[Xi'an trip day 5] What is it like to listen to the same explanation as Chai Jing and Oscar Chairman?

Day 5: Encounter with the "Sweeping Monk" in the Forest of Steles

When I booked accommodation before coming to Xi'an, the B&B I was looking for could only be reserved for three days, and the rest of the time was already fully booked.

So I booked another hostel and set off after breakfast.

 

Cabbage dumplings are a kind of food made by smashing spinach and adding flour to steam it.

 

This youth hostel is located at the famous Academy Gate in Xi’an

 

Both sides of the Xuyuanmen Pedestrian Street are filled with various shops selling the Four Treasures of the Study, calligraphy and paintings, and you can smell the fragrance of ink along the way.

Youth hostel entrance

 

When we arrived, we found that the owner had a cute and affectionate Corgi named Xiaoliu.

Xiaoliu's business skills were first-rate. He lay down and touched her as much as she wanted. I went to play with him every day for the rest of the day.

 

After my friends and I put away our things and rested for a while, we went to visit the nearby Forest of Steles Museum.

We have been in Xi'an for a few days and it has been either cloudy or rainy. This is the only sunny day we have in Xi'an! !

My back is so time-traveling, hahaha

 

If you are traveling outside the peak season, Beilin Museum does not need to book in advance, just go to buy tickets on site.

 

Forest of Steles Tickets

 

After taking the ticket, you can also get a very nice map of the Forest of Steles at the entrance.

 

The Forest of Steles Museum is a national first-level museum and one of the first batch of national key cultural relics protection units.

It mainly collects, displays and studiessteles, epitaphs and stone carvingsfrom past dynasties.

Among them, there are 134 national treasure-level cultural relics and 535 first-class cultural relics.

Although it is very high-end, like the Xi'an Museum, it is a relatively "unpopular" tourist attraction in Xi'an .

 

After reading it, I feel that we really can’t blame everyone for this...

Because the things in the Forest of Steles Museum are too "terrible"! ! !

You can wander around Xi'an Museum and look at a few things by yourself. You can enjoy yourself even if you don't understand the cultural relics and look at them.

 

But the Forest of Steles is different. Countless inscriptions stand in the exhibition hall like dominoes. The densely packed small characters on the stele are engraved with various official scripts and cursive scripts...

 

Nine out of ten people would be confused by this, and it would be difficult for them to recognize words and sentences... let alone pretend to be watching with gusto.

Cultural barriers are too high! ! ! It’s really not something that ordinary people can appreciate.

The first thing my friend and I did was of course go to the explanation center to make an appointment with the staff. At this time, we didn’t know what kind of “Big Boss” we would encounter ahead.

I just feel that the weather is so nice and my mood is so good. We want to have a good start.

How can I put it this way? It was so good that it was unexpected... ( Serious face)

I went to the explanation center and said that I wanted to make an appointment for an explanation.The girl who handled the formalities turned around and said:"Brother Yang, it's your turn."

A man in a suit with a serious temperament walked up to us. After walking out of the door, he started to high-energy the whole process. With witty words, in-depth and detailed explanations, and wonderful humor, he took me and my friends to see the Stele Carving Museum and the basics. Exhibition Hall.

After it was over, my friend and I were completely blown by the strong wind

Later we learned that he was the commentator No. 001 of the Forest of Beilin - Yang Ye, who had worked in the Forest of Beilin for nearly twenty years.

 

He has received dignitaries such as Lien Chan and Wu Boxiong, as well as hundreds of celebrities such as Chai Jing and Oscar Chairman. He has rich experience in explaining and extensive professional knowledge. He is known as "Encyclopedia of the Forest of Steles".

 

Picture source network intrusion and deletion

 

While writing this travelogue, I went online to learn more about Teacher Yang Ye, and found that in addition to being an instructor, he is also the fourth generation successor of Bruce Lee Jeet Kune Do!

 

Someone had queued for a week before to listen to Teacher Yang’s explanation. I met the great master as soon as I got lucky...

After listening to so many explanations, if I want to talk about the pros and cons, my personal feeling is:

 

 

A bad explanation

He couldn't even explain the basic situation and display clearly, he was more like a guide.

Hello everyone, where are we, what is this, what is that.

In this way, people can listen to the whole process from beginning to end. When I looked at it myself, Baidu was more reliable than this.

 

 

An ordinary and qualified explanation

Able to explain the basic situation and display clearly.

But like filling a glass with water, he has nothing more to offer his audience.

If this audience is willing to make some effort to understand, they will find that they can see these things themselves.

 

 

A super explanation

The basic information and displays are very familiar to him. These are just the foreshadowing.

He will tell the audience many secrets that they don’t even know when reading books or watching TV.

If you follow him, you will feel that knowledge is falling on you like raindrops. It is not that you can't hide, but it all falls into your heart.

 

A good presenter imparts a vitality to his listeners, like lighting a torch.

They may be unconscious, but they can indeed give people a completely different understanding of a cultural relic or a place.

 

Come to the Forest of Steles Museum to see three parts :

The first is the seven Forest of Steles Exhibition Room , the second is the Stone Carving Art Hall , and the third is the underground exhibition hall displaying Buddhist stone carvings .

The first thing I saw on the way to visit was the treasure of the Forest of Steles, the "Shitai Filial Piety Sutra" established by Emperor Xuanzong Li Longji of the Tang Dynasty in the fourth year of Kaiyuan Tianbao.

 

 

How did Teacher Yang introduce it?

 

"Yang Yuhuan was canonized as Concubine Yang this year, and Li Longji was 61 years old this year.

 

In 2014, the writer Ma Boyong came here to visit. After reading it, he liked it very much and also liked the culture of Chang'an. He went back and wrote a book called "The Twelve Hours of Chang'an". The time of that book happened before the monument was erected. one year"

"With it, there are the inscriptions of subsequent emperors, so it is the origin of time and the starting point of space of the Forest of Steles. This is also the first annotated stele discovered by humans so far."

 

Teacher Yang said so.

These random allusions are not shocking enough. What’s even more interesting is that Teacher Yang told us that this stele is actually hollow inside and has a mechanism that can be opened. There are treasures such as calligraphy, painting, and calligraphy inside.

 

There have been so many wars and changes in more than 900 years, but it has remained almost unscathed from the Tang Dynasty to the present, and the words on the stele are still clearly visible, which is simply terrifying! ! !

 

 

Among the steles I looked at that day , my favorite apart from "Shitai Xiao Jing" were the two pieces by Yan Zhenqing.

 

From the 44-year-old high-spirited in the "Duobao Pagoda Stele" to the 72-year-old "Yan Family Temple Stele" with old people and books , a person's life It seems that everything is condensed in these two tablets.

The Stone Carving Art Room we visited next was also very exciting. There are not many things in the museum, but they all have a great background.

 

The entrance is the stone carvings of the Six Horsemen of Emperor Taizong of Tang Dynasty Zhaoling .

 

Picture sourceNetwork Intrusion and deletion

 

Extended Encyclopedia: The Six Horses of Zhaoling are war horses that followed Taizong Li Shimin through life and death. After the world was pacified, Li Shimin sent craftsman Yan Lide and painter Yan Liben to use reliefs to depict six war horses and place them in front of the mausoleum.

 

Currently, there are only four horses among the six horses seen in the Forest of Steles Museum. Among them, "Sa Lu Zi" and "Fist Horse" were broken into boxes and smuggled to the United States in 1914, and are now hidden in Pennsylvania. University Museum.

 

The remaining four pieces were also broken into boxes, but were intercepted during shipment and are now in the Forest of Steles. They are cultural relics that are prohibited from exporting for exhibition.

 

Stone rhinoceros unearthed from the tomb of Emperor Gaozu Li Yuan of the Tang Dynasty

The coffin of Sui Dynasty princess Li Jingxun

Li Jingxun also known as Li Xiaozi, is the granddaughter of Princess Leping, the eldest daughter of Emperor Wen of Sui Dynasty, Yang Jian. After all, Emperor Yang Guang of the Sui Dynasty was her uncle.

She was only nine years old when she died of illness. Her grandmother, Yang Lihua, who had raised her since she was a child, was very sad. Not only did she give her child a grand burial, but she also carved the words "He who opens it shall die" on the coffin.

 

I don’t know if it’s because of this curse that the burials in Li Jingxun’s tomb have not been taken away by tomb robbers for thousands of years.

 

Although the coffin is in the Forest of Steles in Xi'an, the little princess's burial jewelry is in the National Museum.

The necklaces and bracelets are very famous.

Especially for necklaces, I have seen many low-profile replicas on Taobao.

 

Picture source network intrusion and deletion

 

Picture source Weibo photography blogger @artery shadow

This set of jewelry is really beautiful, and it is a top-notch aesthetic that can still catch people's attention after thousands of years.

 

In 2014, when I was still in college, I traveled to Beijing for the first time alone and saw Li Jingxun’s necklace at the National Expo. At that time, I didn’t know the story behind it. I just thought it was beautiful and took a photo.

I took the photo at the National Museum in May 2014

Five years later, I saw the coffin of the little princess after learning more about it. The photos I took and the photos of her jewelry appeared in a travel journal. It must be said that it was a kind of fate.

Li Jingxun's epitaph is also very beautiful and touching, but also very sad. There is a sentence in it: "Now that the day is full of frost, and the beautiful spring is falling, I have not climbed to the jade platform, so I feel sad for Zelan." "Yao".

 

After more than a thousand years, I can still feel the sadness of her family.

 

The coffin and epitaph of Li Shou, cousin of Emperor Gaozu of the Tang Dynasty Li Yuan

If this stone turtle hadn't been introduced by Teacher Yang, we really wouldn't have known that its back armor could be pushed away ...and you could see the epitaph after pushing it open.

 

We definitely couldn't touch it, but Teacher Yang showed us the pictures he took when he went to participate in activities on his mobile phone, which was a feast for our eyes.

 

Teacher Yang created a special discussion group. There was no chat in it, it was all pictures he had saved.

 

When we go to a certain scenic spot, if there is a picture that can be expanded to show us, he will click on the chat history to find that picture and show it to us.

 

After the explanation, my friend and I bought a book written by Teacher Yang and asked him to sign it. The book is called "National Treasure Hidden in the Forest of Steles" and was co-authored by Teacher Yang and another scholar, Mr. Chen Genyuan.

 

I bought this book firstly for my trip to Monument Forest, and secondly because each chapter of the book is accompanied by Mr. Yang’s audio explanation which you can listen to by scanning the QR code. It also displays some cultural relics that are not on display in the Forest of Steles, which can be regarded as extra lessons.

 

The Buddhist stone carvings on display in the underground palace exhibition hall are also worth seeing.

 

The lines of clothing are so beautiful

During the visit, I also met a73-year-old grandfather who brought his own small stool to sketch in the museum.

 

When I first met him, I didn't think it was inconvenient to disturb him and didn't come forward.

 

Later, I saw him painting stone lions outdoors, and a photographer came to strike up a conversation, so I followed him and asked a few questions.

He told me that he taught himself all painting and often came to museums to sketch. With his permission, I took a photo of the lion he was drawing.

 

The stone lion that the old man has not finished painting yet

This is not the first time that I have met elderly people who are "self-taught" after retirement. Some of them are photographers, dancers, painters, and some travel by themselves or with their wives when they are old enough.

They made me feel that it is really important to live and learn. It can also be said to be one of the secrets of keeping a person immortal.

When we were leaving, we passed by a monument. We didn’t see clearly what it was, but we were impressed because it was too tall ! ! !

I'm 1.58. Look at the photo of me and it. The monument must be about 5 meters in human body measurement.

 

There are many cute stray cats in the Forest of Steles. Except for the one on top, they are all easy to pet!

 

My friend and I waited until the Forest of Steles was about to close before reluctantly leaving. We were so satisfied and happy that day.

This dinner is also my favorite meal in Xi'an and the meal I would recommend the most. Restaurant name: Muddleheaded Notes

 

 

The price is not expensive and the portion is super filling. The two of us ordered three dishes and the table was filled. As I write this, my mouth is watering just thinking about the lychee and shrimp balls.