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Remember to point to the sky when you say “sparrow”… Make sure “not” is softer, “return” is louder…
While every other kid in my neighborhood gets to go home in the afternoon after a hard day of elementary school, I have another 3 hours of Chinese school every weekday.
My Chinese teacher is a remnant of the old Taiwanese system of education. Before I even learned my own name in Chinese, I was forced to have perfect pronunciation. As a former radio broadcaster in Taiwan, my Chinese teacher drilled us to be pitch perfect.
“Third tone! Third tone! Your mother isn’t a horse!”
“Curl your tongue!”
“Squeeze your lips like a dead fish!”
Every year, Chinese schools all over southern California converted a local high school into a poetry recital gauntlet. Children in preppy, itchy clothing would huddle around pushy teachers and parents, eking out a final practice run before the judging began. Parents used to be allowed to witness the competition, but some overachieving parents decided to mouth lines to their children as they were being judged, which by competition and ethical standards was cheating. As a new rule, every child was forced to perform in front of the judges, alone with other competition students.
All of us were stone-faced, nervous in our “adorable” outfits. Like sheep heading towards the slaughter, one by one we would recite the same three poems to the judges. Each time someone's voice cracked or when someone mispronounced a word, the judges would frantically scribble on their score sheet. What would always put me on edge was when someone completely forgot their lines and burst into tears. Along with losing the chance of winning, their morale was crushed, all at the age of nine.
What was worse was watching the people who did “well.” Before this person uttered a single word, you could already sense the stench of cockiness. In the kitschiest way possible, the over-inflection in each syllable was the product of each nit-picky detail corrected by a tiger parent or teacher. At every high shriek, most students who watched couldn’t help but giggle at the ridiculous circus act.
As a 9-year-old, I had no idea what any of this poetry meant. Sure, I knew most of the nouns, but when encountering lines like “why do our days leave and not return?” my premature mind thought, “Well there’s no time machine, stupid!”
This activity had nothing to do with appreciating poetry. Being surrounded by pushy parents who wanted to put their children in a trophy case, there was a sense of pride knowing that your child was better than another. A gold plastic cup was concrete evidence of that fact.
Poetry was imprinted into my mind as being pretentious and a complete waste of time. Poetry was another assignment, something that had to follow arbitrary irrational “standards.” The whole process was mechanical, devoid of any love for the words we spoke. Words had no meaning for me.
Until I went to college.
I signed up for Classical Chinese only because I mixed 110 with 101 when I applied. Classical Chinese is the ancient literary style of written Chinese, which is quite different from modern Chinese. Slowly and painstakingly, each word was carefully analyzed, picked to the last detail. All the rules of Chinese I knew were thrown out the window. Use some damn possessive pronouns Confucius!
One day, our class had just finished translating “The Orchid Pavilion.” It’s pretty much about a bunch of drunk emo poets who take shots. As they continue to write poetry, they begin to ponder about the nature of their existence. Compared to the universe, their moment of happiness was only a fleeting moment compared to the grand expanse of the universe.
For the longest time, I thought words served only to communicate information. Anything beyond that context was just extraneous, flowery language only used on standardized tests.
The moment I bit into that sweet orange or that moment poets drank blissfully into the night – words froze those moments in time. Words had the power to immortalize a thought.
Our classical Chinese professor told us to meet in the East Asian Library. As I trudged through the rain, my socks were soaked all the way through. I entered the dimly lit library in the art seminar room. Inside, warm light bathed the center table. Numerous ancient copies of the “Orchid Pavilion” were splayed naked on the table.
“Feel free to touch history,” my professor said.
As I carefully grazed my fingers over the yellowing paper and pine soot brush strokes, a chill unrelated to my cold feet struck me.
Through the tumultuous ebb and flow of history, a world that seemed so alien and remote was still relatable. That seemingly insignificant moment when these poets realized the fleeting temporal nature of reality would rot their flesh was imprinted here, their thoughts are still alive. When I close my eyes and smell the fermented paper, they were alive in my mind.
The last line of the text quotes,
後之覽者亦將有感於斯文
“May future generations who glance here feel these words.”
“May future generations who glance here feel these words.”
I finally felt words.
