REFLECTIONS IN A CHINESE EYE

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

Dream of the Red Chamber (红楼梦)

An abandoned history of Chinese influence

Painters in Edo Period Osaka modeled themselves on the Chinese literati artists, finding fellowship in their shared interests

Edo Period (1603-1868) paintings from Osaka have been relatively neglected in comparison with paintings from Tokyo and Kyoto. A canonical list of works and a historical framework were written up in Tokyo in the 1890s in a series of influential lectures by scholar Okakura Tenshin, setting the directions of subsequent scholarship. Osaka received scarce consideration, and it was not until the 1981 exhibition "Osaka Painting Schools in the Edo Period" at the Osaka Municipal Museum of Art that interest returned. Now, a new show, "The World of Bunjinga in Early Modern Osaka" at the Ashiya City Museum of Art and History till Feb. 22, takes another look, focusing on bunjinga — Japanese paintings done in the style of Chinese literati from the Song dynasty.

 

Eastern inflections: Imamiya Taishitsu's "Floating Wine Cups"(1832) and Zen priest Kakutei's "Yellow Birds in a Willow"(undated; below) ASHIYA CITY MUSEUM OF ART

Kansai University art historian Nobuo Nakatani offers reasons for the inattention. When Osaka's economy collapsed during World War II, collectors stopped buying Osaka paintings and haven't returned to them since then (Nakatani has pointed out that these pieces can now be acquired at prices equivalent to "a salaryman's pocket money"). Another, earlier reason was the distinctly Chinese orientation of artists in the city — a backward-looking position — when Japan was about to modernize and its Meiji (1868-1912) government was creating slogans such as "Out of Asia, Into Europe."

China figures prominently in the coterie of artists and intellectuals who orbited the influential painter and naturalist Kimura Kenkado (1736-1802), whose work is on show in the exhibition. Born Kimura Sonsai, he became known as Kenkado, from the Japanese name of the school he later founded: Hall of the Concurrent Reed. Due to his fragile health as a youth, Kenkado was encouraged to pursue a scholarly life by his father. At age 5 or 6, he took an interest in art, and later studied with the Kano School painter Ooka Shunboku (1680- 1763), before learning flower and bird painting with the Obaku Zen priest Kakutei (whose "Yellow Birds in a Willow" is in the exhibition). This was the colorful and decorative Ming dynasty (1368-1644) style of Shen Nanpin, who visited Nagasaki from 1731-33 and established a following among locals.

Other literati, such as Kyoto-based Nakabayashi Chikuto, took a dim view of mixing the craftsmanlike skill of Nanpin's botanical accuracy with the cherished, expressive possibilities of true literati painting; still, such a style percolated unreservedly in Osaka works.

At age 15, Kenkado visited Ikeno Taiga, considered Japan's premier literati painter, and became his pupil and then patron. To become part of the bunjinga world, however, it was not enough to study painting and scholarship alone, or join a school. As a Chinese import that took root in 18th century Japan, literati painting escaped art's boundaries and came to represent a whole lifestyle that was imbued with poetic sentiments and gentlemanly ideals.

Kenkado's membership in the Konton (Elegant Confusion Society) is instructive. There, members would gather, sometimes in Chinese dress, to enjoy steeped tea and savor Chinese verse, art treasures and the Confucian classics — in short, to become erudite and cultivated, and to share a common interest in the culture of China, though one very much internalized, lacking as they did the actual desire to travel there.

Their fellowship is obvious in their joint contributions to a single work, such as "Views from High Atop a Mountain" by Kenkado, Totoki Baigai, and Okada Beisanjin and his son Hanko. As well, the often modest size of paintings suggests that they were to be exchanged and enjoyed among friends.

Such a sense of fellowship can also be discerned in the benefaction of Maruyama Sessai, Daimyo of Nagashima from 1776-1801, who came to the aid of Kenkado when he was forced to forfeit the fortune he had amassed as a sake merchant due to a breach of the production code. Inviting Kenkado to Nagashima for two years, Maruyama helped him revive his former wealth, a kindness extended due to the Chinese ideals they held in common — ones that dissolved the class barriers that could conventionally have kept the two remote.

The more pure Sinicization in Osaka paintings was in contrast to early literati painters such as Ikeno Taiga and Yosa Buson, who blended Chinese and Japanese painting idioms. This refinement of Chinese styles was brought about by the increasing availability of Ming and Qing period paintings in late 18th-century Japan.

Okada Hanko developed a rich and conservative aesthetic based on his study of Qing dynasty (1644-1912) painting. Though Hanko in his own lifetime was the more celebrated than his father, in the 20th century Beisanjin has garnered more acclaim for bold and gestural landscapes such as "Literati Studio"(undated). But, as is often the case, the present values the past for different things, and even imposes on it meanings it may not actually have possessed. Up to now, Osaka painting circles have not only been overlooked in the formation of a Japanese canon of art, they have suffered a decline in patronage as Japan moved its aesthetic orientation away from China. Perhaps it is time for a new look at the genre.

The Japan Times

THROWING OFF ASIA II - WOODBLOCK PRINTS OF THE SINO-JAPANESE WAR (1894-95

Symbolic “China”

Because racism in the age of imperialism is most commonly associated with “white supremacism” (and the smug rhetoric of a “white man’s burden”), this explosive outburst of Japanese condescension toward China and the Chinese seems all the more stunning. In the Western hierarchy of race, so-called Orientals or Asiatics or Mongoloids were lumped together—below the superior Caucasians and above the “Negroid.” In their inimitable way, the Japanese promoted these stereotypes where the Chinese were concerned, even while trying to demonstrate their own identity with the Caucasians.

What made this even more disconcerting was the intimate overlay of race and culture in the case of Japan and China. No non-Chinese society was more indebted to China. Japan’s written language, its great traditions of Buddhism and Confucianism, vast portions of its finest achievements in art and architecture—all came from China. In an abrupt phrase familiar to all literate Japanese, even in the Meiji period, China and Japan were culturally as close as “lips and teeth.”

But that, of course, was the point—and what made this outburst of anti-Chinese sentiment a very peculiar sort of racism on the part of the Japanese. The Chinese were contemptible because they were deemed inept. At the same time, however, “China” was symbolic and self-referential. “China,” that is, stood for “Asia.’ It stood for “the past.” It stood for outmoded “traditional values.” It stood for “weakness” vis-à-vis the Western powers. It stood, coming even closer to home, for “evil customs of the past” that Japanese leaders ever since the Meiji Restoration argued had to be eradicated within Japan itself if their nation—and Asia as a whole—were to survive in a dog-eat-dog modern world.

“Old” China was the Anti-West, the Anti-Modern (a notion China’s own Communist leaders would later embrace with a vengeance themselves). As a consequence, while the corpses were unmistakably and brutally Chinese, they stood for a great deal more as well.

To return to Fukuzawa’s famous phrase, killing Chinese amounted to “throwing off Asia” in every conceivable way. This was seen to be essential to Japan’s security, its very survival. It was deemed progressive. It amounted, when all was said and done, to embracing a “modern” kind of hybridization. Where the old Japan had been distinguished by enormous indebtedness to traditional Chinese culture, the new Japan would be distinguished by wholesale borrowing from the modern West.

At the same time, of course—as is true of nationalism everywhere—it was necessary to think oneself unique. In the Japanese case, this was accomplished by “reinventing” the mystique surrounding the throne and imperial family. It was not coincidental that the war against China coincided with the consolidation of a modern emperor system under the new constitution of 1890.

From the Japanese perspective, the denigration of the Chinese that permeates the Sino-Japanese War prints was really secondary to the obverse side of this triumphal new nationalism. It was secondary, that is, to the story of the surpassing discipline and self-sacrifice of Japanese from every level of society. That is why many of the most memorable war prints do not depict the enemy at all, but rather focus on the Japanese alone. Sometimes they are simply battling raw nature (the fierce blizzards and turbulent seas), sometimes simply shown in control of the powerful machinery of modern warfare. Always there is a celebration of brave men engaged in a noble mission—throwing themselves against an ominous, threatening, but also thrillingly challenging and alluring world.

Thus Gekkō, who often reveled in particularly grisly combat details, devoted one print to a serene depiction of “Officers and Men Worshipping the Rising Sun While Encamped in the Mountains of Port Arthur.” (That the sun rose in the east, the direction of the Imperial Palace in Tokyo, intensified the ideological implications of such worship.) Another Gekkō offering focuses on the solitary figure of “Engineer Superior Private Onoguchi Tokuji, Defying Death,” and yet another on “the Famous Death-Defying Seven from the Warship Yaeyama” rowing through high waves.

“Officers and Men Worshipping the Rising Sun While Encamped in the
Mountains of Port Arthur” by Ogata Gekkō, December 1894

[2000.154] Sharf Collection, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

“Picture of the Second Army’s Assault on Jinzhoucheng: Engineer Superior Private Onoguchi Tokuji, Defying Death, Places Explosives and Blasts the Gate of the Enemy Fort” by Ogata Gekkō, 1895

[2000.407] Sharf Collection, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

         “Illustration of the Death-Defying Squad of Captain Osawa and Seven Others from the Crew of the Warship Yaeyama Pushing Forward in Rongcheng Bay” by Ogata Gekkō, 1895

[2000.408a-c] Sharf Collection, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Read more and view woodblock prints at MIT VISUAL

THROWING OFF ASIA II - WOODBLOCK PRINTS OF THE SINO-JAPANESE WAR (1894-95

Devil in the Details

“Illustration of the Decapitation of Violent Chinese Soldiers”

by Utagawa Kokunimasa, October 1894 (detail)

[2000.380.07] Sharf Collection, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

When all was said and done, denigration ruled the day when it came to portraying the Chinese foe. As the prints so graphically reveal, moreover, such disdain frequently carried both a harsh racist charge and an undisguised edge of pure sadism. The devil, as always, is in the details. The Chinese are slashed with swords; skewered with bayonets (often run through from behind, as in Kiyochika’s showing); shot at close range; beaten down with rifle butts; strangled; crushed with boulders; pounded with oars while floundering in the sea. They tumble off cliffs and warships like tiny rag dolls. In one print, a civilian caught in battle lies crumpled on the ground with a still-open parasol on his corpse, conspicuous once again by his gaudy and (in Japanese eyes) outlandish clothing.

It is particularly sobering to keep in mind that this was not on-the-scene “realism.” The woodblock artists worked largely out of their own imaginations, tailoring this to news reports from the front. They were commercial artists catering to a popular audience, and this was the war Japanese wished to see.

Admiral Ding Juchang, the Chinese generals on their horses, the occasional battlefield enemies treated as just as human as the Japanese are exceptions that prove the rule. The prototypical Chinese is grotesque. His face is contorted, his body twisted and often turned topsy-turvy, his demeanor in most cases abject. Battlefield scenes routinely include cringing foe pleading for their lives—even while making clear that the emperor’s stalwart heroes should and would pay no heed to such cowardice. The braided queue becomes, in and of itself, a mark of backwardness and inferiority; in more than a few battle scenes, Japanese stalwarts grasp this while dispatching their victim. (Pulling Chinese men by their “pigtail” was also a favorite image among American and English cartoonists until the overthrow of the Manchu dynasty in 1911, after which this hairstyle was no longer mandatory for ethnic Chinese males.)

Chinese prisoners of war, usually bound with thick rope, also drew attention. Ōkura Kōtō imagined “Captain Higuchi” (lionized for picking up a Chinese child on the battlefield) confronting three such captured Chinese—a particularly suggestive scene, combining as it did denigration of the “old” China with chivalrously rescuing “young” (or future) China, and all this in front of a piece of heavy artillery. Toshihide and others similarly dwelled on Chinese officers kneeling in supplication before their captors.

Kokunimasa offered a harsh “Illustration of the Decapitation of Violent Chinese Soldiers” that included a lengthy inscription. The benevolence and justice of the Japanese army, this text explained, equaled and even surpassed that of the civilized Western nations. By contrast, the barbarity of the Chinese was such that some prisoners attacked their guards. As a warning, the Japanese—as depicted in the print—had beheaded as many as 38 rebellious prisoners in front of other captured Chinese. The Rising Sun military flag still fluttered in one panel of Kokunimasa’s print; the stalwart cavalry officer still surveyed the scene; the executioner still struck the familiar heroic pose with upraised sword. The subject itself, however, and severed heads on the ground, made this an unusually frightful scene.

The derision of the Chinese that permeates these prints found expression in other sectors of popular Japanese culture. The scholar Donald Keene, for example, has documented how popular prose, poems, and songs of the war years took similar delight in lampooning the “pumpkin-headed” Chinese and making jokes about their slaughter. (It was around this time that the pejorative Japanese epithets chanchan and chankoro became popular, amounting to a counterpart to the English-language slur “chink.”)

Even today, over a century later, this contempt remains shocking. Simply as racial stereotyping alone, it was as disdainful of the Chinese as anything that can be found in anti-“Oriental” racism in the United States and Europe at the time—as if the process of “Westernization” had entailed, for Japanese, adopting the white man’s imagery while excluding themselves from it. This poisonous seed, already planted in violence in 1894–95, would burst into full atrocious flower four decades later, when the emperor’s soldiers and sailors once again launched war against China. Ironically, the Japanese propaganda that accompanied that later war involved throwing off “the West” and embracing “Pan-Asianism”—but that is another story.

Go to MIT VVISUALS to view the woodblock prints.

THROWING OFF ASIA II - WOODBLOCK PRINTS OF THE SINO-JAPANESE WAR (1894-95

              “Old China, New Japan”

In contrast to Kiyochika’s distinctive thematic compositions, many woodblock artists reveled in the tumult and chaos of the battlefield. They offered their audience riotous melees—congested spectacles that invite the viewer to scrutinize the scene, sort out the combatants, discover any number of intimate details. Sometimes the detail is so dense it is startling to be reminded that these popular artworks were usually tossed off in a matter of days.

Still, predictable patterns give order to this chaos. Discipline (the Japanese side) prevails over disarray (the Chinese). The sword-wielding Japanese officer and bayonet-thrusting infantryman are invariably present—and easy to locate, since their black uniforms contrast sharply to the flamboyant clothing and paraphernalia of the Chinese. The enemy’s garments vary from battle to battle but are always colorful and frequently decorated with elaborate designs. Their headgear suggests that they employ many different haberdashers. In contrast to the ubiquitous rising-sun-with-rays military flag of the Japanese, Chinese banners and ensigns feature a range of designs. Sometimes the enemy employ archaic weapons such as a three-prong pike or trident. Here and there they carry old-fashioned round shields decorated with garish face-like designs. The braided queues worn by Chinese men often stretch out like ropes or snakes; sometimes they are coiled in a bun. In short, the Chinese are depicted as being riotous in every way—disgracefully so in their behavior, and delightfully so in their accoutrements.

“Great Attack in Snow at Fort of One-Hundred-Foot Cliff Near Weihaiwei: Illustration of Major General Odera’s Desperate Fight - Commander of the 11th Brigade” by Utagawa Kokunimasa, February 1895 [2000.102] Sharf Collection, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

“Chinese and Japanese Troops: Picture of a Fierce Battle at Gaiping” by Nakagawa, February 1895 [21.1540] Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

“Sino-Japanese War: The Fierce Battle on the Floating Bridge at Jiuliancheng” by Kobayashi Toshimitsu, October 1894 [2000.023] Sharf Collection, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Read and view more woodblock prints at MIT VISUAL

THROWING OFF ASIA II - WOODBLOCK PRINTS OF THE SINO-JAPANESE WAR (1894-95

War Prints of Kobayashi Kiyochika

The energy and artistic skill of the best war prints are all the more remarkable when we keep in mind the haste of their composition. Some sense of the impressive nature of this accomplishment can be gleaned by an overview of prints by Kiyochika, the most esteemed of these artists, who is calculated to have produced more than seventy triptychs during the brief ten months of the Sino-Japanese War. Kiyochika’s impressions of the front ranged from the lyrical to the atrocious, sometimes even bringing these two extremes together.

In Kiyochika’s war, a cavalry officer stands before a horse in a quilted blanket, a rowboat buried in slabs of ice by his feet, and observes troops crossing a frozen river in the pale glow of dawn. We can almost feel the numbing cold. In a comparably crisp winter scene, three officers stand around a telescope on a snow-buried bluff at Weihaiwei, looking down on a Chinese fleet in the harbor that they will soon destroy. (Kiyochika’s early-morning colors here and elsewhere often show a Western influence art historians have called “Turneresque,” after the English master of painterly light.)

“The Army Advancing on the Ice to Attack Weihaiwei” by Kobayashi Kiyochika, 1895 [2000.417] Sharf Collection, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

“Picture of Advance Disposition of Troops at Weihaiwei” by Kobayashi Kiyochika, 1895 [2000.420] Sharf Collection, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

“Our Scout Reconnoiters the Enemy Encampment near the Yalu River” by Kobayashi Kiyochika, 1894 [2000.380.28] Sharf Collection, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

In other Kiyochika prints, a blizzard whips across an army regiment almost invisible in the blinding snow; one must look twice to see the crouching figures. Campfires pierce the dead of a winter night as a shadowy mounted figure pauses before a tent where, as we know from the Red Cross flag, the wounded are being tended. An exhausted officer asleep on the front dreams of returning as a hero to his family back home.

"Illustration of the Attack and Occupation of Tianzhuangtai” by Kobayashi Kiyochika, 1895 [2000.250] Sharf Collection, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

“Braving the Bitter Cold, Our Troops Set Up Camp at Yingkou” by Kobayashi Kiyochika, 1895 [2000.419] Sharf Collection, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

“A Soldier's Dream at Camp during a Truce in the Sino-Japanese War” by Kobayashi Kiyochika, April 1895 [2000.279] Sharf Collection, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Occasionally, Kiyochika “quotes” himself with a subtlety worlds apart from the repetitive figures and themes found in prints by less accomplished artists like Toshikata. In another winter scene, for example, officers in heavy overcoats (one mounted on another horse with a quilted blanket) are posed in falling snow before a shadowy line of soldiers with their rifles held upright like a picket fence. Another print depicts a naval officer wading ashore from a rowboat that had delivered him from a shadow warship. Behind him, sailors hold their long oars perfectly upright in the light fog—much like the rifles in the snowstorm. A depiction of high-ranking officers questioning local Chinese informants after a snowstorm frames the deceptively serene scene in a rainbow.   Read and view more at MIT Visual

THROWING OFF ASIA II - WOODBLOCK PRINTS OF THE SINO-JAPANESE WAR (1894-95

Prints & Propaganda

The Sino-Japanese War began in July 1894 and ended in China’s shattering defeat in April 1895. It involved battles on land and sea; began with fighting in Korea that spilled over the Yalu River into Manchuria; witnessed the opening of a second front on the Liaotung (Liaodong) Japanese lines of attack in the Sino-Japanese War (July 1894–April 1895) Peninsula and against Chinese fortifications at Weihaiwei as well as Port Arthur; and eventually involved a Japanese assault on the distant Chinese island of Formosa (Taiwan). On the Japanese side, approximately 240,000 fighting men were mobilized for the campaigns in Korea and China proper, along with another 154,000 behind-the-lines laborers. Battlefield fatalities were surprisingly low, numbering only around 1,400; additionally, many died of illnesses, particularly those caused by severe winter conditions. Another 50,000 troops and 26,000 laborers were deployed in the relatively ignored Formosa campaign, where Japanese losses were actually higher. Overall Chinese casualties were much greater. In the battle for Port Arthur alone, for example, it is estimated that as many as 60,000 Chinese, including civilians, may have been killed. In this moment of heady triumph, Japan did indeed seem to have “thrown off Asia” and gained recognition as a modern power, just as Fukuzawa had urged more than a decade earlier. This great demonstration of military prowess not only hastened the end of the unequal treaties that the foreign powers had saddled Japan with ever since the 1850s. It also opened the door to an extraordinary, almost unimaginable prize: the conclusion (in 1902) of a bilateral military alliance with Great Britain. As time would show, however, this proved a costly triumph for everyone involved. In taking the imperialist powers as a model even while condemning their arrogance and aggression, the Japanese had adopted an inherently ambiguous and contradictory role. And in “throwing off” China as they did—not merely decisively but also derisively—they exhibited a racist contempt for other Asians that, even today, can take one’s breath away. Lafcadio Hearn, the distinguished writer and long-time resident of Japan, immediately recognized the perilous nature of the new world Japan had entered. In 1896, the year after the war ended, he wrote this:

The real birthday of the new Japan … began with the conquest of China. The war is ended; the future, though clouded, seems big with promise; and, however grim the obstacles to loftier and more enduring achievements, Japan has neither fears nor doubts. Perhaps the future danger is just in this immense self-confidence. It is not a new feeling created by victory. It is a race feeling, which repeated triumphs have served only to strengthen. (Quoted from Hearn’s book Kokoro by Shumpei Okamoto in Impressions of the Front.)

Nothing reveals this “race feeling” more graphically than the lively woodblock prints through which Japanese on the home front visualized—and grew rapturous over—what was taking place. Although the Sino-Japanese War lasted less than a year, woodblock artists churned out around 3,000 works of ostensible battlefront “reportage”—amounting, as Donald Keene has pointed out, to an amazing ten new images every day.

“Our Forces’ Great Victory and Occupation of Jiuliancheng”
by Watanabe Nobukazu, November 1894

[2000.380.37] Sharf Collection, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

This was not “high art.” The woodblock print itself was a popular art form that dated back only to the 17th century and found its audience in an emerging class of ordinary city dwellers. The prints were neither costly nor meant to be cherished and preserved as timeless creations. They were designed to amuse and entertain—and to introduce an untidy mass audience to worlds of hitherto unimagined beauty and fascination, whether this be courtesans and actors in the pleasure quarters, or places the print viewer might never personally see, or purely imagined realms of heroes, villains, ghosts, grotesqueries, and erotic indulgence. In subject, style, and audience, the exuberant woodblock prints were the antithesis of most things associated with tasteful upper-class classical art.

What we now regard as the great flowering of the woodblock-print tradition ended at the very end of the feudal era with artists of surpassing genius such as Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849) and Utagawa Hiroshige (1797–1858). The “Meiji prints” that followed were less esteemed. Even generations later, after collectors and connoisseurs had belatedly come to recognize the enormous creativity and enduring value of the feudal-era prints—had accorded them, as it were, a kind of “classic” stature of their own—the prints of the modern era were generally held in low regard.

It is only in recent decades that the Meiji prints have drawn serious attention. Partly, it must be acknowledged, this came about because they were lying around in considerable quantity and much less expensive to collect than the suddenly pricey feudal prints. Partly, too, this rise in interest occurred because these later prints were belatedly seen to have a distinctive vigor all their own.

There was, however, a third factor behind the rediscovery of Meiji prints. As historians began to turn increasing attention to “popular” culture (beginning around the 1960s), and to place more weight on studying “texts” that went beyond written documents per se, graphics and images of every sort were suddenly recognized to be a vivacious way of visualizing the past. One could, in effect, literally see what people in other times and places were themselves actually seeing—and then try to make sense of this. One could “read” visual images much as one might read the written word—not simply as art, but also as social and cultural documents.

READ MORE AT MIT VISUALIZATION

 

The 1951 Bowman Red Menace

The Cold War may be over, but collectors are still fighting to complete this "menacing" set.

Unveiled shortly after Communist forces invaded South Korea to begin the Korean War, the 1951 Bowman Red Menace set conveys the fears that many Americans had about "Red" rule.

The artwork on the 48 cards in this set features scenes from the Korean conflict and Soviet attacks, as well as air battles and important military figures. Concentration camps, slave labor and the consequences of an atomic bomb being dropped are also illustrated to reinforce the perceived evils of Communism. The set's third card - Slave Labor - encourages parents to read a U.S. government publication about the "cruelty" of Communism. The set makes it clear that Communists pose a serious threat to the democratic freedom of Americans.

While some may dismiss these cards as propaganda today, others insist that they accurately expressed the anxiety of Americans in 1951.

"Actually, history has vindicated this set," said Kurt Kuersteiner, webmaster of www.monsterwax.com and www.monstercards.org. "After the fall of the Soviet Union, a lot of the files that have come forward show that a lot of the "Red Scare" that had been dismissed in the American media for years had sufficient grounds for concern. It all sounded kind of absurd to some people at the time, and they always felt like it was exaggeration, but there was a very true cold war going on."

Bill Bengen, who owns the No. 3 All-Time Finest, 1951 Bowman Red Menace set on the PSA Set Registry, remembers being fearful of Communism as a child.

"The set reminds me so much of the fear of Communism that I had when I was a kid," he said. "This set really nails it in terms of the emotional content that we all felt back then."

Tom King, who also contributed to the 1949 Bowman Wild West issue, was one of the artists that worked on these cards. Reportedly using news reports for inspiration, Gordon Palmer, who was responsible for the text on the 1951 Bowman Jets, Rockets, Spacemen cards, penned the card backs for this issue.

Card fronts boast colorful artwork and no text, while the backs feature a card number, title and description of the scene on the front. The words "Children's Crusade Against Communism," as well as a white star representing democracy and a red star that stands for communism, are also pictured on the backs.

"It's a very, very colorful set and there are some truly beautiful cards," noted Bengen.

Backs can be found in tan or gray stock. Kuersteiner says that the different card stocks could be attributed to Bowman running out of one stock and resorting to the other. Another possible explanation could be that after a first print run sold out, the company used a different card stock to distinguish the second printing from the first, offered Kuersteiner.

Some hobbyists prefer to have the same-colored backs on all of their cards. So far, neither back commands a premium.

Cards were released in five-card, five-cent packs with bubble gum. Wrappers are pale blue and flaunt the words "Fight the Red Menace." The packs also showcase white and red stars.

"Packs are extremely scarce," said Marty Quinn, who owns the No. 1 set on the PSA Set Registry. "I wouldn't say wrappers are rare, but you don't see them on eBay every day either."

In 1995, non-sports card pioneer Bob Marks uncovered a display box that provided further explanation about the "Children's Crusade Against Communism" that's advertised prominently on the card backs. The bottom of the display box boasts a "Crusader's Oath" that reads:

"I believe in God, and in the God given freedom of man. I believe in the United States of America and the United Nations. I believe in government of the people, by the people, and for the people . . . I am against any system which enslaves men and makes them merely tools of the State. I pray for the people who must live under such a system. I pray that they may be delivered from oppression. I pledge my faith, loyalty and devotion to the cause of freedom for all mankind."

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A dangerous mix of art and politics

Editor's note: Melissa Chiu is the director of the Asia Society Museum in New York.

New York (CNN) -- Art and politics are entangled in China. Two recent events in Beijing show just how much: the reopening of the National Museum and the detention of the outspoken artist Ai Weiwei.

The renovated museum's inaugural displays avoid the less palatable aspects of history under the Communist Party, including the disastrous famines of the Great Leap Forward that cost millions of lives in the 1950s and '60s. There's only a minute reference to the violent and destructive Cultural Revolution of the '60s and '70s, and none at all to the bloody 1989 pro-democracy protests of Tiananmen Square, where the museum stands.

Such omissions are no surprise. Artists in China have long been aware of these and other no-go subjects. They know that if they want to show their work in state-run museums, they must conform to an unspoken "no politics, no sex and no violence" rule.

In the early 1990s, many artists tried to get around this rule by showing their work at their studios and private galleries. Even so, exhibitions were sometimes closed by authorities and artists rounded up. Performance artists in Beijing's East Village were especially vulnerable in 1994. One of the most celebrated, Ma Liuming, was arrested after security forces broke up a performance.

Melissa Chiu

Recently, there has been a relaxation of sorts. During the past five years, gallery districts have flourished in cities across the country, a collector class has grown in line with the boom in the economy and even state-run museums have let down their guard to show more contemporary works.

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