N. A. KUZMIN

Moscow City Pedagogical University

Keywords: China, Shanxi Province, Chinese traditions

In these days of globalization and unification, the differences between cultures and civilizations are gradually being erased. In China, despite its identity and many thousands of years of history, this process is felt especially clearly. In any city of the country, you can go to fast food restaurants "McDonald's", in all cinemas there are films of foreign production... The Chinese increasingly want to emulate the Western world. However, this trend is observed, rather, among young people, who sometimes believe that all their own, Chinese, is already outdated, rather than among middle-aged and elderly people.

I have often heard from young Chinese people that traditional music is too primitive and slow, that Chinese opera is incomprehensible and boring, and that architecture is monotonous and expressionless...

However, despite the accelerating pace of life in China, there are places where you can, like a time machine, be transported to the distant past, feel the true (and not skillfully restored) breath of antiquity. One of these places is Shanxi Province. Here, according to the Chinese themselves, the Chinese civilization was born five thousand years ago, this is the place where the Shijing Song Book was compiled.

LINGUISTIC INCIDENT

After traveling five hours on a shaky bus from Tianjin to Shanxi, we arrived at the provincial capital, Taiyuan. During this grueling journey, we drove through the plains of Hebei Province, and when the mountainous terrain began, it became clear that we were gradually moving back in time.

Before our eyes appeared sandy-colored valleys, completely covered with agricultural land, began to grow yellowish mountains. Shanxi's economy is based on coal mining, and as my Chinese companion explained to me, the sun rarely shines through the thick layer of coal dust.

However, he clearly exaggerated the situation: everything turned out to be much safer than you might have imagined from his story.

We finally entered Taiyuan. It seemed to me, at first glance, that this was one of thousands of provincial, gray Chinese cities, where old buses were crowded with passengers, where garbage was scattered on the dusty streets... To tell you the truth, my first impression of Taiyuan was exactly that, but looking ahead, it has changed.

Our destination wasn't Taiyuan at all, but the small town of Yuqi not far from it. But this apparent proximity on the map turned out to be another hour and a half journey by bus.

When we arrived in Yuqi, it was already dark. The Chinese have an expression similar to the Russian: "Who gets up early, God gives it to him." However, in Chinese it sounds like this:"Who gets up early, he has good health." The lights go out early not only in the windows of local residents who follow this folk wisdom, but also on the streets. However, maybe it was just my imagination, since our destination-the house where my friend lives-was far away from the main streets.

This house did not stand out from other multi-apartment buildings of a typical development. As a rule, in Chinese homes there is no concierge or someone else who protects the peace of mind of the residents of the entrance. But at the entrance to the neighborhood, surrounded by walls - so that an outsider will not pass - usually there is a guard.

However, my friend's house was not guarded by anyone. The walls of the entrance and stairs, which we had to climb due to the lack of an elevator, were completely covered with advertising leaflets offering to buy a remedy for pain in all parts of the body, or the services of a private detective to spy on an unfaithful husband.

On the threshold of the apartment, we were met by a nice old lady of about 70-my friend's grandmother...

It should be immediately explained that Shanxi province belongs to the area of distribution of the northern dialect - Guanhua (on the basis of which the official Chinese language Putonghua was formed). However, the local dialect is quite different from Putonghua. Representatives of the younger generation of Chinese, regardless of what province they come from, are well-versed in Putonghua. As for people of the older generation (especially if they have lived all their lives in the place where they were born and have not received sufficient education), among them you can often find those who can hardly speak the official language. Even though they can understand Putonghua well.

Here is an interesting linguistic situation!

My friend's grandmother, as I expected, had no trouble understanding what I was saying in Putonghua. However, what she herself tried to explain to me was often a mystery to me, but I still managed to understand some of the phrases.

Although we arrived in the evening, the table was set for the guests. According to Chinese tradition, there should be several types of dishes on the table during a meal, and it is desirable that the guest tastes each of them. On top of that, there was a plate of hot pam in the middle of the table-

guns - mantou. These dumplings without filling, made from white wheat flour , are a traditional food in northern China (in southern China, rice is eaten instead of mantou). So the process of eating dumplings ended the first day of our stay in the heart of Shanxi province.

VISITING THE CHAN FAMILY

The next day, we were scheduled to visit Changjia chuanyuan (Chang Family Manor), a huge complex built in ancient times by the rich Chang family, tea merchants. There is a concept of jinshan, which can be literally translated as "merchants from Jin". Jin is the name of an ancient kingdom that existed in Shanxi more than two thousand years ago. During the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties of China, "merchants from Jin" were active in commerce and made huge fortunes. Many of the well-to-do families built themselves homestead houses similar to the city. Among them was the Chan family. It was to "visit" her that we went.

...The bus stopped in front of a massive gate. I asked my friend, " Is this the gate of some ancient fortress?" He smiled and answered: "This is the Chang family manor."

In front of the massive gate, a group of women in red and yellow costumes, holding traditional musical percussion instruments that looked like gongs, were playing a tune with frenzied enthusiasm. The audience was almost nonexistent, so what kind of event this mini-concert was given on was a mystery to us.

After buying tickets and crossing the bridge over the moat and the fortress gate, we found ourselves inside the manor. The first thing that struck me was its incredible size, comparable to the size of a small city. But Chinese families have traditionally been quite large. From a common ancestor there were parallel branches of the family tree. In the traditional sense, the whole family - from young to old - was supposed to stick together and live together, which, in accordance with the expression "four generations under one roof", in those days was quite logical.

The territory of the estate is divided by a central street, from which you can enter the courtyards of the estate. In one courtyard lived the head of the clan with his family, in another-his younger brother, in the third-his other relatives, in the fourth-their servants. As we were told, the total number of structures exceeds 40, and the number of rooms reaches one and a half thousand.

However, we will follow further.

To the right of the main gate was the Chan family ancestral temple. The Confucian tradition implies a reverent attitude not only to one's parents, but also to one's ancestors. According to the views of the ancient Chinese, the souls of progenitors need regular offerings made by their descendants. For this purpose, special "altars of the ancestors" were arranged in the houses, covered with memorial tablets with the names of the deceased. Their male descendants were required to perform rituals of remembrance and offer sacrifices in the form of wine, fruit, or lit incense sticks. For families that could afford it, such as the Chang family, separate structures were built for this purpose.

Several such pavilions have been built in the Chan family estate. In one of them we saw an extensive family tree of this merchant clan. In another, they found the memorial tablets themselves with ritual tripods in front of them. But since the estate has been turned into a museum and the living descendants of Chan do not live in it now, there is no one to remember their ancestors here.

From the ancestral temple, we once again entered the main street that divided the manor into two halves. The street was more like a corridor. Each porch above the entrances to the courtyards is decorated with a curved roof. Just above the doors were blue plaques bordered with gold patterns, on which the names of courtyards were written in gold hieroglyphs. On the columns supporting the roof of the porch, there are paired inscriptions with wishes of happiness.

Stone lions stand on either side of the gate, like guards. If you look closely, you will immediately notice that the lion on the left has a small lion cub under its paw, and the one on the right has a ball under its paw. The ancient Chinese assumed that lion cubs are fed with their mother's milk through her paw, therefore, an animal with a lion cub under its paw is a lioness, and with a ball - a lion.

I've always wondered why the roofs in traditional Chinese architecture are so intricately shaped. I have repeatedly addressed this question to my Chinese friends. As a rule, they looked at me quizzically in response and probably thought: how could he have thought of such a thing?

Indeed, what seems exotic and unusual to foreigners, for the Chinese - everyday life and everyday life, which you do not need to think about much.

Since I have been interested in roofs for a long time, and there are quite a lot of people I interviewed, I will give just some variants of their answers. Option one and the most banal: such roofs are convenient for draining rainwater. In my opinion, the explanation is too simple - this shape of the roof, most likely, has a deeper meaning.

Option two, more interesting: such roofs are similar to dovetails. Swallows are known to be migratory birds and always return to the places where they were born. Similarly, parents hope that their children, after reaching a certain position and gaining experience away from their father's home, will sooner or later return to it. This seems to me the most plausible explanation.

There is a third option. The ancient inhabitants of the Middle Kingdom, as follows from the books, were very afraid of evil spirits. And those have one feature: they can only move in a straight line, and any zigzags and angles are an insurmountable obstacle for them. And that's why the roofs of the houses were built rounded up.

However, I think that this architectural feature is caused by a lot of different circumstances that have shaped it over time.

After passing the gate, the visitor must cross a high threshold. It is to step over - in any case, you can not step on it. Otherwise, standing on a high step, a person will seem higher than others, which can be regarded as a manifestation of bad manners and lack of culture.

After passing through this gate and crossing the threshold, you find yourself in front of a wall (zhaobi), which you need to go around to enter the courtyard.

Why build a wall right outside the door, you might ask? The whole thing is again in the evil spirits, which, as you know, can only move in a straight line - so they will not be able to enter the courtyard. As a rule, Zhaobi is decorated with a stone bas-relief with stories from mythology.

Skirting this obstacle, we find ourselves in a narrow courtyard, like a corridor, bounded on both sides by one-story long buildings. Most often, they house servants, as well as rooms for kitchens and warehouses.

We passed through this short open-air corridor, entered another, this time small, gate, and here we are in the main courtyard. In front of us is a large two-or three-story house - this is the main house of the owner and his family. On the second floor there are balconies with carved balustrades decorated with floral ornaments. Pay attention to how carefully the leaves, flowers and fruits are cut out of the tree - they also carry a symbolic load. The lotus, for example, is a symbol of purity and purity. In a short work dedicated to him by the Sung philosopher Zhou Dongyi Ailian sho, the lotus is described as "coming out of the mud, but untainted."

Another representative of the plant world - pomegranate, because of the abundant amount of seeds, according to the ancient Chinese, was a symbol of fertility. It is interesting to note that in Chinese the words "seed" and "child" are consonant, which, of course, makes the pomegranate one of the symbols of family happiness.

The Chang family's estate consisted of several similar courtyards, each containing one of the branches of a large family. As a rule, they all led separate lives in their courtyards, but during celebrations dedicated to the commemoration of deceased ancestors, or during the celebration of the Chinese New Year, the family could gather together.

In Shanxi, there are many similar manors that have survived to this day. Often they become sites for filming historical films and TV shows. For example, the famous Chinese director Zhang Yimou shot the world-famous film "Light the Red Lantern"here, in the estate of the Qiao family. The film shows the life of a feudal lord and his wives in the early 20th century.

PINGYAO ANCIENT CITY

The next morning, we decided to try a traditional breakfast. Some Chinese people do not eat breakfast at home, and at six or seven in the morning they go out on the streets and head towards small tents, where the aroma of freshly prepared food comes from. As my Chinese friend said, the appetizer sold there is called yutyao (or "butter strips").

When we got closer to the makeshift tents, we saw that an elderly man was standing near a large vat of boiling oil - with the help of long sticks, he controls the degree of roasting of these very "strips". An elderly woman next to him (most likely his wife) deftly plucked small lumps from a common piece of dough and gave them a rectangular shape with a small board. When it was their turn to get into the boiling oil, the old man threw them into the cauldron. The strip would instantly begin to sizzle, and the cook would quickly turn it over with long chopsticks.

After half a minute, he would take the strips out of the boiling oil and drop them into a colander so that the remaining oil would drain back into the cauldron. Another seconds of waiting, and the buyer could pick up his "breakfast", paying for each strip only 5 jiao (about 2.5 rubles).

The butter strip, laced with a generous portion of sugar, reminded us of our own doughnuts. You could wash down this sweetness with soy milk, which was made right here from soybeans.

After a thorough meal, we went to one of the most amazing cities in China - the ancient city of Pingyao.

At first, I wasn't particularly impressed: the dusty streets reminded me of the dry local climate, and the facades of houses were chaotically hung with signs of various establishments-from a spare parts store to a funeral home.

We walked through several streets crowded with people, and before us rose majestic walls of gray brick - this is the ancient city of Pingyao.

Winters followed springs, rulers followed new lords, epochs followed epochs, and Pingyao seems to be frozen in time, at the turn of the Ming and Qing dynasties.

After passing through the city gates, we found ourselves inside the city, and indeed then we felt that we had been transported back in time by a time machine. The streets were lined with low one-story houses of classical Chinese architecture. There was not a single grain of falsehood in their appearance, as, for example, in many attractions in Beijing, which give the impression that the restorers overdid the "renovation" and turned the ancient structures almost into a new model. The houses in Pingyao soothed and delighted the eye with their genuine antiquity.

Along the main street we were walking, there were many shops open for tourists, selling all sorts of local products. Pingyao is known in China and abroad for its lacquered products-caskets, screens and other wooden utensils covered with black lacquer and decorated with colorful inlays. Black lacquer from Pingyao has been known since ancient times, and objects covered with it can be preserved for many decades. However, there may also be fakes, but it was quite difficult for me, a layman, to understand this.

Another special feature of Pingyao is" beef from Pingyao": we enjoyed tasting it in a local restaurant. This product resembles ham and is served as an appetizer in cold thin slices. In our opinion, this local delicacy is quite good and does not look at all like many other Chinese smoked products of dubious taste and smell.

Compared to the Chang family's estate, Pingyao's buildings are more diverse. Among them - one-story houses of ordinary citizens, villas of the rich, and in the middle of the city - a three-tiered observation tower. The same house layout as in the Chang family's estate was also used in Pingyao: voro-

that one, the wall that protects you from evil spirits, the courtyard, the big master's house. In the courtyards, there was an altar of the spirit of the gate embedded in the wall - a small figure of a well-armed celestial warrior with symbolic offerings in front of him. In the center of some courtyards was a large vase of rainwater, in which the owners could keep goldfish or grow decorative lotuses.

After climbing several steep stairs, we climbed to the top of the observation tower - a panoramic view of the city opened up before us. I can't say that the sight of the many gray, upturned roofs and chimneys sticking out of them was breathtaking, but from here you could take a fresh look at the streets that had already become familiar. On the roofs of many houses there was an indispensable attribute of most Chinese homes - air conditioning.

Using the example of Pingyao, you can clearly study the traditional layout of ancient Chinese cities. Most of them were square or rectangular in shape, divided into four equal sectors by two perpendicular streets. Smaller streets abutted these main streets at right angles. This rational approach to urban construction was convenient not only from the point of view of orientation - one of the streets ran from north to south, and the second - from west to east - but also from the point of view of protection from evil spirits, for which, as we already knew, right angles are inaccessible. And the observation tower in the city center, in addition to its purpose as a fire tower, was an ideal tool for the ancient Chinese to improve the Feng Shui of the area.

In every city in China, there are places for residents to perform religious rites. And since the country has a rather specific religious situation, there are several churches of different faiths in each city. In Pingyao, we managed to find a City Spirit temple (Chenghuang miao), a Confucian temple (Kun miao), and a Catholic temple. The Chinese believed (and some believe to this day) that every city has a protective spirit, the Chenghuang, to which it is necessary to make sacrifices for the well-being of the city and its inhabitants. Similar temples dedicated to the guardian spirits of cities exist in many cities of China to this day, although today they have become more museums than places of religious worship.

As it seemed to us, Chinese temples are arranged in approximately the same way. Each has a gate with a sign that says the name of the temple, a courtyard divided by through pavilions, where figures of gods are installed, bell and drum towers, as well as other buildings. We were surprised to see a theater scene in the temple of the Spirit of the city, but, as my Chinese friend explained, such stages were used in ancient times to perform performances dedicated to this deity.

We went to see the Confucian temple later. This temple was not only a place of commemoration of the "first teacher of China" - it also taught Confucian texts and held regional exams for academic degrees. In every Confucian temple, in its main and largest pavilion, there is always a sign with the name of Teacher Kun-this is how the name of the great philosopher and teacher is pronounced in Chinese. "Students" of ancient China turned to Confucius for help to pass the exam successfully.

It was an absolute surprise to find a building with a cross on its spire-shaped roof. As we got closer, we saw: this is really a Catholic church. In the 18th and 19th centuries, European missionaries launched active Christian propaganda in the vast expanses of China, and it is quite normal to see a Christian temple in such port cities as Shanghai or Guangzhou, where the number and influence of foreigners at that time was great. However, such a structure in Pingyao seemed absolutely fantastic to us.

At this point, our journey to ancient and unusual China came to an end, and in the evening of the same day we returned back to Jingzhong, and a few days later - to Tianjin.

This journey left an indelible mark on my memory. It was in Shanxi that I managed to touch Chinese antiquities, which are almost impossible to find in Beijing or Shanghai. I am glad that this amazing corner of the Middle Kingdom has been preserved, which has saved the breath of time.

If you are traveling around China and get tired of seeing the skyscrapers of Shanghai, from the ever-hurrying crowd on the streets of Beijing - go for a couple of days to Shanxi, plunge into the atmosphere of the ancient country, because there are very few such amazing places left in China.

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