Yang Xiaoyu: Explaining Chinese characters has become a "romantic occupation"

Not an expert, But he can talk about the evolution of ancient Chinese characters and the history of cultural relics; he is not a tour guide, but he travels nine kilometers a day, welcomes guests from all over the world, and has the opportunity to "dialogue" with ancient Chinese characters that are more than 3,000 years old every day. She is Yang Xiaoyu, an excellent commentator at the Museum of Chinese Characters. Explaining Chinese characters can also become a "romantic profession."

Enter the "home" of text

Yang Xiaoyu is from Anyang, Henan Province and graduated from Nanyang Normal University in 2009. Her hometown is the hometown of Oracle Bone Inscriptions. In 2006, Anyang Yin Ruins was selected into the World Cultural Heritage List, and Anyang was therefore called the "City of Letters." In 2009, China's first and the world's only large-scale museum with the theme of writing, the Chinese Writing Museum, was completed in Anyang. Chinese writing finally had its own "home". Yang Xiaoyu is proud of the splendid history of her hometown and is full of curiosity and respect for oracle bone inscriptions.

On the eve of graduation, Yang Xiaoyu learned that the Museum of Chinese Characters was recruiting docents and signed up without hesitation. She majored in broadcasting and hosting arts at university and has certain advantages in appearance and language expression. In July 2009, 23-year-old Yang Xiaoyu got her wish and entered the Museum of Chinese Characters and became one of the first 14 docents in the museum.

At the beginning of his employment, Yang Xiaoyu experienced all-round pre-job training from military training exercises to physical and vocal production, from the development of ancient characters to the evolution of characters, and simulated trial lectures. Go to the Palace Museum, Capital Museum, Military Museum, and Natural History Museum to learn from peers; listen to professional knowledge taught by well-known domestic writing experts such as Song Zhenhao, Li Ling, and Wang Yunzhi. Yang Xiaoyu realized that the job of a commentator is not just to tell, but to know what is happening and why, and to achieve the perfect combination of "telling" and "explanation". Not only must they be "professional", but they must also be "erudite". They must know etiquette knowledge and narrative skills in explanations. They must also learn knowledge in history, archeology, paleography, etc., covering more than a dozen disciplines.

Opening soon , in order to make the ancient mysterious text vivid and interesting so that visitors can understand and be interested, Yang Xiaoyu has made great efforts. The speech she participated in organizing and revising included more than 60,000 words. After several additions and revisions, the final version contained more than 100,000 words and had to be memorized within half a month. While doing various preparations for the opening of the library, she recited the explanations countless times to prepare for the assessment. During those days, when she was walking, eating, and even sleeping, she was thinking about whether she had memorized the explanation words, whether her voice and intonation were appropriate, whether her demeanor was dignified and elegant, whether her gestures were accurate, and whether her eyes could effectively communicate with the audience. One little sister saw that she was more nervous than sprinting for the college entrance examination, and couldn't help but sigh: "Xiaoyu, are you working too hard?" Yang Xiaoyu smiled calmly and replied: "I don't know much about history, cultural relics, and ancient characters. There is a lot of lack of knowledge about what pottery is, what forms of oracle bone inscriptions include, and the historical evolution of Chinese porcelain. To give the audience a glass of water, you must have a bucket of water. You can’t do it without refueling." Hard work pays off, and Yang Xiaoyu achieved a good result in the graduation examination With excellent results, he was rated as an outstanding student.

"Infatuated" on the explanation< /span>

On November 16, 2009, the Chinese Character Museum was officially opened. Visitors flocked to Anyang from all over the world, and the number quickly exceeded 8,000 per day. In the exhibition hall It was crowded, and the queue to collect tickets outside the museum was as far as the eye could see. Yang Xiaoyu was excited, excited, and a little nervous. Fortunately, she was well prepared in advance and successfully completed the day's tasks. She smiled happily.

Among the world's four most famous ancient texts, the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs written on water plants, the Babylonian cuneiforms engraved on clay tablets and the cuneiforms carved on stone The Indian Mayan writing on the world has been lost in the long history. Only China’s oracle bone inscriptions have survived for more than 3,000 years and have been passed down to this day. The more she learned about the cultural history of the occurrence and development of Chinese writing, the more Yang Xiaoyu felt that ancient writing was more intimate. She was amazed by the wisdom of the ancients, and she became deeply "obsessed" with her work.

"This is the character for '人' in oracle bone inscriptions. One stroke and one stroke represents the two legs of a person. The action of bending over and standing on the side is a sign of people working. It is also the image of a person bowing and saluting. The original intention of the character creator was to hope that every Chinese person would be hard-working and polite." Yang Xiaoyu vividly explained the history of Chinese characters from the common things in life. Origin and modern value. She adjusts the explanation content and expression style according to the different characteristics of the visitors. According to the different characteristics of the visitors, the explanation time can be compressed within 20 minutes, or extended to 3 hours or even a day. She also compiled the boring and difficult oracle bone inscriptions into easy-to-understand jingles based on the characteristics of ancient characters to facilitate everyone's memory. For example, the character "人" in oracle bone inscriptions says, "Bending down to work really hard, bowing and saluting when meeting, Chinese virtues are close to each other everywhere." It suddenly narrowed the distance between children and ancient Chinese characters. While teaching knowledge, it also Plant the seeds of Chinese virtues in the hearts of children.

"Look, this oracle bone inscription is the earliest car accident recorded in the history of our country." In the Sino-Japanese War of the Sino-Japanese War, the king went to chase Si. It means that on the day of Jiawu, the king of Shang and the nobles drove to hunt. We can see that the animal "Si" is very vivid, with a plump body and a pointed front. , shaped like tusks, maybe a bison or a wild boar. Xiaochen was driving a car. This car was very luxurious, with a awning, and was pulled by a horse. Because the speed was too fast, the carriage crashed into On the stone, the axle of the cart was broken. The horse was frightened, and its eyes were wide open, looking very frightened. We looked again, and there were obvious changes on the top of King Shang's cart. The roof was down, and the cart overturned. One The man named Ziyang fell out of the car. The ancients used a few words to record the cause of the car accident, the people involved in the car accident, and the tragic scene of the car accident." Yang Xiaoyu led the visitors as the Chinese characters While moving forward with development, he told the stories behind ancient Chinese characters and cultural relics, and patiently answered questions raised by visitors. Some people praised her as a "living dictionary", while others said she was a "know-it-all". Yang Xiaoyu said: "As long as visitors can feel the vitality, cohesion and influence of Chinese characters, all the efforts will be worthwhile."

From an ordinary commentator to the leader of the explanation team, Yang Xiaoyu continues to transform and grow through repeated experiences. From May 15th to 18th, 2012, the 6th Henan Province Explainer Explanation Competition was held in Zhengzhou. The competition is sponsored by the Henan Provincial Cultural Relics Bureau and is held every four years. Yang Xiaoyu worked hard and prepared carefully, integrating nearly three years of teaching experience and emotions into it. After going through the preliminary and semi-finals, she won the first prize in the Chinese group. This is also the only first prize won by Anyang City, which has many museums.

Oracle bone inscriptions, bronze inscriptions, large seal script, small seal script, official script, regular script, running script, cursive script... Every time Yang Xiaoyu walks into the Chinese Character Museum, it is like walking through In the time tunnel, she felt extremely proud and happy to be able to talk to ancient characters that were more than 3,000 years old.

Youth are the motherland In the future, he will also be the guardian, inheritor and promoter of China's excellent writing culture. In 2014, the Chinese Character Museum's public welfare social education activity "Chinese Character Station" was fully launched. It uses weekends and holidays to use open classrooms to let children experience the magical charm of Chinese characters through listening, reading, writing and on-site experience. With the joint efforts of Yang Xiaoyu and his colleagues, the Chinese Character Station has gradually become a public welfare social education center for inheriting Chinese character culture. In 2017, it was renamed the Oracle Bone Academy.

Inheriting "Chinese Romance"

In October 2017, Oracle was selected into the "Memory of the World Register". Oracle bone inscriptions are the originator of Chinese characters, showing the unique charm of Chinese culture and "Chinese-style romance". Yang Xiaoyu deeply understands that telling good literary stories and inheriting good literary culture is not only her job, but also a responsibility.

In order to help children understand the "words" of ancient Chinese characters and the "sounds" of cultural relics, Yang Xiaoyu racked her brains, read ancient Chinese dictionaries, and learned Making animated videos, writing limericks... He is like an omnipotent "superman". She found that when ancient people made characters, they often incorporated objective things into the components of Chinese characters, making them highly expressive. Based on this feature, she created the theme class "Dancing Chinese Characters" to inspire children to use their own The body is posed in the shape of an oracle bone inscription from 3,000 years ago. This educational and entertaining activity is deeply loved by children. Yang Xiaoyu led the children to open their arms and spread their legs to show the word "big". In ancient times, the father was responsible for hunting and fighting, and bringing food and security to the family. Therefore, the character "big" symbolizes the image of an upright man. Through games, children learn about the historical and cultural information hidden behind Chinese characters and deepen their understanding of the basis for character creation. She also asked the children to write the oracle bone inscriptions they had just learned on the kite, and let the oracle bone inscriptions dance in the wind, hoping that the children would inherit the Chinese character culture better and fly further.

Oracle Bone Academy is becoming more and more famous, lectures are full, and countless students and research groups come here. Many rural schools also called for consultation, but due to long distances, lack of funds and other reasons, they did not organize students to visit. Yang Xiaoyu and her colleagues discussed whether we could go out and send written stories to children in remote and impoverished areas who were unable to come. In September 2019, the Chinese Character Museum listened to everyone's wishes and launched the "Chinese Character Spirit Inspiring Youngsters" study and practice education activity, moved the cultural exhibition from the museum to schools, and brought rich study experience activities to Guangnan County, Yunnan and Yan'an City, Shaanxi , Zhoukou City in Henan and other remote poverty-stricken areas and old revolutionary base areas. In the past few years, Yang Xiaoyu and his colleagues have developed more than 160 Chinese character-themed education projects, held more than 1,500 character education activities, and more than 50,000 families participated in the activities. The Chinese Character Museum was also rated as one of the first batch of research and practice education bases in the country.

Yang Xiaoyu participated in the planning and development of the "Oracle Bone Adventures" and "Fantastic Chinese Character Tour" Chinese Character Museum study and practice education curriculum system. The course "I Paint Oracle Bone Characters" has been set up to unleash children's talent in writing and painting, allowing children to create their own oracle bone picture books based on the characteristics of oracle bone hieroglyphics and classic idiom stories. The "Charming Chinese Characters" course developed by the school won the Excellent Quality Course of the Social Education Special Committee of the China Museum Association. The book "Oracle Bone Academy - The Excellent Social Education Course of the Chinese Character Museum" co-authored won the first prize of Henan Province Museum Science and the Henan Province Excellent Quality Course. First Prize for Popular Science Works.

In a recent live class, Yang Xiaoyu used drawing and oracle bone inscription animation to tell students and parents at home and abroad about the Yin and Shang Dynasties The oracle bone inscriptions related to people's clothing, food, housing and transportation allow overseas friends to appreciate the charm of the oldest Chinese character oracle bone inscriptions and feel the profound charm of the Central Plains culture without leaving home. She said: "Chinese characters are not only the precious cultural heritage of the Chinese nation, but also the precious wealth of all mankind. I will do my best to tell people the origin, background and stories behind ancient Chinese characters and cultural relics, pass on the beauty of Chinese characters, and let more people More people learn Chinese characters well, use Chinese characters well, and fall in love with Chinese characters.” (Text/Chen Hao)