Power

(Source)

I'm entering this weird "I must know everything about the Supreme Court" phase.  I know, we've all been through that.

When the Constitution first established it's three branches of government, the legislative branch was a given.  All the states wanted some control of their respective jurisdictions.  And the executive was easy because who wouldn't want the awesome quarter-back sized George Washington to lead?

The judicial branch was a shambles.  At the very beginning, the appropriations to power were still being debated.  It's no wonder the first supreme court had a convicts, drunks, and senile men.  But as time progressed, the judicial branch uses the premise that all men are created equal to rationalize how power is distributed.

Fast forward in history and I'm listening to the supreme court hearing on same sex marriage.  It's the first time I've listened to to supreme court hearing, and it struck me we how oddly casual it felt.  Granted their choice of wording and arguments are carefully crafted, but the justices and lawyers are laughing at certain point of their argument.

When I think about the premise of power in China, the concept of "天命", or Heaven's Mandate, vested power onto the Emperor.  Here's how a discussion of administering power might look like.

During 3:00- 5:00 of the clip gives you a few reconstructed views of the palace.  In 664 AD on the first day of the lunar calendar, a huge celebration was thrown for the first day the Tang Royalty would move into the palace.  This monstrosity makes the Forbidden City look like an outhouse.

At 14:00 to 16:00, the clip talks about the formal etiquette of court official to the emperor.  The long sticks they're holding are requests from the emperor.  Ivory for the highest officials, and bamboo for the lower.   Speaking out of turn, standing on the wrong position, or even holding the requests crookedly would penalize one month's salary!

But if we strip the pomp and circumstance, this dialogue on the Analects greatly expresses China's view on where power originates.

1. The Duke of Sheh informed Confucius, saying, "Among us here there are those who may be styled upright in their conduct. If their father have stolen a sheep, they will bear witness to the fact."

2. Confucius said, "Among us, in our part of the country, those who are upright are different from this. The father conceals the misconduct of the son, and the son conceals the misconduct of the father. Uprightness is to be found in this."

Legge XIII.18.

Confucius claims that one is upright when one protects the social order and recognizes the inherit power of the superior, regardless of the superior's conduct.   Social order comes at the cost of an unequal society.

It's a somewhat comforting to know that when we in America debate about the most pressing social issues of our time, we can allow our humanity to show. A reminder that power derives from our ability to rationalize the human condition at the present moment, not from some authoritarian narrative.

Please feel free to comment.  Also, how do I make a contact page on wordpress?

On My Laziness

〈詠慵詩〉

On My Laziness

 白居易

by Bai Juyi

Translated by Yoyo

With help from Stephen Owen's An Anthology of Chinese Literature

Owen, Stephen. An Anthology of Chinese Literature: Beginnings to 1911. New York: W.W. Norton, 1996. 498-99. Print.

有官慵不選，有田慵不農。

With office I'm lazy to serve, With crops I'm lazy to farm.

屋穿慵不葺，衣裂慵不縫。

With holes on the roof I'm lazy to mend, With ripped cloths I'm lazy to stitch.

有酒慵不酌，無異樽長空。

With wine I'm lazy to pour, no difference pouring into eternal emptiness.

有琴慵不彈，亦与無弦同。

With zither I'm lazy to pluck, like the famous "Harp Without Strings."

家人告飯盡，欲炊慵不舂。

The family tells there is no more food, I'd wish for a bowl but too lazy to carve one.

親朋寄書至，欲讀慵開封。

Close friends send letters, I wish to read but too lazy to open the seal

常聞嵇叔夜，一生在慵中。

I often hear Xi Shu Ye, was lazy his entire life

彈琴復鍛鐵，比我未為慵。

He plucked the zither and smelted metal, he was not as lazy as me.

Amazon Prime and Du Mu

When I read Amazon Prime could ship any package to you door the next day.  I remembered a couplet from Du Mu:

一騎紅塵妃子笑

A horserider and red dust, the consort laughs

無人知是荔枝來

No one knows the lychee are coming.

Legend has it that consort to the Tang emperor Yang Guifei loved to eat lychee, but Chang 'an (modern day Xi'an) was too far north from where lychees, so Xuanzong sets up a modern day pony express system to relay lychees quickly to the consort.

Other texts of the period also record crops and farmers being trampled on, just so the consort can eat tropical fruit.  If she were alive today, she could book any fruit on first class and have it on her doorstep within 24 hours. In fact millions of us can order something from across the world at speeds Tang royalty can only dream of.

I'm reading the book "All Natural" by Nathanael Johnson.   In his chapter on sugar, he talks about how the word "sweet" is synonymous to momentary pleasure, not contentment.  In chemistry terms, it's the difference between feeling endorphines (content) and dopamine (pleasure).  Because consumers can't tell the difference, we equate one with the other.

Du Mu warns us of the impact of one individual's overzealous passion for pleasure.  Call me old fashioned, but being able to move items within a day of our desire for pleasure makes be cautious of greed with technology.  Not just with solid packages, but the attention we place on material pleasure.

I am reminded of another quote from Du Fu, (don't get this confused with Du Mu):

朱門酒肉臭

At the red gates, the odor of wine and meat

路有凍死骨

On the road frozen dead bones

When we attend to our pleasure, what do we neglect?

Comments?  Thoughts?

On the Middle of a Boat Reading Yuan Jiu's Poetry

舟中讀元九詩

On the Middle of a Boat  Reading Yuan Jiu's Poetry

白居易

Bai Juyi

Translated by 幽柚

把君詩卷燈前讀，詩盡燈殘天未明。

I take your poem scroll in front of a lamp, after reading your poem and blowing out the lights the sky is not yet bright.

眼痛滅燈猶暗坐，逆風吹浪打船聲。

My eyes hurt after blowing out the lights sitting there quietly, going against the wind the sound of the waves hit the boat.

***I just realized translating "Love in a Fallen City" might take 2 months.......

My Rant Against Li Bai- The Poetic Drunk

Almost every elementary  introduction of Chinese poetry opens with this Tang poem from Li Bai:

静夜思

Quiet Night Thought

translated by Yoyo

床前明月光

In front of my bed a bright moon

疑是地上霜

I thought the ground was covered with frost

舉頭望明月

I raise my head to gaze at the bright moon

低頭思故鄉

Lowering my head I think of my home

(Painting by Liang Kai, Northern Song)

Then the teacher goes, "Oh, how sad.  During a cold winter night, the moon evokes his inner lonely emotions."

"And of all the things he things he thinks about, he thinks about home!  Kids, take note!  Always be filial to your parents (the moral of almost every parable we learn as children)!"

Here are some things about Li Bai that a Chinese teacher will never tell you:

1.  HE'S NOT HAN CHINESE.  He was born near the Kyrgyzstan/central Asia.

2.  He wanted to leave home.  The man somehow traveled 2000 miles from his "home village" to Xi'an China.

3.  He's a chronic alcoholic.  Everyone who met him has kept some record of him being drunk/wasted/drinking someone under the table.

4.  He's completely reckless with his behavior.  While drinking and writing poetry with Emperor Xuanzong, he orders a high level eunuch to sniff his shoe.  That thankfully kicks him out of the Tang palace.

5, His calligraphy is butt ugly.  It literally was a drunk guy who wrote it:



When I read "Quiet Night Thought" again, I read it as a poor, lonely Chinese man having a hangover late at night.  Li Bai's poetry is simple and catchy.  Or as one of my professors said, "The Madonna of Tang China."

Perhaps my disdain for Li Bai is like my dislike of cheap party music.  Everyone likes it , but it completely lacks substance.  If I read Li Bai at my current age, perhaps I would have liked him more than when my Chinese teacher told me he was the epitome of Chinese poetry as a young kid.

Let's introduce alcoholic writers to students when they're at least teenagers.

 

My First Drunk Blog! Royal Drunk

Let's talk about China's favorite party girl!  Woot!

Okay,  you won't see her spring break flashing her boobs in Cancun.  But she has her place as one of the four legendary beauties of China.

How beautiful was she?  She was SOOO beautiful that:

1.  “When she tuned around with smiling glance, she exuded every charm; in the harem all who a wore powder and paint of the beauty then seemed barren."

                 --  Bai  Juyi

2.  She had TERRIBLE body odor.  She constantly needed to bath.  History was made with the chance encounter of emperor seeing her naked.

3. She was described as having full of flesh.

4.  A pony express service was invented because of her.  Too bad the horses trampled over people...and the horses were delivering lychee thousands of miles from south.... for herself.

5.  She never grew old because she was murdered as a scapegoat for the An Lu Shan Rebellion.

6.  Ironically she flirted with An Lu Shan before the rebellion.

So how does drunk royalty look？Skip to 32:45-33:15.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YguN1w9QePI

Limber.  If you want to see an hour of this, go knock yourself out.

How does drunk royalty sound like?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2shLJc4Z_Yk

Here's my rough translation.

Island,  ice wheel begins to turn and move.
I see the Jade Rabbit. (The Chinese see a jade rabbit making medicine on the moon, not a smiley face.)

The Jade Rabbit rises early from the east.

The ice wheel leaves the island.

The cosmos separates the brightness outside.

The bright moon drifts space.

Just like what I said. Ahhhhhhh.

Chang E leaves the moon palace.

I am like Chang E leaving the moon palace. （The work she describes herself is奴, "slave" because she serves the emperor.  Literally it should mean, "The slave us like Chang E leaving the moon palace.")

A good simile.

Chang E descends The 9 Levels (9 Levels of heaven)

Softly descending her vast cold palace.

Ahhhhh, the vast cold palace.

The jade bridge slopes has she holds onto the handrail.

The Mandarin ducks come play in the water.  (Lack of focus, middle of the night imagining ducks are playing.  REALLY drunk at this point.)

The coy in the water and facing [either Yang Guifei or the moon].

Ahhhh, looking from the water.

**drunk horse or bird at the distance**

Long spaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaace,

GOOOOOOOOOOOSE!

Goooose fliiiiiiies！

Aiii Yaa  Goose Errrr Fliiiies!

The Goose flies swiftly!

Hearing my sound, the flowers in the dark fall. (Well if you were screaming GOOSE and such a high pitch, I'd fall to the ground too!)

This scenery will allows any drunk person to enjoy.

Without realizing it, I'm at the 100 Flower Pavilion!

END SCENE

Conclusion:  Royal drunks are flexible with no attention span.

 

 

Mountain Path

山行

Mountain Path

杜牧

By, Du Mu

Translated by Yoyo

遠上寒山石徑斜

Far up the winter mountain the rocky road slopes

白雲深處有人家

Deep within the white clothes are families

停車坐愛楓林晚

I stop my carriage and sit loving the maple night

霜葉紅於二月花

The dew leaves are more red than second month flowers

(Image Source)

***This is one of the first poems I learned in Chinese school that wasn't pandering to children.  The image of the tiny house in a mountain of maple still has a strong impression on me.

Ballad of an Old Cypress

古柏行

Ballad of an Old Cypress

杜甫

by, Du Fu

Translated by Stephen Owen

孔明廟前有老柏，柯如青銅根如石。

In front of the shrine of Zhu-ge Liang there was an aging cypress, it boughs were like green bronze, its roots were like the stone.

霜皮溜雨四十圍，黛色參天二千尺。

It's frosted bared was streaked by the rains forty armspans round, dark arch of mascara touching sky two thousand feet above.

君臣已與時際會，樹木猶為人愛惜。

Already the minister and his lord have met their moment, yet still is this tree cherished by men.

雲來氣接巫峽長，月出寒通雪山白。

When clouds come, its vapors touch the full length of Wu Gorges; as the moon appears, its chill reaches the white of the Mountains of Snow.

憶昨路繞錦亭東，先主武侯同閟宮。

I think back now where the road wound east of Brocade Pavilion, where the Ruler of Shu and his Warrior Count share a common shrine.

崔嵬枝幹郊原古，窈窕丹青戶牖空。

Trunk and branches loomed high there, ancient upon the meadows, with paintings dark and hidden away through the empty doors and windows.

落落盤踞雖得地，冥冥孤高多烈風。

Spreading wide, roots coiled and clasped-- but though it found firm place, high and alone in the black of sky there are many violent storms.

扶持自是神明力，正直原因造化功。

Surely that which holds it up is the might of some bright god; its upright straightness is finally due to the deed of the Fashioner.

大廈如傾要梁棟，萬牛回首丘山重。

If some great mansion should collapse and they needed rafters and beams, ten thousand oxen would turn their heads at its weight, which is a mountain's.

不露文章世已驚，未辭翦伐誰能送。

Even before it shows its grain, all the world is amazed; it would not object to being cut, but who would be able to send it?

苦心豈免容螻蟻，香葉終經宿鸞鳳。

It's bitter core cannot keep out intrusions of termites, yet its fragrant leaves have ever given a night's lodging to the phoenix.

志士幽人莫怨嗟，古來材大難為用。

Let neither sigh-- not the man of grand aims nor the man who lives hidden away-- it has always been true that the greatest timber is hardest to put to use.

Owen, Stephen. "Ballad of an Old Cypress." An Anthology of Chinese Literature: Beginnings to 1911. New York: W.W. Norton, 1996. 432-33. Print.

My reflections:

Reading this poem again, I still can't fully grasp the last clause of this poem.  Owen mentions in the preceding paragraph how "才" (talent or innate ability) is a pun for "材" (timber).  I noticed this time the metaphor he used for talent as something alive, not dead timber.  Although this tree is incredibly old, its existence exudes an essence that the living still appreciate.

Through the vicissitudes and ravages of time, what may be en vogue one moment may become passe.  What we know to be simple truth is difficult to fit into our complex world.

This is why I love looking back into ancient poetry.  The essence of the truisms it emits from the past tell us what to value in the present.

I'd also like to dedicate this poem to my friend's new Bonsai tree, Kirk!

Motionless Night

《船夜援琴》

 The Boat and Night Brings About the Qin

白居易

Bai Juyi

Translated by Yoyo.

鳥棲魚不動，夜月照江深。

Birds perch fish motionless, the night moon glows in the deep river.

身外都無事，舟中只有琴。

Beyond myself all is not happening, middle of a boat there is only a Qin.

七弦為益友，兩耳是知音。

Seven strings for my good friend, two ears there is knowing music

心靜聲即淡，其間無古今。

Heart calm sounds plain, no past present at this space.

*I'm listening to Ella Fitzgerald scatting.