邱长青Qiu Changqing

The Art of Fate: Reflections on Life

Qiu Changqing

 

I have been associated with art for a long time. When I was young, I lived with my father in the Liancheng Opera Troupe. Every day, with the accompaniment of singing, dancing, and string instruments, I babbled and stumbled while learning to walk. My little heart had already planted the seeds of songs and drama; After entering elementary school, with the freedom to go out, I would often visit my grandfather and uncle's art studio. Although I did not learn from a master or draw with a pen, I was still immersed in painting and developed a special emotional attachment to it. It's both talent and fate. As someone who is slow in math, I am particularly sensitive to art. I am full of interest to learn and showcase all kinds of art whenever there is an opportunity or a useful field.

 

When I was in the first year of junior high school, the school held a cultural performance, and after my music teacher asked me to try out a few lines, he insisted on arranging for me to perform a male solo. As a child, I couldn't resist the encouragement of my teacher. Facing more than a thousand teachers and students in the audience, I sang the song "Sing a Mountain Song for the Party" with great emotion and won applause from the whole audience. The music teacher was overjoyed and couldn't help but push me on stage to sing a song called 'Poor Children Go Home Early'. This is a singing passage by Li Yuhe from the Beijing Opera model play "Red Lantern Record" that I really love. At the end of the song, there was thunderous applause! The unexpected success allowed me to taste the sweetness of art and have a vision for my future. I think: a person's artistic potential lies in being discovered and discovered. As long as one is diligent in learning and brave in trying, many seemingly impossible things are possible. As Gorky said, by nature, everyone is an artist.

 

Singing is just lip service, life requires more skills in hand. I have been taught by my elders since I was young: having ten thousand hectares of fertile land at home is not as good as being skilled. Therefore, in the activities of studying engineering and agriculture at that time, I always tried my best to understand and master the work of lathe workers, fitters, welders, carpenters, lacquerers, as well as farming, plowing, rice cutting, and animal husbandry. I enjoyed the joy of learning labor skills from birth, from ability to maturity, and from maturity to skill. I imagined that in the future, I could live a paradise like life where I didn't ask for anyone and relied on self-sufficiency for everything. I hope to master as many life skills as possible to survive and thrive.

 

In my first year of high school, my teacher arranged for me to write Chairman Mao's inscription "Learn from Comrade Lei Feng" on an eight foot piece of canvas, creating a strong atmosphere of learning from Lei Feng. After posting, the effect was very good. This kind of writing experience of following the pattern and drawing the ladle inspired my interest in calligraphy. However, due to my own ignorance and passion for individuality, I believe that calligraphy is nothing more than using a pen dipped in ink to lay down my understanding of nature and life on paper. The more unique and valuable the writing, the longer it will be passed down. My erroneous understanding directly hindered my study of ancient classics, but at that time, several popular calligraphers' calligraphy was studied by me for several years like a revolving lantern. This kind of deviation from the right path and aimless learning has wasted a lot of precious time for me. To this day, looking back at the calligraphy of ancient masters, I realize that the palace of art is such a maze full of twists and turns, with even the slightest difference and a thousand miles lost.

 

Calligraphy and painting share the same origin. Studying calligraphy naturally sparked my interest in painting. At that time, the new house that the family had built after years of hard work had just been completed, and the large living room had empty walls on all sides. I bought a few New Year paintings and posted them to celebrate the joy of nature, but the bright red and green colors really didn't suit my taste, so I decided to hang some of my favorite paintings myself. One painting is' Valley Orchid '. The deep and secluded valley is clear and misty, with a strange stone standing on the right side, and several clusters of orchids slanting out along the stone wall. The graceful posture is elegant and ethereal, and the lush branches and leaves are flexible and strong; One painting is "Le You You", where several leisurely fish swim among the sparse aquatic plants, creating a transparent and profound, joyful and peaceful underwater world; One painting is "Embroidered Ball", with wide leaves highlighting a plump flower ball, and white petals sparkling and translucent, emitting a graceful and noble aura; There is also a painting called 'Rhododendron', with bright pink flowers and lush green leaves that exude vitality. Hanging these paintings along with a few calligraphy pieces on the walls of the living room, one feels a sense of achievement and happiness in their heart. Art decorates life, making life more beautiful. Art can stimulate people's natural nature concealed by monotonous and busy life, leading them into inexplicable emotional experiences, and through the extension of this experience, pushing people towards the paradise of 'getting carried away'. This is the magic of art, but also the joy of creation and aesthetics.

 

Compared to calligraphy and painting, seal carving is a more comprehensive art form. It integrates the abstraction of calligraphy and the concreteness of painting with its unique calligraphic and decorative qualities, emphasizing the harmonious unity of virtual and real, upright and oblique, sparse and dense, complex and simple, coarse and fine, skillful and clumsy, facing and backing, and bending and tilting. It requires not only the smooth and natural lines of calligraphy, but also the primary and secondary weights of painting composition, as well as the crisp and upright use of knives instead of pens and the colorful and vivid use of stones as paper, presenting a myriad of phenomena in every inch. Carving two characters in seal script involves the dual requirements of both good seal carving and precise carving. In 1981, the Secretary of the Party Committee of the school invited me to participate in the regional gardener's calligraphy and painting exhibition. My work lacked a seal, so I used the saw blade and knife confiscated in class as an emergency measure. Stamped, submitted, and both works are exhibited. From then on, it was impossible to receive a single message. Over the course of 30 years, more than 500 seal engravings were made, and their works drifted across the ocean. It can be said that hobbies are stimulated after birth, and intelligence is innate. The two move in sync, and art blooms in spring.

 

After teaching for several years, I deeply feel that teachers should guide students to learn consciously and independently. Based on this understanding, I wrote my first script 'Little Birds in the Garden' during the summer of 1984. Several middle school students in the drama pondered and explored how to learn and become successful - "We are flowers, we are birds. With the nurturing of a gardener, we still have to search for ourselves. Find what you need, find my hobbies, use personal expertise, explore our own ways, and shape another 'me' in the vast world." The script was submitted to participate in the regional sketch competition and won the Excellent Creation Award. This success has made me 'unacceptable' in terms of screenwriting. Afterwards, he successively completed textbook dramas such as "Cold Horn Bird", "Wolf Who Flies its Tail", and sketch "Wife Not at Home", and won first prize in the National Drama Competition and Creation organized by the Ministry of Culture and the Chinese Dramatists Association. Real life is complex and intricate, like "chicken feathers in one place". However, when we stop and experience it calmly, we will discover that there are many beauties and treasures in this "chicken feathers in one place". Beauty exists in unexpected places. The brilliance of artists lies in their ability to use art to showcase the beauty of life, express their understanding of nature and society, and enrich, develop, and achieve themselves with half the effort through art.

Drama is a synthesis of multiple arts, and its success has been hindered by multiple obstacles. Writing for newspapers is a better way to express oneself more quickly and widely. In 1990, the school newspaper of Liancheng No.2 Middle School, "On Xitai Mountain," which I founded, was born. I am extremely busy with planning, commissioning, revising, commenting, editing, typesetting, proofreading, and publishing each issue. Over the course of a year, I have collaborated with experts and leaders to write more than ten inspirational essays, including "Golden Youth," "Leading One Step in the World," "Turning Misfortune into Good Luck," "You Can Succeed," "Lock Your Heart," "Place Your Position Right," "Walk Your Feet Well," "Happiness is Not a Drizzle," and "Bad Things, Good Things, Nothing." These essays have been reprinted or published in columns by multiple newspapers. Just when I was planning to turn "On the Mount Xitai" into "At the foot of the insect without feet Mountain" for distribution to the whole county and compile a series of essays into a collection of essays for publication, a transfer order sent me to the county education bureau. Life is like going uphill and downhill, turning left and right, gains and losses accompany each other, and the willows are dark and the flowers are bright.

 

In my youth, the clothing styles were simple and the colors were monotonous. Whenever I see an ordinary piece of fabric being tailored into a piece of clothing by my mother's skilled hands, I always imagine another different style of clothing in my mind. As this idea continued to accumulate, I couldn't help but feel tempted and started trying to tailor my own shorts. Those are two red scarves that have been washed white, and tying them around the neck already looks inappropriate. The utilization of old things is a good tradition of diligence, thrift, and frugality. After obtaining my mother's consent, I enthusiastically began cutting and cutting. First, I measured my waist width and crotch depth, then folded two red scarves together and cut off the excess three sharp corners according to the measured size. Then, I sewed the cut areas together and put on an elastic waistband. Finally, I put on a pair of shorts, which fit me uniquely. In the following days, I relied on cutting books to tailor my first pair of pants, first shirt, first Zhongshan suit, and first suit. After gradually mastering the tailoring skills, I began to undertake external business. Unexpectedly, several pieces of clothing designed by tailors for his wife were mistakenly recognized as designer items by her girlfriends and praised; A clothing factory owner in Jinjiang is interested in collaborating with me to establish a factory; The county education bureau appointed me as the director and asked me to serve as a teacher for the clothing major course in a vocational high school. As a result, I developed the idea of opening a store and factory, providing personalized services including fabric sales, design, and tailoring, including designing and mass producing uniforms and school uniforms, and becoming a sole proprietor or entrepreneur. In my concept, there is art everywhere in life, and art is necessary everywhere in life. Pursuing artistic personality and mastering the way of dealing with people are interconnected. I am willing to convey my understanding of life and art to my customers through clothing art, using the beauty of clothing to delight their mood and beautify their lives.

 

While studying tailoring, I am also interested in painting techniques. At that time, I had just received my college admission letter and took advantage of my free time before the start of the semester to find a job as a painter, which not only satisfied my curiosity but also earned some tuition fees. I am used to holding scissors and rulers, but as soon as I pick up a paint brush, I am proficient and almost self-taught in the art of painting. I have also independently explored painting techniques that mimic marble patterns, wood grain patterns, and various decorative patterns, including landscape, flower, and bird paintings. I have extended my decorative concepts and paint brushes to ceilings, doors, windows, walls, and floors that are accompanied by furniture. I imagine one day establishing a decoration team that includes woodworking, fabric, lacquer art, lighting art, calligraphy and painting, etc., to present the beautiful scenery in people's daily lives in a diverse and three-dimensional way.

 

The sea of art is boundless, with endless insights. Time passes by, leaving traces on the path of art. I met art on the road and got to know each other on the road. Art is the nectar of my soul, the garden of my spirit.

Fangyuan Life

Qiu Changqing

 

There are various opinions about life.

 

Some people say that life is like a dream, like passing clouds and smoke. They advocate for enjoying oneself in the present moment and getting drunk today; Some people say that life is a life of suffering, with an endless sea of suffering. They believe that life is not as good as death, and heaven is the ideal paradise; Some people say that life is an arena, where the winner is king and the loser is a bandit. One should make achievements and seek fame to shine on future generations. Even for the same person, their views on life are not fixed and unchanging. Different periods, experiences, and feelings lead to different perspectives on life. It can be said that emotions change with the environment, and today is not yesterday.

 

Therefore, some people say that life is like seven rainbows, a kaleidoscope, diverse and ever-changing.

 

This is like strange flavored beans, sweet, sour, bitter, spicy, and salty, with a perfect balance of flavors; For example, polysemous words change their names, forms, and actions depending on the language environment. Like the word 'flower', there are more than ten explanations for nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc. that leave you unsure. Although the word 'flower' may vary, in a specific language environment, she adheres to her duties and remains steadfast. Ah, I'm getting old and my eyes are blurred! "The" flower "is not a flower, which means my vision is blurry and I can't see clearly. I want to translate it as a verb or noun, but it's not possible. Go find "flower" instead of "spending money". Their "eyes" is an adjective. In other places, flowers may be beautiful and graceful, but here she can only be confused. On the stage of Peking Opera, there are innocent, lively, or bold female roles known as "Huadan". When watching the play, one thinks of their name, and the "flowers" of the "Huadan" are isolated from the "blooming flowers". A roster of names, with hundreds of surnames and a variety of names, is called a "flower roster". Hanging flowers is not about receiving rewards, but about getting hurt. A delicate flower with a long and lonely smile "," flower "metaphorically refers to a beautiful woman; Turn your head quickly, hit a flower and leave, "the" flower "still spinning. There are also flowers such as Mulan, tofu pudding, and smallpox... It's really a skillful move, with clear praise and criticism. If the 'flowers' also love face, manipulate their temperament, and tend to praise and avoid criticism, then in the language country, there will be no end to competition and deceit, which are beyond human control. It is only thanks to their pure heart and lack of desires, and their willingness to adapt to any situation, that we have this classic work on earth, the exquisite articles. Only then can words perfectly showcase their charm and elegance.

 

Life is the three primary colors, let you adjust orange, green, green, purple, and paint a colorful, warm, cold, virtual, and real world.

 

This statement reveals the diverse side of life. Balzac dissected himself in this way: "Some people think that I am arrogant, frivolous, romantic, careless, lazy, lacking perseverance, talkative, not thoughtful, and impolite; others say that I am humble, frugal, brave, tenacious, diligent, not bound by details, thoughtful, optimistic, and polite. In fact, they all make sense." This is not only due to differences in measurement standards, but also mainly because human personality elements are rich, complex, and flexible. It experiences ups and downs due to the transition of time and space opportunities, fluctuating from warm to cold. As the saying goes, a great man can be flexible and flexible, and his words and actions should vary from person to person according to the time, place, and circumstances. He cannot be swayed by his temperament and act unilaterally. This kind of plasticity and variability that moves with the times and follows the square perfectly reflects the dialectical characteristics of human beings as a unity of contradictions.

 

Flowing clouds and water, flowers, plants, and trees all present different scenes in response to environmental changes. Green pine trees prick the ground, either tall or short, straight or crooked; The river flows slowly and rapidly, sometimes turbid and sometimes clear. Flying rapids, crossing treacherous canyons and rapids; The rippling waves reflect the beautiful sun and blue sky. Warmth in winter, coolness in summer. Great rivers and small streams are shaped according to the trend, suitable for the seasons of cold and warm, to return to the sea. If water also affects human nature, not flat rivers do not flow, and dangerous shoals retreat, it will inevitably cause flat areas to flood, the sea to see the bottom, without the surging rapids or spectacular waterfalls. Even the rippling blue waves will be transformed into sick men groaning and old women staggering due to the single plank.

 

Things need to change to show vitality, and people are no exception.

 

Mao Dun said, "When a person treats their wife indoors, they have a different face. When they see their superiors or subordinates in the office, they have another face. When they are alone in the study, they have a face that others rarely see." This "face" varies with time and place, just like the word "flower" with different meanings in different contexts. It is neither empty nor false, but a true and living learning.

 

Clear understanding of the world, judgment of the situation, cultivation of personal relationships, and acting according to personal circumstances are the realms that wise people aspire to. Those who are not yet deeply involved in the world may find it difficult to reach, but one thing that should be understood and must be achieved is to pay attention to the environment and constantly adjust one's words and actions. ——Attend the meeting quietly as a virgin; Emergency rescue, you have to move like a rabbit. The details of daily life should not be overly calculated; What is right and wrong should not be taken lightly. In the face of honor, one should be humble and cautious; Despite failure and setbacks, one should remain optimistic and not discouraged. Bravely defeating enemies, treating friends with kindness; Be honest and take things seriously. In this way, you will have the firmness of mountains and the softness of water; The light of the sun, the radiance of the moon. The abrupt peaks and deep valleys; Cloud escape, tiger power. You have the proud shore of winter plum, the delicate beauty of spring peach, the exuberance of summer lotus, and the nobility of autumn chrysanthemum. The flower of life blooms throughout the four seasons, and the journey of life is full of twists and turns.

 

Don't worry, this will erode your personality. The universe is constantly changing and accommodating to each other, and there is no absolute distinction. Eagles roost in their nests, the earth is the earth, and the sky is the sky; Once soaring high, the sky is also the earth, and the earth is also the sky. Humans have been learning to walk for millions of years and have begun to fly towards the outer world. To conquer the universe, one must first conquer oneself, eliminate the concept of uniformity, equip diverse thinking, break free from the obsession of transcendence, and return to the synchronization of the unity of self and object.

 

May we assess the situation, adapt to the situation, and enter the beautiful realm of life together!

 

(Written in October 1991, published in Chinese Prose in August 2001)