REFLECTIONS IN A CHINESE EYE

Unlikely Chinese Opera Star

Tyler Thompson is an unlikely star in the world of Chinese opera. The African American teenager from Oakland has captivated audiences in the U.S. and China with his ability to sing pitch-perfect Mandarin and perform the ancient Chinese art form.

The black opera star dazzling China with his pitch-perfect Mandarin

A black teenager has captivated audiences in the U.S. and China with his ability to sing the classics of Chinese opera in pitch-perfect Mandarin

Fifteen-year-old Tyler Thompson, from Oakland, California, is an unlikely star of Chinese opera, but his ability to perform the ancient art form has earned him plaudits.

'As soon as he opens his mouth and sings in Chinese, the Chinese are very surprised and then feel very proud of him,' said his music teacher Sherlyn Chew.

Crossing cultures: Tyler Thompson rehearses with the Great Wall Youth Orchestra in Oakland, California

'When he puts on the costume, and all the acting, you can see that he's pretty good.'

Tyler, 15, is a standout student in Mrs Chew's Oakland-based Purple Silk Music Education program, which teaches children and youth - mostly from low-income immigrant families - how to sing and play traditional Chinese music.

He has learned to sing several well-known pieces of Chinese opera, a centuries-old form of musical theatre known for its elaborate costumes, clanging gongs and cymbals, wide-ranging vocals and highly stylised movements.

At the World Children's Festival in Washington in June, Tyler, dressed in a black robe emblazoned with golden dragons, won a standing ovation when he performed as Justice Bao, a famous Song Dynasty judge who fought government corruption, from the Chinese classic 'Bao Qing Tian.'

'The music is very beautiful, and it's very passionate. You can hear it when it's being played,' said Tyler, a theatre student at the Oakland School for the Arts.

'It's made me want to know more about the world outside of America or California or Oakland.'

Dress rehearsal: The 15-year-old Oakland native, who sings traditional Chinese opera in Mandarin, plans to perform in China this summer

David Lei, chairman of the Chinese Performing Arts Foundation in San Francisco, has seen Tyler perform several times and arranged to have him sing at the opening of a Chinese opera exhibit several years ago.

'It's very authentic because he hits the tones just right, so you understand everything,' Lei said.

'People just don't expect an Afro-American kid to be doing it. It's the initial shock. There's a sense of novelty.'

Tyler, who comes from a music-loving family, began learning how to sing in Chinese a decade ago when he was a kindergartner in Mrs Chew's music class at Oakland's Lincoln Elementary School, where about 90 percent of students are Asian.

Mrs Chew quickly recognized Tyler's talent and recruited him to join her Purple Silk music program, where students learn to sing Chinese songs and play traditional instruments.

'I really took a liking to him and thought he had quite a large range,' said Mrs Chew, who started the music program at Oakland's Laney College in 1995.

'He hears pitch very well, and his pronunciation of Chinese characters is very accurate.'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2019315/Tyler-Thompson-Black-opera-star-dazzling-China-pitch-perfect-Mandarin.html#ixzz1TJnOcURj[/QUOTE

 

 

Chinese artist’s ‘ugly’ doll photos metaphor for Chinese people’s anguish; exhibit in NYC

NEW YORK — Liu Xia is a forbidden artist whose work is censored in her native China. The photographer, who is under house arrest, uses life-like dolls as metaphors for the pain and suffering of the Chinese people.

Liu knows what it is to work in an oppressed society. Her husband is Liu Xiaobo, the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize winner jailed in 2009 for 11 years for urging democratic reform in China.

But Liu’s photographs are not about her husband, said Guy Sorman, a friend of the couple and curator of an exhibition of her works opening at Columbia University on Thursday evening.

“This is not about politics first. It’s about art first. Her husband is his own story. She is a major Chinese artist who happens to be the wife of Liu Xiaobo,” Sorman said in a telephone interview from Paris.

The 25 photos were spirited out of China just before Liu was placed under house arrest at the end of 2010 after her husband was awarded the Nobel prize.

Read more at The Washington Post

Qiu Jin

A Chinese poet and a revolutionary, Qiu Jin was born in 1875 into a moderately wealthy family. While growing up she enjoyed riding horses and playing with swords. She also liked to read. Her family insisted that she receive good education and she was able to socialize with other well-educated people.

At the age of twenty-one Qiu Jin was married to an older man. He had a more conventional outlook on life than she did and she felt stifled in this relationship. She left her husband in 1903 and went to study in Japan where she was vocal in her support for women's rights and pressed for improved access to education for women. To provide female role models, she wrote articles about historical Chinese women.

In 1906 she returned to China and started publishing a women's magazine in which she encouraged women to gain financial independence through education and training in various prefessions. She encouraged women to resist oppression by their families and by the government. At the time it was still customary for women in China to have their feet bound at the age of five. The result of this practice was that the feet were small but crippled. Women's freedom of movement was severely restricted and left them dependent on other people. Such helpless women were, however, more desired as wives, so their families continued the practice to protect their daughters' future security.

Qiu Jin felt that a better future for women lay under a Western-type government instead of the corrupt Manchu government that was in power at the time. She joined forces with her male cousin Hsu Hsi-lin and together they worked to unite many secret revolutionary societies to work together for the overthrow of the Manchu government. On July 6, 1907 Hsu Hsi-lin was caught by the authorities before a scheduled uprising. He confessed his involvement under interrogation and was executed. Immediately after, on July 12, the government troops arrested Qiu Jin at the school for girls, where she was a principal. She refused to admit her involvement in the plot, but they found incriminating documents and she was beheaded. Qiu Jin was acknowleged immediately as a heroine and a martyr who died fighting enemies of the Chinese people and she became a symbol of women's independence.

Source: Distinguished Women of Past and Present, contributed by Danuta Bois, 1997; http://www.distinguishedwomen.com/biographies/qiujin.html

References:
Herstory. Women Who Changed the World, edited by Ruth Ashby and Deborah Gore Ohrn, Viking, 1995. Qiu Jin profile by Lynn Reese.

While Qiu Jin (秋瑾) is mainly remembered in the West as revolutionary and feminist, one aspect of her life that gets overlooked is her poetry and essays. Having received an exceptional education in classical literature, reflected in her writing of more traditional poetry (shi and ci) Qiu composed verse with a wide range of metaphors and allusions; mixing classical mythology along with revolutionary rhetoric.

 Read more at Voices

 

Misty Poets

Road to East Asia

 A journal on contemporary East Asian literature in English

Written by students of FC1750.06
at Founders College, York University

Vol.2, no. 3, June-August, 1997

 

Voices from Today's China

by Jessica Martin

 

One thing China has not known is light . . . Soon the bright day will dawn . . .

 

--by Xiang Yang, from Trees on the Mountain

There is an extraordinary group of young poets and writers from China who have carved a respected space for themselves in the literary world. Ironically, whatever they have written on paper is subject to government scrutiny and is often grounds for criminal prosecution. Most of them have left the country, opting to pursue their careers in lands more receptive to their work while a few remain behind to struggle against the hostile barrier the government presents when a poet tries to get published. As is evident in the short excerpt from Xiang Yang's poem, there is determined spirit amongst these literary revolutionaries, one that does not let oppression stop their work.

The group responsible for inciting this spirit of rebellion founded and contributed to the Today magazine during its short period of publication from 1978 to 1980. Three of the most famous writers of that period were Bei Dao, Gu Cheng, and Shu Ting, best known for their so-called "misty" poetry. In the broad sense of the word, it means "vague," "indirect," and "elusive." Despite the diverse stylistic approaches, three common themes recur--individualism and self expression, human relationship with the natural worlds, and the struggle against oppression.

In the late 1970s, Zhao Zhenkai (Bei Dao), then an aspiring poet, got together frequently with friends and colleagues and talked about starting a literary magazine that would give voice to the emerging authors. The future of China's cultural tradition would rest in their hands. At that time, the Cultural Revolution was just ending and the situation was volatile, with various politicians hoping to be Mao Tsetung's successor. Deng Xiaoping was poised to receive this honor, and in order to gain the support of the people, Deng fully endorsed the Democracy Wall Movement in 1978. This movement allowed the people to express their grievances with the government and their discontent with the outcome of the Cultural Revolution.

Under such circumstances, Zhao Zhenkai's plan for a literary journal flourished. The pages of the first issue of Today (Jiantian) were among the initial writings on the Wall, and from 1978 to 1980, the magazine continued publishing, giving new talents a voice to be heard. Publishing under the pseudonym Bei Dao, Zhao Zhenkai's literary career took off.

In 1980 Deng Xiaoping came into power, and he put a stop to the "spiritual pollution" caused by this magazine. The writers then had to take their work underground. In an interview with Siobhan La Pianan (1994, online), Bei Dao noted that there were periods during the next eight or nine years when his poetry was published in official journals as a source for discussion and debate but the attitude of the government towards his work was so unpredictable that it was hard to know how it would be taken. Finally, in 1989 the magazine resumed publication, this time out of Stockholm. Bei Dao and Gu Cheng were banished from China, giving them the unfortunate position of being writers in exile. Shu Ting still lives incognito in southern China. (See "Writers-in-exile after Tiananmen," Road to East Asia.)

All these poets have a strong sense of self and repeatedly focus on this aspect in their work. It transmits spontaneously personal feelings and a desire for free expressions as an individual rather than as a group or a nation. In this way, their work appears to be far less politically motivated since they do not focus on class struggle or class character.

The desire for self-expression is obvious in Shu Ting's poem "Gifts," anthologized in Trees on the Mountain:

 

Through the tree roots I'll enter the veins of their leaves
Yet when they wither I'll not be sad
For I shall have expressed myself
And gained life.

Read more at York University

Selected Stories of Lu Hsun

SOAP

With her back to the north window in the slanting sunlight, Ssu-min's wife with her eight-year-old daughter, Hsiu-erh, was pasting paper money for the dead when she heard the slow, heavy footsteps of someone in cloth shoes and knew her husband was back. Paying no attention, she simply went on pasting coins. But the tread of cloth shoes drew nearer and nearer, till it finally stopped beside her. Then she could not help looking up to see Ssu-min before her, bunching his shoulders and stooping forward to fumble desperately under his cloth jacket in the inner pocket of his long gown.

By dint of twisting and turning at last he extracted his hand with a small oblong package in it, which he handed to his wife. As she took it, she smelt an indefinable fragrance rather reminiscent of olive. On the green paper wrapper was a bright golden seal with a network of tiny designs. Hsiu-erh bounded forward to seize this and look at it, but her mother promptly pushed her aside.

"Been shopping? . . ." she asked as she looked at it.

"Er--yes." He stared at the package in her hand.

The green paper wrapper was opened. Inside was a layer of very thin paper, also sunflower-green, and nor till this was unwrapped was the object itself exposed--glossy and hard, besides being sunflower-green, with another network of fine designs on it. The thin paper was a cream colour, it appeared. The indefinable fragrance rather reminiscent of olive was stronger now.

"My, this is really good soap!"

She held the soap to her nose as gingerly as if it were a child, and sniffed at it as she spoke.

"Er--yes. Just use this in future. . . ."

As he spoke, she noticed him eyeing her neck, and felt herself flushing up to her cheekbones. Sometimes when she rubbed her neck, especially behind the ears, her fingers detected a roughness; and though she knew this was the accumulated dirt of many years, she had never given it much thought. Now, under his scrutiny, she could not help blushing as she looked at this green, foreign soap with the curious scent, and this blush spread right to the tips of her ears. She mentally resolved to have a thorough wash with this soap after supper.

"There are places you can't wash clean just with honey locust pods," she muttered to herself.

"Ma, can I have this?" As Hsiu-erh reached out for the sunflower-green paper, Chao-erh, the younger daughter who had been playing outside, came running in too. Mrs. Ssu-min promptly pushed them both aside, folded the thin paper in place, wrapped the green paper round it as before, then leaned over to put it on the highest shelf of the wash-stand. After one final glance, she turned back to her paper coins.

"Hsueh-cheng!" Ssu-min seemed to have remembered something. He gave a long-drawn-out shout, sitting down on a high-backed chair opposite his wife.

"Hsueh-cheng!" she helped him call.

She stopped pasting coins to listen, but not a sound could she hear. When she saw him with upturned head waiting so impatiently, she felt quite apologetic.

"Hsueh-cheng!" she called shrilly at the top of her voice.

This call proved effective, for they heard the tramp of leather shoes draw near, and Hsueh-cheng stood before her. He was in shirt sleeves, his plump round face shiny with perspiration.

"What were you doing?" she asked disapprovingly. "Why didn't you hear your father call?"

"I was practising Hexagram Boxing. . . ." He turned at once to his father and straightened up, looking at him as if to ask what he wanted.

"Hsueh-cheng, I want to ask you the meaning of o-du-fu."

"O-du-fu? . . . Isn't it a very fierce woman?"

"What nonsense! The idea!" Ssu-min was suddenly furious. "Am I a woman, pray?"

Hsueh-cheng recoiled two steps, and stood straighter than ever. Though his father's gait sometimes reminded him of the way old men walked in Peking opera, he had never considered Ssu-min as a woman. His answer, he saw now, had been a great mistake.

"As if I didn't know o-du-fu means a very fierce woman. Would I have to ask you that?--This isn't Chinese, it's foreign devils' language, I'm telling you. What does it mean, do you know?"

"I . . . I don't know." Hsueh-cheng felt even more uneasy.

Read mre at Selected Stories Lu Hsun

Ai Weiwei is named ArtReview's 'most powerful artist'

The artist has spoken out against human rights abuses in China

Continue reading the main story

Chinese artist Ai Weiwei has been named the most powerful person in the art world, according to a poll compiled by ArtReview magazine.

But Mr Ai, who was released in June after being detained for more than 80 days by Chinese authorities, told the BBC he does "not feel powerful at all".

The magazine said he was chosen by the panel because of his political activism, as much as his artwork.

China criticised the selection saying it was based on "political bias".

In a statement, ArtReview magazine said: "[His] activities have allowed artists to move away from the idea that they work within a privileged zone limited by the walls of a gallery or museum."

"It's expanding the possibilities of what you can do with art, and as an artist how you can use your voice," it added.

Read more at BBC

Almost half of £1 million Chinese auction bids unpaid six months after they were lodged

Almost half of all £1 million-plus bids placed in China's auction houses remained unpaid six months after they were lodged, it has emerged.

The findings by the Chinese Association for Auctioneers give a rare official glimpse beneath the surface of what one Western art-dealer has described as the "shark infested waters" of China's art world.

The 18th century Qianlong-dynasty porcelain vase

International auction houses have enjoyed a series of record-breaking sales since 2009 as 'hot' Chinese money flooded the market in search of investment opportunities following a massive surge in cheap credit following the 2008 financial crisis.

But the problems of the weak regulation in the Chinese art market could be seen last year when a Chinese bidder 'paid' a record-breaking £53m for a Qing Dynasty vase found in the house of a Middlesex widow.

The 'sale' initially attracted celebratory headlines but these were quickly tempered by reports that both the owner and the auctioneer had been forced to travel to China in pursuit of payment. The parties will still not confirm if the payment has been received.

The survey of last year's autumn sales from 250 Chinese auction houses found that two fifths of sales above 10m yuan (approximately £1m) had not been fully paid by April this year, according to Ou Shuying, the Association's deputy general-secretary.

Read more at The Telegraph

Full River Red

 

怒发冲冠，凭阑处、潇潇雨歇。
抬望眼，仰天长啸，壮怀激烈。
三十功名尘与土，八千里路云和月。
莫等闲白了少年头，空悲切...

Leaning against the railing,
Watching the rushing rain easing,
My heart is raging.

Tossing my head towards the heaven,
Letting out an anguished wailing,
My blood is boiling.

Thirty years of exploit,
To me, just a pile of dust;
Eight thousand miles of expedition,
I lived rough under clouds and moonlight

With all these, I have no regrets,
For I didn't waste my youth
By doing something meaningless...

Read more at Multiple Texts

Chinese artist Ai weighs future as activist - Austrian radio

(Reuters) - In fear for his life and abandoned by many peers during weeks of detention, dissident Chinese artist Ai Weiwei is considering his future as a rights activist, he said in an interview with Austrian radio broadcast on Saturday.

"They can make me disappear. I have no protection, no lawyer," he said in a rare media interview conducted in connection with the opening of an exhibition of his work in Austria.

"So I have to be careful with (my actions) because I may lose my life," he added from his studio in China.

"I don't think there is any form of law (that) can protect me."

China's leading social critic has been under close watch as part of the strict terms of his release from custody in late June after 81 days.

Despite this, the artist, 54, has spoken out on his Twitter account on behalf of detained dissidents and his associates who were held at the same time as he was and have since been released.

Asked about calls by his family to take a break from activism and relax for a while, Ai said: "Frankly everybody said so -- friends, family and relatives.

"So I have to really examine and think. I have been trying to find a way to deal with the rest of the time."

Ai endured intense psychological pressure during his secretive detention and faces the threat of prison for alleged subversion, according to a source familiar with his detention.

Ai's incarceration ignited an outcry from many Western governments about China's tightening grip on dissent that started in February, when dozens of rights activists and dissidents were detained and arrested.

In the interview, Ai said there were thousands of professional artists in China but not one had piped up to ask what was happening during his detention.

"Nobody dared ask one question," he said, adding he was advising young artists to leave China because "this is crazy".

Read more at REUTERS

Returning to Songshan Mountain - Wang Wei

Read more at Chinese Poems

Clear river belt long thin Cart horse go idle idle Flow water like have desire Dusk birds another with return Desolate town face old ferry Set sun whole autumn hills Far successively Song high down Return come for now close shut

The limpid river runs between the bushes, The horse and cart are moving idly on. The water flows as if with a mind of its own, At dusk, the birds return to perch together. The desolate town is faced by an ancient ferry, The setting sun now fills the autumn hills. And far below high Songshan's tumbling ridges, Returning home, I close the door for now.

Sapajou

Shanghai's Schemozzle collates the cartoons crafted by Russian army Lieutenant-turned-cartoonist Georgii Avksent'ievich Sapojnikoff, who also went under the artistic alias of Sapajou.

Sapojnikoff became a refugee in Shanghai in 1920, and for 15 years he published daily cartoons in the North-China Daily News, the most influential English-language newspaper of the time, beginning in 1925 and through the Japanese occupation.

The text was edited by R. T. Peyton-Griffin, editor of the paper, who used the pen-name "In Parenthesis". The book is available from Earnshaw Books.

How to get out of the trap of war

Western media woes

                                                                                                                                                          DANWEI

Sapajou


The decadent life of the Shanghailanders in the 1930s was illustrated by two great European cartoonists, Schiff and Sapajou. Sapajou, in our opinion, was the best of the two.

Sapajou was a White Russian who came to Shanghai in the early 1920s to escape the Bolshevik Revolution back home. He and thousands of other Russians made their homes in Shanghai which as an open city accepted just about anybody.

 

An excerpt from Sin City, by Ralph Shaw: "Star of the (North-China Daily News) office was 'Sapajou', the cartoonist. He was a White Russian ex-officer named Sapoinikoff, a brilliant artist with a wonderful sense of humour. Tall, thin, bespectacled he limped badly as the result of a wound received in an engagement with the Bolsheviks during the Russian Revolution. In Shanghai he had quickly earned fame through his brilliant political cartoons and, for a stateless exile, his membership of the Shanghai Club classified him as a rare specimen.... (In 1942), Sapajou became the cartoonist of the German newspaper. It was either that or starvation as a stateless Russian. More than a thousand White Russians had lost jobs in British, American and Netherlands firms closed down by the Japanese and their plight was pitiful - worse than that of the Jewish refugees, most of whom were still in the Wayside camps supported by donations from international Jewish charities. After the war there was no job on the North-China Daily News for the Russian cartoonist and, after a poverty-stricken existence in a Hongkew hovel, kept alive on the hand-outs of friends, he ended up in a transit camp for stateless refugees in the Philippines. A sick man, he died shortly afterwards.

MORE At Tales of Old Shanghai

The Plum in the Golden Vase or, Chin P'ing Mei:

Volume Two: The Rivals
Translated by David Tod Roy

 

WU YÜEH-NIANG SWEEPS SNOW IN ORDER TO BREW TEA;
YING PO-CHÜEH RUNS ERRANDS ON BEHALF OF FLOWERS

Troubled in her sorrowing heart,
she murmurs to herself,
"This good affinity has turned out
to be a bad affinity."¹
In retrospect she rails against
that "willow" in the quarter;²
Though shamefaced to confront
the "lotus" of the Jade Well.³
Only because his spring dalliance
has been carelessly revealed,
Have the phoenix mates been forced
to go their separate ways.
Who is able to dip up the waters
of the River of Heaven,
That they may wash their former sins
completely away?⁴

THE STORY GOES that by the time Hsi-men Ch'ing returned home from the quarter it was already the second watch. When the page boys had succeeded in getting someone to open the front door he dismounted and:

  Trampling the scattered fragments of alabaster and jade, made his way as far as the inner gate which led into the rear compound. He found the gate standing half open though there was:
  Not a human sound to be heard,⁵ from the courtyard within.
  From his mouth no word was uttered, but
  In his heart he thought to himself,
"There's something strange about this."

Thereupon Hsi-men Ch'ing stealthily took up a position behind the whitewashed spirit screen just inside the gate in order to see what was up. No sooner had he done so than he saw Hsiao-yü come out and set up a table in the courtyard beneath the loggia that ran along one side.

It so happens that Wu Yüeh-niang, ever since the falling out with her husband that had resulted in their no longer being on speaking terms with each other, had been in the habit of fasting on the seventh, seventeenth, and twenty-seventh days of each month. On these occasions she would pay obeisance to the dipper and burn incense at night, praying to Heaven that it would protect her husband and grant him an early change of heart so that he could devote himself to the regulation of the household and the begetting of an heir in order to accomplish:

  The plan of a lifetime.⁶

Hsi-men Ch'ing was quite unaware of this. He continued to look on as Hsiao-yü finished setting out the incense table. Before long Yüeh-niang emerged from her quarters, carefully attired, and proceeded into the courtyard where she ignited a full censer of incense.

Looking up at the sky and making a deep bow she prayed, "Your humble servant, n&eeacute;e Wu, has been joined in wedlock with Hsi-men Ch'ing. However, because my husband is enamored of the 'mist and flowers'; though yet in the prime of life, he remains without an heir. Wife and concubines, there are six of us in all, but none of us has borne a child, so that we lack anyone to continue the care and worship of the ancestral graves. Day and night I worry about this lest we be left with no recourse. Therefore, without my husband's knowledge, I have sworn an oath that on the seventh, seventeenth, and twenty-seventh of each month, beneath the moon and stars, I shall offer up a prayer to the 'three luminaries,' beseeching them to protect my husband and grant him an early change of heart, that he may abandon his extravagant ways and devote himself wholeheartedly to family affairs. That one of his six consorts, no matter which, should soon bear him a son, in order to accomplish:

The plan of a lifetime, is my sincerest wish." Truly:

As she slips out of her chamber
  the night air is cool;
Fragrant mist fills the courtyard,
  the moon glimmers bright.
Bowing to Heaven, she spills out
  all her heartfelt desires;
Quite unaware that anyone might be
  listening beyond the wall.

Nothing might have happened if Hsi-men Ch'ing had not overheard this, but having heard Yüeh-niang's prayer:

From his mouth no word was uttered, but
In his heart he thought to himself,

"It turns out I've been mistaken in my resentment toward her all this time. Everything she said was inspired by concern for my welfare. She and I really are husband and wife after all."

Suiting action to words, he strode out from behind the whitewashed spirit screen and embraced Yüeh-niang. His wife, who had just finished with the incense burning and never expected him to show up on such a snowy night, was so startled that her first impulse was to flee back to her room. But Hsi-men Ch'ing prevented this by embracing her with both arms.

"Darling," he said, "I had absolutely no idea that you've really been inspired by concern for me. I've been wrong about you all this time I've been giving you the cold shoulder. By now, I'm afraid, it's rather late to repent."

"You must have lost your way in the snow," said Yüeh-niang. "I dare say these really aren't the quarters you're looking for, anyway. You're barking up the wrong tree. I'm that 'undutiful whore,' remember. Since there's nothing between us, where do you get that stuff about concern for you? What reason should you have to pay any further attention to me? If we were never to see each other again:

For a thousand years or all eternity,
it would be all right with me.

Hsi-men Ch'ing took Yüeh-niang by the hand and pulled her into the room where he proceeded to look her over by lamplight. She was wearing her usual attire: a scarlet jacket of Lu-chou silk that opened down the middle, and a skirt of a soft yellow material. On her head she wore a sable toque over her chignon and, in front of her coiffure, a tiara of gold representing "Kuan-yin in her full glory," setting off to perfection:

Read more at Princeton University Press

 

Jin Ping Mei, or The Plum in the Golden Vase (Chinese: 金瓶梅; pinyin: Jīn Píng Méi, also translated as The Golden Lotus) is a Chinese naturalistic novel composed in the vernacular (baihua) during the late Ming Dynasty. The author was Lanling Xiaoxiao Sheng (蘭陵笑笑生), "The Scoffing Scholar of Lanling", a clear pseudonym,^[1] and his identity is otherwise unknown.^[2] (The only clue was that he hailed from Lanling, or present-day Shandong.) Earliest versions of the novel exist only in handwritten scripts; the first block-printed book was released only in 1610.^[3] The more complete version today comprises one hundred chapters,^[4] amounting to over a thousand pages.^[5]

Jin Ping Mei is sometimes considered to be the fifth classical novel after the Four Great Classical Novels. Its graphically explicit depiction of sexuality has garnered the novel a level of notoriety in China akin to Fanny Hill in the English literature.

Read more at Wikipedia

A Chinese Honeymoon

More at The Guide To Musical Theatre

A musical play in 2 acts by George Dance                          
Music by Howard Talbot
Royal Strand Theatre, London October 5, 1901
Casino Theatre, Broadway - June 2, 1902 (376 perfs)

 EMPEROR: What is the law on the subject of Admirals disappointing their Emperors?

CHIPPEE CHOP : There isn't one.

EMPEROR: Then go in the corner and think one out. 

"I Want to be a Lidy"

I want to have an evening dress that opens down to there,
And wear a great big diamond ta-ra-ra in my hair;
And when I to the playhouse go, I want to do the grand
With a wreath of flowers on my breast, and a bucket in my hand.

I want to be a lidy, and have a private box,

I want to wag a great big fan, and shake my golden locks,

I want to hiss the villain, and cheer the maid forlorn,

So that folks will know, when I say "Bravo!"

I'm a lidy bred and born

I want to learn to patter French, just like a parlez-vous,
And call my servants "garçons" and my letters "billy-doos,"
And when I go a-visiting, and on my friends I drop,
I want to say "Pardon, Mamselle, I hope I'm not de trop."

 

EMPEROR: Let us rather talk about our wedding.

FI FI: Our wedding! Well, I must say, your highness, you didn't waste much time over pre-limin-aries.

The Emperor does not find his bride as bashful as he had expected.

Chinese Composer Guo Wenjing

 

Guo Wenjing is a composer who lives in China. His work has been taken abroad many times to amaze international audiences. The New York Times once claimed that he is the only world-renowned Chinese musician who never settled down in a foreign country. Today, our reporter Zhao Yang will tell us the story of Guo Wenjing and his music.

Reporter:
You are listening to "Shu Dao Nan", or literally the "Sichuan Road", composed by Guo Wenjing in 1990s. He was inspired by a poem with the same name written 1,000 years ago by the famous poet Li Bai. The poem describes the precipitous and steep roads in the mountainous Sichuan area.

Born in Chongqing city in Sichuan area in 1950s, Guo Wenjing has a deep feeling for his hometown. Besides "Shu Dao Nan", most of his early works are also related to Sichuan, like the concerto "Desolated Mountain" and "Symphony Suspended Coffins on the Cliffs in Sichuan". Though these music works are all named after typical Sichuan sceneries, Guo Wenjing explains what he wanted to express.

"Actually, my music is about Sichuan people rather than Sichuan landscapes. They depict the stubborn spirit of the residents there and my love for my hometown."

Guo Wenjing's fondness for music was cultivated in childhood. At that time, China was suffering social unrest caused by the Cultural Revolution. To ensure little Guo Wenjing's safety, his parents bought him a violin at age 12 to keep him at home. Guo Wenjing gradually understood the charm of music and a few years later, became a professional musician in a local art troupe in Chongqing. There he was attracted by the Russian composer Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich's 11th symphony.

"In his 11th symphony, there is a song about the revolution in Warsaw. It is amazing. When you listen to it, you can immediately picture a scene of the soldiers marching in your mind. The song is very easy to understand. So I decided to be a composer and express my thoughts through music."

Read more at CRIENGLISH

Li Po

Li Bai's birthplace is Chu, Kazakhstan. Another candidate is Suiye in Central Asia (near modern-day Tokmok, Kyrgyzstan). However his family had originally dwelt in what is now southeastern Gansu , and later moved to Jiangyou, near modern Chengdu in Sichuan province, when he was five years old. At the age of ten, his formal education started. Among various schools of classical Chinese philosophies, Taoism was the deepest influence, as demonstrated by his compositions. In 720, he was interviewed by Governor Su Ting, who considered him a genius. Though he expressed the wish to become an official, he could not be bothered to sit for the Chinese civil service examination. Perhaps he considered taking the examination below his dignity. Instead, beginning at age twenty-five, he travelled around China, enjoying liquor and leading a carefree life: very much contrary to the prevailing ideas of a proper Confucian gentleman. His personality fascinated the aristocrats and common people alike, and he was introduced to the Emperor Xuanzong around 742.

In 725, when he was twenty-five years old, Li Bai sailed down the Yangtze River all the way to Weiyang (Yangzhou) and Jinling (Nanjing). During the first year of his trip, he met celebrities and gave away much of his wealth to needy friends. He then turned back to central southern China, met Xu Yushi, the retired prime minister, married his daughter, and settled down in Anlu, Hubei.

In 730, Li Bai stayed in the Zhongnan Mountain near the capital Chang'an (Xi'an), and tried but failed to secure a position. He sailed down the Yellow River, stopped by Luoyang, and visited Taiyuan before going home.

Read more at The biography of Li Po

The Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove

 

During the Wei and Jin Dynasties, there were seven famous scholars who would get together in the bamboo grove for drinking wine, playing musical instruments, chanting poems and chatting. They were Ji Kang, Ruan Ji, Ruan Xian, Shan Tao, Xiang Xiu, Wang Rong and Liu Ling, whom people called “the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove“. These seven noted scholars were all advocates of Taoist theories and fond of music, wine and chatting. They were representative figures of Chinese metaphysics at that time. Many of their literary works were aimed at exposing and satirizing the imperial court. However, due to the different characters, thoughts and aspirations of the seven, they ended up in different situations.

Among them, Ji Kang, Ruan Ji and Xiang Xiu were noted writers and thinkers, all of whom were opposed to the Sima clan that was in power at the time. Ji Kang was multi-talented. He was not only excellent in poetry and literature, but also an accomplished musician. He was subsequently killed by Sima Zhao, who asked him to play Guangling San (a Guqin piece) before his death. The tune was since ranked as a masterpiece throughout the ages.

Due to political reasons, the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove went their separate ways in the end. Although they shared a relatively short time together in the bamboo grove, their literary works and advocating of the nihility thoughts of Laozi and Zhuangzi made them the symbol of honest scholars at the end of the Wei Dynasty. The seven scholars had a far-reaching impact on ancient Chinese writers and the development of ideological history.

The brick relief featuring the Seven Sages plus Rong Qiqi unearthed from the tombs of the Southern Dynasties at Xishan Bridge of Nanjing, Jiangsu Province in 1960 is an invaluable historical and cultural heritage. The relief is composed of over 300 ancient tomb bricks. In the relief, there are eight people sitting on the floor. Some of them are playing musical instruments, some are singing songs and some just listening and nodding. The featured characters are all distinctive and the depiction is simple and lifelike.

During the Wei and Jin Dynasties, there were seven famous scholars who would get together in the bamboo grove for drinking wine, playing musical instruments, chanting poems and chatting. They were Ji Kang, Ruan Ji, Ruan Xian, Shan Tao, Xiang Xiu, Wang Rong and Liu Ling, whom people called “the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove“. These seven noted scholars were all advocates of Taoist theories and fond of music, wine and chatting. They were representative figures of Chinese metaphysics at that time. Many of their literary works were aimed at exposing and satirizing the imperial court. However, due to the different characters, thoughts and aspirations of the seven, they ended up in different situations.

 

Among them, Ji Kang, Ruan Ji and Xiang Xiu were noted writers and thinkers, all of whom were opposed to the Sima clan that was in power at the time. Ji Kang was multi-talented. He was not only excellent in poetry and literature, but also an accomplished musician. He was subsequently killed by Sima Zhao, who asked him to play Guangling San (a Guqin piece) before his death. The tune was since ranked as a masterpiece throughout the ages.

Due to political reasons, the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove went their separate ways in the end. Although they shared a relatively short time together in the bamboo grove, their literary works and advocating of the nihility thoughts of Laozi and Zhuangzi made them the symbol of honest scholars at the end of the Wei Dynasty. The seven scholars had a far-reaching impact on ancient Chinese writers and the development of ideological history.

The brick relief featuring the Seven Sages plus Rong Qiqi unearthed from the tombs of the Southern Dynasties at Xishan Bridge of Nanjing, Jiangsu Province in 1960 is an invaluable historical and cultural heritage. The relief is composed of over 300 ancient tomb bricks. In the relief, there are eight people sitting on the floor. Some of them are playing musical instruments, some are singing songs and some just listening and nodding. The featured characters are all distinctive and the depiction is simple and lifelike.

Read and see more at Cultural China

The Fireflies by Du Fu

The Fireflies

 

At Wu Shan, of an autumn night,

The fireflies come flitting

Through the curtains

Into my room,

And flutter on my garments.

So warm they seem

That my lute and book

Are chill to my touch

In the dark.

They settle on the walls and eaves,

And my room is agleam as if with stars.

They circle round the courtyard,

And, in clusters,

Cling to the old stone well-curb.

They enter the flowers

And make of each a tiny, glowing jewel.

I stand, an old, white-haired man,

By the broad Yang Tze,

And watch you, little fireflies,

And wonder if, when next year comes,

I shall be here to greet you.

Humanistic Text

 

 

SPRING GAZE by Du Fu

        In this presentation of "Spring Gaze" by Du Fu (712-70), often considered China's greatest poet, viewers can see the Chinese characters, the romanization for each character, the English meaning of each character, and a literary English translation of the poem

More at       http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/china/lit/spring.htm

DU FU (712-770)

   If there is one undisputed genius of Chinese poetry it is Du Fu. The Taoist Li Bai was more popular, the Buddhist Wang Wei was sublimely simple and more intimate with nature, but the Confucian Du Fu had extraordinary thematic range and was a master and innovator of all the verse forms of his time. In his life he never achieved fame as a poet and thought himself a failure in his worldly career. Perhaps only a third of his poems survive due to his long obscurity; his poems appear in no anthology earlier than one dated one hundred thirty years after his death, and it wasn't until the 11th century that he was recognized as a preeminent poet. His highly allusive, symbolic complexity and resonant ambiguity is at times less accessible than the immediacy and bravado of Li Bai. Yet there is a suddenness and pathos in much of his verse, which creates a persona no less constructed than Wang Wei's reluctant official and would-be hermit or Li Bai's blithely drunken Taoist adventurer. Most of what we know of his life is recorded in his poems, but there are dangers to reading his poems as history and autobiography. By the time he was in his twenties, he was referring to his long white hair—in the persona of the Confucian elder. As Sam Hamill notes, “It was natural that many a poet would adopt the persona of the 'long white-haired” and old man—this lent a younger poet an authority of tone and diction he might never aspire to otherwise.” Du Fu is sometimes called “the poet of history” because his poems record the turbulent times of the decline of the Tang dynasty and constitute in part a Confucian societal critique of the suffering of the poor and the corruption of officials. He also records his own sufferings, exile, falls from grace, the death of his son by starvation; but some critics have suggested that the poems on these themes are exaggerated in the service of self-dramatization.

Du Fu was born to a prominent but declining family of scholar-officials, perhaps from modern day Henan province, though he referred to himself as a native of Duling, the ancestral home of the Du clan. In the Six Dynasties period his ancestors were in the service of the southern courts; his grandfather Du Shenyan, was an important poet of the early Tang dynasty, and a more remote ancestor, Du Yu (222-84), was a famed Confucianist and military man. In spite of family connections, however, Du Fu had difficulty achieving patronage and governmental postings, and twice failed the Imperial Examinations, in 735 and 747. He was a restless traveler, and the poems of this early period show him to be a young man given to revelry, military and hunting arts, painting and music. In 744 he met Li Bai, and this formed the basis for one of the world's most famed literary friendships; the two poets devote a number of poems to each other. In 751 Du Fu passed a special examination that he finagled through submitting rhyme-prose works directly to the emperor, but it wasn't until 755 that he was offered a post—a rather humiliating posting in the provinces—which he rejected, accepting instead the patronage of the heir apparent. In the winter of that year, however, the An Lushan Rebellion broke out, and the emperor fled to Sichuan, abdicated, and the heir apparent became the new emperor in Gansu province. Meanwhile, the rebels seized the capital, and Du Fu, attempting to join the new emperor in the distant northwest, was captured by the rebels. He was detained for a year, but managed to escape, and after traveling in disguise through the occupied territory, joined the emperor's court in the position of Reminder. He was arrested soon after four his outspokenness in defending a friend, a general who had failed to win a battle, but was pardoned and exiled to a low posting in Huazhou. He quit his job there, and moved to Chengdu, where he and his family depended upon the kindness of friends and relatives, and moved again and again to avoid banditry and rebellions. In spite of this instability, his poems show a serenity in this period, particularly those from 760-762, when he lived in a “thatched hut” provided by a patron and friend named Yan Yu, who hired him in the years that followed as a military adviser. After Yan's death in 765, Du Fu left Chengdu, traveling down the Yangtze River, finding patrons and dreaming of a return to Changan, but being prevented by invasions from Tibet. He spent his final three years traveling on a boat, detained in sickness, and finally winding down to his death as he journeyed down the Yangtze, apparently accepting the withering away of his health and life.

The Drunken Boat

On Drinking Alone by Moonlight Li Bai

tr W.A.P.Martin ~1900?
 
 
On Drinking Alone by Moonlight
 
 
Here are flowers and here is wine,
But where’s a friend with me to join
Hand in hand and heart to heart
In one full cup before we part?

Rather than to drink alone,
I’ll make bold to ask the moon
To condescend to lend her face
The hour and the scene to grace.

Lo, she answers, and she brings
My shadow on her silver wings;
That makes three, and we shall be.
I ween, a merry company

The modest moon declines the cup,
But shadow promptly takes it up,
And when I dance my shadow fleet
Keeps measure with my flying feet.

But though the moon declines to tipple
She dances in yon shining ripple,
And when I sing, my festive song,
The echoes of the moon prolong.

Say, when shall we next meet together?
Surely not in cloudy weather,
For you my boon companions dear
Come only when the sky is clear.

Clattery MacHinery

AN INCIDENT

LU HSUN  1920

Six years have slipped by since I came from the country to the capital. During that time I have seen and heard quite enough of so-called affairs of state; but none of them made much impression on me. If asked to define their influence, I can only say they aggravated my ill temper and made me, frankly speaking, more and more misanthropic.

One incident, however, struck me as significant, and aroused me from my ill temper, so that even now I cannot forget it.

It happened during the winter of 1917. A bitter north wind was blowing, but, to make a living, I had to be up and out early. I met scarcely a soul on the road, and had great difficulty in hiring a rickshaw to take me to S—— Gate. Presently the wind dropped a little. By now the loose dust had all been blown away, leaving the roadway clean, and the rickshaw man quickened his pace. We were just approaching S—— Gate when someone crossing the road was entangled in our rickshaw and slowly fell.

It was a woman, with streaks of white in her hair, wearing ragged clothes. She had left the pavement without warning to cut across in front of us, and although the rickshaw man had made way, her tattered jacket, unbuttoned and fluttering in the wind, had caught on the shaft. Luckily the rickshaw man pulled up quickly, otherwise she would certainly have had a bad fall and been seriously injured.

She lay there on the ground, and the rickshaw man stopped. I did not think the old woman was hurt, and there had been no witnesses to what had happened, so I resented this officiousness which might land him in trouble and hold me up.

"It's all right," I said. "Go on."

He paid no attention, however—perhaps he had not heard—for he set down the shafts, and gently helped the old woman to get up. Supporting her by one arm, he asked:

"Are you all right?"

"I'm hurt."

I had seen how slowly she fell, and was sure she could not be hurt. She must be pretending, which was disgusting. The rickshaw man had asked for trouble, and now he had it. He would have to find his own way out.

But the rickshaw man did not hesitate for a minute after the old woman said she was injured. Still holding her arm, he helped her slowly forward. I was surprised. When I looked ahead, I saw a police station. Because of the high wind, there was no one outside, so the rickshaw man helped the old woman towards the gate.

Suddenly I had a strange feeling. His dusty, retreating figure seemed larger at that instant. Indeed, the further he walked the larger he loomed, until I had to look up to him. Ar the same time he seemed gradually to be exerting a pressure on me, which threatened to overpower the small self under my fur-lined gown.

My vitality seemed sapped as I sat there motionless, my mind a blank, until a policeman came out. Then I got down from the rickshaw.

The policeman came up to me, and said, "Get another rickshaw. He can't pull you any more."

Without thinking, I pulled a handful of coppers from my coat pocket and handed them to the policeman. "Please give him these," I said.

The wind had dropped completely, but the road was still quiet. I walked along thinking, but I was almost afraid to turn my thoughts on myself. Setting aside what had happened earlier, what had I meant by that handful of coppers? Was it a reward? Who was I to judge the rickshaw man? I could not answer myself.

Even now, this remains fresh in my memory. It often causes me distress, and makes me try to think about myself. The military and political affairs of those years I have forgotten as completely as the classics I read in my childhood. Yet this incident keeps coming back to me, often more vivid than in actual life, teaching me shame, urging me to reform, and giving me fresh courage and hope.

 

July 1920

Selected stories of Lu Hsun by Lu Hsun

The MLK Memorial: Made in China?

Bob Duggan

The international summer of troubled and/or troubling public art continues and, I hope, concludes with the unveiling of the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial, which was to officially take place in Washington, DC, this Sunday, until Hurricane Irene intervened. Originally scheduled to the mark the 48th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. "I Have a Dream" speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in 1963, the unveiling already had storm clouds approaching in the form of protestors railing against the use of a Chinese sculptor and Chinese pink granite for the African-American’s tribute. Does it really matter who sculpted the memorial or what it’s made of? Or should a grand symbolic gesture be symbolic through and through?

The memorial takes its main inspiration from a line from that “I Have a Dream” speech. “Out of a mountain of despair,” King prayed, “a stone of hope.” The official website describes the design thus:

 “At the entry portal, two stones are parted and a single stone wedge is pushed forward toward the horizon; the missing piece of what was once a single boulder. The smooth insides of the portal contrast the rough outer surfaces of the boulder. Beyond this portal, the stone appears to have been thrust into the plaza, wrested from the boulder and pushed forward – it bears signs of a great monolithic struggle.

“On the visible side of the stone, the theme of hope is presented, with the text from King's famed 1963 speech cut sharply into the stone: "Out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope." On the other side are inscribed these words: "I was a drum major for justice, peace and righteousness”, a statement suggested by Dr. King himself when describing how he would like to be remembered.

“The boulder is the Mountain of Despair, through which every visitor will enter, moving through the struggle as Dr. King did during his life, and then be released into the open freedom of the plaza. The solitary stone is the Stone of Hope, from which Dr. King’s image emerges, gazing over the Tidal Basin toward the horizon, seeing a future society of justice and equality for which he encouraged all citizens to strive.”

 So, to sum up, you walk through the “Mountain of Despair,” which has been split apart by “a great monolithic struggle” into a “Stone of Hope,” from which MLK’s visage emerges (shown above). I guess the idea that in the Tidal Basin, “justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream,” is implied. The symbolism’s so thick that the address of the memorial is 1964 Independence Avenue to celebrate the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which is a lovely gesture but one seemingly inconsistent with the 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech theme so prevalent everywhere else. I shouldn’t quibble with the memorial designers. Memorials are all about creating memory through evocative symbolism—heavy, pervasive, and obvious even to the children learning about MLK and Civil Rights for the first time.

But how is it possible to compose such a grand symphony of symbolism and yet be tone deaf at the same time? The biggest wrong note in question is Chinese Master Sculptor Lei Yixin. Lei’s previous experience in creating public art came in his native land in sculpting memorials to Mao Zedong, among others. I doubt Mao and Martin would ever share a beer together, let alone an artist. In April 2008 the U.S. Commission of Fine Art actually rejected Lei’s earlier design as too confrontational. Just judging from the photos, it does seem that King with crossed arms is more warrior than peace-maker, although he was a warrior for peace. I may be influenced by knowing Lei’s history, but I can’t help but shake the idea that you could rip off the MLK mask and find Mao scowling beneath. How hard would it have been for the organizers to find a suitable African-American sculptor? Some critics allege that such a search never happened, which would be a shame. I’m not saying that it had to be an African-American. But if you’re going to get all “Mountain of Despair” and “Stone of Hope,” why not take the extra, but extra-important, step of making the choice of a sculptor enjoying the fruits of MLK’s labor today? The fact that the sculpture itself is made of Chinese pink granite (chosen to stand out from the other memorials in DC made of American stone) is just more bitter icing on the cake, especially for an American granite industry already competing with Chinese and other foreign markets.

In just this past year, Oliviero Rainaldi’s quirky statue of Pope John Paul II drew the ire of Italians, some of whom thought it looked more like Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini; while in Chicago, Seward Johnson’s skirt-flying Forever Marilyn made some look up (her skirt) and others look away. Now Lei Yixin’s MLK via Mao completes the summer’s triumvirate of taste-challenging public sculpture around the globe. I guess the lesson for future planners of grand public sculpture is that if you’re going to go symbolic, take the advice of Marilyn Monroe in a different field, and go all the way.

bigthink

Right now, I have neither the time nor the words (I'm agasht) to comment on Mr. Duggan's article which belies his education, and ignominiously showcases his ignorance thus revealing a complete  and utter lack of knowledge about humans.  This piece that he has written is, to me, offensive; and, I am neither Black nor Chinese.

I have serious doubts, as should you, that Mr. Duggan possesses any knowledge whatsoever about either Blacks or Chinese, their history in America or their homelands.  However, the Press being what it is these days, I wonder why I wonder such dribble is not only written, but actually consumed and accepted by both the educated and ignoramus.

"But how is it possible to compose such a grand symphony of symbolism and yet be tone deaf at the same time? The biggest wrong note in question is Chinese Master Sculptor Lei Yixin. Lei’s previous experience in creating public art came in his native land in sculpting memorials to Mao Zedong, among others. I doubt Mao and Martin would ever share a beer together, let alone an artist."

Mr. Duggan"s Master's Degrees notwithstanding, he, a white man, has the presumptuousness to suggest that two of the three most oppressed races (Native American is the third) in the U.S., if not the world, cannot understand one another!

I think I'll grab my coffee table book on architecture - design, and look at buildings by I.M. Pei.  My favorite?  The Bank of China Tower, Hong Kong.   Oh, by the way, Bob - you might want to inform the millions of visitors to the D.C., Vietnam Veterans Memorial, and the 58,261 occupants of Valhalla whose names adorn the cool, black cut-stone masonry wall - their commemoration was designed by a Chinese, a woman no less,  Maya Lin!  

wdb

 

菜根譚 / Tending the Roots of Wisdom

 

               Uploaded by tomorallen on Dec 7, 2006

Tending the Roots of Wisdom was written by Hong Yingming during the Wanli reign period (1573-1620) of the Ming Dynasty. Hong Yingming adopted the Confucian virtue of "self-cultivation" with the Taoist and Buddhist doctrine of "returning to simplicity and the unadorned truth". These two appellations thread together and fuse the three major trends of traditional Chinese thought - Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism. Tending the Roots of Wisdom is filled with precepts stressing self-cultivation.

              

Li Hongzhang's Poem

 

 

                                           Li Hongzhang     

 Having never released horse saddles or left chariots, I painstakingly worked out;
Till the reckoning of disaster did I find out that it was not easy to simply die.
For 300 years, the foot-steps of my motherland had been staggering;
Along the road of 8000 li distance were scenes of hardship-stricken mourning populace.
In the sobre autumn winds, I, a minister in solitude, was in tears beside my treasured sword;
With the sun setting, I now stand by the campaigning flag on the generalissimo's altar;
Dusts of war are still floating over all seas, with no sign of settling down.
Gentlemen, please not look upon the developments of our country as a disinterested bystander.            

http://www.imperialchina.org/lihongzhang.htm