I have a keen sense of the wonderful connection with nature, so I don't have to bother, so I "capture" the bottom line from the vast forest:

Zhongshan, Shen Xiang, Daphne, Zhongshan

This kind of antithesis can be described as "a match made in heaven", which can only be met by chance and cannot be forced. Although it is easy to come out, it is only occasionally obtained; In addition, Pingping is not very qualified, and there is still no reason to pretend to be a "gifted scholar". But other "absolutes" can not be mastered by luck, but require deep skill to control. For example, a couplet that has been circulating in my hometown for a long time-

Hakka is in the room, lonely in the lonely cold window.

The word used is "treasure". It is said that this couplet was written by a widow who lives in a friend's house. She is young, beautiful and talented, and has many suitors. In order to facilitate the selection, you need to sign up for a husband. It is amazing enough to draw up such a wonderful sentence, but it is even harder to draw a good bottom line. As a result, no one responded, and the talented woman had to be widowed for life. I have heard this story from my father since I was a child, and I have always wanted to make a couplet. But the word sea is vast, and I can't get off the net. It was not until last year that duality was finally "salvaged" from the "sea"-

The yarn weaves fine threads, and the silk threads keep growing.

"Fenkun" means colorful; "Clothing" means a mattress or mattress; "Fate" is strange bedfellows's fate. My couplets are based on "Zi", and I feel good after singing and playing repeatedly. I only regret that the beautiful talented woman has been lost in the dust of the years, and the time and space are separated, and the fragrance is hard to call; Looking at the sky is very disappointing.

After capturing this "unique highland", I really have some confidence; Then, from the ocean of words, I caught the opposite of the "paradox" that was said to have been drawn up by Emperor Qianlong and once discouraged countless friends. The first part of Qianlong is-

Yansuochi Liu Tang

These seemingly ordinary five words have hidden mystery-their radicals are exactly the five elements of fire, gold, water, earth and wood arranged in sequence, and all the words used in the next couplet are required to be radicals in five acts. Gan Long's forging technique is really great, but I still think the word "pond" is a little petty and unclear. I think it is more generous and appropriate to change it to "lake embankment" (its radical is divided into "water" and "earth"). For hundreds of years, many lovers of couplets have been crazy about this couple, but few have been right. Only Guo Moruo's Gun Town Tower can be called ingenuity. The bottom line I'm right about is-

Lightly embedded pine in flood season

The "flood season" was the place where the ancient garrison was stationed; "loose" symbolizes the strength and firmness of soldiers; "Lamp" can refer to a kind of belief or soul-it is "inlaid" among pine trees in flood season, and its image is magnificent. Moreover, the first part of Ganlong is about the morning scene, and my second part is about the night, which just matches. I have also drawn up another bottom line: "fighting Heperin", but it is much inferior to "light-inlaid slash pine".

What I have written above is only related to the "style" of couplets, that is, its wonderful and exquisite external Chinese combination form. As a wonderful work of art, cultivated by China farming culture, it combines the important features of poetry, song and fu-both the rigorous antithesis of metrical poems, the cadence of ballads and the length and syntax of fu. The special structure of Chinese characters provides a broad space for publicizing their writing skills. I regard it as the simplest and most effective tool of psychological gymnastics or psychological air conditioning. After the editor asks questions, he entertains himself with the couple from time to time, so as to keep his thinking and imagination youthful and energetic, and strive to create an idyllic indifferent, quiet, leisurely and peaceful state of mind for himself in the bustling metropolis.

Couplets also have their "soul", that is, connotation, which is more interesting to say, but that is another topic.

2007- 1-23 at 3 am -2007- 1-26 at 4: 30 am, Guangzhou.