Civilization in Corridor

Qu Jingdong

Published in Open Times, 2025, Issue 1.

Abstract: The corridor is a civilization composite, and the study of the corridor is a comprehensive and encompassing academic field pertinent to the issue of civilization. What civilization offers is a universal picture of the world, an existential or epistemological view of the universe that incorporates the world, history, nature, and even divinity into an overall conception. At the same time, civilization must also be inclusive and develop through a balance between unity and diversity. As a region where multiple civilizations coexist, the corridor has always been characterized by the transportation, interflow, and interpenetration between different civilizations, witnessing at once connection and division, preservation and solution, and integration and disintegration. Multiple civilizations continuously learn from each other for self-transformation and self-revitalization. The Jizu Mountain in the southwest and the Shengrong Temple in the northwest are both intersections of corridor civilizations, connecting the ancient with the modern and the inside with the outside, therefore providing good examples of what a civilization composite looks like.

Keywords: civilization, study of civilization, corridor, Jizu Mountain, Shengrong Temple