The New Face of Lingnan Culture and the Big Future of the Greater Bay Area

Guangdong Province, which quietly hid at the southern edge of China before the Tang (618-907) and Song (960-1279) dynasties, woke up and developed fast after the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). Its rise has been interpreted as symbolic of the gradual expansion of China’s cultural center southward. For a long time, Lingnan, a geographic area covering the modern Chinese areas of Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan, Hong Kong, and Macao, developed far behind China’s Central Plains in terms of economy and culture in antiquity. Since the late Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), however, the Chinese people, especially the Cantonese, have made many remarkable achievements developing the region.

In 1905, renowned modern Chinese thinker and intellectual elite Liang Qichao (1873-1929) analyzed the position of Guangdong in world history in an article. He noted that throughout the Chinese history, Guangdong, located in the remote Lingnan area, has been considered as a place of little value. However, he stressed that in terms of world history, Guangdong has been very important because of its key geographic location. Because of convenient conditions for sea travel, Cantonese people started developing a vigorous, active, and adventurous character.

Ten years ago, I wrote an article on competition and dialogue between the cultures of Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Hong Kong. The three places are all major metropolises with populations of 12.7 million, 10.35 million, and 7.1 million, respectively. Hong Kong leads in terms of financial strength and per capita output value, but gaps among the three places have been narrowing. After completion of the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong high-speed rail, traveling from Guangzhou to Hong Kong via Shenzhen, a total distance of 142 kilometers, took only 48 minutes.

It’s exciting to watch the three international metropolises with the same Lingnan cultural genes become integrated into a splendid city cluster and to track how the three cities work together and move forward hand in hand. But these days, recognition of Macao is necessary to complete the picture of the Greater Bay Area.

The same dialects, customs, and cultural memories of people in these places evidence that they all belong to the “Lingnan culture” area in the traditional sense. But what is Lingnan culture? I tend to describe it in a perceptual way. It’s more focused on practicality than pomp and promotes a rational, modest, flexible, and motivated character. This culture dislikes unreasonable stubbornness and doesn’t advocate the notion of never giving up an ambition until there is no way out.

Guangzhou people are confident in the positive energy Cantonese transmits. The move is far-sighted and wise, especially considering that most of the dialects in China today have faded from classrooms and even the literary circles. Dialects used only in folk culture become increasingly secular and fail to follow the fast-changing academic, ideological, and cultural development. However, because of Hong Kong, Macao as well as the strong economic development of the Pearl River Delta, Cantonese is still widely used and remains fresh. In the long term, the vitality of a dialect can be interpreted as a huge cultural wealth and an important indicator of a city’s cultural maturity. An era that moves so many to open their eyes to the world begs the question of whether people will remember being back home. And “back home” includes the traditional classic culture, local costume, food, architecture, transportation, dialect, and spirituality.

Lingnan culture is not a fossil, but a living organism undergoing constant transformation. Since the reform and opening-up in the late 1970s, many Chinese have relocated to Guangdong Province for the fast economic development of the Pearl River Delta. According to statistics, by the end of 2015, the permanent population of Guangdong Province had reached 104 million, making it the only provincial-level region in the country with a permanent population greater than 100 million at that time. Guangdong also has the largest migrant population of 31.28 million, 12 percent of China’s total migrant population. Such a large population flow helped Mandarin become a mainstream language in the province. And the local food has become more diverse, affected by the lifestyles of people from other regions of China. Now, people in Guangdong also eat chili peppers and drink Moutai liquor. Famous Cantonese cuisine and Chaozhou cuisine are also advancing with the development of the times. Lingnan culture has not only retained its genes during transformation and development, but has grown with impressive vitality.

The times have changed, and it is now impossible for any regional culture to maintain all their old rules. Introduction of foreign cultures and the influx of larger numbers of immigrants has caused Lingnan culture to evolve. Besides, academic culture is also important alongside basic folk culture needs.

In my opinion, food, costume, handicrafts, architecture, dialects, and Cantonese Opera are all important topics of Lingnan culture. However, education, especially higher education, demands the greatest attention and development guidance, so that the local culture will develop a greater academic vision and a louder voice. Education is a project of vital and lasting importance that deeply influences politics, economics, and technology. Education in Guangdong, Hong Kong, and Macao has strengths and weaknesses. If each place can learn from each other, the region has the potential to become a leader in basic education and higher education in China.

If a Greater Bay Area education alliance can be established to unite the high-quality educational resources in the three places to focus on communication and dialogue and advocate cooperation and healthy competition, education throughout the region will improve. It would be even more meaningful to gradually eliminate ideological barriers in this process and promote social stability and sustainable development in the area.

Construction of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area has been a far-sighted big-picture strategy focusing on complementary economic traits, political and systematic dialogue, and cultural integration of the three places. Contrasting the coordinated development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region and the Yangtze River Delta, development of the Greater Bay Area will be more difficult to manage due to different social systems, complex political conditions, and diverse cultures. The blueprints are more ambitious, which is what is needed for the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.

The author is a Boya Chair Professor at Peking University and a fellow researcher at China Central Institute for Culture and History.