This life is just to protect Dunhuang

The last essay before the year

I just put a plaster on the right shoulder blade, maybe not, well, I don’t know where, anyway, it’s around the left hand Hold the neck just enough to reach it. I waited for a minute. The muscles and bones that throbbed painfully as soon as I lay down on the table to write, seemed to have been frightened by the plaster. For a moment, I forgot how painful it was. While I was still confused, I quickly typed for a while.

I am a complete homebody, and the one that activists want to defeat the most. If I were forced to choose a few places that I particularly want to visit, Dunhuang would definitely be among the top three. When I go to Dunhuang, I must go to the Mogao Grottoes. When I finished reading "Only to Protect Dunhuang in This Life", I thought to myself, okay, you're cruel, I won't go there in this life, and let's just say goodbye. Just kidding, but I am really in awe, in awe of all the priceless works of art there, and even more in awe of Chang Shuhong, the patron saint there. When I first learned about the Mogao Grottoes in Dunhuang, it was probably in a history textbook. I didn’t have a deep impression. At that time, I just immersed myself in learning knowledge and didn’t dare to focus on learning culture. Later, after reading Yu Qiuyu's "Cultural Journey", I remembered a tattered and withered Taoist Wang with empty eyes. I can recall roughly the original words: How can a surviving dynasty take away a nation's most precious treasures? The key to the treasure house was handed over to the most uneducated, short-sighted, greedy for petty gains, a Taoist priest who had no knowledge and was a half-way monk. Under his careful calculation, a large number of rare scriptures, murals and sculptures sealed in the Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes were bought by a few foreigners with a few pieces of cheap horseshoe silver. To this day, the gray-haired experts and professors in our country who want to know more about the history of the Mogao Grottoes have to go across the ocean and buy tickets and hold a magnifying glass against their faces to look at their own things through the cold bulletproof glass. That kind of humiliation I think no matter how well-educated people are, they will greet Taoist Wang with the quintessence of Chinese culture. The funniest thing is that there is a Taoist monument in the Mogao Grottoes, a living pillar of shame. Chang Shuhong was also the guardian of Mogao Grottoes, but he was canonized as a god in an upright manner, and there was a monument to him.

Mr. Chang Shuhong was born in Hangzhou in 1904. His family was a descendant of the Manchu Qing aristocracy. He received the Boxer Indemnity Scholarship entirely through his own efforts and then came to Paris, France. He studied painting and was very proud to the Chinese people. His paintings have been exhibited in Europe many times and won international awards. I already had a foothold in Europe, but because I saw Pelliot's "Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes" in Paris, I "misunderstood" my whole life at a glance. I took my wife and daughter back to my motherland, and wandered around. Come to Dunhuang. Even if all the works of art in the Mogao Grottoes were looted and left over, in his eyes, they are the pinnacle of the mountains. Having broadened his horizons, he is very sure that the artistic value of the Mogao Grottoes is even from the perspective of the history of all mankind. He would be considered a master, so he surrendered to the Mogao Grottoes without hesitation. Chang Shuhong retreated like a madman, drank a few glasses of wine, put on a piece of coarse linen clothes, and began his lifetime pilgrimage to the Mogao Grottoes. Being bad is nothing. As the official manager of the Mogao Grottoes, he not only has no funds, but also has to find a way to resist the warlords and local tycoons who covet the treasures of the Mogao Grottoes. Especially the local county magistrate is shameless and shameless. As for the Taoist Wang, Chang Shuhong, who had no political experience, was often exhausted from dealing with local ruffians.

Fortunately, he made money by selling his paintings to cover the government's shortfall, and he had those murals with him, which allowed him to forget about them and copy them day and night, but he also neglected to give up the comfortable life in the big city. The wife who accompanied him, Mr. Chang's first wife, can be regarded as his muse. She was the model for several paintings that won awards abroad. I don’t know why Ye Wenling, the biographer of Mr. Chang Shuhong, wrote so much about Mr. Chang’s first wife eloping and Mr. Chang riding a horse at night to chase his wife. This is not necessary for this book.

She is not Lin Huiyin, and painting is not her major. Dunhuang is not her heart's desire. From the beginning, she encouraged her newlywed husband to study abroad. She waited at home for several years until her husband took her abroad. She also taught herself French. When she was with her husband, She left her husband and wife to study painting. Later, her husband said that he wanted to return to the motherland, which was under fire, and she gave up her comfortable life abroad and came back. Later, he asked her to give up her teaching position in a big city and take her two young sons to Dunhuang. After coming to Dunhuang, she didn't see her husband showing any tenderness to her. Isn't it normal that she finally couldn't bear it anymore? I also feel that she gave birth to such an outstanding daughter as Chang Shana and left us such a good Dunhuang researcher and talented painting artist. As a bystander, I really feel that it is enough. This woman has suffered a lot. Yes, there is no need to deliberately create some plots and put them in a book, especially in Mr. Chang’s autobiography. Besides, Mr. Chang finally found a second wife who had the same ideals as him and could accompany him through hardships. They were also a happy couple. In addition, when writing about a painter and Dunhuang, the pictures are only the first few, and the illustrations in the whole book are only a few pictures, which is really inappropriate.

I don’t understand painting or art. I just emotionally believe that the preciousness of the Mogao Grottoes does not lie in how precious the things inside are, but that the people and stories behind them are precious. One thousand and six More than a hundred years of history is precious, and being able to protect their integrity during the years of war is precious. Even the story of Wang Taoist Gu's accountant accidentally discovering the crack behind the cave wall is also precious. What is more precious is, of course, Mr. Chang Shuhong, who risked his life to protect and bring Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes to the world. He made me know that if a person is loyal to one thing, the power he can unleash is so great. This is extraordinary. Things that faith cannot explain. Abraham once prepared to kill and sacrifice his only old son in order to show his loyalty to God. God replaced Abraham's son with a sheep. The same goes for Chang Shuhong. He asked his young daughter to join the copying work group, training and nurturing her day and night. Coupled with Chang Shana's innate talent and concentration, at the age of fourteen, Chang Shuhong could actually take Chang Shuhong's copy of the painting to the county magistrate who was obsessed with painting to exchange it for an exquisite Buddha head from the Mogao Grottoes that was ordered by the warlord. Later, in order to raise funds to protect the Mogao Grottoes, Chang Shuhong prepared a father-daughter joint art exhibition that caused a sensation across the country. Chang Shana also suddenly became the incarnation of a child prodigy. As soon as she reached the age of seventeen, she was sponsored to go to Mogao Grottoes. He studied in the United States, and later received personal guidance from Ms. Lin Huiyin, and participated in the design of many large-scale concierge reception halls in New China.

Although I have shallow artistic attainments and shallow aesthetic standards, I still have a chance in this life. My daughter Jinyu is now learning to paint. So, maybe one day, I can bring her with me. When my daughter with a pair of discerning eyes went to pay homage to the Mogao Grottoes, I could watch her copy the murals and watch her fall in love with the Chinese quintessence. I hope that one day, in her name, I can head towards Dunhuang openly and pay homage to the history and splendid culture, and also to Mr. Chang Shuhong, who only protects Dunhuang in his life.

Going back to the beginning of this article, it may not be that the plaster worked. It was Chang Shuhong who taught me to let the soul control the body, hone and train your soul in difficulties, and make the soul stronger and stronger. Accompanying you to pursue your heart's longing can support you in the short time of this life to successfully get to the other side.