忠義山東好漢

文／蘇堇 圖／李茁

○水泊梁山是水滸故事的發(fā)祥地。Liangshan is the cradle of the story of The Water Margin.

一曲忠義之歌，傳唱了近千年；一腔豪俠之情，激勵了數代人；一部經典名著《水滸傳》，唱響了水滸故里。

《水滸傳》，中國四大名著之一，類型上屬于英雄傳奇的章回體長篇小說。全書通過描寫梁山好漢行俠仗義的宏大故事，滿腔熱情地歌頌了英雄的故事和他們的社會理想。這是中國歷史上最早用白話文寫成的章回小說之一，流傳極廣，膾炙人口；同時也是漢語文學中最具史詩特征的作品之一，對中國乃至東亞的敘事文學都有極其深遠的影響。

山東與名著《水滸傳》有著極大的淵源。山東菏澤鄆城縣、泰安東平縣、濟寧梁山縣、聊城陽谷縣等地是水滸故事的主要發(fā)生地，至今仍保留著大量水滸文化遺跡和鮮活的水滸英雄遺風。

山東人在中國有很好的口碑和形象，這和山東人性格特點有很大關系。有人說，山東人血液中流淌著兩種文化基因，一種是儒家文化，另一種便是水滸文化。儒家文化教會了山東人的“正”，做正人君子；水滸文化給山東人注入了“直”，即為人直爽。正因為水滸文化的影響，使山東人在重禮儀道德的同時，表現出一種敢作敢為、行俠仗義的“血性”，增加了人們對山東人的喜愛和尊重?！爸魅宋叹瘛笔巧綎|人所推崇的精神，這種精神本身就具有濃厚的“好漢”色彩，總能讓人聯想到《水滸傳》中某個故事或某個人物。

正是因為水滸文化，“義”成為山東文化極其重要的組成部分。

梁山，是水滸文化發(fā)祥地，也是“義”文化的重要附著地。這個“義”不僅僅是“行俠仗義”、“哥們義氣”，更是“春秋大義”、“凜然大義”。這里我們不妨說文解字，大寫的“義”字，上半部是“羊”，即過去的“一般等價物”，代表“貨幣”；下半部是“我”，既行為人?！傲x”可解釋為“我頭頂供奉珍貴禮品恭迎客人和朋友”。

在現代社會交往和商業(yè)活動中，信義是重要的商業(yè)信條，正是秉承著這種精神，發(fā)軔于齊魯大地的“魯商”才能屹立于世界舞臺；也是這種文化基因，讓在山東工作生活的世界各地的朋友，喜歡上這個地方和這個地方的人。

編輯／王雪芃

○忠義堂重現了當年108條好漢聚義梁山的風貌和氣概。In the Loyalty Hall, the styles and features of the 108 brave men reappear.

Outlaws of the Marsh, one of the four great classical novels of Chinese literature, is a novel taking Song Jiang’s uprisings in the Northern Song Dynasty as its setting and belongs to the genre of saga with traditional Chinese serial style.The book tells a grand story of how a group of outlaws gather on Mount Liang to fight against oppression and form a sizable army before they are eventually granted amnesty by the government and sent on campaigns to resist foreign invaders and suppress rebel forces until they are all killed off.By relating the process of Song Jiang’s uprisings from its beginning through its development to its failure, the novel reveals the deep social roots of the uprisings, praises enthusiastically the brave struggles of the heroes and their social ideals, but also reveals the historical reasons for the failure of the uprisings.

As one of the traditional serial novels written in the vernacular,Outlaws of the Marsh enjoys great popularity in China and has had profound influence on narrative literature in China and East Asia because it is also one of the novels with most characteristics of epics in Chinese literature.

An ode of loyalty and righteousness has been sung for almost a thousand years. A sentiment of daring and justice has inspired people of numerous generations. The classic of Outlaws of the Marsh has put the hometown of the water margins on the map. As the sites where the water margin stories took place, Yuncheng county in Heze,Dongping county in Taian, Liangshan county in Ji’ning, and Yanggu county in Liaocheng still retain a lot of cultural relics of the water margin culture and vivacious traces of its heroes to this day.

Shandong people enjoy a good reputation in China, which is greatly attributed to their character being influenced by two different cultures,C o n f u c i a n c u l t u r e a n d W a t e r Margin Culture. The former teaches Shandong people to be “upright”,namely, to be upright gentlemen,while the latter imbues them with“straightforwardness”, namely, to be straightforward heroes. Shaped by Water Margin culture, Shandong people display their boldness and uprightness in fighting for justice while valuing etiquettes and morality, making them more liked and respected. The “master spirit” advocated by Shandong people suggests a strong sense of being“heroes”, which tends to be associated with certain stories or certain characters in Outlaws of the Marsh.

It is because of the Water Margin culture that “righteousness” becomes a vital component of Shandong culture.

As the birthplace of Water Margin culture, Mount Liang is also a place to which the spirit of righteousness adheres. This “righteousness” means not only “having a strong sense of justice and being ready to help the weak”, and “the code of brotherhood”,but, more importantly, also the “the spirit of Chinese people to discern right and wrong, good and evil, just and unjust, fair and unfair” and “the devotion to righteousness that inspires reverence”. From the origin of the Chinese character of “righteousness”,it can be seen that the character is composed of two parts: the upper part meaning “universal equivalent”represented by “currency” while the lower part meaning human represented by “I”. Thus, the Chinese character “righteousness”can be interpreted as “I welcome my guests and friends by holding precious presents over my head”. If such doctrines were to be followed in interpersonal interactions and business activities in modern society,there would be no fraud, treachery and ungratefulness. This is true for all social relations such as between the old and the young, between teachers and students, between friends, and between husband and wife. Provided that all people pursued such values,the world would be full of love and sunshine.