"The Great Wall is Under the Eaves: The Great Wall Intangible Cultural Heritage Tour"
Zhang Qingren, Mao Qiaohui, Xu Shanshan, Bao Yuanyuan
China Pictorial Publishing House
The Great Wall is the spiritual symbol of the Chinese nation, and the Great Wall of Beijing is the essence of the Great Wall. In addition to investing a lot of manpower and material resources to build the strong Great Wall, dynasties of all dynasties also built city gates intensively along the way and sent a large number of soldiers to guard them. These soldiers who were stationed in the border have reproduced and thrived at the foot of the Great Wall for generations and created a cultural form with strong local characteristics. In the bricks and tiles of the Great Wall, and in the spring, summer, autumn and winter, cold and summer, year after year, we have witnessed the development and changes of Beijing, and supported the passing of the Chinese nation from generation to generation.
The book takes the Great Wall as the line and takes iconic intangible cultural heritage and ancient villages as the point, covering various forms of cultural resources such as intangible cultural heritage, tourist attractions, red culture, folk legends, ethnic integration, rural revitalization, catering and food, and presents the picture of local social development and the beauty of new rural construction in the form of travel notes and strategies. The relaxed and lively words can show the majestic beauty of the Great Wall, or analyze the simplicity and elegance of the village, and combine with exquisite photography and hand-painted pictures to lead readers to understand the beauty of intangible cultural heritage and cultural along the Great Wall in a new way.
Wonderful book excerpts:
Sima Tai: The Great Wall is the best and Gubei Water Town
Xiaotang River winds through, and cut out a slightly flat and open small land in the middle of the Yanshan Mountains, called Sima Tai Village. The terrain of this place is dangerous, with mountains intertwined, Panlong Mountain in the west, Wohu Mountain in the north, and Longbei Mountain in the south, adjacent to the ancient north entrance of the "Key of the Capital" and is the gateway to the Songliao Plain and the Inner Mongolia Plateau. During the war, this was a place that military strategists must fight for. In today's peaceful years, this is an ancient village that the people in the capital must go to. Here, you can not only see the most beautiful scenery of the Great Wall, enjoy the cultural view of the Qilin Screen Wall, but also experience the diverse intangible cultural heritage inside and outside the Great Wall in the newly developed tourist town, and have a starry night adventure in the ancient town.
"The Great Wall" Sima Tai
Sima Tai Village is famous for the Sima Tai Great Wall. The Sima Tai Great Wall is built with the steep mountains. It is famous for its five major characteristics: dangerous, dense, uniform, clever and complete. It integrates natural landscapes and cultural landscapes, and has rich historical meanings. It was listed on the World Heritage List in 1987. It is the only ancient architectural site in my country that retains the original appearance of the Ming Dynasty. It was identified as the "primitive Great Wall" by UNESCO and is also called "the best of the Great Wall of China".
Come on Simatai, preferably on a sunny day, under the boundless blue sky, you can see the Great Wall bends along the blade-like ridge. A wide area can be used to ride horses, and a narrow area can only allow one person to pass through. When it rises, it looks like a tiger roaring in the wilderness, and when it crouches, it looks like a hidden dragon in the abyss, with majestic momentum. What's more interesting is the 35 enemy buildings of different sizes and shapes, built on various commanding heights according to local conditions, majestic and cold. The enemy tower on Simatai Great Wall has extremely profound historical significance, and its construction is closely related to Qi Jiguang, a famous national hero in Chinese history. In 1567, Qi Jiguang, a famous anti-Japanese general on the southeast coast, was transferred to Yanji, and led more than thousands of soldiers from Yiwu, Zhejiang to Jimen, with great prestige. During his 15 years on the northern border, he rebuilt the Great Wall and rectified military discipline. The Sima Tai Great Wall, which was praised by later generations as "risk, secret, strange, clever and complete", was created when Qi Jiguang was in charge of Jizhou's defense. They are of different sizes and different combinations of shapes and combinations. They are built according to the rank of the garrison, the number of garrisons and the degree of dangerous terrain. The enemy and Taiwan support each other and rescue each other. The enemy and Taiwan are equipped with artillery, which is enough to resist the Tatar cavalry in the north. It is a perfect combination of aesthetic value and military value, which is rare in the world.
There are two of the 35 enemy towers in the Great Wall of Sima Tai Section - the Wangjing Tower and the Fairy Tower. Only by seeing them can you truly understand what is the "best of the Great Wall". Wangjing Tower is located in the eastern section of Simatai Great Wall. It is built at the top of a mountain that rises from the ground. It is the commanding height of Simatai Great Wall. It is an altitude of 986 meters. It is a hollow brick-eye building with two-story brick-and-stone structure.If you look up from bottom to top, you will see a broken wall full of vicissitudes of history standing on the top of a vertically protruding mountain called the main peak of Tiger Mountain by the locals. It shows a golden color under the sunlight. After staring at it for a long time, not only did the eyes irritate tears by the light, but the neck was also tilted a little sore. If you look down from top to bottom, your view is extremely wide, and you can vaguely see the outline of Beijing when there is no cloud, and you can enjoy the lights of thousands of houses in the city at night, so it is called Wangjing Tower. When I climbed the building, I suddenly felt like I was in the sky and the clouds were light, and my robe was refreshing. At the top of the station building, there are magnificent mountains and rivers, the dragon winds, the passion and ambitions are rushing in my heart, and the speed of life lies here.
Wangjing Tower
Fairy Tower is the most exquisitely built among the many enemy buildings. It is also located on a steep mountain top of Tiger Mountain, second only to Wangjing Tower at an altitude. Due to the limitation of the mountain top area, it can only be built in slender and long, with the north and south sides close to the cliff, and east and west to one-sided walls that are only 40 cm wide, and there are cliffs on both sides of the wall. The lower part of the building is made of stone and the upper part is covered with grinding bricks. There are two large arches made of blue bricks, three corridors and ten vouchers inside. The center of the top is built into an octagonal caisson in the shape of a spider-web, and four brick columns are on all sides. There are also two flowers with stalks carved on the stone pillars of the building gate and holding a fairy peach. Whether from the overall appearance or internal details, the entire building gives people a sense of exquisiteness, delicateness and beauty, as if this is not a defensive facility for human wars, but a fairyland pavilion.
Cultural Grand View Qilin Screen Wall
Simatai Great Wall is not only famous for its magnificent scenery and historical connotation, but also famous for its great view of the Great Wall culture. Many cultural relics were found in this Great Wall. The most worth mentioning is that there is a Qilin screen wall in the middle of the enemy Tai No. 13 west of the Great Wall of Sima Tai.
Qilin screen wall is 1.99 meters high and more than two meters wide. The lower part of the screen wall is a Sumeru seat made of several layers of bricks, with a roof of tiles on the upper part, and the center is a brick-carved Qilin picture. I saw the qilin's four hooves swaying, its hips squeezing, its tail swaying, its mane fluttering, its eyes open, its long whistle and whistle back, its magnificent and majestic. Qilin is a auspicious beast in Chinese mythology. It symbolizes peace in the world and everything goes well. I hope that the nation will be strong and the descendants will flourish. I will also give the city guards the mighty and majestic momentum and strength to protect the peace of the land. On both sides of the kilin are cylindrical brick frames, decorated with bamboo joints. Why is the screen wall in Beijing combined with the bamboo joints in the south? It is said that it is related to the Zhejiang soldiers who followed Qi Jiguang to the north. The soldiers stayed away from their hometowns and used things to express their emotions, using bamboo joints to express their long homesickness and full family and country feelings. A screen wall embodies the ancient Chinese people's yearning for peace, and also contains the soldiers' longing for their hometown, which is of far-reaching significance. This shows that the ancients were unique ingenious when building this Great Wall, cleverly integrating military and aesthetic ideas, making the Sima Tai Great Wall not only conducive to actual combat, but also a rare artistic masterpiece.
Kylin Screen Wall
Now, Simatai Great Wall is not only beautiful during the day, but also the only Great Wall that can be climbed at night. When climbing the Great Wall during the day, you should appreciate the magnificence of Sima Tai; when climbing the Great Wall at night, you can feel the leisure of Sima Tai. On both sides of the road are orange-yellow light belts, like dragons, reminding the border and protecting tourists' safety; under the Great Wall is the famous ancient water town, with bright lights and endless music and singing, a paradise on earth; looking upward, the deep blue sky is clear and transparent, without the obstacles of tall buildings, the night sky seems to be about to rush towards people, the stars dotted, and the lights on earth are in harmony; the summer night is windy, the Great Wall is steep and unobstructed, and the sound of the wind is whistling beside the ears, as if a hero guarding the border has sang a desolate song that has been sang for thousands of years, tourists walk with their backs on their backs, and they are like wings growing under their ribs, and they will sleep in the wind when they raise their heads; there is no unbearable smell of the exhaust of the city car in their breath, and the sound of the wind brings water vapor from the valley, the fresh fragrance of pine wood, and perhaps the unknown fragrance of flowers.
Climbing the Sima Tai Great Wall at night can not only feel the multiple feasts of vision, hearing, smell and touch, touch the bricks and stones full of vicissitudes in the sobs, but also feel the mood of ancient border guards.Those soldiers from a foreign land, including Qi Jiguang, may have leaned against the brick wall one night, thinking about their own thoughts. Although time passes mercilessly like the surging river, the bright moon of the past is still there, the Great Wall of the past is still there, the Qilin screen wall of the past is still there, and the common emotions of mankind are still there. Although the development of science and technology is changing with each passing day, human emotions are connected. The emotions of the ancients, whether they miss their hometown or are determined to defend the country, can still be touched today.
Gubei Water Town Intangible Cultural Heritage
Under the Great Wall of Simatai is the newly emerging Internet celebrity check-in place - Gubei Water Town. In early autumn, standing on the Great Wall and overlooking the town at the foot of the mountain, the green river water reflects the green stone walls, exuding the rich charm of the Jiangnan water town. The red ivy climbed over stone walls, eaves, bridgeheads, alleys, etc., like a beautiful ink painting. Unlike the red leaves of Xiangshan Mountain, the red leaves here have distinct levels, bright red, yellow and blue red intertwined, with distinct layers but complementing each other. Against the backdrop of red leaves, the quaint stone walls and wooden doors decorate the bright sun and bleakness of autumn, and the mountain and water town actually shows a soft and dreamy background. When you walk into the town, you can see folk customs everywhere. The lantern shops in the Ming and Qing style, the snack stalls with Beijing characteristics, the cheongsam shops with a sense of time, the lively stage, the crosstalk, the foreigner films, the shadow puppets... Various shops and artists form a time tunnel that recalls history and misses the past, which makes people linger. The most important thing to miss is the intangible cultural heritage of Miyun - Sima Xiao Shao.
Sima Xiaoshao is made of five grains: sorghum, rice, glutinous rice, wheat and corn. It is called "Five Grain Soup" by the people. The brewing process of this wine is roughly the raw material ratio, soaking, steaming, measuring water, stacking, cooling, adding koji, fermenting, distillation, semi-finished wine, aged, blending, filtering, and finished product. The small sauce has a high degree of degree, the wine is mellow and has a rich aroma, and is very popular. Its prototype is the folk soju to keep warm. In 1568 AD, Jizhou General Qi Ji went naked to restore the Jizhen Great Wall centered on the ancient Beikou Great Wall. Due to the short construction period, in order to speed up the completion, he brewed large-scale soju to keep warm in winter. Sima Tai is long and cold in winter. The workers who built the Great Wall and the soldiers guarding the border worked hard day and night. In the winter, a bite of Sima Xiaoyao came from his throat and entered his stomach bag, as if a cluster of flames was lit inside his body, and it instantly warmed up. Sima Shaojiu’s workshops are generally small and produce limited alcohol content, so since then this kind of soju is called “small Shao”. Over time, "Xiao Shao" was circulated among workers and soldiers. It was once popular in Simatai and Gubeikou, and it was known as the old Baigan in Beijing. It was known as Miyun San Shao along with the roasted pork and sesame cakes in the Miyun area. There is a poem praising it: "Put the bags outside the desert to pour lovesickness, and the aroma of wine is returned to Simatai." Today, Sima Xiaoshao has become a local intangible cultural heritage.
Sima Xiaoshao’s winery is located in the historical district of Shui Street, Gubei Shui Town Scenic Area. Before entering the store, you can smell the aroma of wine in your nose, which instantly aroused the wine bug in your stomach. The door was not big, with a string of long lanterns, with the four big words "Sima Xiaoshao" written on it, floating in the wind, attracting customers. When you walk into the winery, there are large wine jars in the yard indicating the direction of the demonstration area. Then there are various jars and jars stacked in layers, which has become a landscape. Follow the stairs to the winemaking workshop on the underground floor. The aroma of the wine becomes more and more intense. The stove, big pot, wine jar, big qu... There are almost all the equipment and tools for traditional winemaking methods here, which can be called a small winemaking craft museum. During the tourists' visit, the masters operated according to the original process. After distillation, the small soju flowed down. The tourists could taste it at will and stuff it with a small cup. The 55-degree white wine was actually very soft in the mouth and not spicy in the throat. After a few seconds, a warm feeling came out of the abdomen and a slight sweat on the forehead. As the enthusiasm begins to stop, the sweet smell of sorghum and millet gradually rises and does not dissipate for a long time. The greed that was ready to smell the aroma of wine from the gate finally calmed down, but its owner fell in love with the soft and sweet taste and had to buy a bottle at the front desk.The soju wine is exquisitely packaged, the small pottery bottle has soft lines, and a layer of black glaze on it. The four characters of Sima Xiaoyao are written in gold lacquer, and the upper part is sealed with straw ropes and blue cloth, which is quite ancient. I sat down with the wine and saw the wine shop’s signature. It turned out that the store also had side dishes such as pork trotters, chicken legs, chicken feet, peanuts, etc., as well as winter specialty wine, made of rice dumplings. So I ordered a set meal with my friend. The outside was cold and the room was full of fun. The atmosphere was warm and the wine was pouring into my throat, so I felt comfortable. During this period, I also heard a group of young people on the table next door excitedly. From Cao Cao, Guan Yu, Sima Yi to the important weapons of today's great powers, they argue loudly from time to time, or burst into laughter. I guess they were a group of military fans. I have to admire the organizers' ideas. I drank Xiao Shao to talk about military affairs in the cold and windy Gubei Water Town, which was extremely suitable!
Ancient Town Starry Night Adventures
Gubei Water Town also has a beautiful name, called the town under the starry sky. As night falls, lights are on the Yanshan Mountains. Simatai Great Wall is like a cruising golden dragon, and like the Milky Way in the night sky. The town under the starry sky is definitely not a false reputation.
Starry sky town
At night, tourists gathered in the music and light show square on Wangjing Street as if guided, looking forward to the upcoming performance. The light show performance is a special form of performance that combines modern 3D technology to creatively combine music, lighting and fountains. During the day, there is no special thing about these pavilions and fountain pools. At night, when the music sounds, the entire building will be given the magic of "life" by light and shadow. As the music starts, the tiles on the roof dance, the pavilions rotate, and a naughty little girl runs to the building. She actually travels through time and space to meet an ancient general... At the same time, the fountain also dances with the rhythm of the music, sometimes graceful and melodious, sometimes spraying out powerful water columns dozens of meters high, and even blazing flames. Every time the flames are sprayed out, the amazing smiling faces around you can see in the instant brilliance.
If the Wangjing Street Music Fountain is already the brightest scenery in Gubei Water Town under the starry sky, then the drone Kongming Lantern performance in Sun and Moon Island Square is even more amazing. When the Kongming lanterns rise to the sky, they seem to become stars in the sky, and countless beautiful wishes are quietly made by people. Surprisingly, the Kongming lantern in Gubei Water Town is not a traditional Kongming lantern, but a modern drone. Countless beacons slowly rose in the sound of grand music, and then changed into various beautiful shapes. On a breeze-blowing summer night, holding a hand, watching countless Kongming lanterns dancing gracefully in the night sky, both dreamy and romantic. In Gubei Water Town, many young people wear Hanfu or Qing suits, including men and women, fragrant clothes, golden wisps of moths, snow willows, and smiles. They are as if they have really traveled through time and space like a little girl in a light show, and came to the ancient town a hundred years ago to participate in a grand festival. Time and space are shattered, traveling together in ancient and modern times, calling friends to bring friends, and a paradise on earth.
Author: Zhang Qingren Mao Qiaohui Xu Shanshan Bao Yuanyuan
Editor: Zhou Yiqian
