Genealogy, Huangmei Opera, Li Shizhen, and Zen Buddhism

They say that once people reach a certain age, they take an interest in opera, genealogy, and hometown culture; in the second half of life we cannot help wondering where we came from. I think I have reached just such a turning point. Two or three years ago I became interested first in my hometown’s Huangmei opera, then in genealogy and in Chan Buddhism, which originated in my native place. This interest is not the superficial curiosity of youth but a deep understanding and love—nowhere more evident than in my love for Huangmei opera. As for Li Shizhen, the sage of my hometown, I have revered him since childhood and long wished to emulate him.

I am from Huanggang, Hubei—more precisely, from Guangji County (now Wuxue City) in Huanggang. The Zhou surname is a great local clan (what used to be called an illustrious family). According to our genealogy, my ancestors came from Ruichang, Jiangxi, just across the river from our county; our county’s accent is almost identical to Ruichang’s. In the past we crossed by boat, the ferry from our county town to Ruichang’s Matou Town taking only ten or twenty minutes. Now a Yangtze bridge links the two, making travel even easier.

Ruichang is the ancestral home of the famous Lubei Zhou clan (a branch of the Xunyang Zhou). The clan’s founding ancestor was Zhou Xian, a Tang dynasty Crown Prince’s Tutor. My ancestor Zhou Xian was granted the post of General Who Pacifies the South and Establishes Martial Might, and later, under Emperor Zhongzong of Tang, was appointed Crown Prince’s Tutor. To escape the disorders of the Wu usurpation, he retired to Lubei in Ruichang, Jiangxi; hence our branch has ever since been called the Lubei Zhou clan.

The Lubei Zhou are a large branch of the surname, with many descendants. The Song thinker Zhou Dunyi, and in modern times Zhou Enlai and Lu Xun (Zhou Shuren), were all descendants of the Lubei Zhou. The seventh-generation descendant of Zhou Xian, Zhou Qing, was Minister of War at the end of the Tang, a man of high station who took many wives and was prolific. From him the Lubei Zhou flourished. Among his seventh-generation descendants, those of the Shi generation numbered forty-two, who began to branch out across Ruichang and even migrated to Hubei, Hunan, Fujian, Shaanxi, and Zhejiang. My ancestor Shi Da was among those who crossed the river to Hubei; to this day, every Qingming Festival we still travel to Ruichang, Jiangxi, to tend the ancestral graves.

Because our ancestor was a military man, our Lubei Zhou branch has long held a tradition of both letters and martial valor. As a child I did not understand why our village was so fond of martial arts; now I know it was family tradition. When I was very young, my father taught my older brother and me martial arts—standing post (zhan zhuang) and Yue-style boxing. My brother took to it seriously and trained hard; I had no interest and always slacked off when my father wasn’t looking, but I did inherit the daring of a military family: I have been bold and decisive since childhood.

Our village ancestral hall enshrines a statue of Zhou Yu. Our village once even fought a clan brawl with a neighboring village over an opera they sang, “Zhuge Liang’s Three Provocations of Zhou Yu”—supposedly because we are Zhou Yu’s descendants. But I have checked, and our Lubei Zhou ancestors are likely not related to Zhou Yu; in the Three Kingdoms period our forebear was Zhou Tai, a general under Sun Quan. The Sanguozhi records that Zhou Tai and Zhou Yu were merely colleagues, not blood relatives.

Among our ancestors was another famous figure, Zhou Chu—the Zhou Chu of the historical allusion “Zhou Chu eliminates the three scourges.” In his youth he was the local bully, then he thoroughly reformed himself, and later rose to Palace Aide to the Censor-in-Chief, known for uprightness and daring to impeach the powerful; he died in battle and was honored posthumously as General of Loyalty and Valor.

I once read the oral autobiography of the scholar Zhou Youguang, in which he mentioned he was also a descendant of Zhou Chu. I felt a surge of warmth: I had not realized that Mr. Zhou Youguang was also of our Zhou branch. The Lubei Zhou originally migrated south from Danyang (today’s Nanjing) to Jiangxi, and Zhou Youguang was of the Changzhou Zhou, whose ancestors also moved from Danyang to Changzhou, so a common origin is not surprising. But it is a relation so distant it has thinned to almost nothing; claiming it is mere name-dropping, though we do indeed share the same Y chromosome.

Chinese genealogy is a unique cultural tradition; probably only in China is such complete genealogy found worldwide. I once cared little for it, but now I feel it has real meaning. Why do people grow attached to genealogy in middle age? I suspect it relates to death: when we realize we live within an unbroken lineage, the fear of death loses some of its edge.

As the anthropologist Malinowski put it, every cultural phenomenon in human society has a functional meaning, and genealogy is no exception. After middle age, our sense of death grows clearer, and death draws steadily nearer. We have invented many things to defend against the fear of death, and compiling genealogy is one. Of course, its meaning goes beyond that: it can form a clan force that plays a real role in daily life. In rural society, clan power is not to be underestimated.

Huangmei opera originated from the tea-picking melodies of my hometown. Its “thirty-six major plays” and “seventy-two minor plays” draw heavily on folk tales of the Huanggang region; the graves of many operatic figures can still be found in my home area. For instance, in the famous Xiao Ci Dian (Little Farewell at the Inn), Cai Mingfeng’s grave is in Xishui County, and Liu Fengying’s in Huangmei County, both under Huanggang. The story of Xiao Ci Dian is set in the late Qing; the protagonists’ graves have not yet vanished. So when we Huanggang people hear Huangmei opera, it stirs a special feeling.

I have heard Huangmei opera since childhood, but as a child I did not listen to the libretto at all—I went to the theater for the excitement. Vendors sold sunflower seeds wrapped in newspaper, a small handful for ten cents. We had little pocket money; occasionally our parents would give ten or twenty cents at the theater, an unexpected delight, a rare break in plain life.

But at my age now, listening to Huangmei opera reaches deep into the heart. Young people today scroll short videos, chasing quick, fleeting thrills. But my parents’ generation, and some of mine, prefer opera. Chinese opera is truly a great invention: libretto, singing, gesture, accompaniment, and stagecraft combine to give a unique emotional experience, which is why it never grows stale.

Most classic Huangmei operas are about love, especially romantic love between men and women. Xiao Ci Dian, The Butterfly Lovers, The Heavenly Match, and The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl are truly heart-rending, and the Huangmei tune is especially adept at expressing such delicate feeling. Compared with less-than-real legends, I prefer classics like Xiao Ci Dian, drawn entirely from recent true events. I personally consider Xiao Ci Dian the pinnacle of Huangmei opera, and the Huangmei opera film of it starring Han Zaifen and Han Jun the pinnacle of the pinnacle. Once I start such a work, I can hardly stop before the end, and I am willing to listen again and again.

The lingering, tender libretto, matched with the delicate, warm, lingering Huangmei melody and the familiar accent of home, at once carries me back to my smoke-tinged hometown at the foot of the Dabie Mountains, the place my dreams are bound to. One unforgettable love story after another, true and moving, brings joy and grief, moves me to tears, and again and again stirs the heart in an almost numb daily life. Huangmei opera also revives countless memories and releases feelings long settled deep inside with nowhere to go.

Li Shizhen was a native of Qichun County, under Huanggang, and his Compendium of Materia Medica (Bencao Gangmu) is a household name in China. His village lay about twenty kilometers from mine; I have visited his mausoleum many times, sometimes by car, sometimes by bicycle. Many of my junior-high classmates walked there in primary school, because their village was not far from the mausoleum, which their school visited on spring outings.

I am especially fond of the countryside around Li Shizhen’s home; his village sits near the old Qizhou city, built against the hills and by the water. Around it are great mountains and a natural lake called Yu Lake. Yu Lake is so wide you cannot see across it. Hubei is called the province of a thousand lakes; once there were many, but later lakes were filled for farmland and many destroyed. Yu Lake, thanks to Li Shizhen, was preserved intact.

Every visit to Li Shizhen’s mausoleum, I walk around Yu Lake. The water laps the shore, a breeze brushes the face, field paths crisscross the banks, green trees shade the way; under the vast sky, the empty fields have few passersby. Standing there, all worries fall away and the mind grows clear. Only in that place can you deeply grasp why Li Shizhen named his other medical work Pulse Studies at the Lakeside (Binhui Maixue).

It was roughly around my age that Li Shizhen settled down, gathering documents, personally seeking herbs in the fields, visiting herb farmers, and beginning his classic Compendium of Materia Medica. According to records, he had earlier gone out to seek official rank and consorted with the famous and powerful, but after forty he grew tired of the vanity of the world and chose to return home, completing, in this quiet place, a work of epoch-making significance. His Compendium records 1892 medicinal substances and over 11,000 prescriptions; the British historian of science Joseph Needham called it “the greatest scientific achievement of the Ming dynasty” and “a work of the highest attainments.”

Another great figure from my hometown was Sima Daoxin, the actual founder of Chinese Chan Buddhism. He was a native of our county; his father, Sima Shen, had served as county magistrate, when our county was called Yongning. Sima Daoxin was born in the then county town of Yongning (today’s Meichuan Town).

Sima Daoxin was the Fourth Patriarch of Chinese Chan. According to Chan lineage, the First Patriarch was the Indian monk Bodhidharma, the Second Hui Ke, and the Third Seng Can—but they were wandering monks without an influential sangha. The Fourth Patriarch, Sima Daoxin, founded the East Mountain Teaching, gathering thousands of disciples on Po’e Mountain (where the Fourth Patriarch Temple now stands); his influence spread overseas, and Chan at last became a major school. It was later carried forward by the Fifth Patriarch, Hongren, a man of Huangmei; after the Sixth Patriarch, Hui Neng, came to Huangmei to study, Chan divided into branches and lineages, a magnificent development.

Hence the Chan saying: “For great Chan matters, ask of Huangmei.” In the past, the Qi-Huang region (covering today’s Qizhou, Guangji, and Huangmei counties) was often as one; “Guangji” was a former name of our county, meaning “the Dharma is vast, universally saving all beings.” Our county was once called “Little Western Heaven,” and some of its towns are still named for temples—proof of how deeply Chan shaped the local culture.

I once read a book called Prajna and Lao-Zhuang, written by Cai Hong, a doctoral student under Professor Lai Yonghai of Nanjing University’s philosophy department; it was his doctoral dissertation. The book discusses the relationship between Buddhism (especially Chan) and China’s native Lao-Zhuang philosophy, and I thought the topic and its conception were excellent. The thought of Master Daoxin contains both Buddhist and Taoist (Lao-Zhuang) elements. Chan is a philosophy of living above worldly strife—natural, expansive, light, and untrammeled; mastering its essence greatly benefits a lifetime.

The diligent, plain folkways of eastern Hubei were also woven by Daoxin into his Chan. He initiated the tradition of “equal emphasis on agriculture and meditation,” a major reform of Indian Buddhism’s alms-begging tradition. From Daoxin on, monks set the precedent of supporting themselves and owing nothing to others; economic independence secured their personal dignity. Later the Chan master Baizhang went further, proposing “a day without work is a day without food,” making diligent labor a required practice—a principle I myself still follow.

These cultural elements of my hometown are the wellsprings of my thought. Huanggang lies just across the river from Jiujiang, Jiangxi; cross Xiaochi Town in Huangmei County and you are in Jiujiang. The Kuang Mountains of Huanggang (in today’s Qichun, Wuxue, and Huangmei) and Jiujiang’s Lu Mountain are famed together as “the Kuang-Lu scenic splendor”—beautiful and culturally rich, a land nourishing outstanding people.

My life before eighteen was entirely spent in Huanggang, my birthplace and the place that nurtured my inner world. When, in middle age, I pondered the sources of my spiritual life, the first things that came to mind were these cultural genes of family and hometown. Spiritual life holds an important place in a human life; a life of mere physical existence is too dull. Seeking roots is an instinctive act that comes with age. In this ever-changing world, there must be some root things that do not change, so that we may know who we are.