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In January 1990, at the CCTV Spring Festival Gala, a “Old Xu” dressed in a gray tunic suit and a blue octagonal hat stepped onto the stage. He opened his mouth and won rounds of applause from the audience-he was Zhao Benshan.
In 2020, a “Beijing University Ba” from Tieling, the “big city”, will be on the stage of the “Talk Show Conference”, and she will be applauded by the audience with a few words-she is Li Xueqin.
Screenshots of the third season of “Talk Show”
From Zhao Benshan to Li Xueqin, from sketches to talk shows, from offline to online, from the North to the South, funny and humorous have almost become the standard “personal design” of Northeastern people. You don’t need to deliberately throw off the burden, just a few words. Can make others laugh.
How do people from the Northeast connect “born” with funny?
Coldness-the opportunity for “chittering” brought by the natural environment
Coldness is the first recognition many people have about the Northeast.
The Northeast is indeed cold, and the Northeast is the coldest in the world at the same latitude. The northeastern region is basically between 40° and 50° north latitude. The world-famous cities in this range include Rome, Paris, and New York. It sounds not so cold, and in fact it is not so cold. The average temperature in winter in Rome is around 10°C. This temperature cannot reach even in Dalian, the southernmost part of the northeast.To-almost the opposite of the temperature in Rome.
The global position of Northeast my country
From the perspective of the annual average temperature, the average annual temperature in Northeast China from the Liaodong Peninsula to the north of the Heilongjiang Mohe region has dropped from about 10°C to about -4°C. Taking an average value, the annual average temperature in the Northeast is about 3°C. In my country, this temperature is the lowest except for the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.
Compared to the same latitudes in the world, the northeast in winter is almost the coldest
The lower temperature brings less farming time. Due to the low temperature and slow biological development, food crops in the Northeast are ripened once a year. This has resulted in objective conditions for farmers in the Northeast to go to the fields for a shorter period of time than farmers in other regions. The southern crops have two to three crops a year, but in the northeast, after the autumn harvest, it will basically enter the slack period of 5 months or even longer. Can’t work on the ground, what are you doing?
Of course, staying at home, twenty or thirty degrees below zero, no one wants to go out. Once you are at home, you have time for “free”, you can stop by, entertain guests, and engage in some indoor cultural activities. Thus, chatting and listening to the duo have opportunities for development.
If you have food, drink, and leisure, you can have “chat”. A sense of humor in the language is gradually formed between the back and forth.
Language is inseparable from the natural geographical environment, let alone the language environment. For the Northeastern people and the Northeastern countryside cultivated by their funny “bacteria”, Kang is an absolutely inseparable place environment. It is not only a place to rest and sleep, but also a core scene of the daily life of Northeastern people—— There are kang tables for meals, and kang cabinets for storage, and the guests are also connected to the kang: when guests come to the house, to show their enthusiasm, the host often says: “Come in, go into the house and go on the kang, warm and warm.”
Northeast Tukang in “Country Love”
Going on the kang is different from sitting on the sofa. Let us carefully analyze the movement of the upper kang:
The guests first take off the heavy coats when entering the house, and simply stack them on the kang, then take off their shoes and sit on the kang cross-legged. This is different from sitting on a sofa and chatting in the city. The biggest difference is “cross-legged”. Once cross-legged, people relax. In the CCTV Spring Festival Gala sketch “Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow” in 1999, interview show host Cui Yongyuan met Uncle Hei Tu (Zhao Benshan) and Aunt Baiyun (Song Dandan) is a little nervous, just say:
“This talk show is actually talking, just chatting, just chatting, and you are sitting on the kang chatting in the northeast, so what are you at home and what kind of place are you here, don’t be nervous, okay?”
Zhao Benshan immediately replied, “That’s a relaxing thing!” He took off a pair of shoes and sat cross-legged on a chair.
In the sketch “Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow”, “Relax” is mentioned, Uncle Black immediately takes off his shoes and sits cross-legged
This action fully proves that cross-legged Kang can bring a relaxed conversation environment. In this relaxed atmosphere, Zhang’s parents, Li’s family, life experience, social experience, and even hearsay and interesting stories about other people’s homes have all become sources of conversation.
As the Northeast screenwriter He Qingkui said: “Because the Northeast is a land rich in humor, it is caused by geographical location. In the south of Guangdong, you want him to be humorous. He is busy. He has grown crops for several seasons. One season of crops, he has to idle for eight months a year. Everyone is the kind of days when wives and children are more happy to warm their heads. Therefore, a humorous atmosphere has been formed forever. Every village has this kind of open mouth like Zhao Benshan, which is very humorous. People, every village has comedians in every village.”
Bring Northeast humor into the Spring Festival Gala
In January 1990, the beginning of the last decade of the 20th century, the whole country welcomed the Spring Festival in a festive atmosphere.
Time goes back 10 years-China in the 1980s, “using a rather peculiar narrative of time and space, repositioning this transitional era as the era of’enlightenment'”, the discourse of “modernity” expanded dramatically , From the argument of “surname capital and society” into a grand narrative of “going to the world” and “connecting with the world”.
From 1995 to 1996, on the south side of the Beijing Capital Gymnasium, at the intersection of Baishiqiao, this billboard stood for a year: “The Chinese are away from the information highway How far is the highway? 1,500 meters north.”
The CCTV Spring Festival Gala was also born in the 1980s. At that time, Chen Peisi, Zhu Shimao, Jiang Kun were the head stars on this stage. At that time, Zhao Benshan had not yet appeared in the sight of the people of the whole country, but in his hometown of Liaoning, in the first rural small drama performance in 1982, he was popular in the three provinces in the east with a pull-out play “Sanxian”. Zhang Zhi, played by Zhao Benshan, holds a long stick and uses it to point and avoid bumps when he walks. When putting down the long stick to pull the erhu, he doesn’t just put the stick on the ground casually, but stepped on it with his feet. This detail may not have been noticed by the audience, but it reflects Zhao Benshan’s observation of life. Zhao Benshan found that blind people have to step on their feet when they put down the sticks because they are afraid that others will take the sticks away. .
A paragraph from “The Sanxian”
In August 1987, Jiang Kun led the Central Radio and Rap Ensemble to perform in Tieling, and he also knew Zhao Benshan by chance. Everyone knows the story later. Jiang Kun recommended Zhao Benshan to Beijing. Zhao Benshan walked into the sight of CCTV and the Spring Festival Gala, and the Northeast culture officially entered the national stage.
Expression of farmers walking out of the rural northeast
Also take Zhao Benshan and Fan Wei as examples. Their works before and after the Spring Festival Gala stage are very different. Among them, the most decisive change is the disappearance of the marginal identity of the characters they play/ Displace.
In the 1980s, the characters created by Zhao Benshan had strong marginal features, such as physiological barriers (blind), and not doing business properly (Fortune teller, “Second Mixer”). Related works and characters such as the blind fortune teller in “Sanxian”, the “two gods” in “Jumping God”, “RuStreet newspaper vendor in “This Competition”, country gambler in “Mahjong · Tofu”.
The countryside, farmers, and Zhao Benshan are connected by three points and one line to outline the topographical map of Northeast culture. The biggest feature of this topographical map is funny and humorous. As the imagination space provided by television media, the Spring Festival Gala is undoubtedly painted with the traces of the times and has become a product of social context. For example, in “Uncle Niu Tigan”, Uncle Niu criticized the phenomenon of social fraud: “Pretend to be a manager. Now there are many managers. Even our backyard, Mr. Yang, raises two breeding sheep. Now he is called Mr. Yang.(Sheep Breed).” mocked the phenomenon of worshipping money at that time.
Also in “Uncle Niu Tigan”, we also saw a familiar figure-Fan Wei. At that time, Fan Wei had not yet transformed, and he specifically created negative models-leading drivers, leading secretaries, and teacher Fan who looked down on the working people… Until 1998 “New Year’s Greetings”, he finally became a positive image-a model who is about to be promoted. County magistrate. Fan Wei is another representative of the city. They are realistic, utilitarian, and have the confusion and depravity of the market transition period.
What really became the watershed in Fan Wei’s acting career was “Selling Crutches” and “Selling Cars.” Fan Wei no longer wears a partial distribution style, wears gold glasses, and becomes a clumsy little man with a big head and a thick neck. The image made the national audience instantly recognize and sympathize with him.
Snippet “Selling Kidnapping”
This is a subtle change that has taken place in the northeast during the transition after the new century. The northeastern people have crossed the century suddenly, and suddenly discovered that the former “eldest son of the Republic” really seems to need to start all over again in the new century.
Old Industrial Base: Cultural Memory and Folk Cultural Production
Almost at the same time as the Northeast sketches, there is also a report by Xinhua News Agency, “The “Northeast Phenomenon” Arouses Everyone’s Concern”. The opening part is:
The three northeastern provinces, which once ranked top in the country in economic development, have struggled in industrial production in recent years. Last year, Heilongjiang, Liaoning, and Jilin ranked second, fourth, and fifth in industrial growth rates from the bottom in the country, and economic efficiency is also in a backward position… Northeast He was once the “industrial giant” of our country. ……The abnormal performance of “industrial giants” faltering and sluggish action is thought-provoking……
The economic structure of the Northeast region was mainly established through two periods. One was the colonial period, the industrial and transportation foundation laid by Japan and Russia; the other was the planned economy period, when the Northeast became an industrial base under the tilt of the central policy.
Therefore, some scholars summed up the glorious history of the Northeast economy and came to the conclusion: “The colonial economy is foreign and the planned economy is top-down. Although the Northeast economy has been brilliant for several times, its social structure and cultural roots have always been It is outwardly mobile, not autonomous and endogenous…. Once natural resources are no longer abundant and external conditions are no longer supported, the weakness of the Northeast society’s lack of autonomous endogenous development potential will be exposed.”
Showa Steel Works No. 1 blast furnace in Anshan, Liaoning
To some extent, the Northeast people’s ideology is still at the junction of agriculture/pre-modern and industrial/modern, especially the market economy thinking and the resulting ideological changes have not really touched all Northeast people The change in thinking is just like Zhao Benshan’s one-stop ride on the Spring Festival Gala:
A Chinese tunic suit, a half-new and half-used octagonal hat (Zhao Benshan stated that this hat is from the “Cultural Revolution” movie “Qingsongling”, the number one villain Learned from Guang there), occasionally wear a pen on the chest to reflect some culture, wear a sleeve to show that you are engaged in technical work, and sometimes imitate the language style of the 1950s and 1960s to control the atmosphere .
After the 1990s, as part of the overall destiny of the “old industrial base” in the market-oriented reform, the cultural production space belonging to state-owned enterprises, along with factory buildings and chimneys, was gradually demolished by blasting and sold piecemeal, “the eldest son of the Republic” Reconstructed as the fringe zone of “modernization”, it is in this context that “local opera” (Errenzhuan) actors and “folk” (Northeast Countryside) Entertainer Zhao Benshan was able to stand out as the spokesperson of Northeast culture under the gaze of audiences across the country.
Northeast culture does not seem to be dimmed. At the beginning of 2007, the duo turned to art and crossed the ocean and stepped onto the stage across the Pacific Ocean. Although the target audience is Chinese in the United States, the significance of the duo, who has always been characterized by rural areas, is on the international stage and cannot be underestimated. As Hegel once described:
“When the Ionian city-state of Asia Minor fell, Ionian philosophy followed…. In Athens, due to the deterioration of the life of the Athenian people, the period of philosophical prosperity came instead. In the autocracy of the Roman emperor Time—During this period of the most serious social disaster and the decline of political life, traditional religious activities were shaken, all disintegrated, and they yearned for a new life. The neo-Platonian philosophers of Alexandria gave a highly glorious display of classical Greek philosophy. It is closely related to the decline of the Roman Empire-such a great, prosperous, glorious, but dead soul-closely related.”
Many years later, the “Renaissance” of the Northeast Renaissance, and the presence of people from the Northeast in the live broadcast and talk show world, do they also implicitly match Hegel’s description on some level?
Talk Show: Modern Northeast Folk Culture Production
Although the talk show is an imported product, it does not mean that there is no embryonic form of the talk show in China.
“Errenzhuan” is a native Northeast folk art that has been around for more than 300 years.history. It started as an amateur group group for farmers in Northeast rural areas, visiting villages, and performing for farmers. This kind of performance in field and temple fairs cannot be complicated, but there are also some requirements and certain thresholds for entry. “Errenzhuan” pays attention to the four tasks of “singing, acting up, talking, and dancing”. In “Speaking”, it can be roughly divided into sets of mouth, zero mouth, special mouth, and miscellaneous mouth.
Taokou is also called “Taozikou”, “Chengkou”, and “Story Mouth”. Some of the content comes from folk stories, legends, and jokes, some are made by artists; some win with funny stories, and some get the right answer by poems. Cleverly wins, and some use homophonic, humorous meaning to become interesting, reflecting humor, and more irony.
Lingkou is also called “pimple mouth”. Most of the artists make impromptu verbal creations according to different performance venues and audiences. They have no qualitative words, eclectic forms and lively and vivid language.
Special mouths are also called “fixed mouths” and “lian mouths”, which are closely related to the plot and cannot be added or deleted at will.
“Miscellaneous mouths” are “mouths” with different styles from set mouths, zero mouths, and special mouths, such as tongue twisters, riddles, and so on.
The above-mentioned talk show during the transition of the two has shown certain characteristics of talk show. Moreover, although it is called a two-person turn, there are also single-player performances-“Single Head”. Usually, the storyline of a single-headed drama is an excerpt from a two-person turn to a traditional drama. After the mode and words are modified, it forms a one-man show. Xiao Shenyang, who was born as an actor, once performed a show on Beijing Satellite TV Spring Night——
If you taste it carefully, do you have a little talk show feature? The reason why this single-person performance form can appear in Northeast actors’ programs is closely related to the “kang chatting” mentioned above: the kang chatting is not a question-and-answer style, but one person is giving the lecture, and the other is like holding a chat. Generally listen to the storytelling, after one person finishes the lecture, the other begins to tell the story. Therefore, in the same time and space, the chatter in the Northeast is often narrated by one person, and the narrative content is mixed with many interesting anecdotes, that is, the “baggage” and “stalk” in the chat.