Nigou Village in Puning City, known as the hometown of overseas Chinese and the hometown of culture, is an ancient village in the Ming Dynasty with a mixed population of mostly villagers with surnames such as Zhang, Xu, and Chen, with a total population of more than 18,000. People and villagers of all surnames live in harmony and use their hard-working hands to create a civilization under the Hushan Mountain in the upper reaches of Lianjiang River, which has become a wonderful flower in the splendid Chaoshan cultural garden. Today, in addition to education, elderly care and other facilities, Nigou Township also has calligraphy and painting studios, Guigen Pavilion, martyrs memorial cemetery and other spiritual and cultural activities, which are rarely seen in ordinary villages. Nigou Village has a profound cultural heritage. Nigou lantern riddles and Nigou Ying singing and dancing are famous at home and abroad. There are nearly 20 kinds of local indigenous works such as lantern riddles and folk customs.
There are more schools than "rice shops"
The former site of "Tongsheng School" is an old ancestral hall. It is the place where Zhang Bofeng has been running schools for 40 years. Zhang Bofeng was born in the late Guangxu period. He graduated from Weixin High School in his village at the age of 18. He had excellent academic performance and was highly regarded by the elders of the clan and stayed at the school to teach. In 1928, Zhang Bofeng moved his family to Thailand. Two years later, he returned to China and founded the "Tongsheng Literature School" in the village, teaching literature classes and offering riddle classes in person. Zhang Bofeng also asked his eldest son Zhang Zhongyan to assist in school affairs. The father and son have been running the school for 40 years and have produced a number of outstanding talents, such as the famous Chinese calligrapher and painter Lai Shaoqi, Chaozhou playwright Zhang Huayun, Mijia Zhuang Xiaosheng, Zhang Boren, etc., who are all early graduates of Tongsheng School. Zhang Bofeng's posthumous works include "Anthology of Fuqian Poems" and "Yibian Mystery".
Nigou Village has a civilized society and is known as a cultural town. Establishing schools and cultivating talents has long been the common sense of the villagers. In the 1930s and 1940s, four complete primary schools, including mass, Zhengjin, moral education and Migao, were established in the village. There are also civilian, Xinmin, Xinsheng, Jilulu, Youde, Cuiying and other junior primary schools as well as Liqing literature specialized classes, field schools, etc. It can be said that "there are more schools than rice shops"! What's even more valuable is that the students studied wisely and embarked on the revolutionary path of resisting Japan and saving the nation. 22 of them died for the revolution. The mass school was founded by the underground party and revolutionary intellectuals and funded by donations from overseas Chinese in Thailand. It was one of the strongholds of Puning's anti-Japanese and national salvation movement.
In Nigou, the primary, secondary and primary school buildings we saw were all very beautiful, and most of them were related to the word "overseas Chinese".
The former site of the Garden Reading Club
There is a unique small building next to the painting and calligraphy studio in Nigou Village. It was the "Dongfang Villa" where Zhang Mingzhi, a scholar in the late Qing Dynasty, studied. During the Anti-Japanese War, a group of enthusiastic young people in the village formed a "Garden Reading Club" here to read progressive books and carry out anti-Japanese and national salvation propaganda and other revolutionary activities.
The gate of the building faces south, with the four characters "Dongfang Villa" carved on the lintel. There are three small buildings facing east in a row in the yard. They are two-story buildings. The middle one is larger, and there is about 1.5 meter high platform. The front wall is engraved with a sentence from "Inscription on a Humble Room" by Liu Yuxi, a poet of the Tang Dynasty: "This is a Humble Room", showing the aroma of books. In front of the building is a small garden, and to the east is a 4-meter-square dry pool. The railings have been destroyed, but the charm of the past is still vaguely visible. The founder, Zhang Mingzhi, once went to Thailand to make a living. After he became successful, he returned to his hometown and settled down. He built this small building as a place for leisure and reading. According to the Zhang family genealogy, Zhang Mingzhi was ordered to go to Henan for disaster relief during the Guangxu period. For his meritorious service, he was awarded the title of "Guang Cha Envoy" by the imperial court. He was ranked in the fourth rank and was awarded the "Enrong" plaque.
Talented people have emerged in large numbers in the past dynasties
Nigou Village has had scholars and talented people throughout the dynasties. In the Qing Dynasty, there were Zhang Keyan, who was awarded the first prize in the Guiyou College of Tongzhi, Xu Xingrang, who took the Wuwu Imperial Examination in the Qianlong Emperor, Xu Huisheng, who placed third in the child examination in the 24th year of Guangxu (enlargement), and nearly 20 tribute students and scholars. Here, the academic spirit of several scholars is worth mentioning:
Xu Huisheng. After taking part in the children's examination and achieving outstanding results during the Guangxu period, he was sent by the government to study in Japan and studied at the Normal Department of the Museum of Tokyo Hongbun Institute. After returning to China after completing his studies, he served as the principal of Puning Sandu Public Higher Elementary School and later founded Wushi Town Higher Elementary School. In the late 1920s, he was jealous of the Kuomintang authorities for covering the revolutionary actions of students from Puning No. 2 Middle School, and died of illness while taking refuge in Shantou. His former residence "Danlu" has a collection of more than 1,300 volumes of books, and his legacy includes manuscripts such as essays, poems, and couplets. ("Puning County Chronicle" has a biography)
Zhang Shengdian. The second son of "Ba Yuan" Zhang Keyan. He was born in Yixiang and taught the students of Imperial College. He was knowledgeable and rigorous in teaching. He is a micro-shu calligrapher. He has 11 manuscripts of "Zhang's Notes" with a total of 1.5 million words, which have been collected by the Puning Literature and History Department.
Nigou Painting and Calligraphy Studio preserves another manuscript of Zhang Shengdian's "Adjacent Interesting Stories". The book has about 200,000 words, all written vertically with extra-thin wolf hair. It is extremely neat and beautiful. Each word is only 1/3 the size of a sesame seed. At first glance, it seems that there are lines arranged on the page. Straight lines.
Zhang Huayun. He graduated from Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou and taught at Puning Normal School and many other schools. After liberation, he served as deputy mayor of Shantou City and the first president of Linghai Poetry Society. In the 1930s, he was influenced by Mr. Tao Xingzhi's educational theory and returned to his hometown to set up a field school based on the Xiaozhuang teacher model. He has extensive knowledge, can examine the history and culture of Chaoshan from a comparative perspective, and has high literary attainments. He has created 32 Chaozhou operas, of which 8 comedies are excellent works. His posthumous works include "Zhang Huayun Comedy Collection", poetry collection "Building Autumn Field Collection", prose collection "Chaoshan Kungfu Tea Ceremony", etc.
Zhang Zhongyi. A returned overseas Chinese teacher, he studied with his father Zhang Bofeng at the Nigou Tongsheng Literature Training School when he was young. Since 1947, he has taught in many schools in Puning and is a first-level middle school Chinese teacher. He has been engaged in education all his life, and after retirement he served as the director of Nigou Painting and Calligraphy Studio. He specializes in poetry and calligraphy, and has published works such as "Collection of Yishouyuan Poems", "Selected Collection of Joint Articles" and "Collection of Lantern Riddles".