Master of culture
To lead a life of seclusion as a monk, poet Hanshan of the Tang Dynasty (618-907) bade farewell to his wife and children and trekked more than 930 miles from the prosperous capital city of Chang’an, now known as Xi’an in Shaanxi province, to Tiantai Mountain in Zhejiang province.
For the rest of his life this man of mystery lived in a cave pondering questions about Zen Buddhism and writing poems. Interestingly, Hanshan’s poems are more popular in the English-speaking world than at home.
The Chinese poet Liu Jun, better known by his pen name Xi Chuan, tells this lesser known story in the documentary MasterClass. With the folk singersongwriter Chen Li, Liu travels across the country to trace the origins of Tang Dynasty poetry, ranging from those penned by masters such as Li Bai and Wang Wei to underrated figures such as Hanshan.
Liu, who is also a translator with a profound knowledge of Western culture and literature, said the 1958 novel TheDharmaBums by the U.S. writer Jack Kerouac was dedicated to Hanshan. The novel has also influenced many famous people including Bob Dylan.
The six-episode Sino-U.S. work Master Class, coproduced by China Intercontinental Communication Center and Discovery Channel, is now available on the streaming site Tencent Video, scoring 7.8 points out of 10 on the online review platform Douban.
The director, Wang Yu, said the documentary was inspired by last year’s documentary hit It’sBread,It’sAir,It’saMiracle, in which viewers were able to experience Japanese lifestyle and cultural legacies through the eyes of Liu, Chen and the actor Xia Yu, traveling around Japan eating local food and interviewing craftspeople.
With Wang and his team looking for new ideas to attract more viewers, last year’s production made them realize that a combined production of filming travels and interviews may help effectively visualize China’s traditional culture and its impact on future generations.
After shooting the documentary in more than 10 Chinese cities in the provinces of Shaanxi, Gansu and Yunnan as well as the Tibet autonomous region, Liu and the crew traveled to George Town in Malaysia to attend a literature festival, and followed the artist Xu Bing to Jakarta in Indonesia to document his first solo exhibition in Southeast Asia.
The entire filming lasted 65 days, giving Wang and his crew members new insights into some aspects of China’s centuries-old culture. The series gives viewers the opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of martial arts, landscape paintings, 24 solar terms, architecture and garden design.
“Traditional culture is not something old and outdated,”
Wang said. “Instead, it has enduring charm to provide guidelines for modern lifestyles and artistic creations, and may also generate new fashion trends.”
For instance, in the second episode about kung fu, the Chinese-American choreographer Franklin Yu follows the action film star Frankie Chan to visit the wingchun master Duncan Leung to seek inspiration for his dance works.
In the episode about the 24 solar terms, the relationship
between the Chinese calendar and seasonal food is explored, with the award-winning chef Su Qisheng going to Sichuan and Yunnan provinces to find the best seasonal ingredients to localize molecular gastronomy, a cooking style emerging from the West.
With bamboo shoots from Sichuan, black truffles and rushan , a local-styled cheese from Yunnan, Su creates a dish shaped like a resting panda, fulfilling his wish to use a molecular gastronomy
cooking technique to showcase complex Chinese culture.
In another episode featuring landscape paintings, Zhang Kechun, a photographer, treks to remote snowy mountains using cameras and lighting to create epic photos that look like living landscape paintings. The documentary has been aired in 40 countries and regions in the Asia-Pacific region on the Discovery Channel, and will soon be aired elsewhere overseas.