满江红 Man Hong Jiang Poetry Collection: 冬至 Winter Solstice by 范成大 Fan Chengda

Translation by me. Pinyin and Jyutping provided below.  

寒谷春生，熏叶气、玉筒吹谷。

Hán gǔ chūnshēng, xūn yè qì, yù tǒng chuīgǔ.

hon4 guk1 ceon1 saang1 ，fan1 jip6 hei3 、juk6 tung2 ceoi1 guk1 。
[winter][valley][spring][growth], [perfume][leaves][air], [jade][tube][blow][valley]

Spring sprouts in the cold winter; the aroma of new leaves fills in the valley like a flute sound.

新阳后、便占新岁，吉云清穆。

Xīn yáng hòu, biàn zhàn xīn suì, jí yún qīng mù.

san1 joeng4 hau6 、bin6 zim3 san1 seoi3 ，gat1 wan4 cing1 muk6 。

[new][sun][after], [then][consitute][[new year]], [[colourful clouds]][clear][serene]

After the sunrise, comes the new year in a sky of calmly floating clouds. 

休把心情关药裹，但逢节序添诗轴。

Xiū bǎ xīnqíng guān yào guǒ, dàn féng jié xù tiān shī zhóu.

jau1 baa2 sam1 cing4 gwaan1 joek6 gwo2 ，daan6 fung4 zit3 zeoi6 tim1 si1 zuk6 。

[Stop][grasp][[mood]][about][medicine][bundle], [but][upon][solar term][then][compose][poem][scroll]

Stop thinking on illness and medicine; but write a poem at the turn of the new solar term.

笑强颜、风物岂非痴，终非俗。

Xiào qiǎngyán, fēngwù qǐfēi chī, zhōng fēi sú.

siu3 koeng4 ngaan4 、fung1 mat6 hei2 fei1 ci1 ，zung1 fei1 zuk6 。

[smile][force][face], [[scenery]][[would it not be]][silly], [end][not][routine]

Even if I must force a smile; how silly not to marvel at nature to forget one's daily routine.

清昼永，佳眠熟。门外事，何时足?

Qīng zhòu yǒng, jiā mián shú. Mén wàishì, hé shí zú.

cing1 zau3 wing5 ，gaai1 min4 suk6 。mun4 ngoi6 si6 ，ho4 si4 zuk1 。

[clear][day][forever], [good][sleep][deep]. [door][outside][matters], [what][time][enough]?

The day is long and I slept well. But when will the matters of the world be satisfactory?

且团栾同社，笑歌相属。

Qiě tuán luán tóngshè, xiào gē xiāng zhǔ.

ce2 tyun4 lyun4 tung4 se5 ，siu3 go1 soeng1 suk6 。

[For now][gather][round][same][society], [smile][sing][together][affliliate]

For now, it's better to gather with like-minded friends, together we'll laugh and sing in harmony.

著意调停云露酿，从头检举梅花曲。

Zhuóyì tiáotíng yún lù niàng, cóngtóu jiǎnjǔ méihuā qū.

zyu3 ji3 diu6 ting4 wan4 lou6 joeng6 ，cung4 tau4 gim2 geoi2 mui4 faa1 kuk1 。

[[With care]][blend][stop][[Yunlu]][wine], [[from the start]][examine][cite][[plum blossom]][songs]

We'll make good yunlu wine and study the ancient musical notations.

纵不能将醉作生涯，休拘束。

Zòng bùnéng jiāng zuì zuò shēngyá, xiū jūshù.

zung3 bat1 nang4 zoeng3 zeoi3 zok3 saang1 ngaai4 ，jau1 keoi1 cuk1 。

[Even if][not][able][take][drunkeness][to be][[career]], [cease][constrain][bind]

Even though I can’t be drunk all the time, I am free at this moment.

Author: Fan Chengda范成 (1126–1193 AD), courtesy name Zhineng 致能, was a Chinese geographer, poet, and politician of the Song Dynasty. He served as a government official and was an academic authority in geography. His written work falls under the literary category of 'travel record literature' (yóujì wénxué), a narrative and prose style approach to writing about one's travel experiences. 

陸雲《谷風》| The Valley Wind by Lu Yün

 

I've seen this poem making the rounds in poetry circles in English with the translation by Arthur Waley. As talented as Arthur Waley is, translations are always an unrequited love letter to the original poem, especially when trying to translate between Chinese and another language. I include below romanisation in pinyin for mandarin and jyutping for cantonese, as these poems always tend to hold the better rhyme in Cantonese.

Living in retirement beyond the world
Silently enjoying isolation

閒居外物，靜言樂幽。

Xiánjū wài wù, jìng yán lè yōu. 

haan4 geoi1 ngoi6 mat6 ，zing6 jin4 lok6 jau1 。

I pull the rope of my door tighter
And stuff my window with roots and ferns.

繩樞增結，甕牖綢繆。

Shéng shū zēng jié, wèng yǒu chóumóu. 

sing4 syu1 zang1 git3，ung3 jau5 cau4 mau4 。

My spirit is tuned to the spring season
At the fall of the year there is autumn in my heart

和神當春，清節為秋。

Hé shén dāng chūn, qīng jié wèi qiū. 

wo4 san4 dong1 ceon1 ，cing1 zit3 wai4 cau1 。

Thus imitating cosmic changes
My cottage becomes a universe.

天地則爾，戶庭已悠。

Tiāndì zé ěr, hù tíng yǐ yōu.

tin1 dei6 zak1 ji5 ，wu6 ting4 ji5 jau4 。


Image is calligraphy by Xia Guoxian, source here. 

How to Quarantine in South Korea

Travel? In 2021? Are you mad? 

Perhaps a little. Here's my lowdown of government mandated quarantine in South Korea if you are looking to travel there for ✨tourist purposes✨. I say this because I was the first tourist in Seoul many people had met in nearly two years. The ladies working in the tourist information centres practically had cobwebs on them. 

Genuinely in the corridor on the way to our quarantine hotel room

What you will need to enter Korea as a mythical tourist:

• Flights (or a ferry)
• Negative PCR test (within 48 or 72 hours of arrival), print this out and highlight the word 'negative'
• KETA form: this can be filled in on the KETA app, but I printed out the certificate for customs
• An address in Korea where you will stay post-quarantine
• A Korean resident or national to act as a reference (they will get called and asked if they know you are coming)
• I did not have to arrange a visa because Brits have a 90 day tourist visa automatically
• Travel Insurance - I got asked for this at the airport, I had it but it wasn't printed out which seemed to be a bit of an issue

The airport procedure

This is where is gets a bit Squid Game, although I am loathe to say it, mostly because of the hazmat suits. Disembark your plane and collect your luggage, and then as you approach customs, non-Korean citizens are separated into a different queue where your temperature and paperwork will be checked for quarantine.

Prepare to be shuffled around the airport to various cordoned off locations, it passes the time and helps you feel like there is progress. Don't bother asking any of the airport staff helping you which hotel you will end up at, it's a total lottery and they don't know. 

One thing I missed at Incheon airport was the SIM card stand - there aren't many places to get SIM cards in Korea if you are not a Korean resident. If you have a recent enough phone model, you can purchase an e-sim through Trazy.com or LG U+ online. This will add a virtual SIM to your phone, giving you a Korean number and data to use. I would recommend getting the data+voice e-SIM rather than just data, as you will need a telephone number to check into shops and restaurants to abide by Covid regulations. The benefits are you don't have to do the fiddly work of trying to open up your phone and there's no risk of losing your regular SIM card, too. If your mobile is an older model, look out for the SIM card stall (likely SKT) in the airport to get a short term SIM. 

Next was the bus - at this point you are shepherded by people in full hazmat suits and you are not allowed to remove your mask. One very irate smoker was determined to test this in the few moments we had outside loading our luggage into the bus: it did not end well for the smoker and I wonder if he had any plans to go cold turkey for 10 days before going to Korea. 

The Hotel 

At the hotel I had another PCR test, filled in more forms and paid for my "stay". 

The forms are essentially an agreement not to leave the room for the allotted time and to take health tests (this involves taking your temperature twice a day, everyday, and logging it on a health app). We had to download another app. If I remember correctly, the app on the left was downloaded at the airport, and app on the left at the hotel. 

I don't know the difference so I uploaded my temperature info into both apps

You are able to quarantine with another person so long as they are a family member (I'm not sure how far this extends beyond immediate family - sorry cousins!) and your spouse. I got a discount on the quarantine fees by staying in a joint room for 10 days: approx £1136 for the two of us, which if I remember correctly is a discount of 40% each compared to staying in separate rooms.

As it is South Korea, I was banking on there being excellent internet connection in the hotel: I was not disappointed. There were two of us on international video calls (an absolute mare in one room) with no problems. 

Weird features of the stay include speaker announcements inside the room three times a day reminding guests to NEVER LEAVE THEIR ROOM, to not open the window too wide, and to not smoke.

Highlights of the quarantine was definitely the view. Although balcony-less and unable to open the window fully without a finger-wagging from the policeman below - I was able to watch the sunrise over Incheon in the East and set over the island we were on in the West, all the time tracking its way over the ocean and Incheon bridge. The outside became another world, like the other side of a mirror, full of observable but unreachable tiny figures, birds, and, occasionally, some cats.

 

Food

There were "no beef", "no pork" and vegetarian options available when checking into the quarantine hotel. If you are vegetarian - prepare to have protein sources replaced by bread rolls. I have included a photo below of the four-carb dinner comprised of boiled rice, potato curry, a hash brown and a bread roll. 

It's surreal to hear the doorbell ring at the same time each day, and have bags of food mystically appear outside. Food was generally good - lots of pickles - and in a good quantity so you won't go hungry. 

We did need to order extra water via the telephone as we were given one 500ml bottle of water per meal, which was not enough for this thirsty ho.

 

Leaving

Departing the hotel was a rather unceremonious affair. Of course, the first time I had been outside in 10 days and it was pouring with rain. 

A few days before release, we were given the options of having either, some one collect us from the hotel in a vehicle, or get dropped off at a nearby train station by the hotel minibus. We plumped for the public transport option. On the 10th day of quarantine, I was packed and ready to say goodbye to my prison cell hotel room at the pre-allotted time of 8am. And from the moment you leave the room, it's face masks all the way. 

Given that so much paper work is needed to enter the hotel, it felt very strange to be leaving without even a signature. And with that, we were off into the big, wide world of South Korea. 

Let me know if you have any questions and I'll do my best to answer. Although I will caveat that this experience is time-bound to late 2021 and travel restrictions and regulations will change. 

CCP: The Chinese Consumerist Party?

In the 1980s, the average Chinese found the money in their pockets growing and saw the emergence of a market for consumer products. Demand for the new 'Big Three’ (a refrigerator, a washing machine and a television set) replaced the practically provincial previous big three, namely a bicycle, a wristwatch and a sewing machine. As Chinese Premier Deng Xiaoping put it: to get rich is glorious (致富光荣 zhìfù guāngróng), 

Three decades on, the 'communist' country's administration is simultaneously trying to rein in the culture of hyper-materialism, where girls declare they would "rather cry in the back of a BMW than smile on a bicycle," while trying tempt the Chinese people to stop saving and spend more. 

China is currently trying to make the leap between a manufacturing economy to one led by domestic consumerism. By western standards, the mainland Chinese aren't big spenders, tending to keep a large proportion of funds stashed away. Figures suggest household consumption accounted for 35% of the Chinese economy in 2010, compared to 71% in the US. 

But to those with the means (and some without) designer clothes, fast cars, foreign brands and luxurious holidays are the mark of fashionable modern China. And today's Big Three? Men have to own a car, a house and have a well paying job to even think of finding a wife. 

One driver of consumerism in China is the birth of online shopping. Sites like Taobao, Jingdong, T-Mall, Alibaba have changed the face of Chinese retail. Go to a local market and you'll see how tactile and in-your-face Chinese shoppers can be: they touch everything, they inspect it, they insult it, they bargain over it. While some analysts said the Chinese would never take to online shopping because it doesn't allow them to see and feel what they are buying, the truth is cash is king. 

Bargains galore have drawn millions of Chinese to splash their cash online, and e-commerce has other benefits, too. Many of China's disabled community have taken to running online stores for living as they can face stigma, restrictions and competition in the workplace.  Changes are also spreading to China's remote rural villages, with Taobao recruiting "rural partners" to bring the internet age to the elderly and technologically disadvantaged. Given the growth China's e-commerce platforms have seen, it's incredible to realise there is still much room for growth in the provincial and agricultural areas. In 2010, 1.6 million people worked in e-commerce firms, ballooning to 2.5 million in June 2015. A further 18 million work in related businesses, such as postal services. 

Such huge changes in shopping habits have concomitantly given online retail platforms the power to shape culture: the 11 November is known in China as Singles Day, which has become an online shopping frenzy to eclipse even Black Friday. This holiday was created as a joke less than 25 years ago in campuses in Nanjing because of the appearance of the date (11.11) looking like four solo stick figures and, after all, one is the loneliest number. Yet in 2015, this "joke" led to USD 14.3 billion in online sales thanks to yearly pushes and huge discounts since 2009 led by e-commerce sites such as Alibaba. In 2015, Alibaba drummed up shopping fever with a TV-extravaganza featuring international stars such as Kevin Spacey and Daniel Craig. 

But what does 14.3 billion dollars look like? It's a sum that is difficult for humans to compute, but it is much easier to picture how e-commerce has crept into modern Chinese life. A collection by photographer Huang Qingjun shows families from across China posing next to everything they owned bought on Taobao, each photograph telling a tale of commodity, convenience and character. 

In some ways, online shopping is more advanced in China's urban centres than it is in America and Europe. The innovation driving WeChat is blurring the boundaries of retail, social media and online messaging. If the drive of e-commerce and  hyper-materialism shows no signs of slowing, what does this mean for China as a whole? Website Chinafile asks some pertinent questions of this pursuit of Stuff: 

How much can Chinese consumers afford to spend given the nation’s lack of a social safety net? Moreover, how much consumption can China’s environment handle and is there a magic number that signals China’s people are consuming enough to keep the economy from tanking without simultaneously killing themselves with pollution? 

(Images excluding Mao are from a collection called Totems by Alain Delorme to highlight consumerism in China)

8 Alternative Books on China You Haven't Heard Of

Approach the 'China' section of a bookshop and immediately you are struck by the overall redness of the area. It seems there are no books about China that aren't crimson and adorned with a dragon and/or Chinese flag. Maybe a picture of Mao for good measure. They all have titles like The Dragon Wakes, China Shakes the World or The China Boom. There is no Wild Swans or The Last Emperor here. 

But lets look past "China" to the individuals that make up this vast kingdom; where are the books about current subcultures, trends, phenomenons affecting everyday life? Where are the stories about and by the common people of China: what they like, desire, fear, experience and do to stay afloat in the shifting sands of this rapidly changing country?

I've picked out 8 books; some I have read, some I have been to talks by the author, and some I have listened to reviews on podcasts, and some are just on my reading list. But all cover aspects of life in modern China that economic and international relations books would skim over but are by far the most interesting part of studying China and Chinese (to me at least).

1. Little Emperors and Material Girls: Youth and Sex in Modern China by Jemimah Steinfeld - A look at young people's sex lives, family ties, material desires and strangely enough, patriotism through anecdotal stories and observations.
2. Notes from Beijing Coffeeshop by Jon Geldart - Geldart has spent over five years in Beijing conversing with Chinese business leaders, opinion formers and ordinary Chinese mainly in coffee shops and tea houses. His observations, stories and profiles are a gateway to seeing how people are really do business and living in the new China.
3. Factory Girls: Voices from the Heart of Modern China by Leslie T. Chang - Through the lives of two young women, Chang vividly portrays the struggles of millions of migrant workers who leave their rural towns to find jobs in the cities, driving China’s economic boom. 
4. I Am China by Xiaolu Guo - Guo is a director and author censored and monitored in her homeland for her more subversive works, and I Am China is no different, telling the fictional tale of two lovers, separated by distance and an oppressive political regime, desperate to find their way back to each other. 
5. Verse Going Viral: China's New Media Scenes by Heather Inwood - Verse Going Viral examines what happens when poetry, a central pillar of traditional Chinese culture, encounters an era of digital media and unabashed consumerism in the early twenty-first century. 
6. Buying Beauty: Cosmetic Surgery in China by Hua Wen - Hua explores how turbulent economic, sociocultural, and political changes in China since the 1980s have produced immense anxiety that is experienced both mentally and corporeally. Cosmetic surgery in China has grown rapidly in recent years of dramatic social transition. Facing fierce competition in all spheres of daily life, more and more women consider cosmetic surgery as an investment to gain "beauty capital" to increase opportunities for social and career success. 
7. Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth and Faith in the New China by Evan Osnos - Age of Ambition describes some of the billion individual lives that unfold on remote farms, in glittering mansions, and in the halls of power of the world’s largest authoritarian regime. Together they describe the defining clash taking place today: between the individual and the Communist Party’s struggle to retain control. 
8. Modern China: All That Matters by Jonathan Clements - I know I said I was going for personal stories, but Modern China: All That Matters covers key issues of national reconstruction that shape Chinese people; the Cold War, the Cultural Revolution, and the dizzying spectacle of China's economic reform. Clements offers a Chinese perspective on such events as the Handover of Hong Kong, and chronicles the historical events that continue to resonate today in Chinese politics, economics, culture and quality of life.

If you have any more recommendations, please comment below!

杜甫《陪鄭廣文遊何將軍山林十首》Du Fu Ten Verses (1 to 4)

This is a translation of the first 4 verses of 陪鄭廣文遊何將軍山林十首 (Ten Verses on Accompanying Zheng Guang-Wen Travelling in General He's Mountain Groves), by the renowned Tang dynasty poet 杜甫 (Dufu).

This poem is composed of ten verses, although each can be read as an individual poem. I will try to offer a translation that best reflects the grammar in use, although as this sometimes makes for a clunky English translation, I will do my best to offer another idiomatic English poetic rendering as well.


其一 Part 1
不識南塘路，今知第五橋。
I am not familiar with the Southern Well Road,  [塘 is a manmade well or reservoir]
But now I recognise the fifth bridge.
名園依綠水，野竹上青霄。
Famous gardens border green waters,
Wild bamboo reaches up into the clear sky.
谷口舊相得，濠梁同見招。
Mr Gu Kou, a long time ago we got to know one another [Gu Kou is another name for Zheng Guang-Wen, the name in the title of the poem]
To Hao Liang, together we have been summoned. [Hao Liang is a famous lake in China with many cultural connotations, as it is the lake where Zhuangzi had a the conversation about the fish. Hao Liang could also be another name for General He, it is not clear]
平生為幽興，未惜馬蹄遙。
All my life I have been inspired solitude [为X兴 to be inspired by X]
And have never regretted my horses footsteps off into the distance.

I am not familiar with the Southern Well Road,
But now I recognise the fifth bridge.
Famous gardens border green waters,
Wild bamboo reaches up into the clear sky. 
Mr Gu Kou and I got to know one another a long time ago,
And together we have been summoned to Hao Liang. 
All my life I have been inspired solitude,  
And have never regretted my horse's treaded route into the distance.


其二 Part 2
百頃風潭上，千章夏木清。
One hundred qing, the wind blows over deep pools, [頃 an area of land equivalent to 6.67 hectares]
One thousand trees, the summer woods are cool. [章 means trunks, representing trees]
卑枝低結子，接葉暗巢鶯。
Low branches drop down with fruit,
Joined leaves hide nested orioles.
鮮鯽銀絲膾，香芹碧澗羹。
Fresh carp, silver slivers of meat,
Fragrant celery, the broth of a jade mountain stream.
翻疑柁樓底，晚飯越中行。
I wonder, to be below the rudder house, [翻疑 to turn over one's doubts, is a binome meaning 'to wonder'. 柁 is a rudder 樓 means building, so 柁樓 is the small building constructed over the rudder at the back of the boat for the captain to steer the boat in]
Eating dinner travelling through Yue.

One hundred qing, the wind blows over deep pools, 
One thousand trees, the summer woods are cool.
Low hanging branches droop with fruit,
Dense leaves hide nested orioles.
Fresh carp, silver slivers of meat,
Fragrant celery, the broth of a jade mountain stream. 
I wonder what it is like to be in the rudder house, [I'm really not sure about this line, if anyone has better versions, please comment below]
Eating dinner travelling through Yue. 


其三 Part 3
萬里戎王子，何年別月支？
Ten thousand li, the rong wang zi, [戎王子 is a plant, it doesn't seem to have any special properties]
When did you leave Yue Zhi? [月支 land to the west of the Tang dominion, called Tokhara]
異花来絕域，滋蔓匝清池。
Strange flowers come from foreign lands, [絕域 means foreign lands, but 絕 means to cut off, so the real meaning is more of a cut off, isolated land]
It spreads and grows, surrounding the clear pool.
漢使徒空到，神農竟不知。
The Han emissary arrives back in vain,
The God of Farming somehow does not know (of the wang rong zi).  [神農 the god of farming and agriculture, said to have invented farming techniques for China, also called a sage]
露翻兼雨打，開坼漸離披。
Dew rolls and the rain strikes,
It cracks open, and gradually departs and spreads. [both these lines refer to the wang rong zi]

Ten thousand li away from the rong wang zi plant,
When did you leave Tokhara?
Strange flowers come from isolated lands,
It spreads and grows, surrounding the clear pond.
The Han emissary arrives back empty handed,
And even the God of Farming does not know of it. 
Dew rolls over and the rain strikes the wang rong zi,
The flower cracks open, but gradually petals fall and cover the ground. 


其四 Part 4
旁舍連高竹，疏籬帶晚花。
The side house joins with tall bamboo, [旁舍 by this he is implying very humble living, not the main house by a small house by the side, almost like a shed, or an outbuilding]
The sparse fence bears evening flowers.
碾渦深沒馬，藤蔓曲藏蛇。
Mill whirlpool, in the depths the horse sinks, [碾 means to crush, and also means a mill]
Wisteria grows, in the bends snakes hide.
[Scholars don't really know what these two morbid lines are about, but speculate Dufu is mentioning some traumatic period in his life]
詞賦工無益，山林跡未賒。
Words and verse, this work is without profit,
Mountains and forests have never been far away.
盡捻書籍賣，來問爾東家。
I touch everything, sell off my books,
I have come to question your landlord.

Bamboo grows around the outbuilding,
The loosely thatched fence bears evening flowers.
The horse drowns in the depths of the whirlpool by the mill,
Snakes hide in the curves of winding wisteria. 
Words and verse, there is no profit from this work,
I have never been far from mountains and forests.
So I take my books and sell them all,
I come in search of the landlord. 

Yongfu Lament 永福路换歌

The hands of a Chinese construction worker who left home aged 12 to support his family

Yongfu Lament 永福路换歌

举起皴裂如砂纸般的双手，
I raise these hands chapped into sandpaper,
昏暗的灯光下我试图读懂掌心的纹路，
Under the dim light I'll try to read the lines across the palms,
明白他们告诉我缘何我已抵达这里，
Knowing they tell me how I came here,
这跋涉如何赋予一个男人梦想，
How does this toil give a man dreams,
又或是给了我自己。
Or perhaps give me myself.  

但是不久我就厌倦了，
But soon I'll tire of this,
不久我就搓着双手，
Soon I'll just wring my hands together,
拼命有把粗糙搓着，
Desperately using the coarseness to slough themselves away,
忘掉那些纵横交错的线路。
Forget those crisscrossing interwoven lines.
仿佛这样能把自己带回家，
As if this could take me back home,
但却只是暖和了点儿罢了。
But it only warms me a little.

One text we had to translate in class claimed that China's development is built on the back of China's migrant workers, who are called 'peasant workers' in mandarin, and this poem is no doubt from their experience. Their numbers are estimated at 274 million, and they are treated as second class citizens in the cities they migrate to work in thanks to the Hukou system. This system identifies migrant workers as belonging to rural areas, therefore they are denied many social benefits when the enter cities. Children of migrant workers who accompany their parents to cities are not allowed into the state owned schools.

However, a recent report by Bloomberg (China's 274 million migrant workers are older and more expensive) has found that migrant workers wages are on the rise.

陶淵明《桃花源記》An Account of Peach Blossom Spring by Tao Yuanming

This is an extremely famous story that all Chinese people will have in their collective unconscious, much like western nursery rhymes or fairy tales in the UK and other English speaking nations. It tells the story of a fisherman who stumbles upon shangri-la by accident, and after leaving, because he tells people of its existence, neither he nor anyone else can find their way back there again. Please note, my translation sometimes adds to or omits parts of the Classical Chinese to produce more flowing English and to capture a greater sense of the original meaning, so should not be taken as exact. 

晉太元中，武陵人，捕魚為業。緣溪行，忘路之遠近。忽逢桃花林，夾岸數百步，中無雜樹，芳草鮮美，落英繽紛。漁人甚異之，復前行，欲窮其林。

In the Taiyuan year of the Eastern Jin dynasty, there was a man from Wuling who caught fish for a living. One day, he was following the river creek when he forgot how far along the river he had come. He suddenly came across a wood of peach blossom trees, lining either side of the bank for several hundred metres. There were no other types of trees among peach trees. The grass was fresh and delicate, and the fallen peach blossoms lay thick and colourful upon the ground. The fisherman was greatly astonished by this place and pressed on, wanting to reach the end of the grove.

林盡水源，便得一山，山有小口，仿佛若有光。便舍船，從口入。初極狹，纏通人。復行數十步，豁然開朗。土地平曠，屋舍儼然，有良田﹑美池，桑﹑竹之屬。

The grove came to an end at the source of the river, where he also discovered a mountain. In the mountain was a small opening, and there seemed to be a light inside it. Thereupon he left his boat and went into the opening. At first the tunnel was extremely narrow, with only just enough room for a man to pass through. He continued on for a few dozen steps, when suddenly the tunnel opened up, revealing a bright and clear view. The land was flat and vast, the houses were all neatly laid out. There were fertile fields, beautiful ponds, mulberry trees and bamboo. 

阡陌交通，雞犬相聞。其中往來種作，男女衣著，悉如外人。黃發垂髫，並怡然自樂。見漁人，乃大驚，問所從來。具答之。便要還家，設酒、殺雞、作食。

Paths crisscrossed over fields. The crows and barks of the chickens and dogs mingled with each other. In this place, people were coming and going, busy with planting and growing crops. The clothing of the men and women were exactly like those of the people living in the outside world. Their yellow hair [unsure if this means they are blonde, or the have some kind of decoration in their hair] dangled in locks, they were all carefree and merry together. When they saw the fisherman, they were greatly startled and asked him where he had come from. He answered all of their questions [OR: "He answered their questions in detail" the 具 makes this ambiguous and could have a sense of both meanings]. Thereupon he was invited to their houses, where they prepared wines, killed a chicken and made food.

村中聞有此人，咸來問訊。自雲：“先世避秦時亂，率妻子、邑人來此絕境，不復出焉，遂與外人間隔。”問今是何世，乃不知有漢，無論魏晉。此人一一為具言所聞，皆嘆惋。

When the people of the village heard about the fisherman [此人 lit. this person], they all came to make enquiries. The villagers said, “Our ancestors fled to avoid the chaos of the Qin period, leading their wives, children and neighbours to this isolated place, and they never left it. And so we were cut off from the outside world.” They asked him what age is was now, they didn’t even know of the Han dynasty, let alone the Wei or Jin dynasties. The fisherman told them one by one in detail of what he knew, all of the villagers sighed with regret. 

余人各復延至其家，皆出酒食。停數日，辭去。此中人語雲：“不足為外人道也。”

Each of the remaining people also invited the fisherman to their homes, and everyone brought out wine and food. After the fisherman had stayed for number of days, he bade farewell and departed. The people of the village said, “We’re not worth mentioning to the outside world.” [OR “It’s best if outsiders don’t know about us.” Today the phrase "不足為外人道也" means "this is best kept between us."]

既出，得其船，便扶向路，處處志之。及郡下，詣太守，說如此。太守即遣人隨其往，尋向所志，遂迷，不復得路。

As soon as he left their land, he found his boat and followed the same route back home, leaving markers all along the way. Once he reached his home prefecture, he visited the Governor [OR: Grand Administrator] and related the whole story to him. The Governor immediately dispatched people to follow the fisherman’s route and to search for the markers he had left. But they became lost, and could not find the road again. 

南陽劉子驥，高尚士也，聞之，欣然規往。未果，尋病終。后遂無問津者。

In Nanyang there was a noble gentleman called Liu Ziji, who upon hearing about the Peach Blossom Spring, happily made plans to go there. However, he did not succeed, as he soon fell ill and died. Henceforth there has been no one wanting to pursue the matter further (問津 make enquiries). 

Who the FUUUUUU is Fu Manchu?

“Imagine a person, tall, lean and feline, high-shouldered, with a brow like Shakespeare and a face like Satan, a close-shaven skull, and long, magnetic eyes of the true cat-green. Invest him with all the cruel cunning of an entire Eastern race, accumulated in one giant intellect, with all the resources of science past and present, with all the resources, if you will, of a wealthy government -- which, however, already has denied all knowledge of his existence. Imagine that awful being, and you have a mental picture of Dr. Fu-Manchu, the yellow peril incarnate in one man."

–The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu, Sax Rohmer

2013 marked the one-hundredth year since Sax Rohmer published The Mystery of Fu Manchu, probably the most recognisable “Chinese” character in Western popular fiction. Dr Fu Manchu characterisation laid the foundations for the stereotyping of East Asian men as the ‘evil oriental genius’, notably Dr. No in the Bond series, or Ming the Merciless. However, most Chinese have never even heard of Dr Fu Manchu. The plot thickens. Today it seems hard, or even comical, for us to believe Rohmer’s character of Fu Manchu, a man with “eyes of the true cat-green”, is supposedly a Chinese person. 

What the evil Dr. Fu Manchu represents is obviously not a Chinese person, but a reflection of the West’s past fears. Around the turn of the 20th century, the West considered the East, mainly China, as a threat economically, military and morally without any basis in fact. Many of these fears were expanded in fiction, particularly in Rohmer’s novels, who was inspired by the tales of intrigue surrounding Chinatowns in the US. Rohmer never visited either of London’s two Chinatowns, but exploited the introverted nature of Chinese settlements as the perfect setting for the scheming Dr Fu Manchu. Actual Chinese migrants that arrived in the UK before the 1920s were a silent and fleeting minority. Most of them stayed only briefly and their numbers after 1920 had dwindled to a handful. Despite this, London's Chinatowns were depicted as mere outposts of a larger, underground syndicate of sin, debauchery and illegal opium dens.  Due to ignorance and misunderstanding on the side of the West, Rohmer’s stories of powerful, hidden individuals prowling the darkened streets of Chinatowns seemed plausible, caught public attention and kept the Yellow Peril fears burning.

A late 19th/early 20th century image of Chinese workers unloading shipments in London

Popular culture likes to overplay the migrant Chinese community’s links to opium, smuggling, and gambling. Such business did take place, but also played into the stereotypes of the Yellow Peril, which are predisposed to see the Chinaman as a creature of vice and debauchery, addicted to opiates and corrupting local women. These were to become core facets of Fu Manchu's character. However, up until the 1870s, taking opium was a common and accepted habit amongst Victorians. When the effects of the drug on China were publicised, the pendulum of public and medical opinion began to swing in the opposite direction. On the whole, the Chinese communities were regarded as private but untroubled places. The opium dens and gambling houses made much less of a spectacle of themselves than the public houses of the British. The early Chinese settlers remained focused on their own community, and its economy was introverted towards providing services for their compatriots.

Although discrimination against the Chinese was a problem in the UK, it never reached the heights of that in the USA or Canada, where restrictive and demeaning policies were enshrined in law. For Robert Louis Stevenson, an Englishman traveling in the USA before the turn of the twentieth century, he found the Americans’ regard for their Chinese neighbours quite shocking. Upon boarding a train, he discovered that there was a separate carriage solely for the use of the Chinese. Stevenson conjectured that the "Mongols" were despised as "enemies in that cruel and treacherous battle-field of money." Unlike Britain, the Chinese were joining white Americans in a wide variety of trades. They worked in production: making cigars, shoes, clothes, bags, brooms, matches, candles, soap, and so on. From digging irrigation channels to picking fruit, from building roads to hospitality and services, the Chinese settlers in the USA and Australia had far more freedom in their career choice. Thus, to the Peril-mongers, it would have appeared that the Chinese had designs on numerous livelihoods in Western society, and could oust their white competitors out of the trade through their cheap labour.

The original trilogy of Fu Manchu novels were released in 1913, 1916 and 1917, selling well on both sides of the Atlantic due to a widespread Western paranoia of the East. Rohmer revived the character in the 1930s, beginning a cultural presence for Fu Manchu spanning books, television, film, music and radio that continues to this day. Rohmer’s character has become part of the occidental cultural unconscious, and some would argue that fear of the East has lingered in psyche of some in the West.

However, recent studies on the life of Sax Rohmer and Fu Manchu by Sir Christopher Frayling reveal a different side to Fu’s villainy. Before Rohmer made his name with the Fu Manchu series, he wrote freelance for music halls in London, composing the lyrics to comic songs for performers. He lived and worked in the theatric heart of London. Frayling proposes that Fu Machu is a product of this theatricality, and is, at least in some part, a pantomime villain. When considering the preposterousness of Fu Manchu’s appearance, and the lyrical nature of his introduction above, Fu is comparable to a wicked witch in a fairy tale. Having watched the production of the Fu Manchu Complex put on in Ovalhouse, I would have to agree. The production's over-the-top portrayal and exaggerated costumes rendered him as an object of absurdity to the point of laughter, not a fear inspiring criminal mastermind, thereby mocking the fear people held of the Chinese. 

Labelled in the novels as the ultimate evil, is there more to Fu Manchu than meets the eye? Is Fu’s character irredeemable?

For East Asians living in the West, Fu Manchu’s ‘cultural’ links can leave people feeling alienated and stereotyped. Fu is a villain, but a feminine one - he is often linked with feline adjectives and adverbs, and is even described as beautiful on some occasions. It could be argued that a certain level of this image of the Asian male continues today, with Asian male leads in Hollywood non-existent. Moreover, Fu is not physically strong and often uses assassins on his behalf. And his weapon of choice? Poisonous mushrooms and fungi. But some of Fu Manchu’s attributes are commendable. He is fiercely intelligent, frequently running rings around his nemeses Commissioner Smith and Dr Petrie. When he lays traps for his adversaries, Dr Fu leaves an escape route, if they are clever enough to find it. Fu Manchu is true to his word, and possesses humility, as he is able to compliment his enemies when he deems their actions worthy. Perhaps his longest lasting legacy is the ‘Fu Manchu moustache’, even though Rohmer always described Fu as hairless. 

That said, there is not much for Chinese to reclaim in him because Dr Fu Manchu is, in essence, a Western construct. 

Traditional Culture in Chinese Contemporary Art

Started on the quest by my father, who sent me some scans of work by artist Yao Lu (which you can find here), I've been on the lookout this term for websites and galleries of modern Chinese artists, and as I've discovered, there's much more to Chinese art than misty mountains, Confucius, and Ai Weiwei.

Yao Lu - combines photography with photoshop to create an idyllic Chinese painting from afar, but close-up reveals landscapes of waste and pollution.

A good place to start is this selection of 25 contemporary Chinese artists.

Wall art by Hua Tunan of Foshan

Another take on the mountainous Chinese landscape painting, this time made with bottoms - by Liu Wei

Disembodied rainbow Mao suits - by Sui Jianguo

If you want to find out more about the history of Contemporary Chinese Art, and hear it in a much more engaging format than I could ever convey, I recommend a podcast by Sinica titled 'From the Underground to the Internet: Contemporary Art in China', which can be downloaded in an mp3 format here.

The discussion raises interesting points about modern Chinese art, namely that there is a pressure on Chinese artists not to pander to the Western market. The phrase used in the podcast was creating 'packaged to send' artworks. As the Chinese nation grows wealthier, it's interest in investing in home-grown art has swelled too.

Although, I don't think it is simply market forces at work which draw Chinese artists to typically Chinese themes (for example, see the constant re-invention of the Chinese landscape tradition through three modern artists I have shown above). From what I interpret, many pieces are explorations of identity, cultural consciousness and nationhood at a time of immense upheaval.

The Contemporary Chinese Art scene is dynamic and there are a number of sites dedicated to catching up with it all. Neocha (edge.neocha.com) documents the work of Chinese artists all over the world, and foreigners art in China too. Art-ba-ba (www.art-ba-ba.com), a play on the Chinese retail giant Ali-ba-ba, is on the ball when it comes to the Chinese art world, although the website is in Chinese. Artscenechina (www.artscenechina.com) is another site you might want to check out for up and coming artists. For those in London, we have our very own gallery dedicated to Chinese art (www.hua-gallery.com).