忠义山东好汉

文／苏堇 图／李茁

○水泊梁山是水浒故事的发祥地。Liangshan is the cradle of the story of The Water Margin.

一曲忠义之歌，传唱了近千年；一腔豪侠之情，激励了数代人；一部经典名著《水浒传》，唱响了水浒故里。

《水浒传》，中国四大名著之一，类型上属于英雄传奇的章回体长篇小说。全书通过描写梁山好汉行侠仗义的宏大故事，满腔热情地歌颂了英雄的故事和他们的社会理想。这是中国历史上最早用白话文写成的章回小说之一，流传极广，脍炙人口；同时也是汉语文学中最具史诗特征的作品之一，对中国乃至东亚的叙事文学都有极其深远的影响。

山东与名著《水浒传》有着极大的渊源。山东菏泽郓城县、泰安东平县、济宁梁山县、聊城阳谷县等地是水浒故事的主要发生地，至今仍保留着大量水浒文化遗迹和鲜活的水浒英雄遗风。

山东人在中国有很好的口碑和形象，这和山东人性格特点有很大关系。有人说，山东人血液中流淌着两种文化基因，一种是儒家文化，另一种便是水浒文化。儒家文化教会了山东人的“正”，做正人君子；水浒文化给山东人注入了“直”，即为人直爽。正因为水浒文化的影响，使山东人在重礼仪道德的同时，表现出一种敢作敢为、行侠仗义的“血性”，增加了人们对山东人的喜爱和尊重。“主人翁精神”是山东人所推崇的精神，这种精神本身就具有浓厚的“好汉”色彩，总能让人联想到《水浒传》中某个故事或某个人物。

正是因为水浒文化，“义”成为山东文化极其重要的组成部分。

梁山，是水浒文化发祥地，也是“义”文化的重要附着地。这个“义”不仅仅是“行侠仗义”、“哥们义气”，更是“春秋大义”、“凛然大义”。这里我们不妨说文解字，大写的“義”字，上半部是“羊”，即过去的“一般等价物”，代表“货币”；下半部是“我”，既行为人。“義”可解释为“我头顶供奉珍贵礼品恭迎客人和朋友”。

在现代社会交往和商业活动中，信义是重要的商业信条，正是秉承着这种精神，发轫于齐鲁大地的“鲁商”才能屹立于世界舞台；也是这种文化基因，让在山东工作生活的世界各地的朋友，喜欢上这个地方和这个地方的人。

编辑／王雪芃

○忠义堂重现了当年108条好汉聚义梁山的风貌和气概。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.