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俞孔堅?閱讀西溪南
——《景觀設計學》2016年第6期“主編寄語”
Reading the Book of Xixi’nan
By Kongjian Yu
景觀是一本書,每個村子都有屬于自己的那一本——有的厚重,有的輕?。挥械纳铄?,有的淺陋;有的華麗而喜氣,有的含蓄而凄楚?;罩莸奈飨蟿t是一本美麗動人又充滿意味的書!
除去我的故鄉(xiāng)浙江金華的東俞村,坐落在豐樂河南岸的西溪南村便是我最愛不釋手的一本景觀之書了。它章節(jié)分明,有人與自然和諧共生的智慧,有充滿恩怨情仇的故事,有歷史的宏大敘事,也有當下的鄰里政治,令人百讀不厭。
這本書的第一章——也是濃墨重彩的開篇——便是村北的楓楊林,這是我在祖國見過的最美的河灘林地了!楓楊是江南地區(qū)最適應河水季節(jié)性漲落生境的喬木樹種,這樣的楓楊林曾廣泛分布于大小江河之畔。但在過去幾十年,由于無度的水利工程建設(包括河道的硬化和渠化),它們大面積地消失,美麗的豐樂河上也僅存這一處林子了。春汛來臨,河水淹沒灘地,林在水上,儼然復原了古西溪南村八景之一的“山源春漲”;汛期過后,我每每徜徉其中,深深呼吸著帶著蘑菇香氣的空氣,視線透過樹干編織的幽簾,眺望依稀的古橋、村舍、遠山和波光,這樣的徽州恍如夢境,只是夢與現(xiàn)實在這里可以如此相近!
書的第二章是村莊邊緣的菜園。致密的菜畦中,生長著種類繁多的果蔬,有蘿卜、青菜、茄子、辣椒、大蒜、洋蔥、生姜、大豆、花生,還有被齊齊架起的蔓生的豇豆和黃瓜,它們成條成塊地拼接在一起,高低錯落卻井然有序,如鱗次櫛比的村莊瓦頂;在這里,采摘的婦女可以隔著豇豆架對話,也常?;Q各自的成果,菜園成為了住宅鄰里關系的延伸。這里不僅產(chǎn)出了果蔬,還培育著友誼、促進著交流。穿梭其中,就如品讀詞語樸實、斷句纖巧、娓娓道來卻妙曼無限的尋常故事。
書的高潮便是村子本身。每座房子都是一個單詞,房子圍合成的院落構(gòu)成了一個個詞組,街道串起了院落而成為句子。眾多的句子南北穿插,曲折幽深,描繪著神秘的歷史故事與當下的尋常生活。我常常陶醉于在村子里迷路的感覺,這種迷路是悠閑的、探幽的,也是快樂的,就像愛麗絲夢游仙境,絕沒有慌張與焦慮。每一塊刻字的青磚、每一方磨損的石板路面、每一個屋角的“石敢當”、每一階臨水的石埠、每一尊殘破的柱礎或石臼……都是下一個故事或情節(jié)的暗示。一個曾經(jīng)富甲一方、響譽江南、名士云集、詩畫璀璨的千年名村,悄悄述說著它輝煌的過去和凄楚的經(jīng)歷。
串起上述三個篇章的物質(zhì)和精神的紐帶,便是那水系。作為古徽州地區(qū)的后代,宋代詩人朱熹的《觀書有感》最準確地表達出了西溪南的水的精神與形態(tài):
半畝方塘一鑒開,
天光云影共徘徊。
問渠那得清如許?
為有源頭活水來。
村頭的林子和夢境、村邊菜園的尋常故事、村子里院落與街道的神秘和凄楚,皆因這充滿智慧的水系而靈動了起來。那汩汩活水源自黃山主峰,是新安江上游唯一以黃山為源的溪流。清澈與靈秀自不必說,而錘煉千余年的理水藝術(shù),更使西溪南的水系顯得精妙絕倫:通過古堨和魚嘴分水,將水引入村中;而后由一個石關控制流量,旱澇無憂;水口是一組由橋、廟、石埠和大樹構(gòu)成的景觀,像是一個重重的感嘆號;隨后,水流過家家戶戶,或被引入庭院和天井,或進入方塘,遂成古村八景之一的“清溪涵月”;最后,被引入下游的良田美池,用于灌溉。
景觀是一本書,每個村子都有屬于自己的那一本。中國有數(shù)以百萬計的村莊和無限的田園美景,有的甚至已經(jīng)存在了數(shù)百年乃至上千年之久,它們經(jīng)由數(shù)以億計的人民世代“編寫”,或用淚水,或用血汗!品讀它們,就是品讀中國,就是品讀我們的祖先;呵護它們,就是呵護我們自己。如今,它們有的破敗了,有的滿是噴繪涂鴉,有的甚至已被夷為平地。就像不孝的子孫將族譜毀掉,我哀嘆我們這一代不孝的子孫們正將這樣魅力無限而意味深遠的景觀之書毀掉!
The landscape is a book. Every village holds its own book of the landscape — some are thick and heavy, others thin and light; some villages are profound, others crude; often they are magnificent and jubilant, and at times implicit and miserable. Among the books of villages, the Xixi’nan Village in Huizhou, Anhui Province is a beautiful book, deep with meaning.
Other than my hometown of Dongyu Village in Jinhua, Zhejiang Province, Xixi’nan is my most favorite landscape book. Located on the south bank of Fengle River, the village maintains a harmonious co-existence between humans and nature. A long history and various stories combined with current neighborhood trifles and politics make for a book worth reading and re-reading.
The first chapter of the book begins with a Chinese wingnut (Pterocarya stenoptera) forest to the north of the village, the most beautiful river floodplain forest I have ever seen in China. Chinese wingnut is the most suitable tree species for rivers with seasonal fluctuations in southern China. Similar forests used to be found widely in river areas of different sizes. However, over the past several decades most of these forests have disappeared as a consequence of the hardening and channeling of waterways. This is the only forested areas that have survived on the Fengle River. When the spring flood comes, the forest stands in flooded river, vividly reproducing one of the Eight Ancient Xixi’nan Scenes, the “Spring Flood Deep in Mountains.” I have often wandered in the forest after the flood season, deeply breathing in the mushroom smell in the air, gazing towards the old bridges, cottages, and distant mountains, feeling like I am in the dream of Huizhou, a dream so close to reality!
The second chapter is the vegetable gardens planted on the edge of the village. A variety of vegetables are grown in the dense garden plots, including radish, greens, eggplant, pepper, garlic, onion, ginger, soybeans, and peanuts. Clumps of cowpeas and cucumbers are tidily set up on holders. These plots range in size and are scattered by height, yet they remain orderly and well-regulated, mimicking the rows of tiled roofs. The women picking peas chat with each other across the trellises, or exchange their gains. The vegetable garden is an extension of the neighborhoods. It is a space not only for fruits and vegetables, but also friendship. When moving within the garden, you feel like reading an ordinary yet wonderful story told with artless words and delicate sentences.
The climax of the book is the village itself. Every house acts as a word, the blocks phrases, stringed together by streets to become sentences. These numerous sentences are interspersed north and south, they twist and turn, deeply and quietly, depicting the timeless stories of this place. I often stroll through the village, obsessed by the feeling of being lost in time and place. It is a leisurely, probing and pleasant kind of lost, just like Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, with no panic or anxiety. Every brick wall, every piece of the worn paving, every door with god stone tablets to ward off evil spirits in the corner, every step of the stone dock, every broken plinth or stone mortar is hints at the next storyline. The once wealthy village, whose fame is widespread in the area south of Yangtze River area, flourished with poetry and painting, quietly telling the story of its glorious but tragic past.
The material and spiritual bond that links these three chapters together is the water system. Xi Zhu, a famous poet of the Song Dynasty, whose ancestors lived in the ancient Huizhou area, most accurately manifested the spirit and form of water in Xixi’nan in his poetry Reflections on Reading:
A square pond opens up like a mirror, clear and bright;
Shadows of the skylight and clouds reflected together into it, shining and shaking.
“Why is the water body so clear?” you may ask —
For the continuous flow upstream from its source.
The woods to the north of the village, the gardens on the edge, the homes and streets within the village come to life thanks to the intelligence of water. The flowing water comes from the main peak of the Mount Huangshan, the only stream in the upstream area of Xin’an River originating from the mount. Its clarity and beauty is made all the more exquisite through Xixi’nan’s water system developed over a thousand years. The system channels the river water into the village, and then separates it through a system of ancient weirs and fish-mouth dikes. The water is then sent through a stone barrier to ensure water supply during both drought and flood. The water inlet area consists of a bridge, a temple, a stone dock, and a large tree, looking like a weighty exclamation mark. From here, water flows to every house, it is channelized into courtyards, patios or ponds, or forming into another of the Eight Ancient Xixi’nan Scenes, “The Moon in Clear Water.” Finally, the water flows into downstream farmland and ponds for irrigation use.
The landscape is a book, and every village has its own. There are millions of beautiful villages and rural landscapes in China, some hundreds years old. Their books have been written by hundreds of millions of people, one generation after another, written with tears, sweat, and blood. To read them is to read China, to read our history and our ancestors. To protect them is to protect ourselves. Today, some of these books are dilapidated, full of graffiti, or razed to the ground. I am saddened by our generation’s devastation of these glamorous and meaningful landscape books!
Translated by Sara JACOBS Angus ZHANG
