Xinhua News Agency, Hong Kong, May 19, by wire Title: Seeing Lingnan Culture through the Centennial Period -- Exhibition of Panyu Shenlou in Hong Kong

Long Jingyi, reporter of Xinhua News Agency

In the busy downtown of Hong Kong, there stands a golden lacquer wood carving masterpiece Panyu God Building, which is 5 meters high, covers an area of about 26 square meters, and is composed of about 160 "building blocks". It spans a hundred years from the first year of Xuantong (1909) to now, and emits a deep golden brilliance.

From December 2023, the Hong Kong Heritage Discovery Museum (hereinafter referred to as the "Discovery Museum") has exhibited more than 170 Lingnan building components from Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao in the "Under the same roof: the origin and art of traditional Lingnan architecture" exhibition. Among them, the Panyu God Building lent by Guangdong Folk Arts and Crafts Museum and exhibited abroad for the first time has attracted much attention.

The determination of cross-border exhibition

Through the swaying shadows of the trees, you can enter the exhibition hall specially built for Panyu God Building in the Discovery Hall, where you can sit tall, thick and magnificent giant wood carvings. This building was built by the Eighteen Towns of Gangwei Community in Panyu, Guangzhou, in the Qing Dynasty for the purpose of welcoming the gods, the "King Hongsheng goes out".

This is the Panyu God Building (mobile phone photo) on display in the Hong Kong Heritage Museum on May 15. Photographed by Lin Shan, a reporter from Xinhua News Agency

Guangzhou has enjoyed a prosperous maritime industry since ancient times, and local people respect Hong Shengwang, who is in charge of the South China Sea in traditional folk beliefs. Huang Haiyan, the curator of Guangdong Folk Arts and Crafts Museum, restored to the reporter the scene of the use of the Panyu God Building in that year: "Before the event, the master built the God Building, and when the 'King of Hong Shengwang went out of the meeting', the statue of the King of Hong Shengwang was placed in the God Building to accept the villagers' worship."

As early as 2020, Xiao Lijuan, the chief cultural relics director of the Hong Kong Antiquities and Monuments Office, was very excited when she learned about the Panyu God Building in the conversation with Huang Haiyan. "Is it possible to transport it to Hong Kong for exhibition? I really want Hong Kong citizens to see it."

After the field survey, it was found that the floor height of the exhibition hall of the Discovery Hall was not enough to accommodate the 5 meter high Panyu God Building. Huang Haiyan proposed, "It would be better to do an exhibition of Lingnan building components."

So Xiao Lijuan found many engineering professionals, held meetings and discussed repeatedly, and finally decided to build a temporary exhibition hall in the courtyard of the Discovery Hall for Panyu God Building. The indoor temperature, humidity and ambient brightness were strictly controlled. This determination and patience finally made both sides see the feasibility of Panyu Tower coming to Hong Kong for exhibition.

Ms. Sun, a Hong Kong citizen, was deeply shocked when she saw the Panyu God Building, which looked like a mini palace. "The carvings on it are all so fine and beautiful." The cross eyebrow at the top of the building is 4.48 meters long. It is carved with a fire bead with two dragons flying in the clouds and swimming towards the center, called "Double dragons playing with beads", and it is the visual focus of the facade of the whole building.

Construction of "advanced" buildings

A closer look shows that the construction of Panyu God Building uses a lot of traditional Chinese mortise and tenon techniques, and the building itself will not be lost in the process of construction and demolition. In 2015, experts from Guangdong Folk Arts and Crafts Museum restored the Panyu God Building after more than a month of splicing. "No one knows how to build it, but they can only make a little groping according to the structure of mortise and tenon," recalled Huang Haiyan.

On April 18, Feng Shushan, the second assistant curator of the Hong Kong Antiquities and Monuments Office, was interviewed by reporters. Photographed by Guo Xin, reporter of Xinhua News Agency

Building a god building is like building blocks. The craftsmen also made eight camphor wood boxes and marked the components stored in the boxes with words such as "Bo Hu Yun Yue", "Long Zhu" and "Ren Zhu". After the activity of "Hongsheng King going out", the building will be removed to "building blocks" for storage and transportation.

This construction concept is "advanced" and similar to the concept of modern "assembly and synthesis" construction method. This makes Panyu Shenlou "plug and play" and become a "sustainable building".

Panyu Shenlou is a national first-class cultural relic, weighing 4.7 tons. It is not easy to safely transport these huge pieces of painted gold wood to Hong Kong. The team from Guangzhou and Hong Kong cooperated closely with professional cultural relics transportation companies, Hong Kong Fire Department, Police Department and other government departments. It took more than half a month to count, clean and package the components of the building from the collection.

Shi Haobin, director of the Cultural Relics Protection Center of Guangdong Folk Arts and Crafts Museum, also said that this exhibition is full of challenges and needs to adjust the plan at any time. "A dragon pillar is more than four meters long. After wrapping it up, I found that the car I had prepared was not long enough. I need to find another car that can load all the components at the same time."

After the successful arrival of Panyu Shenlou in Hong Kong, the construction work was carried out under the guidance of an experienced chief instructor. The scaffolding in Hong Kong is different from that in the mainland. The way of use is inconsistent with the construction of the God Building, which made the construction stagnate for a time. The teams of the two places kept running in, increasing the number of skilled technicians from 6 to 9, and finally built the building in only 5 days.

In order to enable Hong Kong citizens to clearly appreciate the magnificent gold paint and fine wood carvings, Panyu God Building is very close to the audience. You can see a pair of dragon pillars in the front row, which are carved with the allusion of "fish leaping over the dragon gate", and the giant dragons wrapped around the top of the pillar, making it vivid. "In order to prevent cultural relics from being damaged, they specially enclosed transparent organic boards for the two dragon pillars." Huang Haiyan saw the carefulness of the Hong Kong team in her cooperation.

Huang Haiyan guided Hong Kong citizens at the opening of the exhibition. "They are very interested in the stories of Chinese traditional culture engraved on the god building, and they came to visit after doing their homework, and the questions they asked were very professional." Behind the dragon pillar of the god building is a pair of story pillars engraved with 208 ancient chivalrous men, whose characters seem to jump out of a book.

Culture of the same origin

After slowly leaving the exhibition hall of Panyu God Building, you can enter the exhibition that gathers various building components of Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao. "We take the eaves as the starting point, and there are actually many Lingnan stories on these fine roof ridges to tell the story of our culture of the same origin in the Great Bay District," said Feng Shushan, the second assistant curator of the Hong Kong Antiquities and Monuments Office.

Lingnan is to the south of Zhizhiling Mountains, including Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan, Hong Kong and Macao. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, Lingnan, with Guangzhou as the center, flourished with the prosperity of maritime trade and gradually bred a unique Lingnan culture. "Now in Tai O, Hong Kong, there are still water huts, which is the architectural feature evolved to adapt to the humid and rainy climate in Lingnan," said Feng Shushan.

Feng Shushan focused on the sun and moon statues of the Hong Kong Tiger and Leopard Villa. These gorgeous or warm cultural relics are not only important cultural relics in the Dawan District, but also the reflection of the origin of Lingnan's unique traditional architecture and art "three carvings (wood carving, stone carving and brick carving), two sculptures (plaster sculpture and pottery sculpture), and one painting (painted murals)".

"Hong Kong is an international metropolis, and people from different countries can see our excellent traditional Chinese culture." Huang Haiyan was pleased to say, "This is the first exhibition of cooperation among teams from Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao, and I am very happy to witness the results of this joint effort."

Passing through the magnificent Panyu God Building and the quiet and majestic roof animals, history seems to bypass the body of a gust of wind, through the corners of the cuff. These ancient buildings go through time, telling the common cultural heritage of the Dawan District and witnessing the long cultural heritage.

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