介绍:
Born in the mid-19th century, Sven Hedin was one of the world's most famous geographers and topographers. After trekking across parts of Asia that were once labelled terra incognita, this courageous pathfinder left us some of the most comprehensive accounts of northwest China.
In his memoir, the Swedish explorer confessed that his whole life was motivated by something that "breaks down all obstacles and refuses to recognise the impossible."
Almost half a century later, it was the same irresistible wanderlust that drove Hedin's fellow countrywoman Cecilia Lindqvist set herself onto a similar journey in China.
Born in Sweden in 1932, Cecilia Lindqvist was a student of Bernhard Kalgren, one of the greatest sinologists in the 20th century. Under his influence, she had become increasingly interested in the far-off Middle Kingdom. Finally in 1961, her opportunity came, as her then husband was sent to the Swedish Embassy to China. The young woman decided to come along to perfect her Chinese.
Yet what Cecilia had experienced was out of phase with her expectation.
In her later work, Another World, Cecilia vividly documented in details, her first encounter with China. The author admits that before she came, she didn't know much about the country, let alone its harsh political climate and economic distress in the early 1960s. The grim poverty situation in the country at that time shocked her to the core. The language classes, which were awash with daily repetition of mechanical steps and dogmatic slogans, also disappointed the Swede to no end. By travelling around China, she was desperate to get away from the dullness of the university life.
Yet on the verge of planning to leave, it was music that altered everything. The life-changing music is not produced by piano, which Cecilia Lindqvist has been playing since the age of five, nor the medieval lute that she got her hands on in the mid-twenties. In Beijing, she found peace and haven in an ancient Chinese musical instrument called qin, which would later become her lifelong passion and companion.
A member of the zither family, the seven-stringed plucked guqin, or qin for short, is probably China's most classical and revered musical instrument. Legend has it that the instrument was invented by Fuxi, God of Creation and the first of emperor in Chinese mythology. With a clear, elegant, and metallic sound, guqin has been commonly viewed as the essence of Chinese music and high culture. So in ancient times, playing guqin was a high-desired skill for literati and elites. From Confucius, China's most important philosopher, to Ji Kang, a famous libertine in the 3rd century, many historical figures had a special liking to guqin.
However, by the early 20th century, lots of ancient repertoire had already been lost throughout the time. After the establishment of the People's Republic of China, in order to preserve this traditional art, the Chinese Guqin Research Institute was set up in a small courtyard in Beijing. Its founding members included Zha Fuxi, the vice-chairman of the National Musical Association and Pu Xuezhai, cousin of China's last emperor Pu Yi.
Armed herself with nothing but a recommendation letter and a full-hearted curiosity, Cecilia Lindqvist ventured into that courtyard. She became the only student of those guqin masters in the 1960s.
Years later, in one of her public speeches, Cecilia admitted that without those two years at the Guqin Research Institute, she would have left China a long time ago. In the foreword of her book, Qin, she wrote that: "if you approach the music of the qin in a very simple way, you will meet not only a unique and captivating music, you will also come close to the whole of ancient classical Chinese culture". So it is. For Cecilia, it was the experience of learning guqin that set up the foundation of her profound interest in China.
In 1962, Cecilia headed back home, since her husband's contract with the Swedish Embassy had come to an end. But before she left, she received two precious gifts from her guqin teachers: a hundreds-year-old instrument and a tape of recordings.
Yet for the next decade, China was not the main focus in Cecilia's life. She and her family travelled around the world until the 1970s. Back in Sweden, she became a high school teacher and also worked as a freelancer at Swedish Television on their China-related programs.
However, Cecilia Lindqvist didn't follow the traditional method of teaching Chinese characters, which emphasizes the importance of sheer rote-memorization. She got inspired by her own teacher Bernhard Kalgren, who taught Chinese characters by introducing their original pictorial forms and how those forms changed throughout the time.
Since her teaching materials around that time were limited, Cecilia Lindqvist dug into dictionaries and archaeological books. From the ancient drawings, pictures, and inscriptions, she not only discovered the etymologies of Chinese characters, but also learnt how their respective shapes and concepts mirror the Chinese history and ideology. In order to facilitate her students' studies, from 1973, she brought them to China for field trips, so as to help them get a sense of the subject.
Cecilia's publication, "China: Empire of Living Symbols" is an enlightening and insightful volume full of common touch. Unlike a dictionary, the author only introduces some two hundred Chinese characters, some of them relate to the natural environment, while some deal with the daily life of ancient Chinese people. Thanks to Cecilia's warm and refined words, those seemingly peculiar-looking, staid letters come to life and unlock those fantastic stories that they have long concealed. For example, yu(雨), the Chinese word of rain, looks like a combination of a cloud and four rain drops; zi(自), meaning "self" in Chinese, looks like the shape of a nose, because Chinese people point to their noses when they talk about themselves.
Approachable, detailed and beautifully written, "China: Empire of Living Symbols" won the August Prize, one of the most prestigious literary awards in Sweden. Recognized by British historian Michael Wood as one of the ten best books on China, its Chinese edition was chosen in 2015 as one of the most beautifully written books of the year.
Thanks to the efforts of Cecilia Lindqvist, now, Chinese is admitted into the Swedish syllabus. It has become one of the foreign languages that every high school teacher over Sweden could choose to teach.
But guqin, the musical instrument that once brought her so much joy during her first two years in China, remains the scholar's greatest passion. Right after the release of her book on Chinese characters, she immediately buckled down to the new book: Qin.
Just like her first book on China, Cecilia had crafted the second one for years. In 1978, she reached out to her friend Wang Di, who taught her how to play guqin in the 60s.
Wang's youngest daughter Deng Hong is a sophisticated guqin player just like her mother. In 2007, Cecilia invited her to Sweden and to perform along with her Chinese colleague, who is skilled at Chinese flute xiao.
Her book Qin has also become a success. Published in 2006, this non-fiction crowns its author a two-time August Prize winner, which is quite rare in Swedish history. In the book, a CD is also attached, containing the sound tracks that Cecilia's guqin teachers recorded for her forty years ago. Though the old masters passed away, their music stands the test of time.
Today, Cecilia Lindqvist is hailed as one of the best European sinologists of our time. Over the years, she has been constantly invited to come back to China and give lectures. Her lore of Chinese language and music is widely admired.
Yet the Swedish lady is by no means self-content, since she plans to pen down another book. This time, the book is going to be about Chinese paper cutting.
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