Wang Yongkang, Master of Chinese Bonsai

"Tang Feng Exhibition", the highest honor for bonsai evaluation on the mainland, Wang Yung-Kang is the director of the jury; "Huafeng Award", the highest award in Taiwan's bonsai world, Wang Yung-Kang is the first person on the mainland to be invited to serve as a judge. On the list of "International Bonsai Masters" named by the 60-year-old BCI (International Bonsai Association), there are only a handful of Chinese, and Wang Yung-Kang is impressed. A man from Changzhou, who is not amazing in appearance, has played a great role in bonsai.

He has a "communication of life" with every tree.

On a drizzling day, I walked into the Suiyuan Garden, which is located by the lakeside of Wujin Development Zone. Into the garden, misty rain blowing Zhu, vaguely hazy, water and stone reflect each other.

There are many kinds of flowers and trees in the garden, which seem to be disorganized and examined in detail, but they are based on nature, and the layout is legal, not a clump and recklessness: planting tall trees to shade the scorching sun, planting simple or beautiful tree-shaped trees (such as Qiusong pine, soft willow) for appreciation, supplemented by the color and fragrance of flowers, fruits and leaves (such as cinnamon, red maple, kumquat, wax plum, autumn chrysanthemum, etc.). Those emerald green, quietly set off the garden, vines, vines, add to the wild interest of the mountains and forests; in the rain, lotus leaves, plantains, birds singing on the branches and cicadas make the whole garden full of interest.

When it comes to the word "Suiyuan", some people may think of Yuan Mei's back garden in the Qing Dynasty. When Wang Yongkang named his garden, he had no idea about it. He said that the reason for taking this name is that he thinks that the garden he has made advocates casual nature, and second, he feels that opportunities in the world need to "follow the fate."

Friends in Changzhou bonsai circles call this garden "Changzhou bonsai's living business card". There are many bonsai lovers in Changzhou, but too few have the ability to build a private bonsai garden. In addition, along with the garden, Wang Yongkang is also hospitable by nature, so many people store bonsai in the garden. Over time, the park has become a "museum" of Changzhou bonsai and a "clubhouse" for Changzhou bonsai enthusiasts.

Wang Yongkang happily introduced each of his bonsai-- "look at this basin, it cannot have such a shape without thousands of years of creation,"this is a typical literati posture, lofty and worldly," and "this was originally a dead stake abandoned by others." it took ten years to bring it back to life. "this basin was bought for 200 yuan. Not long ago, a Japanese guest said it was worth 1 million yuan." The happiest thing about Wang Yongkang is to "bring every dead tree on the verge of death back to life."

In front of his house stands a tall American coast pine, which Nixon gave to China during his visit to China, a total of only a dozen or so. By chance, Wang Yongkang transplanted it curled up in the corner in front of his own door, taking good care of it, and now it is luxuriant again.

Wang Yongkang said that he "knows every tree of his own": a few years ago, four pots of beloved bonsai were stolen, for which he offered a reward of 100,000 yuan for clues. Although bonsai has not been found over the years, Wang Yongkang still distributes a "reward order" whenever there is a large bonsai exhibition in Taiwan.

If you are obsessed with it, it is a strange thing.

At that time, 15-year-old Wang Yongkang also harvested the first bonsai in his life. "it was a pot of single-pole primrose, which has been treasured by me for more than 40 years, but unfortunately died when I turned the pot a few years ago."

In 1968, Wang Yongkang was sent to Liyang, at this time, the family has a lot of flowers and trees bonsai. Unexpectedly, the father, who had always called him "unprofessional", began to take care of the bonsai left behind by his son as if he were his own son. Wang Yongkang said that it was "the old father's yearning for his son in the flowerpot."

After jumping in the queue for eight years, Wang Yongkang did not forget the bonsai. He often walked dozens of miles into Wujun Mountain during the weekend break, found and collected wood from the mountains, and sent it back to his home in Changzhou when he met anything he liked.

"later, there were more and more bonsai, and some friends liked me to give it to them. At that time, I was young. I didn't think too much about it. I didn't find that my father's face was getting worse and worse every time. I finally found that bonsai has become a part of my father's life."

From "Green Poplar Flower Shop" to "Suiyuan owner"

In 1976, Wang Yongkang returned to the city after jumping the queue and successively worked in Dongfeng Printing and dyeing Factory and Guomian No. 1 Factory. In 1984, he came to the fourth Pharmaceutical Factory to work as a florist. What makes this florist Wang Yung-Kang different from other florists is that he does not abide by the factory's commuting time. His reason is that "the florist's working hours should be determined by flowers, not by people, and it is not impossible to water and prune in the middle of the night."

In 1985, Wang Yongkang and his friends from the Oriental Printing and dyeing Factory went to the mountains of Anhui Province to dig the stump for several months and shipped it back to Changzhou. He made a lot of money that year and "suddenly became a household of ten thousand yuan."

In 1988, Wang Yongkang officially went to sea, rented 2 mu of land in Lihua and planted carnations, roses, stars and other flowers. Wang Yongkang, who did not have much experience in growing and selling flowers, in order to find out the market situation, he Qingcheng, an old friend, came to Guangzhou, the flower market distribution center at that time. "in the place where the eyes were blackened, an eldest sister in Wuhan, with us who had never met before, guided us little by little and told us the way."

Slowly, Wang Yongkang's "Green Poplar Flowers" became one of the largest and most famous flower shops in Changzhou. The joint purchase and group purchase led by green poplar flowers directly affected and controlled the flower market in Shanghai. "for a time, we contracted a flight from Kunming to Changzhou, which was specially used to transport carnations and so on." Wang Yongkang remembers that when the green poplar flowers were the hottest, the vehicles that came to the store to pick up the flowers often blocked Qingtan Road.

After playing with flowers for decades, what Wang Yongkang is most interested in is actually bonsai. In 1996, Wang Yongkang found a lot of boxwood on Chongming Island, all of which were more than a hundred years old. So he rode a motorcycle to inquire from village to village, and finally bought 800 boxwood trees. "at that time, it was purchased as a green nursery stock, and the most expensive one cost about 600 yuan. now, if you play as a bonsai, the price is as low as 300, 000 to 500, 000 yuan."

When it comes to the understanding of bonsai, Wang Yongkang is a little different. He remembers that when he cut in line, a teacher said to him, "Don't saw seven saws and eight saws, saw a Zhu Bajie." For decades, Wang Yongkang has been convinced of this. He believes that bonsai is a realm that can be guided according to the circumstances and must not be deliberately done. Playing bonsai should be a kind of respect for trees and a respect for their lives. Wang Yongkang has always been very opposed to the practice of naming bonsai, there is really no way, he just gave a "untitled" name. He said, in your eyes, in his eyes, because of different space, time, and even because of the viewer's mood and experience, everyone sees different scenery, and everyone has a lot of room for imagination. Therefore, it is really not a good idea to give it a name to limit the viewer's imagination.

"the purpose of making bonsai is to show its most beautiful side." Therefore, sometimes in order to "one point" on the trunk, he often has to wait three or five years, raise other parts, and then start to show the most beautiful side of the whole tree to the eyes of the world. This is how the black pine work Shou, which won the first-class gold medal in the first China Tang style Bonsai Exhibition, was born.

After the black pine was dug up from the mountain, it was acquired and cultivated by Wang Yongkang. In order to cultivate the big floating branch on the left, Wang Yongkang waited for three years. Who can imagine that an ordinary piece of mountain rotten wood can win its owner a medal made of 150 grams of 24-karat gold four years later?

In 2002, when friends in Taiwan's bonsai circles first entered the mainland of the motherland to operate bonsai, Wang Yongkang began to do business with them, thus laying the foundation for his bonsai business. At present, there are more than 10,000 bonsai products, semi-finished products and pile materials available for sale in Suiyuan, and there are nearly 20 professional bonsai maintenance workers.

"the happiest thing I can do now is to wake up in the morning and observe every slight change in the bonsai."