Urban biography is made into an upsurge: Dance with the times is the city's biography

Urban biography on the sharing session site Yangcheng Evening News all -media reporter He Quansheng Photo

2022 Nanuo Shuxiang Festival opened two "City Reading" sharing sessions, telling the history and humanities behind the city

Yangcheng Evening News all -media reporter Sun Lei Ganran Ran

The character of Guangzhou is like water and Chaozhou also has a blood -gas side, one person also supports one side of the soil and water, the modern city also has temperature and emotions ... Every city has its unique culture. Personality history.

On August 20th, the second day of the opening of the South State Book Festival, two cities -related reading sharing sessions were held. The "Biography of Guangzhou", "Guangzhou Biography", "Biography of Zhongshan", "Chaozhou Biography" and "Guangzhou Biography" (Concise Edition) sharing session "was held at the East Lake Store of Si Lama." Pretend to have this city 》 The new book sharing meeting was held in Beijing Road United Bookstore.

The former is the city history, and the latter writes the life experience of the younger generation in modern cities. Traditionally and modern urban writing collide with each other, telling the humanities and history behind the city.

Urban biography writing becomes a boom

At the scene of the "Bay Area City's Tide" sharing session, Ye Shuming, author of "Guangzhou Biography" and "Zhongshan Biography", Huang Guoqin, author of "Chaozhou Biography", and critic Chen Jianhui, Chen Xi, Liu Weiguo and others started talking at the scene. Discuss the characteristics of urban biography and its meaning.

"In the past ten years, urban biography has gradually become a kind of writing trend." Wang Quan, the responsible editor of "Guangzhou Biography", said that not only in Guangdong is out, but the country has been introducing urban biographies that write local memory and spirit and build urban culture. There are "Beijing Biography" written by Qiu Huadong in Beijing, "Shanghai Biography" in Shanghai, and "Nanjing Biography" by Ye Zhaoyan in Nanjing.

Under this trend, Guangdong has planned the "Biography of the Guangdong -Hong Kong -Macao Greater Bay Area City Biography Series". "The Biography of Maoming" is also stubborn and edited.

The reporter learned from the Star Publishing House that since the launch of the "Silk Road Biography Biography" carried out by the China Foreign Languages ​​Bureau in May 2017, there have been 37 biographies of domestic and foreign urban biography (including Chinese simplified, traditional, English, Russian version), As of March 2022, the series had accumulated 16 biography of Chinese urban biography.

Writing a city aims to respond to reality

Why is urban biography a wave? Everyone talks about the needs of reality. According to Chen Jianhui, a professor and doctoral instructor of South China Normal University, the process of urbanization in China has accelerated and many new changes have emerged. Everyone urgently needs to re -understand the cities in our lives.

"Writing cities is a response to reality. It is the excavation of the personality and soul of the city in the process of homogeneous urban development." Ye Shuming believes that China has gone through many years of urbanization. The biography is trying to break the restraint of homogeneity and explore the cultural genes of the city.

Chen Xi, a professor at the Department of Literature of Sun Yat -sen University, also agreed with this view. In his opinion, the positioning of urban biography is somewhat similar to the biography of the character. "The things that one do inspire everyone, so write a biography to introduce his life deeds; a city is famous, then it is worth writing a biography Let's talk about its construction, economy and culture. "

For more than 40 years of reform and opening up, China's cities have undergone tremendous changes, especially Guangdong. Wang Quan said that readers in various places have paid more attention to the human history, customs and customs of the city, and have spawned a group of biographies that are easy to understand and interpret cities from the perspective of civilians.

Local history that records the history of the city is often stored in the study. The publication of urban biography has been published, and the writing of literature has made the history of the city from moving from the book to a broader reality, and echo the needs of this era.

For the city's biography, pay attention to the details of people's livelihood

In Ye Shuming's view, a good city biography should pay attention to the lives of the bottom people. "The urban biography I define not only tells readers what happened, but also to tell readers why these things happened to find out the cultural reasons behind it. The perspective of Tong history usually carry out grand narratives. Look at the changes in this city. "

Therefore, when writing "Guangzhou Biography", Ye Shuming wrote a small citizen living in the market and wrote the flexible side of the city of Guangzhou. When writing "Zhongshan Biography", it focused on the "Xiangshan Business" group that was often misunderstood, and even believed that "Xiangshan Business" was once the soul characteristics of Zhongshan. It affirmed its historical role in the accumulation of Lingnan Capital and cultural communication.

"We write urban biography, to restore the details and historical details of the people's livelihood, these details are often more impressive." Huang Guoqin's example, Wen Tianxiang's mourning daughter is the details of historians ignored. From the details writing, it can shape the national heroes The feelings of the family, showing the depth of history.

As a literary work, urban biography, from a diverse scattered perspective, records a city from the perspective of the citizen, has more humanistic emotions than local ambitions, more historical details, and more fireworks on earth. Liu Weiguo, a professor and doctoral supervisor of Sun Yat -sen University, summarized: "It is to use the story to tell the soul of a city."

The key to writing good urban biography is to write people

"From the perspective of citizens to show the public society, writing urban biography is actually a person who works in the city." Chen Xi believed that "writing the geography, construction, management, customs and markets of cities, the key is to surround the inside Time and space, write around the people in time and space. "" We can understand a place through reading history books and local generals. Why do we still read urban biography? I think it is because readers have a expectation of urban biography works. I hope to understand The personality and details of the city have a more detailed grasp of the historical scene by reading the Chinese description of the Chinese biography. They understand the city's personality characteristics like a person's style, so that it is fun to read. "Chen Xi said.

Chen Jianhui believes that the writing of the city must first write the characteristics of the city, and the characteristics of the city can form the urban character. The city is not the same. Each city has its own characteristics. People in the city, values, and their spiritual endowment temperament have formed a unique character of the city. "The Biography of Guangzhou" wrote the daily life, showing the flavor of civilian fireworks, and showing the pragmatic, civilian nature of Guangzhou City, and the tolerance of Guangzhou people to inclusive and diverse values. "

"If you compare the city to one person, people have his soul, and the city also has its spiritual core." Ye Shuming often reminded himself in writing to look at the city of Guangzhou as a person and write him. Gene, personality and temperament. Only in this way can the essence and kernel of the city be written.

Pay attention to cities and follow ourselves

"Understanding the past of the development of a city can help us logically reasoning its future." Wang Quan added, "The establishment of a city can also help local citizens to establish a sense of pride and belonging, from the rich history of the city Drawing the nutrition and turning into the fixed force of dancing with the tide of dance in the same time. "

The soul of the city is part of the soul of the country, and the storytelling of Chinese stories has also been implemented through a biography of a city. Talking about the current value of urban biography, Chen Jianhui said that urban biography helps people to clarify the three relationships with urban, home, country, tradition and modernity. "One side raises one person, and one party also supports the other side. Pay attention to the city, and actually pays attention to ourselves in a certain time and space."

The laws of urban development are often similar. Understanding cities in history can guide the current urbanization development path.

Experts and scholars agreed that the outlooking style of urban biography explains the logic of the development of the city and contains the development trend of the city. How to go in the future of the city can be inspired from these biography.

The tide of the times is setting off, and Huazhang of the city biography has just begun. "In the future, we will also make a timely revision of the city to supplement the content of the new era." Wang Quan said.

The appearance of the city depends on human perception

Whether it is the urban biography of Guangdong or other provinces, it is often focused on history. At the new book sharing meeting of "Pretending to Have this City" held in the afternoon, the author Ono sauce focused on her observation and feelings of the current urban life.

Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Nanjing, London, Paris ... Over the years, because of studying or working, Ono Sauce has lived in many cities, but she feels that she has never really belonged to which city and she has never owned them.

After leaving the original place, rushing towards one city, and moved to another city. Today, with the rapid advancement of China's urbanization process, it has become the status quo of many people, especially young generations.

"I have always felt that I am both a cities, both into the role of an incident, and the role of an observer." Under Ono's pens, the city has the alienation, loneliness, and warm and flowing scenery.

With the development of urbanization, many people believe that the homogeneous landscape of the "Thousand Cities" has blurred the character of the city. But Ono Sauce thinks that this is a pseudo -proposition, because the city's style depends on human perception. If a person is a commercial landmark for punch cards no matter which city goes to, then what he sees will always be Starbucks, McDonald's, Uniqlo and other chains. Symbols, but if he goes deep into urban texture, he will find that each city will have its own characteristics.

Ono sauce (Photo by Gan Zhuoran)

Culture injects unique landscapes into cities

"This time I came to Guangzhou, I lived near Liwan Lake Park. Here I felt that Guangzhou was completely different from the beauty of other cities." Ono sauce said that if you only go to the landmark "small waist" to check in, then you will definitely miss this. The deep cultural heritage of the city.

Long -tower streets, colorful Manchuria windows, and distinctive ears ... In the middle of it, the ancient cultural atmosphere of Lingnan came to face, colliding with the modern urban landscape, and made new intentions. From the view of Ono sauce, this is a particularly precious city memory. "I hope that no matter how the city develops, it can retain its cultural roots."

Ono sauce pointed out that in Chinese cities, there are not many landscapes that are fully integrated with modernity and modernity, and more high -rise buildings that are burst into the ground lack historical heritage and stories. Even if some cities retain the traditional style, they are limited to specific blocks. Tradition and modern lack of transitions, with a clear sense of break.

“伦敦这方面融合得很好，城市景观如同一幅徐徐展开的画卷，行走在街道上，经常会看到建筑上挂着一个小牌子，介绍此处的历史与故事。”小野酱认为，生活People in the city feel lonely, often because they lack understanding of this city and cannot establish emotional links.

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