Connecting Europe and Asia, Recasting the Glory: Lecture series of Early Encounters between Europe and Asia
Lecture 4: The Grand Canal and Chinese Culture
2023/10/13 │ 10:30–12:00
Professor Xu Xingwu
Professor of School of Liberal Arts,
Director, Institute for Advanced Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences
Nanjing University
- Abstract: The Grand Canal was an artificial waterway constructed in ancient times that is the longest of its kind and has the largest drainage area. It links the drainage basins of five major rivers: the Hai River, Yellow River, Huai River, Yangtze River, and Qiantang River, is 3200 km in length, and an extraordinary feat of human engineering. In 2014, the Grand Canal was received by UNESCO into the World Heritage List, while in 2016, the Chinese government assigned the Grand Canal National Culture Park status as a National Major Cultural Project. The Grand Canal has had a unique influence on the structure of Chinese civilization itself and on China’s economic development, social management, and literature and art, as well as on international cultural exchange. It is a historical and cultural phenomenon that is worthy of close attention and has had an inspirational impact on how China of recent times is to be understood.
- Language: Putonghua
- Summary (Recorded by Zhang Zixuan)
Professor Xu Xingwu’s lecture ‘The Grand Canal and Chinese Culture’ circulated around this remarkable engineering phenomenon that links the five watery kingdoms: the sea, the Yellow River, the Huai River, the Yangtze River, and the Qiantang River. Dug in ancient China, it is the longest canal that spans the largest geographical area of river systems anywhere in the world. Taking three perspectives as points of entry, the speaker unfolded to his audience the previous history and modern life of this celebrated item of world heritage.
Firstly, Professor Xu introduced to us the Cultural Belt of the Grand Canal and its National Cultural Park. Because the Grand Canal has had roles that have continued for more than 2500 years and have included facilitating the passage of ships and promoting the beneficial usage of water, and it has borne the historical culture of interaction between the civilisations of China and the world, it could thus be regarded as one on the most important symbols of Chinese civilisation. The ‘Cultural Belt of the Grand Canal’ comprises a principal axis, five large geographical areas, and six large cultural areas (Jinjian, Yanzhao, Qilu, Zhongyuan, Huaiyang, and Wuyue). Within the plans for cultural development of the thirteenth five-year national economic plan, The National Cultural Park of the Grand Canal has been listed as a cultural project of national importance, and within the overview of national cultural parks, its status has been raised to one of four items. Closely following this, Professor Xu also introduced to us the geographical and cultural significance of the Grand Canal in Jiangsu, as well as the special attraction of the Chinese Grand Canal Museum situated in Yangzhou.
Secondly, Professor Xu gave particular emphasis to discussion of the contribution the Grand Canal has made to the formulation of Chinese history and culture. He considers that it a historical waterway that links both the ancient and modern and that flows into the future. From 486 BC, when Fuchai, ruler of the state of Wu, first dug the Hangou canal trench, to the waterways of the Qin, Han, Wei, and Jin dynasties and the Southern and Northern dynasties such as the Ling, Cao, Bian, Pogang, and Dantu waterways, to the Canal of the Sui and Tang dynasties, and the Grand Canal linking Beijing and Hangzhou of the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties, the Grand Canal has well-nigh accompanied the historical written record of the Chinese people for more than 2500 years. At the same time, because the Grand Canal was able to facilitate the largescale shipment of grain to the Capital and elsewhere and owing to its immense economic value in other spheres, it thus became a transport hub that connected the whole of China and linked into the outside world as well as a national transportation lifeline on which prosperity depended that brought uncountable benefits to the common people. Culled from the breadth of his knowledge, Professor Xu cited several historical and cultural case studies to explain vividly the profoundly positive significance of the Grand Canal to the formulation of Chinese historical culture.
Thirdly, Professor Xu dwelt on the cultural achievements of the Grand Canal. He considers that not only was the Grand Canal a navigable waterway that promoted beneficial water use, but it was also a river of cultural transmission that had a profound influence on the craftsmanship and technologies, societal daily life and governance, thought and scholarship, and literature and arts of ancient China. From the perspective of techniques of canal construction, it fulfilled the purpose of linking and expanding a system of inland waterways, and furthermore was an interlinked reservoir of waterway engineering that was maintained through continual improvements and whose water levels were retained by a system of locks that preserved water resources. From the perspective of the daily life of society and its governance, the Grand Canal promoted the merging of cultures of different regions, the raising of the ecological and environmental living standards of the common people along its banks, and improvements to ancient models of governance. From the perspective of thought and scholarship, it unified the whole of Sui and Tang dynasty culture, and nurtured and developed the ‘rational scholarly system’ (neo-Confucianism) of the Song and Ming dynasties; at the same time as fertilising Qing dynasty scholarly practices, it stimulated development of the ‘new’ studies of China in more recent times. From the perspective of literature and art, the Grand Canal was a creative waterway for the transmission of the poetry genres Tang shi and Song ci, and the watery cradle of opera and novels, as well as an inspirational origin behind a whole host of other arts. From these, the bejewelled brilliance of the cultural achievements of the Grand Canal can be clearly perceived.
- Lecture video
HKBUTube
Bilibili
This lecture series is sponsored by Eurasia Foundation (from Asia).
Disclaimer
