BRIEFLY SPARKLING

Just for the heck of it, and largely inspired by seeing someone else's lovely painting, I drew a magpie today. Which made me remember another poem by Meng Haoran, famous literatus of the Tang Dynasty (618 to 906 A.D.). As a degree-holder, Meng Haoran did not have a particularly illustrious career. But as a poet, he gained lasting fame.
His verse is approachable, and easy to read.
Gentle on the mind's eye.

秋霄月下有懷
['chau siu yuet haa yau waai']
Autumn evening moon inspired emotions.

秋空明月懸，光彩露沾濕。
驚鵲棲未定，飛螢捲簾入。
庭槐寒影疏，鄰杵夜聲急。
佳期曠何許，望望空佇立。

['chau hung ming yuet yuen, gwong choi lou jim sap, geng cheuk chai mei ding, fei ying kuen lim yap, ting waai hon ying so, luen chu ye seng kap, gaai kei kwong ho heui, mong mong hung ding lap']

The moon hangs in the autumn sky, its brilliance making the dew sparkle,
A startled magpie perches restlessly as flying fireflies come tumbling in...
The courtyard locust tree's sparse shadows, a neighbors' rice pestle sounds sharply this evening,
How long will this good time last? I just stand here looking at the firmament.


The visual distinctly posits fireflies entering or crossing the cold darkness of the locust tree's shadow, disturbed by the same harsh noise (the rice pestle) as the magpie.
A crystalized intense moment in time.

Rice pestles or pounders are used to dehusk rice.
It's actually more of a dull thumping sound.


螢

Fireflies (lampyridae) are a mid-to late summer phenomenon in central and southern China, adding by their brief mass flashing, which is sometimes amazingly synchronous, an otherworldly quality to forests and stands of trees near water at night.
Stenocladius is the most common genus in that zone.




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MISTER MENG'S FITFUL SLEEP

Across the hill a spanking new mural reminds me of a verse from over a thousand years ago. That is to say, there is a running or grass script rendition of that quatrain on the wall, of which I can make out some of the characters.

春眠不覺曉，處處聞啼鳥。夜來風雨聲，花落知多少。
['chwun min pat gok hiu, chü chü man tai niu. Ye loi fung yü saang, faa lok ji do siu.'; "dozing in spring till the bird noises woke me, after a night with the sound of wind and rain. I wonder how many flowers have fallen?"]
春曉 ('chun hiu'; spring dawn) by 孟浩然 ('maang hou yin'; Meng Haoran).



It's an easily memorized poem. Short, five syllable lines, clear vocabulary. If I recall correctly, it's in the Three Hundred Poems of The Tang Dynasty. Which Hong Kong kids were exposed to during highschool.

Which is dreadfully old hat. Kids don't need poetry. It's triggering and elitist.

Certainly in Florida they won't get any, because poetry is also rarely Christian and reflective of the good old days of the nineteen fifties, when people knew their place.
Poetry is also far too often Canadian!

Here in California, at the opposite end of the spectrum, old-style poetry is considered too old fashioned and too white. So no more actual poetry in schools. Rhyme and metre might turn them into slave-owning imperialists.

Yeah, okay, I think modern Americans are largely insane vulgarians with agendas.
And the Tang Dynasty period was a horrible time to be non-white.
I concede that point. Nasty and barbaric.
No vegans!


I think I'll wander around mister Meng's courtyard for a bit.
It's rather delightful there.



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BUT ARE THEY ACTUAL TREES?

Having previously mentioned the Yellow Crane Tower, for reference purposes the poem by Cui Hao (崔顥) is posted below.

昔人已乘黃鶴去， 此地空餘黃鶴樓。
黃鶴一去不復返， 白雲千載空悠悠。
晴川歷歷漢陽樹， 芳草萋萋鸚鵡洲。
日暮鄉關何處是， 煙波江上使人愁。

Cantonese pronunciation:
Sik yan yi sing wong hok heui, chi dei hung yu wong hok lau,
Wong hok yat heui pat fau faan, paak wan chin joi hung yau yau;
Ching chuen lik lik hon yeung syu, fong chou chai chai ying mou jau,
Yat mou heung gwaan ho chyu si, yin po gong seung si yan chou.

HANYANG TREE

昔人 = Sik yan; people of the past.
此地 = Chi dei; this place.
一去不復返 = Yat heui pat fau faan; once gone not returning, gone forever.
載 = Joi; year, anuum.
悠悠 = Yau yau; remote, distant, long or far, lasting for ages.
歷歷 = Lik lik; past occurence, historically, time upon time.
漢陽樹 = Hon yeung syu; hanyang trees, type of willow gloriously yellow in Autumn, a district of Wuhan.
萋萋 = 'Chai chai'; luxurious, abundant, rich in foliage.
鸚鵡洲 = Ying mou jau; Parrot Island. 鸚鵡 = Ying mou; parrot.
日暮 = Yat mou; at end of day, dusk.
煙波 - Yin po; smoke haze and waves; mist covered water.

Cui hao (崔顥 'ceui hou'): Tang dynasty poet, died 754.


An image search for 'Hanyang Tree' in Chinese turns up naught but lovely pictures of golden trees in Wuhan, in English less so but otherwise the same. There is no Wikipedia entry.
So it may be just the notable vegetation in that area (漢陽).
As well as an image in the mind.



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INCENTIVE TO BECOME LITERATE

They're pounding in the piles for a new Buddhist prayer hall a few blocks over. Which I can hear from my sheltered eyrie while smoking. It's right next to a daycare centre for Cantonese kids. Who must be terrified by the sound. "It's the boojums come to get us!" I imagine there must be whimpering and screaming. What the little tykes need, obviously, is a nice calming cigarette. Fortunately, I have exactly that. Made for delicate little hands, these fags are less than half the diametre of a normal smoke. Longish, and extremely thin. Perfect for them.

But aimed at an entirely different demographic. Probably the snarky and superior college graduate with a degree in Chinese literature, somewhere in Central China. Yellow Crane Pavilion ciggies. Very elegant and exquisite. I purchased a few packs of them last week.
No tax stamp, and rare in these parts. I don't plan to share them with the kiddies.
They're all mine. Gwan, piss off, ya little freeloaders!

黃鶴樓香煙
[Huang He Lou Xiang Yin]

At least until the day they can write down from memory all the words of the Tang Dynasty poem* by Li Pai (李白 'lei baak') bidding farewell to his good friend Meng Haoran (孟浩然 'maang hou-yin') which sad parting these smokes so delightfully recall.

故人西辭黃鶴樓
煙花三月下揚州
孤帆遠影碧空盡
唯見長江天際流

[Cantonese pronunciation: 'gu yan sai chi wong hok lau, yin faa saam yuet haa yeung jau, gu faan yuen ying bik hong jeun, wai kin cheung kong tin jai lau'.]

It is a firmly held principle of mine that one should not indulge in tobacco if one cannot read at a college level. For some of us this may be by our early teens, for too many others it never happens. A lot of people who vote and serve on juries in this great country are squidly out of luck on that score and we're forced to deal with their idiocy dammit.

We should send those off to fight in the robot wars.
Without a damned thing to smoke.



(*) 黃鶴樓送孟浩然之廣陵



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A DAY OF COLD FOOD (寒食)

The text that that gentleman is writing on the blackboard is 春城無處不飛花，寒食東風御柳斜；日暮漢宮傳蠟燭，輕煙散入五侯家。In the springtime city no place lacks swirling petals, on 'Eat Cold Food Day' the breeze inclines the willows; at dusk there's a flickering of candles in the Han Palace, drifting whisps of smoke enter the homes of the five great lords.

Tang Dynasty regulated verse by Han Hong (韓翃 'hon wang').

寒食 (COLD EAT)

Chun seng mou chü pat fei faa,
Hon-sik tung-fong yü lau che;
Yat-mou hon-gung chuen laap-juk,
Heng yan saan yap ng hau gaa.



NOTES:

The pronunciation of Chinese has deviated since the Tang era (唐朝 'tong chiu' 618 - 907 CE), so the rhymes no longer hold.
The transcription here is in Cantonese.

寒食 ('hon sik'): The day when fires aren't lit and cold food is eaten; the Chingming festival. Usually the fifth day of April, except in leap-years, when it is the fourth. Tomb-sweeping day, when graves are cleaned and ancestors reverenced.
飛花 ('fei faa'): Flying flowers; swirling petals, a flurry of blossoms; a marking of spring.
東風 ('tung fong'): East wind.
御 ('yü'): Manage, govern; resist, defend.
斜 ('che'): Oblique, aslant.
日暮 ('yat mou'): Day-dusk, sunset, at twilight just before darkness.
漢宮 ('hon gung'): The palace of the Han dynasty; here a clue that the poet refers to something both other timed and other placed, as he is writing several centuries later.
蠟燭 ('laap juk'): Waxen tapers; candles and oil lamps for reading by.
散 ('saan'): Dispersing, scattering; leisurely, at random; dispelled, disemployed.
五侯家 ('ng hau gaa'): Literally, "five marquis family", the semi-royal homes, but here an oblique reference to the core of important courtiers and eunuchs.


Like many other examples of regulated verse, especially the single quatrains, the interpretation is dependent on the mood inculcated in the reader, and his or her familiarity with implied details.
Take the thought, and mentally go further.



[Post pursuant an article in Time Magazine: Why Mandarin Won’t Be a Lingua Franca.]



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THREE HUNDRED POEMS

When I left the house for lunch in Chinatown yesterday it felt like good things were going to happen. Let's just say that my senses were fair tingling with such an expectation.
My senses did not let me down.

During lunch I ended up in conversation with a nice gentleman from Jiangsu (江蘇 'gong sou') province, long a resident of our city.
We had to share a table, and we ate similar things.

I would have had the preserved egg and lean pork porridge (皮蛋瘦肉粥 'pei daan sau yiuk juk'), except I noticed him ordering that, and I did not want to seem to be imitating. Besides, I speak Cantonese, and can read the stuff on the wall.

Show-off time: Request the congee with dried fish and peanuts (柴魚花生粥 'chaai-yü faa-sang juk'). It's written in Chinese.
"Firewood fish" (柴魚 'chaai yü') really tells you what it is. Fatty tuna blanched, dried over heat, fermented with specific strains of bacteria, and lastly sawed into pieces, fragmented, or even finely ground for flavouring. The Japanese use something very similar for their miso soup (味噌汁 'mei chang jap').
Instead of chaai-yü it's called katsuo bushi (鰹節 'gin jit').


I do not think I've ever discussed Old English, Middle English, Early Modern English, and Germanic linguistics with someone from Northern China before.

[Yes yes, I do know that Jiangsu is central-south. But it's far to the north of Lingnan (嶺南), two language groups removed from Canton, and pushing up against the Mandarin Belt. So it's north. Almost as north as you can get.]

His son is taking Latin (拉丁語) in college.
Which is almost as practical as 古文.
Or, for that matter, Old English.

[By the way: the first strophe of Beowulf (hwæt, we Gardena in geardagum, þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon, hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon) is identified as 'Icelandic' by Google Translate. This is giving those wall-fish eating heathens way too much credit. Instead, a different bunch of savages are lauded: the Bright Speared Danes.]


After a pleasant post-prandial chat we parted ways. I left the restaurant and lit a pipe, wandering first through Spofford (新呂宋巷 'san leui song hong'), then up to Hang Ah Alley (香雅巷 'heung ya hong'), which is now also called Pagoda Alley (寶塔巷 'pou taap hong'), before finally circling around through Waverly (天后廟街 'tin hou miu kai') and down to Grant (都板街 'dou pan kai'). Eventually, after finishing my pipe, I ended up in a cluster of indoor shops. Great Source Commercial.
Where I ended up purchasing a copy of the Three Hundred Poems of the Tang Dynasty. Of which I already have several copies.
That I cannot find.

See, the problem is that I keep pulling a copy to look something up, whereupon it ends up in another stack, eventually covered by other books...... Earlier today I tried to find Mathews Dictionary of Chinese, but neither copy of that could be found. I'm sure I have both of them somewhere. Along with all copies of the Three Hundred Poems.
Somewhere. Don't know where.
Not a clue.

So indeed, I needed another one.

The elderly proprietor was so tickled at finding someone who gave a damn that he cut me a deal. How could I resist?
I think he'd had the book for years.
It's finally found a home.


唐詩三百首

The Three Hundred Tang Poems is a classic anthology compiled by the Retired Scholar of Heng Tang (衡塘退士 'hang tong teui-si', 1711 - 1778) during the Manchu Dynasty. All the greats are represented within, and since it was first published it has been a constant best-seller. For the truly literate, all is transparent. But like most people, my favourite verses are the ones that I can actually read entirely. Poems with too many words that I have to look up don't rank very high; it is only by repeated exposure that more examples get added to the list.
Many of the words are of little use in daily life.
Some only appear rarely at best.
Others not at all.

Evenso, re-reading the Three Hundred Poems of Tang is like revisiting lost places, which one had last seen very long ago, and again meeting the people who once were familiar.
Part of the reason for that is of course the re-sparked memories, but a larger part is due to the nature of Chinese literati versifying, namely to impart a sense of empathy with those who are elsewhere and elsewhen. Much of the output of the great poets was shaped by their own internal exiles and that of their friends and relatives, and a significant portion of what they wrote shared a sensitivity to time and place with the people whom they were sure would read their writings.
Fellow exiles, wanderers, transients.
Floating scholars.


Imagine the following sample as a series of letters floating in and out of inboxes, as members of the same social network communicate with each other and connect. Marginalia, perhaps; query or comment on their circumstances, certainly; the writers are observant, and show a heightened sensitivity to strange stimulation. Everything has newness.
As stigmata of their displacement, there is a sharp cognizance of detail.


夜雨寄北 YE YU JI BEI
By 李商隐 (Li Shangyin)

君問歸期未有期，巴山夜雨漲秋池。
何當共剪西窗燭，卻話巴山夜雨時。
Jūn wèn guī-qī wèi yǒu qī, bāshān yè yǔ zhǎng qiū chí.
Hé dāng gòng jiǎn xī chuāng zhú, què huà bā shān yè yǔ shí.

EVENING RAIN WHILE RESIDING IN THE NORTH

"You ask me when I will return, but I have no date set; the evening rain on Ba Mountain makes the autumn pool overflow; when shall we once more trim wicks together at the western window? Let's just say that it will be when autumn comes again on Ba Mountain."

YE YU GEI PAAK

Gwan man gwai kei mei yau kei, baa saan ye yu jeung chau chi;
Ho dong gong jin sai cheung juk, keuk wa baa saan ye yu si.

Note: 巴山夜雨漲秋池 can also be read to mean "my exile in this strange and godforsaken place has topped all extremes".


山行 SHAN XING
By 項斯 (Xiang Si)

青櫪林深亦有人，一渠流水數家分。
山當日午回峰影，草帶泥痕過鹿群。
蒸茗氣從茅舍出，繰絲聲隔竹籬聞。
行逢賣藥歸來客，不惜相隨入島雲。
Qīng lì lín shēn yì yǒu rén, yī qú liú shuǐ shǔ jiā fēn.
Shān dāng rì wǔ huí fēng yǐng, cǎo dài ní hén guò lù qún.
Zhēng míng qì cóng máo-shè chū, zǎo sī shēng gé zhú lí wén.
Xíng féng mài yào guī-lái kè, bù xī xiāng suí rù dǎo yún.

WANDERING IN THE MOUNTAINS

"In the verdant depths of the forest there are also people; along a stream there may live several households; during the day the sun delineates the peaks; grass casts stripes to hide the deer;
Tea fragrance comes from a rustic cottage; reeling silk whispersounds cross the garden fence; back from selling herbs the recluse wanders; with sure tread re-entering his island clouds."

SAAN HANG

Ching lik lam sam yik yau yan, yat keui lau seui sou gaa fan;
Saan dong yat ng wui fung, chou daai nai han gwo luk kwan.
Jhing ming hei chung maau se chut, chiu si seng gaak juk lei man;
Haang fung mai yeuk gwai loi haak, pat sik seung cheui yap dou wan.


夜雪 YE XUE
By 白居易 (Bai Juyi)

已訝衾枕冷，復見窗戶明。
夜深知雪重，時聞折竹聲。
Yǐ yà qīn zhěn lěng, fù jiàn chuāng-hù míng.
Yè shēn zhī xuě zhòng, shí wén zhé zhú shēng.

NIGHT SNOW

"Already astounded by the cold of my blanket and pillow, the brightness at the window added to that;
Late at night I knew the snow was thick, when I heard the cracking of bamboo."

YE SUET

yi ngaa kam ngam laang, fuk kin cheung wu ming;
ye sam ji suet chung, si man jit juk seng.


春雪 CHUN XUE
By 韓愈 (Han Yu)

新年都未有芳華，二月初驚見草芽。
白雪卻嫌春色晚，故穿庭樹作飛花。
Xīn nián dōu wèi yǒu fāng huá, èr yuè chū jīng jiàn cǎo yá.
Bái xuě què xián chūn-sè wǎn, gù chuān ting shù zuò fēi huā.

SPRING SNOW

"This new year still lacks fragrance, even by the second month it is startling to see buds;
Though white snow delays the colouration of Spring, a courtyard tree defiantly blossoms."

CHUN SUET

San nin dou mei yau fong waa, yi yuet cho geng kin chou ngaa;
Paak suet keuk yim cheun sik maan, gu chuen ting syue jok fei faa.


春思 CHUN SI
By 賈至 (Jia Zhi)

草色青青柳色黃，桃花歷亂李花香。
東風不為吹愁去，春日偏能惹恨長。
Cǎo-sè qīng-qīng liǔ-sè huáng, táo huā lì luàn li huā xiāng.
Dōng fēng bù wéi chuī chóu qù, chūn rì piān néng rě hèn zhǎng.

SPRING THOUGHTS

"Grasses are intensely green and the willows golden, peach trees riotously blooming and plums fragrant; The east wind does not blow to sadden, Spring days are not suitable for bitterness."

CHUN SI

Chou sik ching ching lau sik wong, tou faa lik-luen lei faa heung;
Tung fong pat wai cheui sau heui, cheun yat pin nang ye han cheung.


月夜憶舍弟 YUE YE YI SHE DI
By 杜甫 (Du Fu)

戍鼓斷人行，秋邊一雁聲。
露從今夜白，月是故鄉明。
有弟皆分散，無家問死生。
寄書長不避，況乃未休兵。

Shù gǔ duàn rén xíng, qiū biān yī yàn shēng.
Lù cóng jīn-yè bái, yuè shì gù-xiāng míng.
Yǒu dì jiē fēn sàn, wú jiā wèn sǐ shēng.
Jì shū cháng bù bì, kuàng nǎi wèi xiū bīng.

REMEMBERING MY BROTHERS BY MOONLIGHT

"Military drums cut the march, far off a migrating goose calls; Dew will be white from this night forward, and the moon is home-town bright;
My younger brothers are scattered hither and yon, with no one at home to ask whether they are alive or dead; mailed letters long await responses, and our troops have no relief."

YUET YE YI SE DAI

Syu gu duen yan hang, chau pin yat ngaan sing;
Lou chung gam ye paak, yue si gu heung ming.
Yau dai gaai fan saan, mou gaa man sei saang;
Gei syu cheung pat pei, fong naai mei yau bing.


It might not be too much to read a note of mild tension in these poems; there is no certainty, all termination is open-ended.
It is, on the other hand, relatively easy to understand how these poets appealed across the generations, when countless of their countrymen experienced distant postings, upheavals, changes of fortune, and displacement. Even today the simple straightforward evocation of something else, and something therefore exceptional, speaks in vibrant verse to the Chinese eye.

I am sorry; my paraphrasis of the texts in English cannot do them justice.
I have tried to give an idea of what they mean, and how they meant it.



POST SCRIPT

While waiting for the Pacific Avenue bus I encountered an old friend. She does not look worried now, and has changed jobs. I am not certain that her current employ gives her the time she needs for her daughter, but she seems less stressed. I hope it will work out.

She has that look of strength, vulnerability, and defiant stubbornness which I find so admirable among certain Cantonese women.

Seeing her again was marvelous.





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INVENTING THE FEMININE PRONOUN: HER

The Chinese spoken languages do not possess a third person pronoun equivalent to 'her'. Classical third person singular (qí​ 其) always was non-sexual, to be interpreted contextually as masculine, feminine, neuter, this, that, or other.
In modern Mandarin, that third person is 'tā​'.

Which was eventually found to be far too imprecise.
Nowadays one can be more specific.
Sometimes one must.


他、它們、與其他的。
TA, TA MEN, YU QI TA DE.
[Him, those, and the others.]

The standard masculine third person singular 他 (tā​) is composed of a human (rén 人 shown in the left side position 亻) with the phonetic element 也 (yě​: also, too) on the right. Originally this fairly modern grapheme meant the third person singular in all iterations and both genders, the context being relied on to make clear what precisely was meant.
Different forms have since been invented.

她 is the feminine form (nǚ 女 woman, female, next to 也).
牠 is the animalian form (niú 牛 ox; animal category character component, next to 也).
它 is plain 'it'; written with a roof (mián 宀) over a ladle (bǐ 匕).
祂 represents the divine form, used in religious contexts when referring to a deity. It is a spirit or ancestor (shì 示), which nowadays by itself means to be revealed or manifested, next to the 也 glyph.
They are all pronounced the same.

All of these are pluralized with 們 (a gate 門 mén​ next to the human 亻).
Thus 他們、她們、牠們、它們、and 祂們。Tā​men​.

The exception is the formal, or third person singular respectful, character, 怹 (tān​), which is used like its ancestor with no regard to gender.
It is formed according to the same pattern as the respectful version of you 您 (nín), which is you​ (你 nǐ​) over xīn 心 (heart, mind, feelings).

In Cantonese, which is the descendant of the Tang-Sung koine, different characters are used for the pronouns: 佢 ('keui': he, him), 姖 ('keui': she, her), and 渠 ('keui': it). The last character (渠) also stands in for all third person singulars, but more so in pre-war writing. There does not appear to be a third person divine yet, possibly because the Cantonese are the most cynical of all the Chinese.
Nor is there a formal version in Cantonese for either the second or third person; probably for the same reason as there is no supernatural third.

Plurals of the Cantonese pronouns are formed by appending the phonetic 哋, which is 'earth' (地 'tei') with a mouth (口 'hau') on the first side to indicate that it is a sound rather than a significant.
Thus: 佢哋、姖哋、渠哋。 All of which are 'keui tei'.
The Cantonese pronunciation 'keui' (洰 rivulet, irrigation ditch) developed from 'kei' (其) over the centuries since the Tang (618 – 907 CE) and Sung (960 - 1279 CE) periods.

The locution 其他 (Mandarin: qí ​tā​; Cantonese: 'kei ta') is the equivalent of undsoweiter, enzovoorts, i taka natatŭk, etcetera, et autres, and so forth.
It is not quite as useful in Chinese as in the European languages.

[In Mandarin: 我 (wǒ​)、我們 (wǒ​ men)；你 (nǐ​)、你們 (nǐ​ men)；他 (tā)、他們 (tā ​men​)；她們 (tā ​men​)、牠們 (tā ​men​)、它們 (tā ​men​)；祂們 (tā ​men​)。
In Cantonese: 我 ('ngoh')、我哋 ('ngoh tei')；你 ('nei')、你哋 ('nei tei')；佢 ('keui')、佢哋 ('keui tei')；姖哋 ('keui tei')、渠哋 ('keui tei')。]

Note: Both Cantonese and Mandarin will understand the character 妳 as being singular second person feminine, but speakers may wonder at the usefulness of such a coinage.


劉半農之創新。
LUI BAN-NONG ZHI CHUANG XIN.
[Liu Ban-nong's innovation.]

In the period after the 1911 revolution, during the New Culture Movement (新文化運動), numerous scholars educated in the traditional fashion which emphasized classical forms of literature and traditional learning, began experimenting with new writing styles, composing their essays, plays, and poetry in the common language. This was considered both modern, and more popularly approachable. Colloquial speech had not resembled the ancient model for several centuries if not millennia at that time, and developing a corpus of literature that expressed ideas in ways that the common man could grasp was considered an important step towards pulling China out of the depths to which it had sunk during the age of Western Imperialism. The difficulty of acquiring literacy in the classical language was, it was felt, a handicap that could only stunt mass development.

The irony of their approach was of course that they themselves were products of that same classical educational norm, and frequently framed their thoughts in a style that their literati ancestors would have well understood, whereas the speech of daily society had till then seldom ever been transcribed.

Many of them realized this, and sought ways to write what had theretofore not been written, and strove to create a common written language.

New characters had to be invented, new words coined.

Written Chinese has always been fairly flexible. As I showed above, in the construction of characters, parts can be combined to create new graphemes, using a signific element and a phonetic element. And though one may think of Chinese as monosyllabic, in actual practise the vocabulary mainly consists of bi-syllabic constructs. It is that second facet which permits new words to enter the language, either by complete phonetic borrowing, such as is common in Cantonese-speaking areas, or combining two or more single-syllable words to express a new datum, such as Mandarin-speakers have done.


Poetry, which had long been constrained by specific forms, also headed into the bright new world. One of the more important writers of the late teens and early twenties of the last century was 劉半農 (Liu Ban-nong, aka 劉復 Liu Fu, pen-name of 劉壽彰 Liu Shou-Zhang), a native of central China who contributed to the literary periodical 新青年 (Xīn ​Qīng N​ián​, La Jeunesse, New Youth; founded in Shanghai by 陳獨秀 Chen Duxia in 1915, published in Peking from 1920 to 1926 ).

In 1920, Liu wrote a poem entitled 教我如何不想她 (jiāo​ wǒ​ rú ​hé​ bù ​xiǎng​ tā​: "tell me how to not remember her"), which is the first time that the character 'her' showed up in print. He is credited as the inventor, though he may have found it when researching 宋元以來俗字譜 (Sòng​ Yuán​ yǐ-​lái​ sú-​zì​ pǔ: "Sung Yuan after vernacular chart", the vernacular characters used since the Song and Yuan dynasties).
It is a rather beautiful poem, which absolutely requires the feminine third person singular for it's impact.

教我如何不想她

天上飄著些微雲
地上吹著些微風
啊...
微風吹動了我的頭髮
教我如何不想她

月光戀愛著海洋
海洋戀愛著月光
啊...
這般蜜也似的銀夜
教我如何不想她

水面落花慢慢流
水底魚兒慢慢游
啊...
燕子你說些什麼話
教我如何不想她

枯樹在冷風裡搖
野火在暮色中燒
啊...
西天還有些兒殘霞
教我如何不想她


Up in the sky faint clouds float,
There is a slight breeze along the ground,
Ah...
That breeze ruffling my hair,
Tells me how to forget her.

The moonlight is passionately in love with the ocean,
The ocean yearns for the moonlight,
Ah ...
This sweet and silvery night,
Tells me how to forget her.

Petals float upon the face of the water,
Underneath, fish lazily drift along,
Ah ...
Oh swallow, what do you say,
Tell me how to forget her.

Barren trees shaking in the cold winds,
And wildfires burning in the darkest nights,
Ah ...
Crimson clouds in the western sky,
Tell me how to forget her.

You will note a subtle change from factual statement ending the first two verses (something 'tells me how to forget her') to an entreaty, almost pleading - oh please tell me how to forget her. The entire poem in effect states that no matter what he has experienced since, he cannot forget her, that memory is always alive.

In another sense, the verses say that it would be unreasonable to even ask him to forget her; everything reminds him of that other person.

It is immaterial who he remembers, it is the fact of remembering that stars in this poem. And, crucially, she would be even more anonymous without this pronomial distinction.


That said, here's miss 韋秀嫻 (Wéi​ Xiù​-xián​) singing it from the other side of the linguistic mechitza:

韋秀嫻 ~ 〈教我如何不想他〉


[SOURCE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMD5Jw4CkbM.]


In this rendition, the third person is not ' her' (她) but very specifically 'him' (他). The sense is still very much the same, and the audience will automatically think of the correct pronoun.

Lovely, eh? Truly a voice like molten sugar. Who could possibly forget that?

Set to music with a melody by fellow linguistics scholar 趙元任 (Zhào​ Yuán​rèn​, Tianjin 1892 – Cambridge MA 1982), this was one of the all-time hits during the twenties and thirties in China, and is still very well known among aficionados of modern Chinese music.



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A THEME OF SPRING: THE POEM 春怨 BY 金昌绪

The avid reader always associates the Spring Season with strife between the civilized world and the savages, as well as political rot. The less-than-avid reader may wonder at times why this is so.
The connection is orioles.

鸎

The oriole symbolizes spring and joy, song and sunlight, as expressed in the idiomatic expression 鶯歌燕舞 (Cantonese: ang goh, yin mou), referring to the warbling of some birds and the lively energy of others - orioles and swallows respectively, indicating that all is well with the world, the weather has improved, and prosperity is on the increase. What is significant is that both types of bird mentioned move north when the weather warms up, and thus harbinge the return of more pleasant days.

[Idiomatic expression: 成語 (seng yu). A large number of them can be found here, with explanations in English and Chinese. Many such expressions are common to both Mandarin and Cantonese, being drawn from literature, classical sources, songs and poetry, and as well as pithy turns of phrase.]

鶯歌燕舞

Orioles sing, swallows dance. Nicely put, and a blameless sentiment, except that one remembers a poem written during the Tang Dynasty showing a darker view of orioles; one that paints them as noisy pests that caused unhappiness in a woman yearning for the man she loved.


春怨

打起黃鶯兒，
莫教枝上啼。
啼時驚妾夢，
不得到遼西。

Spring Sorrow

Oh chase away those orioles,
Stop them singing in the tree!
Their cries destroyed my dream,
And I never reached Liao Hsi!

This broken verse quatrain by 金昌緒 (Jin Chang Xu; Cantonese: Kam Cheung-suei) evokes a husband stationed at the border between the Tang realm and the territory of the Khitans during one of the periodic wars in the north. His wife in the distant heartland imagines herself traveling towards his camp while dreaming, but the birds startle her awake ere she reaches her destination.

CHWUN YUEN

Daa-hei wong ang yi,
Mou gaau ji seung tai.
Tai si geng jip mong,
Pat tak dou Liu-Sai.

[Mandarin: Chun Yuan - 'Da qi huang ying er, mo jiao zhi shang ti. Ti shi jing qie meng, bu de dao liao xi'.]


BARBARIAN HORDES

Khitans? Who or what were the Khitans?

History shows that they were distant descendants of the Tunghu (東胡 tung wu; Eastern Hu), who were a plague upon the border for over a millenium before being destroyed by the Hsiungnu (匈奴 hung nou; clamorous slaves) in the second century BCE. The Tunghu were almost certainly speakers of a Mongolic language, about the linguistic affinity of the Hsiungnu comparatively little is known. Both groups were native to regions in Mongolia, Manchuria, North-Eastern China, and furthest Russia.

After their defeat, remnants of the Tunghu survived as the Wuhuan (烏桓) in Northern China, and the Hsianpei (鮮卑) in Manchuria and Mongolia.

[烏桓 Wuhuan: pronounced wu-wun in Cantonese. The first word is 'crow', with a secondary meaning of 'dark' or 'black', the last a type of tree. Ethnonym.
鮮卑 Hsianpei: pronounced sin-pai in Cantonese, meaning approximately 'freshly despicable'. Significant branches of the Hsianpei included the Murong (慕容 mou-yung; admirable appearance), Yuwen (宇文 yiu-man; structure texts), Tuoba (拓跋 tok-bat; support epilogue or colophon), Duanshi (段氏 tuen-si; section clan), Chifu (乞伏 hat-fuk; beg & conceal), the Tufa (秃發 tuk-fa; baldness issue), et multo plura. ]

For the next several centuries, Chinese rulers often supported the Hsiungnu and the Hsianpei against each other as a means of keeping peace on the border by promoting butchery in the wastelands. This was an effective and pragmatic approach, which the rapacity of the threatening tribes more than justified.

By the third century CE the Hsianpei confederacy dissipated, and various sections established their own polities. The Murong, as one of the more important groups, founded the Former Yan (前燕 chin yin, 337-370 CE), Western Yan (西燕 sai yin, 384-394 CE), Later Yan (後燕 hau yin, 384-409 CE). The Tuoba ruled a part of north-east China as the Northern Wei Dynasty (北魏朝 paak ngai chiu; the northern awesomely-overtowering dynasty) from 386 to 534 CE.

The Khitan (契丹 kaai daan; contract or bond, cinnabar) were slower to establish themselves as pests, however. Their rapacious tendencies, while long evident, did not become manifested as an independent kingdom till the twilight years of the Tang dynasty. In 907 CE they founded the Liao state (遼 liu; distant or far) in what is now Liaoning (遼寧 liu ning; "pacified Liao"), which was defeated by the Jurchen in 1125, when that latter group of proto-Manchus styled themselves the Jin Dynasty (金朝 kam chiu: 1115–1234 CE). The survivors fled into Central Asia and founded the Western Liao Khanate (西遼朝 sai liu chiu: 1124-1218 CE).
Both the Khitan (Liao) and the Jurchen (Jin) were overrun by the Mongols.
The first in 1218, the latter in 1234.

The Mongols were not only the scourge of nations, but the most savagely brutal and reprehensible of all the barbarians to rupture from the deserts.
After the destruction they wrought, much was permanently altered.

The Khitans disappeared, the Jurchens eventually became the Manchus, and subjugated both China and the tribes on the frontiers (including the Mongols), founding the Ching Empire (大清帝國 daai ching dai kwok; great clearness imperial state) and taking Beijing (北京 paak keng; northern capital) in 1644.


遼西 LIAO HSI

[The following paragraphs are parentheses-rich, for which I apologize.]

The principal river in North-East China is the Liao He (遼河 liu ho; distant river), originating in Inner Mongolia, separating the modern-day Chinese provinces Liaoning (遼寧 liu neng; the pacified or settled marches) and Liaotung (遼東 liu tung; the eastern marches), before terminating in the Gulf of Chihli (直隸海灣 jik lai hoi waan; erect servant bay, now called Bohai - 渤海 but hoi; swelling sea).

The provincial capital of Liaoning, Shenyang city (瀋陽 sam yeung; liquid masculine), formerly called Shengjing (盛京 sing-keng; abundant metropole) and also known as Mukden, was where the Manchus built their first imperial palace, nineteen years before they broke through into Sina trans mura and entered Peking in 1644. Even after consolidating their hold on the civilized world, Shengjing remained their ancestral urbis clarissimae.
During the centuries before the Hsianpei and Jurchen became significant the place was called Houcheng (候城 hau sing; expect city), later becoming Fengtian Fu (奉天府 fung tin fu; esteem heaven prefectoral city). Around 300 BCE during the rule of the Yan Dynasty (燕國 yin kwok; swallow country, extant from circa 1045 BCE till conquered by Qin Shihuang* in 222 BCE) the name was changed to Shen Zhou (瀋州 sam jau; pouring state), which the Mongols changed to Shenyang Lu (瀋陽路 sam yeung lou; the Shenyang administrative circuit).
It was subsequently renamed Shenyang Zhongwai (瀋陽中衛 sam yeung jung wai: the Shenyang central commandery) during the Ming period.
In 1914, three years after the fall of the Ching Dynasty, it was given the current name (瀋陽), the meaning of which shows that it is on the sunny side of the Shen River (瀋水 sam seui; pouring water).

[Qin Shihuang (秦始皇 cheun chi-wong; 259 – 210 BCE): founder of the Qin Dynasty (秦朝 cheun chiu; 221 - 206 BCE). Notable achievements include unifying China and terrorizing his subjects. He was followed by his son, an incompetent who met his death in 207 BCE. Note that the term Qin (秦) is the dynastic appellation and an ancient toponym, shihuang (始皇) merely means 'first emperor'. His personal name was Zhao Zheng (趙政 Jiu Jing).]


奉天 "MUKDEN"

As just one instance of the friability of the area, this is the arena where the Japanese created a pretext in 1931 for the invasion of northeastern China. Shenyang was still referred to as Mukden in the Manchu language at the time. After an explosion near a Japanese railway line at Five Willows Lake (柳條湖 Liǔtiáohú; 'lau tiu wu'), staged by rogue officers, the Imperial Japanese Government blamed Chinese bandits, and massively invaded, defeating the garrison troops of Chang Hsue-liang (張學良 Zhāng​ Xué​liáng​; 'cheung hok leung') stationed at the Northern Great Barracks (北大營 běidàyíng; 'baak daai ying') in a few scant hours. They went on to conquer all of Manchuria, and proclaimed the formation of the "Great Manchurian Empire" (大滿洲帝國 Dà​ Mǎn​zhōu​ Dì​guó​; 'daai mun jau dai kwok') on February eighteen of the following year.

As their "head of state", the Japanese chose Aisin-Gioro Pu-yi (愛新覺羅·溥儀 Àixīnjuéluó·Pǔyí; 'ngoi san gaau lou·pou yi'), formerly known as the Hsuan-t'ung Emperor (宣統皇帝 Xuāntǒng Huángdì; 'suen tung wong dai') whose abdication in 1912 ended the Manchu era and the imperial age.


The entire watershed of the Liao river and its tributaries was always considered a distant and unstable region, and even today is still partly barbaric. Although Chinese have always lived there -- frequently in internal exile or posted on the frontier -- it was a part of the civilized world that was not infrequently subject to rapine by outside tribes; the Di (狄、翟 dik) and Rong (戎 yung) peoples, then the Hsiungnu, Hsianpei, Khitan, Jin, Mongol, Turk, and Manchu.


遼東郡與遼西郡
LIU TUNG GWAN AND LIU SAI GWAN

During the Tang era, the eastern and western Liao commandaries (遼東郡、遼西郡) along the northern frontier were frequently in a state of chaos, as the Khitans, though nominally subjected, were not well subjugated.
Generations of soldiers and officials were dispatched to pacify the region, their absence much lamented by the relatives they left behind.


In the quatrain cited at the beginning of this essay, the poet speaks as if in the voice of one such family member, utilizing the customary first person self-depreciating term 'qie' (妾 jip; your servant, concubine) employed by wives in that day and age. It is a literary conceit, which allows him to obliquely criticize the government. Surely if politicians are competent and just, all under heaven (天下 tin haa; 'podnebesnaya' ) will be at peace?

Perhaps things are seriously flawed at the imperial court; otherwise such circumstances could not arise, and people would not suffer.



Note: Separation of couples when husbands were sent to the border is an extremely common theme in Chinese literature; the territories at the Great Wall (長城 cheung sing; long fortification) were a source of danger for millennia.


Afterthought: The operative word in all of this may be 緖 (seui: mental thread, clue, state of mind). Which is also part of the name of the poet whose quatrain was cited. It is a very useful word, obviously.



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THE END, IN BETWEEN, AND THE BEGINNING

The sound of a church bell from a great distance roused her in the middle of the night, and she could not get back to sleep. She got up and fixed herself a weak cup of tea, with lots of cream and a shot of brandy. Perhaps the warm milky liquid and the liquor would help her rest. But rather than going back to bed, she sat at the window and looked at the hills across the valley. White in the snow, and almost glowing from the moonlight. A dark line of trees halfway up the slope continued to the crest line, and, presumably, beyond.
It was a beautiful view, but somewhat eerie and threatening.
Starkly frigid-looking.

What had woken her?

Oh yes, the bells! The village was further down the valley. It must have been a very perfect night for her to hear the sound. Normally it didn't carry this far.
When the mists were thick, not at all.
Muffled by trees and fog.

An hour later she made herself a second cup. Getting back to bed was hard.  She had been ill a lot recently, and consequently her sleep-cycle was askew. Perhaps soon she would go back to school again. She regretted failing classes last semester, and feared that she would have to take many of them over again. A drag. But a necessary refresher, too. She hadn't read much for two months.
It would be good to get back to work.

Three birds winged across the snowy expanse below, as, remarkably, rain began to fall. For no particular reason she remembered a poem by Konstantyn DeLanghe.

Laag hangt de maan, en kraaien krijschen in de kille nacht,
Met doffe ogen midden mispelbomen houdt het vissersvolk de wacht;
Van Kouberg Klooster buiten Ouschudtstede komt geluid,
Het midnacht's kloksgeschal klinkt tot de pelgrim in zijn schuit.

It spoke of a scholar who had also failed, and was traveling by barge on the canals on his way back home. Night time, crows, cold, and bells from a monastery.
Frosty air. Odd though, this early rain. Especially when yesterday's snow was still on the ground. Conceivably the cold wind had stopped before the wall of hills behind her. Further south, perhaps, there was no snow.

This was as far south as she had ever been. The border was not far, but crossing it had not appealed to her. Life was not the same there. Yet she knew that centuries before, those people had not been so closeby, and their rule had not extended to these hills. The huge forests that separated the two nations had shrunk, and 'that language' had taken over. Many places now had different names.
Sibilant, hissing, and nasal. French.
Liege. Louvain. Le Comté de Looz

In the valley of Ardhuaine it was still winter. But on this hill, spring had already started.
She was looking forward to the new year. And perhaps this time the snowbells would bloom in the groves lower down. Pale coins among the disappearing white.

Most of the snow was already gone by the time she woke up.
She felt much better than she had in a long time.
Maybe she'd take a trip across the hills.
This year, once school had ended.
See how those people lived.


AFTERWORD

On the last morning that I went to Hayward, the rain had stopped by the time the train breached the open ground again. There is a line of trees silhouetted along the tops of the Eastbay Hills, forming an elegant border between earth and sky, best seen from Bayfair. Crows flapped past above the sleeping suburbs, and the clouds overhead lightened to silver as day began behind them.

Early in the morning my mind seems more free. Thought patterns have not organized themselves into familiar grooves, as they've done by end of day. Sometimes strange things come to mind.
What if, in an alternate universe, the Dutch where Chinese, and the Chinese were Dutch?
Not so odd an idea. Though they don't have more in common than other peoples, there are some themes which work in both cultures.
Without thinking, I rephrased the famous poem by Cheung Gai (張繼), Night Mooring at Maple Bridge (楓橋夜泊) into Dutch. The pronunciation of Chinese has changed considerably since he wrote it over a thousand years ago, but the words still mean the same.

月落烏啼霜满天，江楓漁火對愁眠；姑蘇城外寒山寺，夜半鐘聲到客船。
The moon goes down, crows caw, frost fills the sky,
Maple trees and fishermen's lights meet the melancholy gaze;
From beyond Cold Mountain Temple, outside the of Suzhou,
The sound of the midnight bell reaches the traveler's boat.

Yuet lok, wu tai, seung mun tin; Gong fung yu fo deui sau min;
Gu sou seng ngoi hon saan ji; Ye pun jung seng dou haak suen.


NOTES: Mispelbomen: maple trees, as in the poem. Though American-Dutch would have given it as 'meppelbomen'. Kouberg Klooster: Cold mountain monastery. But the Dutch word 'klooster' (cloister) does not distinguish between the genders of the renunciants. Ouschudtstede: old shaky city - the term 'su' in Suzhou has as one of it's original meanings the idea of shuddering, shaking, vibrating, as is geographically common in both earthquake country and cities built on mudflats along rivers.
Ardhuaine: a Franco-Netherlandish derivation from the same root that gave us Ardenne, Argonne, Arras, and similar toponyms. As good a fictional place name as any.
Konstantyn DeLanghe: a linguist might make sense of this.



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FIRES ALONG THE BORDER

While the Tang Dynasty (唐朝, 618 CE to 907 CE) is rightly considered one of China’s golden ages, because of the huge amount of art and literature that was created during the long prosperous years of peace under able emperors, there were always pockets of flame flickering here and there in the empire. Not all the barbarians brought under the imperial sway were equally pleased to be part of the most cosmopolitan society that existed on earth, nor were some of them even remotely capable of appreciating the warm embrace of civilization.


THE PESTILENTIAL SCOURGE

This is not surprising, when you consider that many malcontents were Turks. Their ancestors had assaulted the borders for over a millennium, bent on slaughter, rapine, and pillage. It wasn’t till very many generations after the fall of Tang that some Turkish tribes would actually acquire a written language and more acceptable manners.
During the eighth and ninth centuries they were still vicious savages happily despoiling all settled societies within reach.

The Chinese frontier, even during the height of Tang power, always tempted confederacies of horse-borne brigands, who would search out weak spots, and strike at opportune moments. Sometimes they succeeded in breaking through the wall, and laid waste to entire provinces.

Yes, I know. It isn’t politically correct to talk about an ethnic group in such disparaging terms. Even the Turks.
But were it not for their greed, bloodlust, depraved savagery, and brutal opportunism, the thousand mile wall to keep them out would never have been necessary, let alone built.  The Great Wall more than anything else preserved China, and persuaded the heathen desert demons to expand westward, where their descendants eventually raped Russia, destroyed the Caliphates, and conquered Byzantium.

Until the extermination of the Zhungar Khanate by the Ching under Chienlung (乾隆帝) in 1755, which served as a splendid object-lesson to the other wasteland terror-ethnicities, the eastern Turks and Turco-Mongols were kept at bay at best, feared as inhuman monsters at worst.
The three thousand year struggle to keep the heartland from being ravaged by the barbarians beyond the wall occupied the government of every dynasty, created an undying cultural memory of threat and immense sacrifice, and also inspired great literature.
That last far outweighs any contribution from the other side.
Whose impact worldwide has been mostly desolation.

Now, having riled up your liberal sentiments, possibly offended you (ESPECIALLY if you are a cultural relativist, a socialist, or simply ignorant), and having also perhaps insulted your ancestors, if you have the ghastly bad karma to actually be descended from the bestial hordes, here are a few lines of poetry from the height of the Tang period that express beautifully what the long frontier meant to the Chinese.


隴西行 LUNG-SAI HANG
陳陶

誓掃匈奴不顧身, 五千貂錦喪胡塵。
可憐無定河邊骨, 猶是深閨夢裡人。

Sai sou hung-nou bat gu san, ng-chien diu-gam song wu-chan;
Ho-lin mo-ding ho pin gwat, yau si sam-gwai mung-leui yan.

THE TURKESTAN CAMPAIGN
By Chan Tou (Chen Tao)
"Sworn to crush the Hsiungnu without considering themselves, five thousand clad in fur and silk lie buried in the Tatar dust;
How pitiable, those bones by the river of shifting sands, that still populate their widows' dreams."

[Notes: 匈奴 hung nou: an ancient term for the barbarians; 'Hun'. 貂錦 diu-gam: sable and silk, metaphorically the splendid accoutrements of imperial service. 可憐 ho-lin: how sad, how pitiable! 深閨夢 sam-gwai mung: dreams in the women's quarters. ]


夜上受降城聞笛 YE SEUNG SAU HONG SENG MAN DAK
李益

回樂峰前沙似雪, 受降城外月如霜。
不知何處吹蘆管, 一夜征人盡望鄉。

Wui lok fung chin saa chi suet, sau-hong seng-ngoi yuet yu seung;
Pat-chi ho chyu cheui lou gun, yat ye jing-yan cheun mong heung.

AT NIGHT HEARING A FLUTE ON THE CITY WALL AT SHOU-HSIANG
By Lei Yik (Li Yi)
"The sands before Hui-Le Peak seem like snow, beyond Accept-Surrender city the moon shows frost;
Not knowing from where the flute sound comes, all night long recruits think of home."


征人怨 JING -YAN YUEN
柳中庸

歲歲金河復玉關, 朝朝馬策與刀環。
三春白雪歸青塚, 萬里黃河繞黑山。

Seui-seui gam ho fu yuk gwaan, chiu-chiu maa-chaak yu dou-waan;
Saam cheun pak suet gwai ching chung, maan lei wong ho yiu haak saan.

A SOLDIER'S RESENTMENT
By Lau Jung-yung (Liu Zhongyong)
"Year upon year returning to the Jade Pass, age after age of horsewhips and sword hilts;
Three springtimes now snow has blanketed green graves, for a thousand miles the Yellow River girds Black Mountain."

[Notes: Dense visual imagery posed in contrast - snow versus the grasses growing on tombs, as ceaselessly the troops come to guard the frontier; though just the latest recruits in this eternal war, the writer states that for three years they has seen the seasons shift here, but the heartland (Huang Ho: 'Yellow River') will remain constant and timeless.]


AFTERWORD

The phonetic transcription I have given is based on the Cantonese language. This is fitting not only because many of the Chinese in San Francisco speak Cantonese, but also because the Cantonese are the only group to refer to themselves as 'Men of Tang' (Tong yan: 唐人), and their language as 'Tang-speech' (Tong-wa: 唐話).
It is also suitable, because the poetry of that era still mostly rhymes when voiced in their language, the last and greatest descendant of the koine of Tang

The barbarians are yet at the gates, by the way. But they are vastly outnumbered now, and have become rather less relevant since the conquest of Chinese Turkestan (Xinjiang: 新疆) by the Ching Dynasty.
Other than occasional outbursts of irredentist violence, they have no significance.


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LAMENT FOR THE SOUTH - BRIEF BACKGROUND

Among the works I am currently reading is the Ai Jiang Nan Fu (Oi Gong-Naam Fu 哀江南賦) by Yu Hsin (Yu Seun 庾信 b. 513 CE d. 581 CE).

[哀 OI: sadness, mourning. 江 GONG: river. 南 NAAM: south. 江南 GONG-NAAM: the area south of the great river that bisects China. 賦 FU: give, endow. By extension a missive to the emperor regarding moral issues, and hence an ode, elegy, or rhapsody. 庾 YU: storehouse for grains. A surname. 信 SEUN: trust, believe. A missive. 庾信 YU SEUN: surname and given name of the author, in a format no longer quite so common, in that it is but a single character as given name. Literati families often gave their sons names that had a radical (character component) in common, later generations semi-copied that with two syllable names of which each generation would share a first syllable (the 'generation name'), and each subsequent generation then another first syllable. The second syllable (more or less the actual given name) was unique to the person.]

In 557 CE the Liang Dynasty (Leung Chiew 梁朝 502 CE to 557 CE) fell to the Chen, and Yu Hsin, Liang ambassador, was held captive in Chang An, (Cheung On長安) capital city of the Western Wei (Sai Wai Chiew 西魏朝 535 CE to 556 CE), for the rest of his life.
During that time three of his children were executed.

[Liang was succeeded by the Chen Dynasty (Chan Chiew 陳朝 557 CE to 589 CE) in a small part of the former domains. Western Wei (Sai Wai Chiew 西魏朝 535 CE - 556 CE) was taken over by the son and the nephew of warlord Yuwen Tai (Yuman Tai 宇文泰; also known as Heita (Hak Tsat 黑獺 'black otter'), a barbarian later posthumously honoured as founder of their dynasty) who had founded Western Wei with a Han proxy - in their takeover of the state they established Northern Chou (Pak Chou Chiew 北周朝 557 CE to 581 CE). All of these petty kingdoms which vied for power in the fragmented world of the fifth and sixth century China were superseded by the Sui Dynasty (Tsoei Chiew 隋朝 581 CE to 618 CE), which prepared the way for the glorious Tang Dynasty (Tong Chiew 唐朝 618 CE to 907 CE).]

It was during the latter period, after the fall of both Liang and Western Wei, that Yu Hsin composed the Lament for the South. Probably one of the greatest single pieces of pre-Tang poetry ever written, densely evocative of the lands from which the author was an exile, the society that had been destroyed, the cities laid waste. Heartrending.

Beautiful stuff.

I first read it back in the nineties. I had forgotten how good it is.
Around six hundred lines, mostly of six characters each.
At some point I will go into further detail, perhaps presenting passages and translations.
There are a number of literary allusions I don't get, but it shouldn't be too difficult to present a word-portrait of a poem-painting.


Yu Hsin was a typical man of his times - exceedingly literate, well-versed in the classics, a scholar made official. As such he was one of the best representatives of Chinese culture at that time, at any time.
The literati were expected to be men of probity and high ethics, besides being able writers, with a depth and breadth to their knowledge. As such they were examples to be emulated. Upright men, righteous men.

And, in Yu Hsin's case, also homosexual. But that isn't why we remember him.



NOTE: Mandarin and Cantonese pronunciations differ considerably, as you may have shperred from the two different styles above. This is not surprising - they are in fact two separate languages, though derived from the same source.
It was during the Northern and Southern Dynasties (Naam Pak Chiew 南北朝 420 CE to 589 CE) period – the very same era during which Yu Hsin lived – that the Chinese language started showing serious regional separatism, eventually leading to the many splintered tongues of the South. Cantonese is the closest to the language of Sui and Tang of all the Sinitic "dialects", but even Cantonese has deviated.
Evenso........
The poetry still rhymes in Cantonese. In Mandarin it sounds off.


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FOUR FACES CHU SONG - ECONOMY OF EXPRESSION IN CHINESE

A correspondent opined that the Chinese are devoted to their character-script as a matter of cultural identification and preference, and it was further suggested that there was something not entirely logical about adhering to a system that seemed so much more cumbersome than the alphabet.

Well, yes.

And no.

The main reason the Chinese won’t switch to an alphabetic system is that it would not convey anything other than mere sound. When many morphemes are homophonous – even if tones are taken into account – a strictly phonetic script is far less precise than an ideographic script with phonetic elements to the characters.

Mandarin has approximately 600 distinct syllables that are morphematically independent.
If multiplied by the four tones, you end up with around 2400.
Yet the script encompasses about 8000 characters (more or less, and entirely excluding alternate ways of writing the same character).
Some syllables have only two or three meanings. Others, like 'shi' and 'zhi' have dozens of meanings – most not in any way related to each other or derived from each other.

Additionally, spoken Chinese and written Chinese diverge considerably – spoken Chinese uses many more bi-syllabic and polysyllabic constructs than are necessary in Written Chinese, which tends towards brevity.
Old-style literary Chinese is even more condensed – thus, attempting to convey what a piece says by writing as if one were speaking, will lead to a text three to five times longer than the original, which is unnecessarily prolix by the standards of anyone with more than a grammar school education.

Largely as a result of this density, when you read a passage from the classics or a poem aloud, your listener will often not be able to make much sense out of it – unless they’re already acquainted with it.

However even if only barely literate, most people know enough quotes, sayings, and idioms based on literary references that unless something is really abstruse they can make an identification.



THE PARTING OF THE PRINCE OF BA AND HIS LADY[霸王别姬]

As just one example of a literary idiom that can be used to convey much meaning more brevitously than a mere flat phrase, consider the expression 'se mian chu ge' (四面楚歌): literally translatable as "four faces Chu song" - in idiomatic English, "the songs of Chu can be heard from all sides".
Meaning that one is surrounded, the cause is hopeless, the situation extreme.


漢兵已略地
四面楚歌聲
大王義氣盡
賤妾何聊生

Han-bing yi luo di,
Se mian Chu-ge sheng;
Da-wang yi qi jin,
Jian-qien he liao sheng?

"The army of Han has conquered our land,
On four sides there are the songs of Chu;
My lord's spirit is exhausted,
How then should this lowly concubine hold on to life?"


BACKGROUND

In 202 BCE, General Liu Bang (劉邦) of Han (漢) faced the army of the prince of Western Chu (西楚) at Gai-Xia (垓下) in the Central Plains (Zhong-Yuan: 中原). At night he had patrols entirely surround the encampment of the Western-Chu forces, singing well-known songs of their homeland, thus fooling the opposing side into believing that Han had conquered the state already and incorporated it’s people into the Han army, and that consequently the surrounding force was far greater and far more successful than it actually was – this so demoralized the soldiers that many deserted and fled.

[Interpolated addendum as of 12/28/2010
Tzipporah said: "Please clarify the pronouns in your account. Which "he" is surrounding the camp? It sounds like the songs of HAN are surrounding them, not the songs of Chu... ?"
Chu is the ancient name of a Central-Southern state that was a barely Sinicised periphery to the rest of the Chinese world - which at that time did not extend significantly further south than the watershed of the great river.
At its greatest extent Chu included Hunan (湖南), Hubei (湖北), Henan (河南), Anhui (安徽), the southern part of Jiangsu (江蘇) and the northern reaches of Jiangxi (江西). Like the other Chinese states, Chu vied for power and primacy - unifying China always proved that one had the Mandate of Heaven.
Han is the term for the dynastic polity founded by Liu Bang, subsequently holding sway over all China upon conquering the other territories of the Chinese world, including Western Chu.
By having his men sing the familiar airs of Chu, Liu Bang of Han waged psychological war against the soldiers of Western Chu (Xiang Yu's army). It was utterly successful. ]

Rather than being an encumbrance and possibly dishonoured - and so furthering disgrace and defeat for her lord - the consort of the Western-Chu leader committed suicide.
Prince Xiang Yu (項羽) was eventually left with only a few hundred men, which was gradually whittled down to 28 when the remnant of Western-Chu reached Dongcheng (東城) across the Huai river (淮河). Rather than returning to Chu, they fought till their deaths in a last stand on the banks of the Wu (烏江).

四面楚歌

Thus, with only four syllables, four words, a huge wealth of reference is called to mind, and a desperate set of circumstances made clear.

How much more evocative than merely saying "the jig’s up".



AFTERWORD

Before facing the forces of Han with his remaining men at the Wu channel, Xiang Yu asked a ferryman to escort his beloved dappled steed Zhui (騅) back to Jiandong (江東).
After his death, the state of Western Chu surrendered, and Liu Bang became the first emperor of Han.
Xiang Yu was given a grand funeral, and his relatives were ennobled.

虞兮虞兮奈若何
Yu xi, Yu xi, nai ru he?"
Oh Yu, Yu, what will become of you?"

If you've seen the movie 'Farewell My Concubine', you are already familiar with part of the tale - specifically the suicide of Xiang Yu's consort (the lady Yu - 虞姬) at Gai-Xia, theme of the famous opera 霸王别姬 - Ba-wang Bie Ji. The movie borrows from the opera, which in turn is based on events described in The Records of the Grand Historian ('Shi Ji': 史記) and The History of the Earlier Han ('Qian Han Shu': 前漢書), as well as a wealth of subsequent analysis and poetification.


NOTES

Xiàng (項): Back of neck; numeral classifier for clauses, tasks, projects, etcetera. Surname.
yǔ ( 羽): Feather. A musical tone. Yú (虞): Expect, anticipate. Concern, anxiety. Surname.


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DEATH ON MA WEI SLOPE

The astute reader will have noticed the clickable label 唐人街 under several posts discussing Chinatown on this blog.
The words 唐人街 ('Tong-Yan Kai') literally mean Tang Person Street - that being the name for the Chinese district in San Francisco, as well as most Chinatowns elsewhere. It is strictly a Cantonese term; the Cantonese refer to themselves as men of Tang, after China's arguably most splendid era.
In the Western World, the Tang dynasty is known mainly for San-Tsai pottery and horse paintings, whereas to the Chinese that period is famous primarily for poetry, fat beauties, and Turks.
The Cantonese, like all Chinese, take great pride in the poetry.
Not so much the fat beauties or the Turks.

Here in San Francisco we have Chinese people, and also enough plump hell-cats to make an emperor drool. Quite likely we have Turks as well.

[Honestly, what is it with modern San Francisco girls? Why do so many of them pack more poundage than I do? Why is there such a surfeit of young ladies here, so much younger than yours truly yet so much heavier? I'm a mature man, Fercrapsakes!
I'm not supposed to look trimmer and spryer than you lot! Really!]

No other Chinese describe themselves as Tang, only the Cantonese. It is deliciously odd.



INCESTUOUS THREATS

The Tang Dynasty (Tong Chiew: 唐朝 - anno 618 CE to 907 CE) was one of the high-water marks of Chinese civilization, during which the empire reached its furthest expanse. Great advances in the arts and sciences were made, and due to the many splendid achievements, especially in literature, the Tang Dynasty truly counts as one of the golden ages of human history.
Yet there was always a haunting sense of fragility.
Several societies have traditionally been endangered by howling savages from the north - Rome had the Germanic tribes, Israel has the Lebanese, and we have the Canadians.
China for centuries has had the Turks.

More than the fashionably fat temptresses beloved by the grandees of the capital, the constant threat of invasion by barbarians from beyond the frontier shaped Tang society. Scholars and officials for generations either were posted north to fend off the fur-clad mob, or fled south to escape their depredations. The sight of men on horseback was a constant in metropoles north of the Yangtze, and returnees told harrowing tales of deprivation and endurance in the waste lands.

Ironically the Tang Dynasty itself was actually part Turkish, albeit long Sinicized and acclimatized. The ruling clan, and of much of the Northern aristocracy, had been on the frontier for generations, and represented a subculture that was more-or-less Chinese politically, but had overmuch in common with the tribes that beset the border.
The ancestors of many such clans had been heathen warlords co-opted by titles and power, and gradually brought into the civilized fold.
They were 'gentled' by their association with Chinese culture, but not entirely converted - during periods of instability, their opportunism and rapacious native tendencies would resurface.


The following poem adds to that irony - it references the killing of the emperor's concubine during a period of crypto-Turkic rebellion and bloodshed.
Now please note: the ruling family of Tang was named Li (Lei: 李), a surname that very often indicates a Barbaric origin (hence so many Turco-Chinese, Koreans, Vietnamese, and others of questionable antecedents thus appelled). The lady in this quatrain was surnamed Yang (Yeung: 楊), that being also the name of the crypto-Turkic clan that the Lis of Tang had superceded (and both she herself as well as her lord were in fact related by blood to the previous dynasty), yet Yang is a very Chinese name with absolutely no heathen hue.
Though people with these surnames are USUALLY fully Chinese, these particular Lis and Yangs were MOSTLY of 'foreign' origin.
This poem could NOT be more Chinese - yet the people in it were barely so.

If anything, they were Tang.



馬嵬坡 - MA WEI PO
 
玄宗回馬楊妃死， 雲雨難忘日月新。
終是聖明天子事， 景陽宮井又何人。

[詩者: 鄭畋]


MA NGAI PO ('Ma Wei Slope')

Yun-Tsong wui ma Yeung-Fei sei,
Wan-yiu naan-mong yat-yuet san;
Jung-si Sing-Ming tien-ji si,
Ging-Yeung Gung jeng yau ho-yan?

[Written by Zheng Tian (Jeng Tin 鄭畋) ]

Translation:
Hsuan-Tsung return horse Yang honoured consort dead,
Cloud-rain difficult forget day month new;
Finality indeed Sheng-Ming son-of-heaven business,
Ching-Yang Palace waterwell once-more who?

Paraphrasis:
When Hsuan-Tsung came back from his ride Lady Yang was already dead,
His love for her will be remembered for all eternity;
‘Recollect the affair of the Sing-Ming emperor............
And who (also) ended up in the well at the Ging-Yeung Palace?’


In short, while the emperor was off riding, his soldiers killed his concubine, whose family they hated.


CLARIFICATORY BACKGROUND

In the year 712 CE Li Longji (Lei LungKei: 李隆基 born 685 CE, died 762 CE) became the seventh emperor of the Tang Dynasty (styled Tang Hsuan-Tsung / Tong Yun-Tsong: 唐玄宗), reigning till 756 CE. After several years of quite able rule, he grew lax and careless, eventually bringing the empire to the edge of ruin. The name most associated with this latter period is Yang Kweifei - the imperial consort Yang.
Yang Yu-Hwan (Yeung Yiuk-Waan: 楊玉環 - born 719 CE, died 756 CE), the daughter of Yang Hsuan-Yan (Yeung Yun-Yim: 楊玄琰), was the wife of Hsuan-Tsung's son the Prince of Shou. After emperor Hsuan-Tsung noticed her, she divorced her husband, became a Buddhist nun for while to ensure plausible deniability, then rejoined the world (circa 737 or 738 CE) and became the emperor's concubine, receiving the title kweifei (gwaifei: 貴妃 honoured consort).

[The Prince of Shou (Sau Wong: 壽王): Li Mao (Lei Mo: 李瑁) born 715 CE died 775 CE. The eighteenth son of the emperor, whose mother was Consort Wu (Wu Wuifei / Mou Waifei 武惠妃), daughter of a clan that had nearly usurped the throne in a previous generation. Consort Wu never became empress due to the extreme wariness of court officials, who remembered what had happened. She never the less had great status and influence in the palace, and was deferred to as the highest lady in the land. She died in 737 CE.
Like many other power-circles within the imperial court, the Wus were border aristocracy and related by blood to the imperial family. The surname Wu (Mou: 武) means martial, military, warlike - characteristically a surname chosen by Sinified barbarians in the North. ]


As the emperor became ever more besotted by his lady, he acceded to her requests to bestow favours upon her relatives, making her cousin Yang Kuo-Chong (Yeung Kok-Chung: 楊國忠) prime minister, and several of her other kinsmen high officials. Over the years while the power of the Yang family grew affairs of state were neglected and the treasury despoiled, leading to rebellion in the provinces.

In 755 CE, An LuShan (On LokSan: 安禄山), a feudal lord of mixed Sogdian and Central-Asian Turkish ancestry from the North-Eastern border of the empire, raised the standard of revolt and marched on the capitol Chang-An (Cheung-On: 長安 - modern day Hsi-An/Sei-On: 西安).
The imperial court fled south towards Shu (Suk: 蜀 - modern day Szechuan), and at Ma Wei Station (Ma-NGai Yik: 馬嵬驛) in Shaansi (Simsai: 陝西) the military escort decided to exact revenge for the destruction that the emperor's concubine and her rapacious relatives had wrought.

The emperor's tearful objections were stilled when he was reminded that ONE death might not be enough - killing ineffective rulers also had historic precedents.


SO FAR, SO GOOD .......

After slaughtering several court officials and members of the Yang family, troops and officers remonstrated with the emperor.

Thereupon Yang Kweifei was taken to a nearby Buddhist temple and strangled, following which she was unceremoniously buried at Ma Wei slope (馬嵬坡).

In 757 CE, when the now retired emperor Hsuan-Tsung returned to Chang-An, he wished to retrieve her body for a proper entombment, but was dissuaded by his officials, who feared tumult if the military should hear of it.

Historians are of two minds about the reputation of Lady Yang – was she the root of trouble, or merely a symptom? And who deserves more blame – the emperor for his weakness, Lady Yang for her manipulation on behalf of her kinsmen, or her relatives for being so unworthy of benefice?
Was she a vixen, or merely a victim of her time and place?

[I need not even mention that she was also rumoured to have had an affair with An Lu-Shan. Who was, notabene, an honorary 'adopted' son of the emperor!]


Whatever her true role in the convoluted court politics of Tang may have been, Yang Kweifei is mainly remembered as one of the greatest temptresses of all time, charming enough to alter the course of history - pleasingly plump and full figured, pale, with a lively and intelligent face.
A classic Chinese beauty. And thus a dangerous woman.


TONG YAN KAI

To the Cantonese, the distant Northern Border might as well be on the far side of the moon. Nothing in their environment prepares them for the extreme cold, the dryness, the aridity. The idea of being sent to man an outpost in the sands of Turkestan is enough to make them blanch.
Yes, the Cantonese are proud of China's achievements, and of the extension of empire along the Silk-Road - but everything North of the great river is a foreign world, and arguably not even Chinese. Certainly not proper Chinese.
They talk funny, eat weird crap, and smell funky, up there in the North.
Why, they're probably even half Turks!



NOTE: The two types of pronunciation given for Chinese characters above reflect Mandarin, which is the official language, and Cantonese, which is spoken here in San Francisco. In addition to being the Chinese language with which I am most familiar, Cantonese is also much more appropriate in the context of this post: It is the Chinese language whose pronunciation is closest to the koine of the Tang period.
As many Cantonese proudly assert, and educated Northerners grudgingly acknowledge.


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