Contents of Fengdu ghost culture

In the history of human development, wherever there are people, there are legends about ghosts. Relying on historical legends, using ghosts as matchmakers, and writing articles about ghosts to fully develop and utilize ghost culture, develop tourism, and use this as an opportunity to drive the overall development of the local economy, I am afraid that only the ghost town of Fengdu can be achieved.

Fengdu is located on the bank of the Yangtze River 172 kilometers downstream of Chongqing, with an area of ??2,901 square kilometers and a population of 780,000. It is a county under the jurisdiction of Chongqing. According to legend, Wang Fangping and Yin Changsheng of the Han Dynasty practiced Taoism and became immortals in the famous mountains of Fengdu. Later generations falsely said that this place was the "King of Yin", that is, the place where the king of the underworld lived. Due to rumors and rumors, the famous mountains of Fengdu became the legendary destination of people after death. Hence the name "Ghost Town". Li Bai, a poet of the Tang Dynasty, left a poem in Fengdu that said, "The nobles in the world laugh at me, but my soul sinks into Fengdu in the north", making Fengdu a ghost town. "Journey to the West", "Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio", "The Complete Biography of Yue Shuo", "The Legend of Immortals", "Yu Shi Ming Yan" and many other classic masterpieces have been fully exaggerated, making Fengdu more mysterious and weird. The reputations of "Ghost Kingdom and Underworld" and "Underworld" are closely related, and their reputation spreads throughout the world.

Although Fengdu is located on the bank of the Yangtze River and has precious cultural heritage, due to its limited products, inconvenient transportation, and "small-scale farmer" agricultural economy, it restricts social and economic development, and is classified as "poverty-stricken". County" ranks. In 1986, the administrative department proposed the idea of ??holding the "Fengdu Ghost Town Temple Fair", using the idea of ????"ghosts" to restore and develop a set of scenic spots in the underworld and the paradise on earth to complement them, and vigorously develop tourism around the construction of these scenic spots. , put crafts, food, sculptures, architecture, knitting, ceramics, clothing, printing and dyeing with ghost cultural characteristics, as well as opera, music, television, movies, etc. on the agenda, and use folk culture as a medium to attract guests from all over the world to travel to Fengdu. To achieve the purpose of prospering culture and revitalizing the economy. On March 18, 1988, the first Fengdu Ghost Town Temple Fair was grandly opened in Fengdu. The "Ghost Town Temple Fair" exploded like a hydrogen bomb, causing shock waves of divergent opinions in Sichuan and the country. Fengdu people insist on revitalizing the county with "ghosts", carrying forward the essence of ghost culture and eliminating the dross of ghost culture, which has greatly increased the popularity of Fengdu Ghost Town and attracted a large number of Chinese and foreign tourists. The prosperous tourism industry has become a powerful driving force for urban construction and has also promoted the development of economic and trade exchanges and transportation.

In the past ten years, the ghost town Fengdu has received more than 10 million tourists from home and abroad, including more than 1 million overseas tourists. The annual comprehensive tourism income exceeds 200 million yuan, and it has become one of the top 100 tourism counties in the country. The economy has also developed significantly. Photo report by Li Xueliang

Fengdu is the only place in China that calls itself a "ghost town". In a country where death is a taboo, this is a miracle.

In the past, driven by the impulse to pursue profit, Fengdu’s “ghost city” used ghost culture as a gimmick to highlight the gloomy, cruel and bloody “underworld”. In the end, it was mired in feudal superstition and was criticized. Now, this first batch of key scenic spots in the country is facing an existential crisis.

Amid the crisis, Fengdu hopes to realize the rise of the tourism industry by building antique towns. However, when the "ghost town" no longer talks about ghosts and strips away the ghost culture, it becomes difficult to live up to its reality.

A traditional culture that has lasted for thousands of years will face a life and death decision.

A thousand-year "ghost town" in decline

News came from the just-concluded first China Three Gorges International Tourism Festival: Fengdu's famous mountain ancient town with a total investment of 500 million yuan is about to be " Construction of "Ghost Town" begins. The good news did not make Jiang Xiaochuan, deputy general manager of Fengdu Mingshan Tourism Group Company, too excited.

Standing at the door of the office of Mingshan Scenic Area in the ghost town, Jiang looked around without the slightest bit of good mood. At the gate of the crowded scenic area, ticket inspectors gathered and chatted on one side, and a huge empty doorpost stood abruptly at the huge entrance. .

Put your hands behind your back and pace back and forth several times. Jiang forced himself to sit back in the chair, wiped his face with both hands, and pulled out the visitor statistics table in recent years from the drawer. After not being able to read three lines, he closed it again with a "pop" sound.

2007: 520,000 tourists; 2008: 380,000 tourists; 2009: 430,000 tourists. Such a graph of tourist numbers made him angry.

In 1982, before "tourism" entered the homes of ordinary people, the "Ghost City" scenic spot was approved by the State Council as one of the first batch of national key scenic spots. Almost all of the places on this list that year were cultural relics with a thousand-year history.

In 2001, when the tourism boom began, the "ghost town" had become the first batch of 4A-level tourist attractions in the country. There are only three scenic spots in Chongqing that have won this honor.

In 2007, when tourist attractions were blooming everywhere, the "ghost town" was among the first batch of Chinese folk cultural heritage tourism demonstration areas in the country. This time, only 15 scenic spots across the country were named on the gold list. The selected places are all sacred places with national cultural symbols such as Mount Tai and Mount Lu.

Time is not far gone. The Fengdu Ghost Town Scenic Spot, which once led the way, is now not only unable to keep up with its domestic peers, but also cannot keep up with the rising stars in Chongqing.

The glory of the past contrasts with the desolation of today. Jiang Xiaochuan often recalled the grand scene of the "ghost town" temple fairs in the 1980s and 1990s, when the streets were crowded with people. But now, he can only rely on the jade railings with beautiful faces in front of the hanging door.

Context of "Ghost City":

From religious holy land to Chinese civilization

For Fengdu, in the history of religion, culture and folk customs in China In the history of archeology and archeology, this place hides shocking historical details.

Fengdu has always been known as the "underworld of the underworld" and the "Kyoto of ghosts". Folk rumors say that the Han Dynasty alchemists Yin Changsheng and Wang Fangping became immortals here, and later generations attached "Yin and Wang" to become "Yin" "King", Fengdu was also rumored to be "Yindu".

This seemingly absurd origin of the name echoes the records in ancient Chinese documents. "Biography of Immortals" written by Liu Xiang of the Eastern Han Dynasty and "Biography of Immortals" written by Ge Hong of the Eastern Jin Dynasty both contain: Wang Fangping and Yin Changsheng of the Han Dynasty both flew to the Pingdu Mountain in Fengdu during the day to fly to immortality.

What interests textual scholars is that these two legendary masters are not fictional characters, and they have quite a history in Chinese history. One of them is the great-grandfather of the Yin family, the empress of Emperor Liu Zhao of the Han Dynasty, and the other is the official of Chaozhong San of Emperor Huan of the Han Dynasty. Even the idiom allusion of "Visible changes in the sea" also comes from this.

After that, Taoists established a heavenly master on this mountain and listed it as "one of the thirty-six caves and one of the seventy-two blessed places". In 198 AD, Zhang Lu, the grandson of Zhang Daoling, the founder of Taoism, established the Taoist "Pingdu Administration" in Fengdu, which became the missionary center of Taoism.

Fengdu was pushed onto the stage of history as a religious holy place.

The name of the ghost town and the mysterious Pingdu Mountain attract literati from all over the world.

Su Shi, Du Guangting, Li Shangyin, Lu You, Pu Songling, all famous heavyweights in the history of Chinese culture, came here to climb mountains and enjoy the scenery, and recited poems and poems, leaving an endless cultural context here. .

Pingdu Mountain, which has been infiltrated by poetry for a long time, was finally changed to "Famous Mountain" due to Su Shi's poem "Pingdu is a famous ancient mountain in the world" and is still used today. Since then, Fengdu has been transformed into a famous historical and cultural city.

Fengdu City has been built as the "Bazi Other Capital" since the Zhou Dynasty. At its peak, there were 75 large-scale Taoist temples, including statues, palaces, pavilions and memorial arches of various cultures including Taoism, Buddhism and Confucianism. Thousands.

This attracted believers from all directions, as well as the traders and pawns who followed.

Among the 100,000 cultural relics unearthed from 148 ancient tombs in the old city of Fengdu in 1993, dozens of pottery figurines reflected the life and cultural scenes of that era, strongly supporting the diverse folk culture of Fengdu .

The "Bayu Divine Bird", a mysterious cultural relic that once caused a sensation in the Chinese archaeological community and was later designated as a symbol of Chongqing, was unearthed from Yuanjiayan in Fengdu.

The exciting discoveries continue with the swing of the Luoyang shovel in the hands of archaeologists. Around 1995, many Paleolithic sites were discovered in Gaojia Town and Yandunbao, Fengdu, which pushed the history of human activities in Fengdu and even the Three Gorges back to hundreds of thousands of years ago.

Professor Wei Qi, then leader of the archaeological team of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, wrote in the emergency rescue report, "The site is a window to understand the cultural relics in the Three Gorges region, and is an irreplaceable and important material for studying the ancient culture of South my country and even Southeast Asia."

In the end, the Yanduanbao ruins were rated as "China's top ten archaeological discoveries in 1996". The common sense in the archaeological community is that this is "another Twenty-Four History of China in the Yangtze River Basin that is comparable to the Yellow River Basin."

Fengdu carries a period of great Chinese civilization .

The alienated ghost culture driven by the impulse to pursue profit

The exciting history cannot resist the impulse to pursue profit in modern society. Fengdu has been immersed in the name of "ghost town" for thousands of years. Especially so.

On April 18, 1988, the first "Ghost Town" temple fair was held, and the term ghost culture made its debut for the first time. In fact, such temple fairs existed in the Ming Dynasty. However, at that time it was just an activity for believers to perform incense voluntarily, and they were required to be quiet and low-key, and even strangers they met on the road were not allowed to whisper to each other.

The economic impulse brought about by reform and opening up has given the first "ghost town" temple fair a more realistic significance. "Based on incense and using temple fairs as matchmakers" is the leading idea. Economic and trade negotiations and material exchanges have become temple fairs. core.

However, a participant at that time recalled that it was just "a farce." The whole scene felt like "an unprecedented performance of ghosts, ghosts, and snakes."

From 1988 to 2000, this kind of temple fair was held 12 times a year in Fengdu. Along with this, in addition to the hustle and bustle, there are constant doubts.

At the same time, a new "ghost-making movement" to rebuild the "Ghost Kingdom Shrine" and "Yinsi Street" is booming. In the context of an open and inclusive era, everyone no longer talks about ghosts and perverts.

During the Cultural Revolution, all the temples, halls and statues of gods and statues with great aesthetic, artistic and cultural and historical value in the "ghost city" were destroyed. The new "ghost-making movement", which is eager to turn ghosts and gods into gods of wealth, shows bloody scenes such as heart-breaking, disembowelment, and frying in the eighteenth level of hell, taking the tragedy, gloominess, cruelty, and bloodiness to the extreme.

Such an interpretation quickly aroused strong criticism from public opinion at the time, so much so that the then Secretary of the Fengdu County Party Committee had to come forward to defend: This was not feudal superstition, but ghost culture.

In 2001, due to pressure, the "Ghost Town" temple fair was renamed "China Divine Comedy Hometown Folk Culture Festival and Ghost Town Temple Fair", which is held every two years in October.

The purpose of this move is to use the Italian poet Dante's "Divine Comedy" to compare with Fengdu, replace ghost culture with folk culture, and at the same time weaken the "ghost town" temple fair.

But synchronizing with the preparations for this "Chinese and Western" grand event is Fengdu's irresistible impulse to "go big and get started".

On June 21, 2001, Fengdu spent more than 50 million yuan to build the "Eighteen Levels of Hell", but was eventually ordered to postpone the construction and complete the environmental impact assessment procedures. After the news was disclosed, some comments fiercely criticized "Don't build hell on earth." Six days later, CCTV's "Focus Interview" titled "Ghost Culture or Ghost Tricks" severely criticized the "ghost town" of Fengdu for engaging in feudal superstition.

In less than a week, Fengdu announced an investment of 230 million yuan to renovate the "ghost town" and create a "ghost town maze" to allow tourists to experience the "torture of hell" and experience the "reincarnation of life and death" in the floating streets. ", built the world's largest seated statue of King Yama, etc.

The astonishing investment regardless of the cost finally aroused great public attention.

In August 2008, Fengdu announced a project with a total investment of 700 million to build a ghost country Kyoto theme park. Xinhua News Agency was the first to disclose this matter and linked it to Fengdu's status as a national-level poverty-stricken county. The media violently criticized Fengdu for worshiping ghosts and gods without caring about people's livelihood. This incident once alarmed the central government.

On September 11 of that year, the Chongqing Municipal Government held a press conference to clarify that this project was a corporate action, in which infrastructure construction such as scenic area fluctuation zone management accounted for 90.77% of the total investment, and scenic area renovation accounted for only 90.77% of the total investment. 9.23%.

Although the situation eventually subsided, Fengdu’s ghost culture tour seemed to have reached a dead end.

The tragedy of the name "Ghost Town"

In the following two years, the busy construction scene of Fengdu's "Ghost Town" almost disappeared. An unexpected cold winter has arrived.

“I approached CCTV for advertising three times and was rejected three times. When I heard the word “Ghost Town”, it was like I had encountered a ghost.” As the head of the publicity section of the Fengdu County Tourism Bureau, Li Tingfu once felt that he should take the blame and resign.

What makes Li feel "blamed" is far more than CCTV's plague-like ban. Almost none of the "ghost town" tourism outdoor billboards that once dotted the streets and alleys of Chongqing's main city remain, replaced by new attractions such as Xueyu Cave.

In order to break the marketing dilemma, the word "ghost city" was replaced by the more subtle "famous mountain scenic spot" to avoid sensitive "feudal superstition" from irritating the outside world.

In the depressive atmosphere, Fengdu's emotional identification with ghost culture has also undergone a subtle transformation. When a member of the Standing Committee of the Fengdu County Party Committee talked about Fengdu ghost culture, he only said three sentences: "I don't understand ghost culture. I don't believe in ghost culture. I don't talk about ghost culture."

Facing this situation, we studied it Fan Mingji, an old man who has been involved in ghost culture for more than half a century, lamented: "The eagerness for quick success has ruined a cultural treasure!" Fan Mingji, 72 years old, is the Secretary-General of the "Ghost Town" Culture Research Association and the "Ghost Town" Folk Culture Research Association.

“For the sake of economic benefits, we don’t respect history and only know how to make things up.” Planning control is weak, and the Jade Emperor, which has nothing to do with Fengdu, can be built in a “ghost city”; tour guides only make nonsense and ask tourists to burn incense and worship Buddha. Profit. He said that he watched the ghost culture being ruined step by step.

An ironic incident that can be used as evidence shows the prosperity of the "ghost town" fabrication in those days. Mingshan, a "ghost town", claims that the poem "The nobles in the world are laughing down, and the soul is lost in Fengdu in the north" was written by the poet Li Bai after he visited Mingshan. It was not only widely publicized to the outside world, but also engraved with gold on both sides of the gate archway of Mingshan.

However, in 1993, when Liang Congjie, a member of the Standing Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, visited the famous mountain, he discovered that Li Bai's poem had been tampered with. The original sentence was "The scholar in the world laughs at him, but his soul sinks into Luo Feng in the north." "Luofeng" is the fictional underworld of Taoism, not a real place. Li Bai has never been to Fengdu, and he has never written a poem specifically for Fengdu. Even Fengdu in the Tang Dynasty was written as "Feng", and it was changed to Fengdu in the Ming Dynasty.

Soon, Liang wrote this text into a critical article "Talking about the "Ghost City"", which was published in "Oriental" and "Sichuan Literature and History Materials".

But when Liang Congjie visited the famous mountain again in 2001, he found that the couplet was still there, but only the original words "Li Bai's poem" and other words were removed, becoming an "unnamed couplet".

On a whim, he mentioned the matter again in the article "Looking at the Water in the Three Gorges" on the ninth page of "People's Daily" on November 22 that year, and joked, "I thought: This is better than dragging the poet Li The fake gangs must be stronger, which can be regarded as a small improvement."

Old man Fan Mingji also gave an example of a ghost town neglecting cultural exploration: "Visitors to ghost towns may have heard of Yin and Wang. "Two people, but who knows that there are real people in history?"

"The tour guide doesn't know! This is a shame for the scenic spot and a tragedy for the ghost town culture." If you don’t learn and don’t understand culture, you are ruining your own job.

Fan Mingji’s words came true. In the whole year of 2008, the number of visitors to famous mountains dropped sharply to 380,000, almost a historical low

Ghost culture is gradually drifting away

Angry is returning to anger. This has been among the people since 1958. Legend has it that the stubborn old man who began to study ghost culture in the temple is still doing his best to rectify the name of ghost culture. He has written a large number of analytical articles such as "Distinguish the True from the False, Grasp the Essence, and Let the Ghost Town Culture Shine", trying to completely clarify the ghost culture and feudal superstition that combine Taoism, Buddhism, and Confucian culture.

At the same time, the Propaganda Department of Fengdu County Party Committee also organized a large number of experts and scholars in 2009 to collect and organize a large amount of literature and materials, and launched the "Image of Fengdu" CD, "Charming Fengdu" picture album and "Mysterious Fengdu". "Du" allusions collection.

In these beautifully bound propaganda materials, all the ghastly, bloody, and fabricated horror stories have been eliminated, and replaced with well-documented stories such as "The King of the Tang Dynasty Increases His Life" and "Dongpo Visits a Deer". , thought-provoking, beautiful and timeless traditional allusions, emphasizing the educational function of ghost culture to "punish evil and promote good, and only bring peace to good", which rectifies the source.

However, when the people and the government were in tacit agreement to find a way out for the ghost culture that has lasted for thousands of years, in January this year, a piece of news broke this tacit agreement. It is reported that the "Ghost Town" scenic spot will invest a huge investment of 500 million to build more than 400 acres of Ming and Qing style antique towns.

Xiong Zihua, deputy director of the Fengdu County Tourism Development Management Committee, confirmed that the "ghost town" scenic spot will indeed build "the largest antique town along the Yangtze River." The specific plan is to introduce the ancient 72 guilds and the folk culture of eastern Sichuan to establish a "traditional memory document ancient town".

As for the question of whether the "ghost town" scenic spot will give up ghost culture, Xiong did not answer directly, saying that in 2007, the ghost town had been handed over to the Transportation and Tourism Group for overall construction. However, he said that the future development direction of "ghost towns" is "leisure and vacation" because this is an international trend. To this end, 10 million yuan will be invested to build a tourist reception center.

As the actual operator of the "ghost town" scenic spot, Jiang Zongjin, director of the operation and management department of Chongqing Transportation and Tourism Group, admitted that purely in terms of the uniqueness, exclusivity, monopoly and irreplaceability of tourism products, ghost towns are absolute Excellent resources.

However, due to various ideological taboos, ghost culture is currently a "high voltage line". He reluctantly said that in his daily work, the word "ghost town" has disappeared from documents and speeches. In terms of publicity and marketing, the group is also at a loss.

Based on this, the group can only find another way, hoping to stimulate the "ghost town" scenic spot that has declined significantly by building an antique town from the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Jiang Zongjin admitted that in the foreseeable future, even if we promote and market "ghost towns" in the future, we must grasp the "measurement".

“It is difficult for ghost culture to become the protagonist of Fengdu again.” Jiang Xiaochuan, who was once the director of the Fengdu Tourism Bureau office, speaks in a lonely voice.

The confrontation between new cities and history

“The ghost town scenic spot failed to identify its unique resource advantages from the beginning, so that it later followed the trend and lost its own characteristics.” Same. As a tourism practitioner, Ling Jian laments the experience of the "ghost town" for thousands of years.

Ling Jian, a Chinese from Singapore, has long been engaged in domestic and foreign tourism strategic planning and design, and is good at the planning and design of cultural tourist areas and ecological tourist areas.

In 1997, Ling Jian went to the "ghost town" of Fengdu because of its reputation. He thought he would be able to see the rare spectacle of the integration of Taoism, Buddhism, and Confucian culture in China, but he was disappointed by the horror deliberately created by the superficial and rudimentary sound and light equipment in the scenic spot.

Afterwards, he simply searched for scattered cultural relics in the market alone. As a result, he found that almost every household in the local area preserved New Year paintings, magical instruments, and books related to ghost culture.

“Why not collect these objects with strong cultural and historical symbols from the public and gather them into a ghost culture museum or exhibition center?” Ling Jian said, if there is such a place, it will attract the vast majority of people. Chinese people went to visit.

Pu Yongjian, deputy director of the Development Research Center of Chongqing University, agreed with Ling Jian’s statement. In his view, Fengdu ghost culture is not an ordinary superstition, but a traditional Chinese culture and a regional culture. It took thousands of years to form, and the origins of all cultures are very clear, and they did not appear suddenly.

On the contrary, Ling Jian called out the danger of Fengdu's "ghost town" changing course and building a replica of an ancient town.

He believes that there are already a huge number of natural ancient towns with long histories across the country. As far as Chongqing is concerned, almost all of the 40 districts and counties have ancient towns, and some have more than one.

Fengdu has blindly invested huge sums of money to create a specious antique town, which is difficult to attract tourists with increasingly sophisticated aesthetic tastes. In addition, Fengdu's current tourism pattern is transit tourism rather than destination tourism, making the future of this leisure tourist area uncertain.

"To revitalize tourism in Fengdu City, the theme of ghost culture is essential. Artificial things cannot surpass cultural symbols with a history of thousands of years." Elder Fan Mingji stood by the Xincheng River, looking at the scenery on the other side of the river. Ghost town, with a stubborn and complicated expression.

In the afterglow of the setting sun, Fengdu New Town and the famous "ghost town" mountains seem to be very close, but they are ruthlessly separated by the surging river, and they can only look at each other silently.