This is not the first time I have known Yungang .
997, as a good student representative, I was selected by the teacher to enter the summer study organized by the school. I came to Shanxi for the first time, came to Datong , and visited Yungang Grottoes. The passenger car modified from a bus stops and stops on a not-so-spacious road. The coal trucks that were walking and stopping together were loaded with dark cinders. With every brake, a pinch of coal ash came out of the cargo box with black smoke, and the air seemed to be filled with the smell of tar. A girl with particular care should use a wet wipe to gently and carefully wipe her face, neck, and ears. The white wet wipes quickly turn from white to gray and then black until they are discarded.
We visited the Yungang Grottoes with a scorching sun and ash on our faces and bodies, and left behind memorial photos of smiling travel with "yeah" gestures in front of the largest Buddha statue.
This is the first time I have learned about Yungang.
days ago, as cultural relics workers, we followed General Secretary Xi Jinping's footsteps and came to Yungang Grottoes again. It turns out that the coal transportation road I walked when I was a child was called 109 National Highway . The parallel distance between this road and the Yungang Grottoes is only 350 meters. In order to protect the Yungang Grottoes and no longer allow Buddha statues to wear "black robes" every day, National Highway 109 was diverted in 1998, and the original road was also planned as a tourist route. More than just the road, in the past decade, the efforts made by the people of Yungang for the road to green development of this world cultural heritage have changed this mountain, this scenic spot, and this land.
is taken from the mountains and used for the people, and is placed in the park
—The scenic spots stone mill stone mill tray
The lakeside photo area paved with stone mill trays
Unlike other world heritage sites and scenic spots, there are a large number of stone mills and stone mills in the Yungang Grottoes and their scenic spots. Most of their teeth and grinding teeth have been smoothed, no longer the same as before. Many young people even don’t know what they used to be and how they were used. The mill is placed on both sides of the avenue leading to the grotto gate, and the stone mill is paved flat in the square of the tourist photo area around the lake, forming a different square ground, which is quite ancient.
When talking about the origin of these stone mills, we need to trace back to the time when the Yungang Grottoes were dug. Northern Wei When the Yungang Grottoes were dug, the mountains were cut into walls and stones were taken into caves. The removed stones were basically used for the construction of river dams in front of the grottoes and the tower temple on the top of the mountain. The remaining stones were successively used to make folk production and living tools, such as stone mills, stone millstones, horse tying piles, etc.
Ancient working people in my country believed that stone mills, stone mills and other stone utensils were magical artifacts given to the world by God. They respected the stone mills as "green dragons" and the stone mills as "white tigers". With the development of history and the inheritance of culture, these legends gradually evolved and became some customs and habits in rural areas of our country. Hundreds of years have passed. These agricultural stone tools have undergone changes from stone mortars to grinding grains to grinding grains to grinding grains to modern fully mechanical automated agricultural production. With the development of industrialization, they have gradually withdrawn from the stage of history. Zhang Zhuo , director of Yungang Grottoes Research Institute, said that Northern Wei craftsmen have the environmental protection concept of making the best use of things and recycling. As managers and guardians of grottoes, they must pass on this spirit and carry forward it.
At Zhang Zhuo's call, staff from Yungang Grottoes Research Institute arranged the stone stored in the back mountain warehouse and the farming stone utensils collected from surrounding farmers. Some of them were fixed to the roadside as road fences, some were paved in the square as stones, and some were reassembled and decorated to form a stone tower with the Northern Wei style, which was integrated with the grottoes and surrounding scenery, and was unique.
retains the industrial imprint and enhances the city image - those "Internet celebrity" check-in places in the scenic area
Yungang Grottoes are located in the west of Datong City city, about 16 kilometers away from Datong city. "China's coal is in Shanxi, and Shanxi's coal is in Datong." On this land that is gushing over gold, hundreds of millions of tons of coal are transported from here to all parts of the country every year.Since the 21st century, my country's economic model has changed, and some new environmentally friendly energy sources have gradually replaced coal. Datong City, the nationwide "coal capital", has also made changes to environmental improvement and green ecological construction. Correspondingly, some coal mine industrial factories and industrial bases in Datong City have been closed or relocated one after another. The Jinhuagong Coal Mine, which is across the river from the Yungang Grottoes, is known as the "Hongjiu Mine" in Datong. It has also moved away from its original site, leaving behind an industrial ruin. The idea of "use of waste" emerged in the minds of Zhang Zhuo and other Yungang people.
They bought back the industrial waste at a low price and first established a circle-shaped surrounding cultural wall in the office area of Yungang Grottoes Research Institute. Every section of the raised semi-cylindrical wall stacks came from the old chimney of the factory. On many randomly embedded old stone slabs on the cultural wall, the Wei stele and official script inscriptions such as the "Heart Sutra of Prajna Paramita", "The Sutra of the Eight Great Awakenings", and "The Record of Yungang under the Moon" were carved. This is the famous "Lanzha" wall. This ancient and grand cultural wall that integrates ancient and modern times has been unanimously praised by people who come to do things. Since then, the people of Yungang have become more determined in their belief in utilizing waste and turning waste into treasure.
Many tourists who have visited the cave Buddha will follow the signposts to find the Dongshan Bodhi Art Zone. This art district was built on the relocated ruins after the demolition of two villages around the scenic area. The gate of the Art District is modified from two vertical waste boilers, full of power and appeal. The art atmosphere is everywhere in the art area: the four-sided iron tower made of scrap angle steel, the general tower of Zhenbei Province transformed into cement mixing tanks, the statues made of various scrap steel, and the ice cream truck made of scrap iron have become the "Internet celebrity" check-in spots in the scenic area. While traveling, tourists appreciate these industrial artworks and recall the surging era of coal industry production. This is a manifestation of the industrial context and the cultural landscape of coal capital. The most amazing thing about
Snail Apartment
Park is the "Snail Apartment". The predecessor of these "apartments" was the cement pipe barrel replaced by the transformation of Datong Municipal Hydropower. The Datong Municipal Government gave these cement pipe barrels to the Yungang Grottoes Research Institute for free, hoping that they would continue to play their "specialties", so the "Snail Apartment" was born. The people of Yungang placed the "Snail Apartment" on the vegetable cellar left by the abandoned mine, and the vegetable cellar underground is designed as a public leisure area for the apartment, equipped with modern public leisure facilities such as movie screening rooms, billiards halls, bars, cafes, and restaurants. In front of the apartment is a group of uniquely shaped lighthouses. Inside the apartment, the bathroom is public, and the countertops are large wheels welded with scrap steel pipes. The artistic style is everywhere inside and outside the apartment. Most of the people living in the "Snail Apartment" are teachers and students from art schools who come here to sketch. Therefore, the 28 rooms in the apartment are also named after the artist. Just imagine, living in the "Leonardo da Vinci" room, the "Raphael" room, and the "Michelangelo" room, the inspiration came. I grabbed the painting tools and ran to the walls of the apartment corridor to doodle graffiti. How could the word "cool" be so good!
capsule apartment
In addition to snail apartment, there are also "capsule apartments" transformed with giant scrap industrial iron cans in the scenic area. The "locomotive apartments" transformed with scrapped train cars will also meet tourists soon and are expected to become a new gathering place for artists.
Colorful Scenic Area New Vitality - Dinosaurs in the Scenic Area
In recent years, Yungang people have relied on the Yungang Grottoes World Cultural Heritage to expand cultural projects with the mentality of "diversity, inclusiveness, inclusiveness", added cultural content with the concept of "thrift and thrift, and use the things to the fullest", and built cultural facilities with the artistic creativity of "picking up the remains and making up for the shortcomings and turning decay into magic". They have successively built Shibing Art Museum, Yungang Scholar Museum, Yungang Art Museum, Yungang Academy History Museum, Yungang Sketching Base, Xiaoyi Shadow Puppet Performance Hall, Northern Wei Shooting Art Field, etc., so that Chinese and foreign tourists, regardless of age, hobbies, culture and religion, can find their interests and what they want in the Yungang Grottoes Scenic Area.
In 2019, the already vibrant and lush Yungang Grottoes added more vitality, and several vivid "little dinosaurs" appeared on the upper part of a newly established trench.It is said that Datong coal is the coal layer left to the earth by the violent crust movement during the Jurassic period. It is a gift from the Jurassic to contemporary humans. Now, this statement has been confirmed. On December 25, 2018, experts from the Institute of the Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences discovered the remains of the Jurassic ancient earthquake in the Yungang Grottoes. The evidence of this earthquake remains: liquefied sandstone columns caused by the paleo earthquake are concentrated in the exposed and intact, and can be compared with the group of seismic liquefied sandstone columns in the Colorado Grand Canyon in the United States. They are a good place to tell the story of the earth's vicissitudes and great changes and the mass extinction of dinosaurs.
Jurassic earthquake relics protection display shed in Yungang Scenic Area
Now, the ruins protection shed has been built, and the careful Yungang people have also erected stone tablets next to the protection shed, introducing the earthquake relics in detail to tourists. I believe that this place will become a base for displaying and publicity and education activities for geological relics resources. Similarly, the protection shed and "little dinosaurs" are also made of waste materials. The columns of the protective shed are robots welded by scrap steel pipes, protecting the precious remains with wide eyes, while the "little dinosaur" jumped off the roof is made of rubbing waste tires, which is vivid and natural.
From the director Zhang Zhuo, secretary Wang Yanxiang, to experts and scholars with art expertise, old, middle-aged and young workers, Yungang Grottoes Research Institute, all of them have been invested in the transformation and construction of waste reuse in scenic spots. Over the past few years, the Yungang Grottoes Scenic Area has used dozens of waste materials such as local sandstone waste stone, cement road fragments, stone plant corner waste, urban waste curbs, old building stone strips, stone carvings, waste wood, etc. to build about 100,000 square meters of stone walls, roads, canals, pools, stone chip parking lots and other landscapes, digesting more than 30,000 cubic meters of solid waste, saving the country more than 100 million yuan. Yungang people combine the protection of cultural relics with the protection of the environment. At present, among thousands of world heritage sites around the world, Yungang Grottoes Scenic Area is the only scenic area that uses construction waste and old stone and old materials to beautify the environment and turn waste into treasure on a large scale, creating a Chinese example of ecological and environmental protection in the field of world cultural heritage.
"Ass attentiveness is craftsmanship, only by being attentive can one have the spirit of craftsmanship and innovation. As long as one is meticulous and strives for excellence, the ugliest one can become the most beautiful, and spend a small amount of money to achieve great things!" Yungang people have cultivated their careful calculations into a habit with years of hard work and thrift, and sublimated the spirit of "living life" into the "Yungang Spirit", constantly creating a distinctive landscape, and strive to create a historical and cultural atmosphere, unique ingenuity and true feelings, and successfully create the strong humanistic and artistic flavor of Yungang Grottoes.
Zhang Zhuo said that the government spent huge amounts of money to build the Yungang scenic spot, and the people of Yungang have the responsibility and obligation to protect this cultural heritage holy site. We hope to spread the concept of environmental protection and energy conservation through the influence of Yungang Grottoes, drive the whole society to follow the path of sustainable development, contribute more green GDP, and leave a pure land for future generations.
compiled by: Ma Jiawen Duan Jingqi (internship)
review: Xu Xiuli
producer: Li Rang
Disclaimer: The above content is reproduced from the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, and the content posted does not represent the position of this platform. National Cultural Industry Information Platform Contact Email: [email protected], Address: People's Daily New Media Building, No. 2 Jintai West Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing,
