Su of the Eastern Slope 蘇東坡

I've been on hiatus studying for a test that could not test me.  I'm back on my blog!

I have to put "The Dream of the Red Chamber" on hold for this man, Su Shi:

(Yuan Dynasty, Painted by Zhao Mengfu)

I recently bought the Chinese copy of Lin Yutang's "The Gay Genius:  The Biography of Su Dong Po" delivered from Taiwan.

I have many reasons for reading Su Shi, but before I make any sweeping statements about his life, please read this poem first:

(Emperor Huizong "draft cursive" 12th century)

No, please don't read the draft cursive.  Heck, I can barely read it.  Su Shi's poem is a reaction to a friend who could write this script.

Su Shi, Shi Cang-shu's "Hall of Drunken Ink" (1068)

All worry and woe in life begins

from learning to read and write---

be able to roughly mark your name

and then you should call it quits.

What point is there in cursive draft

that flaunts the spirit's speed?---

the blur in my eyes when I open a scroll

makes me ill at ease.

Yes, i too have been fond of it,

but always I laugh at myself;

how can we cure this affliction

as it shows itself in you?

You tell me that in doing this

you find a perfect joy,

mind's satisfaction, not distinct

from spirit's roaming free.

Just recently you built a hall

and named it "Drunken Ink,"

comparing this art to drinking wine

that melts anxieties.

I see now that Liu Zong-yuan

wrote something not untrue;

such affliction may crave dirt and ask

as if it were haute cuisine.

Still we may say that in this art

you have achieved the heights:

worn-out brushes pile by your walls

like little hills and knolls.

When the whim strikes, one swish of the hand

and a hundred sheets are gone:

in a fleeting moment a splendid steed

bestrides an entire land.

My own script takes shape to my mood,

I have no special technique:

the dots and lines just follow my hand,

it's a bother to try too hard.

Then tell me why in your critiques

I am singled out for praise,

isolated words an scraps of paper

all find themselves collected.

Your script may be properly judged

no lower than Zhong or Zhang;

on a lower level my own is still better

than that of Luo or Zhao.

You should no longer sit by the pool

and practice so ardently,

in the end just take all that writing silk

and use it to stuff a quilt.

Owen, Stephen. "The Ornaments of "Literati" Culture." An Anthology of Chinese Literature: Beginnings to 1911. New York: W.W. Norton, 1996. 640-41. Print.

During my darker, colder days of college, Su Shi knew the right words to speak to my soul.  His life by some standards may be seen as a "failure" because of his fall from political power.  Yet after a thousand years we remember him like an good old friend.

Lin Yutang puts it this way:  knowing a thousand year old dead guy isn't hard, you just need to write.  The living haven't finished telling their stories.  As the old saying goes, we can decide when the coffin shuts.