Preface:
Duan Chengshi (803-863), courtesy name Kegu, was a famous novelist of the Tang Dynasty, good at poetry and well-known for his literary works; his representative work is the short story collection Youyang Zazu.
My records in Huangpu Ancient Village are fragmentary and miscellaneous, aiming to catch glimpses of this ancient historical village in limited time. Finally, in the form of food theater on May 14, I will present a unique “edible culture” to friends from China, Germany, Austria and other countries, hence the title Huangpu Miscellany.
The residency log is recorded in text, audio and video.

DAY 1

Where to set off? Where to land?
The ferry of Huangpu Ancient Village is a metaphor of life and civilization:
We are always traveling, always on the way, yet we never leave, because we are a walking port. Landing means the expansion of the family ancestral hall. Thus we see countless separations and partings at the port and dock; the dock is the most dramatic place.

Across the water lies Haizhu and Huangpu,
Looking far at layers of mountains, lonely and blue.
Spring wind turns the Fengpu shore green again,
When will the bright moon escort me back home?

Returning home with glory is favored by Chinese people, and we do not like to walk in rich clothes at night. The ancestral hall culture only welcomes “successful descendants” or “repentant prodigals”; otherwise, those who are not successful would feel ashamed to face the ancestors in the ancestral hall.

At this time, those who return home successfully or wanderers with broken dreams abroad mostly experience a similar feeling: The Pazhou Temple outside Huangpu City is gone, and the midnight bell reaches the guest boat like a dream.

This is the first log of Zhou Lei from Nature Force Institute during the art residency at Huangpu Ancient Village by InterCulture.

DAY 2

Ancestral Hall: The Central Air Conditioner of Family Fengshui

In the ancient Huangpu Village, the Huangpu clansmen created eight fengshui ponds named after the eight characters “Tian Di Xuan Huang, Yu Zhou Hong Huang”, with most ancestral halls standing beside them.

Today, the eight ponds are polluted, and tilapia, an African-origin fish, swims in the middle of the “ancestral hall ponds”. This is water in the physical sense.

Family fengshui has the ancestral hall as its spiritual top-level design. It gathers vital energy and enhances perseverance to boost the family’s fortune. Meanwhile, it inspires later generations spiritually through the ancestors and sages enshrined in the ancestral halls. This fengshui in the spiritual sense is inexhaustible, an endless treasure of creation. This is water in the spiritual sense.

Ancient Chinese villages formed multiple communities based on beliefs, institutions and customs. People acknowledged the importance of ancestral halls, fengshui ponds and sacred woods, extending their love to related things, respecting ancestors and caring for others. This is the rippling relationship of water.

With modernization, times and values have changed. The once-favored fengshui sites now face or have suffered pollution risks. Protecting water resources and maintaining interpersonal and kinship relations first require rebuilding a new order that everyone is willing to follow. The revival of some ancestral hall cultures is a modest effort.