scruta

Every day life sends you another invitation,

And you hem and haw over it,

But you always take it in the end.

It’s too good a party to pass up.

A meeting on new instant noodles

Sky high conference room

Windows glass open on the sky

For a gaze that lingers towards towers

All around and popping out

Appearing suddenly out of a grey grey mist

As if painted in negative on parchment

Centuries, centuries ago

For nothing is new

These new noodles, new towers, new sights

All enveloped, all wrapped in the great all

Talk in the conference room continues

The mist rolls in, covering everything

As part of Mr Xi’s current China Dream campaign, I’ve seen a lot of these kinds of poems plastered all over the subways.

Here’s an interesting one:

《中国·向上》

大树郁葱葱

壮我时代风

容聚天地气

吐纳五岳峰。

好日子，

中国向上，

乾坤在握中！

“China Rising”

The great tree grows lush and green

Strong in the winds of our age

Uniting the power of heaven and earth

Breathing the air upon China’s great peaks.

These are good days,

China is rising

The world is within our grasp!

+++

What a difference stopping to read these poems makes! You’d think it’s just some silly stuff about trees, but no, it’s a tree that’s going to take over the world. Whoa.

Per the course for the newest round of Chinese Dream propaganda, a bunch of new posters have gone up near my office. One of them had a poem about geese on it attributed to 晓玲, who turns out to be a singer. She’s most famous for her (very over the top) song 《梦圆中国》which is the audio centerpiece for the Chinese Dream campaign. But enough about her, on to the geese!

My translation:

鹅鹅鹅。。。

童声飘过千年歌。

白羽红瓜诗情在，

月色荷塘云影波。

中华福万代，

人心载中和！

Goose, goose, goose, goose –

A child’s voice floats across in a song with thousands of years of history.

White feathers, red feet and the poetic spirit are present

Moonlight on lotus blossoms as the shadows of the clouds roll by

May the Chinese civilization flourish forever,

And peace for China be in the people’s hearts!

+++

The poem came complete with some nice folk art:

Geese represent the future of China, you know?

I enjoy this kind of thing, you understand.

Nothing gives me more pleasure than this.

I’m riveted! ecstatic! rolling around in orgasmic bliss!

I have truly maximized my utility.

You can’t see it? No?

Don’t you agree that I’m beaming with sudden ebullience?

Don’t you think that my complexion is providing

all of those around me with a well-spring of inspiration?

Don’t you consider me a high-value individual worthy of future contact?

Do you think I’m sexy?

No.

Don’t answer that.

Your answer is already plain as day,

or as loudly bright as the harvest moon,

if that’s your metaphor.

There’s no doubt this moment was destined.

Oh,

I don’t want to drown you in palaver or platitudes.

No doubt you’ll provide enough of them later on,

at a time more suitable, when the spotlight is no longer on me.

When it’s on you, and you can’t get away from it.

Oh, I’ll make sure of that.

But until that time, I’d just like you to see me as I am.

To understand my incredible happiness,

Is that so much to ask?

I don’t claim to know where it’s going,
the gleam of the towers, the rubble underfoot,
I’m a lowly traveler on this road, staring at the heights, just above the depths

But there are moments when the light shines,
when the past and the future dance together in two
I’ll walk down this road and think:
Yes, yes I do.

It’s a little bit strange, it’s against the times

But vines above my alley hold cucumber vines

Yellow flowered gerkins sprout on electric flows

And far above the concrete, green shoots curl in rows

But amdist it all is one great giant beast

A monster of a gourd, made for a feast

Shouldn’t we pick it or do something while we can?

Or will we just let it fall? Is that the way? Is that our plan?

I do not have a ladder, I don’t even have a clue

If one did pick this cucumber, would it electrocute you?

—

“I don’t even have a clue”.

[Ferret is taking the picture of said “cucumber” in the morning when one of his neighbors, walking his cockeyed dog, sees him.]

Neighbor

Oh, very good.

[Ferret nods.]

Neighbor

Good picture!

Ferret

这个黄瓜怎么那么大？

Why is this cucumber so big?

Neighbor

哦，这不是一个黄瓜，是丝瓜！

Oh, this isn’t a cucumber, it’s a loofah!

Ferret

是吗？能吃吗？

Really? Can you eat it?

Neighbor

不能吃啊！好用洗澡啊！

You can’t eat it. It’s good for washing with. 

Ferret

哦。

Oh.

No cucumber after all; it’s a sponge!

On a recent trip to Kyoto in Japan, I came across a monument with a Chinese poem on it attributed to Zhou Enlai up on Arashiyama Mountain (岚山). Here’s what it looked like:

The inscription was a bit difficult for me to read, so I took a photo and then got a Chinese friend to help me decipher it. It turns out to be a poem that Zhou penned while studying abroad in Japan in 1919. In the 1970s, when Zhou came to Japan looking to establish a trade relationship, this monument was presented to him. More about the poem here on Baidu Baike. Here’s the poem rendered more legibly:

《雨中岚山》

雨中二次游岚山
两岸苍松
夹着几株樱
到尽处
突见一山高
流出泉水绿如许
绕石照人
潇潇雨 雾蒙浓
一线阳光穿云出
愈见娇妍
人间的万象真理
愈求愈模糊
模糊中偶然见着一点光明
真愈觉娇妍

Arashiyama in the Rain

I went to Arashiyama twice in the rain
Both banks were framed by green pines
Squeezing against a few cherry trees
Towards the horizon
One mountain peak stood out the most
Light green spring waters flowed out like this
Winding around the rocks, holding my reflection
Whistling winds, dense mist and fog
A ray of light peaked through the clouds
The more I looked upon this beauty –
The realities of the human world
The more I want, the more confused I become –
In the confusion I suddenly chanced upon this point of light
The more I truly sensed its beauty

—

The last five lines of the poem are the most interesting to me. I guess when Zhou Enlai wrote the thing as a young man he was reflecting a more conventional idea of nature providing grounding for human thought, aesthetics, etc. But 50 years later, when courting the Japanese over the possibility of developing China, the image of a ray of light coming though the clouds takes on an entirely different character. I wonder if the master statesman was pleased with the selection.

I am carried through these listless days

Still frantic and amazed

Crying with awe at every sight

As pink skies fly into the night

Still the world moves quick

And I’m full of hope

My expectations taut

Tight as rope

I’m a tightrope walker

Walking where I please

I feel the adrenaline

Fly through my knees

There are fantastic dreams

That still catch my eye

Although most of my visions

Are programmed, by and by

There are still adulations

To be cried to all above

Although most of life

Is lost in regular push and shove

I want my smile to be a touchstone

A reminder in my mirror’s gaze

That yes! yes, I am living!

Through all these listless days

Your humble Ferret recently went to a banquet at a very fancy Cantonese restaurant and stuffed himself silly.

While eating some “hand-fried squid” (手炸鱿鱼), I noticed that they were sitting on a piece of paper with a Chinese poem written on it.

Having 干杯’d a little too much wine, I attempted to read it 繁体字 and all in front of some Chinese folks. I did okay and only made a few mistakes, blustering my way through it like a 7 year old. But it didn’t really matter anyway. All the Chinese people there knew it by heart.

<春晓＞ 唐•孟浩然 春眠不觉晓 处处闻啼鸟 夜来风雨声 花落知多少 "Springtime Awakening" Meng Haoran (Tang) A springtime sleep, day breaks without me knowing Everywhere I hear birdsong The night was full of the sound of storms Who knows how many flowers have fallen? (Apparently there is a political angle to all of this, i.e. flowers getting blown away in the night. I don't know what that had to do with fried squid. 炒鱿鱼 maybe?)