Book PreviewA Poetic Portal to Chinese Culture

Synopsis

Poetry is the most concise and precise expression of a culture. A Poetic Portal to Chinese Culture is therefore a smart start to learn everything deep down inside of the world's next economic superpower. Through in-depth but easy-to-read interpretations of Chinese poetry, this book familiarizes the reader with all the Chinese holidays of the year, explains why Taiwan is also called the Republic of China, and analyzes Chinese people's core values.

With its 12 chapters named after the 12 months of the year, this book takes the reader through an imaginary calendar year to embrace one Chinese custom after another in chronological order. As a month usually contains four to five weeks, each chapter presents English translations of four or five famous Chinese poems that portray the chapter's designated time of year.

Envision Chinese poetry as an arch of wisteria growing from Chinese culture to crown the culture's entrance. If you are one of the outsiders who appreciate the calligraphy of Chinese poems but don't know their meanings, let the author of this book unlock the gate of language for you, and guide you all the way into the heart of the cultural garden.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Foreword: There Is a Time for Every Poem

January When Ume Blossoms Beautify Winter

February Lunar New Year, Lantern Festival, & Valentine's Day

March International Women's Day & Peach Blossoms

April Chinese Tomb-Sweeping Day & Spring Rain

May New Chinese Literature Movement, Mother's Day & Wisteria

June Chinese Dragon Boat Festival, Graduation & Weddings

July Cool Poetry for Hot Summer

August Chinese Valentine's Day & Lotus Flowers

September Moon Festival & Autumn Nights

October Fabulous Fall Foliage

November Clouds, Winds & Harvest

December The Splendor of Snow

JANUARYWhen Ume Blossoms Beautify Winter

January roughly coincides with the last month of the lunar calendar, which the Chinese call “ritual month” (la yue in Mandarin). The Chinese word la refers to end-of-year rituals ancient Chinese conducted to pay tribute to gods and ancestors. Some of the end-of-year rituals are still widely known to today's Chinese, though fewer and fewer practice them due to the fast-paced life of modern society.

One of the rituals occurs on the eighth day of the ritual month, which marks the anniversary of Buddha's enlightenment. For this day Chinese Buddhists are supposed to pray to Buddha and eat porridge made with various grains, the same kind of porridge someone gave the hungry Buddha to save his life before his enlightenment.

Another ritual is set on the 23rd day of the last lunar month to bid farewell to the kitchen god, who will take a break by going back to Heaven for the upcoming Lunar New Year's holiday. Gourmet food will be placed on the alter table to please the kitchen god, and sweets are especially a must to make sure he will sweet talk to Emperor of Heaven (the Chinese equivalent to the Greek all-mighty Zeus) for the family.

The modern Chinese kitchen usually doesn't have enough space for a kitchen god's alter, so the annual farewell ritual to the kitchen god is no longer popular. But it often appears in children's storybooks. That's how those born in the late 20th century, including me, grew up knowing about this custom without ever seeing a kitchen god's alter in real life.

Likewise, almost everyone literate in the Chinese language has read about ume blossoms, though those raised in densely populated cities (again, including me) may not have seen them before the readings.

Ume (a phonetic translation of the plant's Japanese name, as the Japanese first introduced it to the West) is called mei in Chinese. It is quite different from plum, which is li in Chinese. But in English translation, mei is often misrepresented as plum because the plant native to China is rarely seen in the West but looks very similar to plum. However, unlike plum trees that blossom in spring, ume has the most unusual blossoming season, winter, when there are no other flowers.

The winter-defying nature of ume has fascinated the Chinese for centuries. In Chinese culture, ume has long been named one of “our three friends in the coldest time of year,” along with pine and bamboo.

To the Chinese, withstanding winter symbolizes surviving hardships, which the Chinese know too well. Through millennia of wars, famines and tyrannies, the Chinese are a race of survivors who value resilience.

When the Republic of China (ROC) replaced China's millennia-long monarchy in 1912, the Nationalist government chose ume to be the national flower.

Although the ROC lost the entire Mainland China to the Communists at the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949, ume continues to be its national flower in its remaining territory, namely Taiwan and numerous smaller islands on the Taiwan Straight.

Even the People's Republic of China (PRC), established by the Communists, once considered also making ume its national flower, or one of its national flowers, though the final decision was never made.

Given Chinese people's deeply rooted, politics-transcending love for ume, there are countless Chinese poems that feature ume blossoms. I have only picked four I found the most intriguing for you.

It doesn't matter if you have never seen a ume tree. I never did in my childhood and early teens, when I lived in the cosmopolitan Taipei City. That didn't keep me from seeing the beauty of ume blossoms in Chinese poetry.

I believe the following poems will speak to you, as they did to me.

梅  Ume Blossoms作者：王安石 Author: Wang, An-Shi (1021-1086)

墻角數枝梅 A few ume branches stretch from a corner of the garden淩寒獨自開 Being the only ones blossoming in the chilly air 遙知不是雪 We know those are not snow flakes even from a distance為有暗香來 For the subtly sweet scent they bear

About the Poet: Wang is among the so-called “eight best writers of Tang and Song Dynasties” in Chinese history. He was prime minister during the reign of the Song Dynasty Emperor Shen-Zong. Eager to solve all the problems plaguing the dynasty, he launched a series of radical reforms, which ended up backfiring and made him lose the prime minister's position. He retired regretfully.

雪梅  Ume Blossoms in the Snow作者：盧梅坡  Author: Lu, Mei-Po (Years of birth and death unknown)

梅雪爭春未肯降 Ume blossoms fight snow while delaying falling to wait for spring

騷人擱筆費評章 To judge which side wins, the poet takes a break from writing

梅須遜雪三分白 Ume blossoms are 30 percent less white than snow

雪卻輸梅一段香 But snow loses for lacking the fragrance ume blossoms are emitting

About the Poet: There is little known about Lu except he was a Song Dynasty hermit, single for life and passionate about ume blossoms. All the poems he left the world are about the beauty of ume blossoms.

寒夜 Wintry Night

作者：杜來  Author: Du, Lai (Years of birth and death unknown)

寒夜客來茶當酒

Tea replaces wine for a visitor in a wintry night

竹爐湯沸火初紅

Water boils on top of the bamboo stove with a newly-started red flame

尋常一樣窗前月

The same moon shines through the window as usual

才有梅花便不同

But looks different with ume blossoms as its frame

About the Poet: Du was a Song Dynasty writer who worked for a local government first and later became an adviser in the military. He died in a military coup.

題畫梅 For a Painting of Ume Blossoms

作者：李方膺 Author: Lee, Fang-Yin (1696-1755)

揮毫落紙墨痕新 The last brush stroke is just done and the watercolor still wet

幾點梅花最可人 The few ume blossoms outshine the rest of the picture

願借天風吹得遠  May the wind carry their beauty to faraway places

家家門巷盡成春  Then every household will become spring despite laws of nature

About the Poet: Lee was a Qing Dynasty artist who featured plum blossoms, orchids, bamboos, chrysanthemums, pine trees and fish most frequently in his paintings. His unconventional ways of presentation made him one of the so-called “eight oddballs from Yangzhou (a city in today's Jiangsu Province)” among his peers.

FEBRUARY

Lunar New Year, Lantern Festival &Valentine's Day

February is always associated with Lunar New Year, even though Lunar New Year's Day may fall on any date between January 21 and February 20. Since the beginning of a new lunar year is a 15-day celebration, at least part of it, often all of it, falls in February.

During the festive 15 days of Lunar New Year, the Chinese have two strips of red paper with auspicious words written on them posted on both sides of the door. As the traditional Chinese way of writing has words go one by one from top to bottom, it is natural for the two strips of red paper to present two phrases or sentences vertically.

The two phrases or sentences on the two red strips are in parallel structure to form a couplet, which represents the best wishes for the coming year. Please note that the phrase or sentence on the right side of the door should be read first if you know some Chinese words, because the vertical lines of Chinese writing conventionally go from right to left.

Below is an image of a commonly seen Lunar New Year's couplet:

The English translation should start with the right line:

一元復始 A year begins again

萬象更新 All phenomena start over

The Lunar New Year's couplet is named “chun lian” in Chinese, which literally means “spring couplet.” While Lunar New Year's Day arrives in winter by modern definition, the Chinese call the holiday “chun jie” (meaning “spring festival”) because of a different view on when spring starts.

There is a traditional Chinese almanac that annually consists of 24 periods called “jie qi” in Mandarin, which means “periods of weather.” Unlike the lunar calendar for official use in China until 1912, the almanac, meant to help farmers decide what to do on the farm, is solar-based. That makes its 24 weather periods coincidentally go along with the modern solar calendar every year. The weather period that marks the arrival of spring, named “li chun” in Chinese, always falls in today's early February, which tends to coincide with part of the 15-day Lunar New Year's celebration. That's why the Chinese associate the beginning of a lunar year with spring.

For Lunar New Year, in addition to a spring couplet on both sides of the door, the Chinese may post a horizontal line above the door. All such horizontal lines used to be written from right to left. However, since many modern Chinese books have been influenced by Westernization to consist of horizontal lines from left to right, some of today's Chinese may write the Lunar New Year's horizontal line in the Western way.

After posting a couplet and a horizontal line, the Chinese may write one word, usually fu, the Chinese character for luck, on a diamond-shaped piece of red paper, and turn it upside down before sticking it to the upper middle area of the door. This is because the word that means “upside down” in Mandarin, dao, sounds the same as the Chinese word that means “arrival.” The upside-down word on the door is meant to welcome the arrival of luck.

See below an image of a door decorated with not only a spring couplet but also a Lunar New Year's horizontal line and an upside-down fu. The horizontal line means “joyfully welcoming new spring.”

Imagine all the doors you see everywhere being decorated with Chinese characters on red paper! Perhaps just because there is already plenty of writing on every door for Lunar New Year, Chinese poets generally don't write about Lunar New Year's Day. However, they would compose poems about the last day of the 15-day celebration, for its ubiquitous displays of lanterns under the first full moon of the lunar year.

Named “yuan xiao”(meaning “first full moon night”) in Mandarin, this holiday is known as Lantern Festival in the West.

During Lantern Festival, Chinese children get to carry lanterns to go out at night while adults gather at a temple to solve riddles written on strips hanging down from the temple's many lanterns.

In ancient China, Lantern Festival was one of the few occasions for unwed young women to be seen in public. Those days parents tended to make their teenage daughters stay home all day to prevent temptations. But customarily, everyone was encouraged to watch lanterns on Lantern Festival, so the girls could go, too, just never alone. Some men would seize this opportunity to approach one they found desirable, to start a conversation or make an impression by quietly slipping a poem in a folded piece of paper into her pocket, despite her being in the company of her peers, her maid (if she had a wealth family), or an older female relative.

Love stories often began this way in China's old times, and they made Lantern Festival a romantic holiday. However, since China adopted Valentine's Day from the West in the 20th century, Lantern Festival has given its place in romance to Valentine's Day, and has become more of a holiday for family-friendly activities.

Interestingly, Lantern Festival and Valentine's Day are both in February, usually just a few days apart. That's why this chapter has one of the best known poems about Lantern Festival immediately precede a love poem that was written long before China's adoption of Valentine's Day, but has proven timeless.

The Lantern Festival piece, “At a Green Jade Table,” is essentially a love poem, too. Let it take you time traveling to ancient China, to see how a lonely poet fell in love at first sight during a flamboyant Lantern Festival.

You may find the title “At a Green Jade Table” irrelevant to the content of the poem. That's because it belongs to a genre of Chinese poetry that allows different poems written in the same format to share the same title. The genre is named tsi in Chinese. Please note that the official Chinese phonetic system, pinyin, actually would have the word spelled as ci, but not everyone knows how pinyin works. Just because ci won't sound like the original Chinese word at all to those unfamiliar with pinyin, I decided to use tsi, the closest spelling to the Chinese word's pronunciation.

Tsi, which literally means “lyrics” in Chinese, was created for songs. Different poems with an identical number of lines and corresponding length of each line could be used as lyrics for the same song, so the tsi title is basically just the song title. That explains why a tsi piece sometimes has a subtitle following the song title to explain its content.

The love poem you can share with your sweetheart on Valentine's Day, “A Woman Wishing for Longevity,” is also a tsi piece, but it doesn't have a subtitle, and its song title happens to match its content. In such a case, the piece is most likely the first poem ever written for that song.

“A Woman Wishing for Longevity” expresses deep love from a woman's perspective, but was actually written by a man, who wasn't gay. He just wrote the poem in a traditional Chinese way that would have the male poet take on a woman's voice. In those days, when the overwhelming majority of Chinese women were illiterate, this type of poetry spoke for them.

How times have changed! Today most Chinese writers and poets are female, while Chinese men tend to pursue a career in science, technology or business. But for millennia, up until the early to mid 20th century, Chinese literature was a male-dominated field.

It is the right timing to contemplate upon the passage of time in February, the month coming with a new lunar year. So, following the two love poems are two classical Chinese poems about time, one by an anonymous poet and the other, a tsi piece, by one of the most prominent writers in Chinese history, Su Shi.

Carpe diem (seize the day in case you don't already know the Latin saying) by reveling in poetry!

青玉案---元夕 At a Green Jade Table---A Song about Lantern Festival

作者：辛棄疾  Author: Xin, Qi-Ji (1140-1207)

東風夜放花千树 An east wind brings up blossoms of fireworks above thousands of treetops更吹落，星如雨 It also carries down showers of sparks that resemble raindrops宝马雕车香满路 Scented ornate carriages proceed fragrantly all the way before their stops鳳箫聲动，玉壶光转 Flute music vibrates; jade pots radiate一夜鱼龍舞 All night long every lantern in the shape of fish or dragon hops

娥兒雪柳黄金缕 A lady with snow-white skin and a willowy figure in a golden dress笑语盈盈暗香去 She passes by smiling, chuckling, with a subtle fragrance in her tress眾裡寻他千百度 For hundreds of thousands of times I have looked for the one蓦然回首，那人却在 Now suddenly turning around, I see that special someone灯火阑珊處 Standing where lighting is less done

About the Poet: Xin was born when Jin Dynasty, established by a tribe from north of the Great Wall, occupied the northern half of Song Dynasty's territory. At age 22, Xin led a group of young men to rebel against the rule of Jin Dynasty, and went south to join the military of Song Dynasty, which still kept the southern half of its territory. He devoted his life to helping Southern Song Dynasty fight Jin Dynasty in the hope of destroying Jin and re-establishing Song in its lost territory. But this wish never came true.

長命女 A Woman Wishing for Longevity

作者：馮延已  Author: Feng, Yan-Si (903-960)

春日宴 At a feast celebrating spring

绿酒一杯歌一遍 I drink a glass of greenish white wine after singing

再拜陈三願 Then I make three wishes while praying:

一願郎君千歲 May my husband live a millennium long

二願妾身常健 May my health allow me to come along

三願如同梁上燕 And may we resemble the pair of swallows on a beam of our ceiling

歲歲年年長相见 Year after year seeing where we belong

Note: As explained in this chapter's introduction, a traditional Chinese almanac marks the beginning of spring at a time around today's early February. So, the celebration of spring described in the poem above probably took place in February, making it a timely piece for Valentine's Day.

About the Poet: Feng was one of the poets who created tsi, a genre of Chinese poetry described earlier in this chapter's introduction. As opposed to previous poetry's requirement of four, five or seven words per line throughout a poem, tsi allows lines of different lengths in a poem. Another feature of tsi, as mentioned in the introduction, is its usage as lyrics for songs. But unfortunately, none of the melodies has been passed down to our era. Only the lyrics remain.

A pioneer in tsi, Feng with his creativity impressed the last emperor of Southern Tang Dynasty, Li Yu, who made him prime minister before the fall of the short-lived dynasty (which has the word “Tang'' in its name but is actually unrelated to the world famous Tang Dynasty).

東漢 古詩十九首 (其十五) The Fifteenth of Nineteen Ancient Poems

By an anonymous author of Eastern Han Dynasty, which spanned from 25 to 220 AD.

生年不滿百 Life spans shorter than a century

常懷千歲憂 Worry extends longer than a millennium

晝短苦夜長 Day is too short and night too long

何不秉燭遊 Why not take a candle out to the stadium?

為樂當及時 Seize the moment while you can

何能待來茲？ Why wait for the future in vain?

愚者愛惜費 Fools panic about every penny

但為後世嗤 Later generations will only laugh about their unnecessary pain

仙人王子喬 Only gods live eternally

難可與等期 Expecting the same eternity of human life is insane

念奴嬌－－赤壁懷古

Thinking of a Beauty---A Song about History in Chi-Bi

作者：蘇軾 Author: Su, Shi (1037-1101)

大江東去 The river runs east

浪淘盡 The currents wash away

千古風流人物 All of the millennium's best and brightest

故壘西边 To the west of the old fort

人道是三国周郎赤壁 They say it used to be the town of Chi-Bi for which three countries fought

乱石穿空Random rocks penetrate the skyline

驚涛裂岸 Thrilling water ravishes the shoreline

捲起千堆雪 Swirling up thousands of piles of snow-white foam

江山如画 The picturesque landscape

一時多少豪傑 It was once where many heroes used to roam

 

遥想公瑾當年Long ago there was once a general Gong-Jin in reality

小喬初嫁了Newly wed with Xiao-Chiao, an exceptional beauty

雄姿英发 What a robust and radiant man!

羽扇纶巾 Sporting a silk headscarf and waving a feather fan

谈笑间 During his casual talk

強虜灰飛烟滅 Strong enemies perish like smoke and crumble like chalk

故國神遊 While time travelling to the past establishments多情应笑我 I laugh about my own sentiments早生華髮 That cause early gray hair 人生如夢 Life resembles a dream一樽還酹江月 To which I toast while moonlight flickers on the river 

Note: The “three kingdoms” mentioned in the poem above existed from 220 to 280 AD, when China was divided. Named Wei, Shu and Wu, the three fought one another, all attempting to become China's sole ruler. The general Gong-Jin depicted in the poem above served Wu, but the kingdom that eventually won was Wei.

About the Poet: Su's given name was Shi, but he is better known as Dong-Po, because he called himself dong po ju shi, which means “east hillside Buddhist” in Chinese.

Su was once colleagues with Wang An-Shi (see Chapter 1). When Wang became prime minister, Su opposed his reforms, and was therefore demoted. A series of demotions sent Su to one local government after another in southern China. Disappointed with politics, Su learned to look upon life philosophically, with a sense of humor. He also found comfort in the beauty of nature, fine arts and poetry. He is listed among the so-called “eight best writers of Tang and Song Dynasties,” as well as considered one of the most creative poets in Chinese history.

About the Author

Crystal Tai was born in Taiwan and immigrated to California with her family as a teenager. She holds a Master's degree in Education Policy, Organization and Leadership Studies with coursework in Journalism from Stanford University. She has worked for the Silicon Valley Community Newspaper as a reporter. Equally fluent in English and Mandarin Chinese, she has hosted countless community events in the two languages as master of ceremonies. Currently, she is a regular contributor to Patch.com. She also takes on translation projects as a freelancer through her own website: www.crystaltai.com.

The complete version of A Poetic Portal to Chinese Culture is available on Amazon.com,

http://www.amazon.com/Poetic-Portal-Chinese-Culture-ebook/dp/B005LY7H9W/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1315932910&sr=8-1