July 2021

So high is the Sorceler Mountain

And so deep is Huai River,

Difficult to travel through;

Without wings,

Impossible is my return.

After so many efforts to go East

Why this still remains a dream?

I want a crossing

But there is no boat.

And why the current is so fierce

For me to jump?

From the shore when I look afar

My coat becomes wet of tears

Unspeakable feeling

A man on his long journey

June 2021

Journey to the ouest (from the collection of « Yue Fu Songs » first part)

What’s in paradise?

Rows of redwoods

and osmanthus border the trails,

Blue Dragons sit aside ;

the song of a phoenix

guiding nine young birds,

Looking back at the humain world

They find nothing enviable.

A good lady receives guests

with peace and joy.

She bends and kneels down

to greet the guests.

Then she invites them to the northside sitting room

and let them to sit on a woolen carpet,

Pure wine in different pots,

rubbles rise when cups are filled

May 2021

Song of Yue Fu: "The Dew on the grass"

How easily is dried out

the dew on the grass.

It will fall again the next day, but

when will be back the breath that has gone?

Whose land is this chilly place

Where both clever and blind souls are gathered?

How impatient is the god of death

Oh no delay is tolerated

Carnet

Chinese thinkers never tried to build a rounded system, said Zhao Ting Yang, not philosophically nor religiously. They believe in the law of change, and the world appears to them as no more than possibilities.

April 2021

Song of Xun Nu people

Lost is my Yan Zhi mountain

Our women become coulourless

Gone is my Qi Lian mountain

Our animals no longer breed

carnet

The overwhelming belief in the irrational power of the supernatural, rather than in any detailed physical laws that can be discovered and then mastered, altered and manipulated, this tendency might have turned people away from philosophical and scientific inquiries.

March 2021

Yue Fu Songs

Song in the countryside temple

The Sun comes and goes

The sun comes and goes

When will this end?

The world lasts differently

So Spring is not my spring

Summer is not my summer

Autumn is not my autumn

Winter is not my winter

If Time is four oceans

People’s life is a small pond

Observing these

I see the pointlessness here

I know how to be happy

by driving six dragons till the sky

When the dragons’ paces are harmonious

My mind will be in peace

Oh god Yellow Carrier

Why has not yet come down

To bring me up to paradise

February 2021

« Tian Wen (Questionning the Highest) 天问 »

About the unknown, overthrowing the mythe about the creation by the Celestral Super being.

“…

At the beginning, who was the guide ?

The formation of the sky and the planet, how to prove it ?

Light and darkness still in one, how were they devided ?

When images were confused, how were they distinguished ? ”

About the douteful, questionning the mythological stories about certain much admired angels, about their assumed power and eternity.

“…

The moon hardly disguised

among the running clouds

What the need to flee

An angel as is Chang E,

So far away, and yet

The arrow of Hou Lian

Could still reach her?

If indeed helped by magic herbes

Couldn’t she humbly

Hide herself on her homeland ?

…

The giant Ao

dancing in the ocean

with the celestral mountains

on its back, but how the mountains

could remain still ?

How the giant gave up his magic boat

To walk on foot and move to the hills ? ”

About the injuste, the injustice from the highest celestral power, from the keen, and from the crowd.

“…

The black shu already planted

The wet land of lu wei already managed

When rewarding the hardworking ones

With herbes of eternalty,

Why the Highest includes Xi

Who failed to control the flood ?

…

For the keedom of Xia

From its attacks to Meng Shan

Have it obtained

Real benefits?

What crimes Mei Xi has committed ?

What was the real reason of the fall of Xia ?

…

“That noble keen of Shang

who made him confused and unwise ?

Why he dislikes his honest supportors ?

Why he listened to devious rumors ?

Is his wife Dan Ji the only one

To be blamed ?”

Carnets

The "child" who wrote "Chinese letters", the narrator in "The field over the sea", was somehow dead, somehow alive.

January 2021

"The fisherman" (extract) by Qu Yuan

Sent for exil, he wandered near the river. Singing poems, he looked thin and weak.

The fisherman met him and asked : « A wise man does not let himself attached to anything, he instead moves along with his world… Why think deep and feel proud, why make yourself dismissed ? »

« After washing one’s hairs, replied Qu Yuan, one wants to dust his hat. After taking a bath, one needs to shake his clothes. How could one let his clean body to touch the dirty earth ? Rather to join the currents in the river, rather to be buried in the womb of fishes. How the pur could bear the dust ? »

With a smile, the fisherman picked up his row and started to sing : « Clean is the water full of waves, it can be used to wash my hat YIN. Disturbed is the water full of waves, it can be used to wash my feet. » And with no more words, he went away

The translator's notes

-- « Fishman » is one of the symbolique figures, or incarnations, of the enlighted being who teaches about the detachment.

-- This piece of work demonstrated the intense inner struggle of Qu Yuan, a question of the kind “to be or not to be”, near the end of his days, when he knew the old world of his was irrevocably vanishing.

Carnets

The pianist Fu Cong, known as Chinese Chopin, was beloved by Polish audience. One said to him: how come he is Chinese, he should be Polish. Fu Cong replied: “I could become Polish, because I am Chinese.”

**************************************

In the internet time, humans, including their mind, could be treated as one of the natural resources waiting to be mined.

Photo by Xu Qin, copy in Qing Dynasty, Shanghai Museum

Decembre 2020

Chu Ge (楚歌）

« A song of Yue » (anonymous)

“What a night it is, oh, sailing between the currents

What a day it is, oh, to travel with the prince

……

My heart can no longer quiet down, oh, since I meet him

Trees in the mountain, oh, branches on the trees,

Of my love he is not aware”

Note :

-- Southern regional songs have existed since long, but the Poetry of Chu 楚辞, as a literary form, was first collected and published by Liu Xiang 刘向（77BCE—6BCE）。

-- Yue 越 was a keendom in today’s lower Delta Chang Jiang area.

--“木有枝 ”（branches on the tree),is pronounced as « mu you zhi », the same pronounciation could also mean « 莫有知 » （do not know).In ancient time, 木and莫have same pronounciation.

To write in the nature, about the nature, for the nature.

The verb should first disappear. Then the “I”.

Technology dominates since 1945, massively transferring power and wealth, bringing the world to a new oral, visual and acting era.

It is assumed, long time ago, in Yi Jing 易經，that the world just IS, with us, or in spite of us. And Buddhism later came to further take off almost all causalities in the happenings in any existence within the cycle of eternal return.

Schopenhauer is a rare true bridge between the East and the West.

That is probably why lots of Chinese thinkers tend to focus on the teaching of "what to do" facing a given situation or an upcoming change, in order to stay away from the nihilism, to be alive even with a fondamental feeling of the fatality.

Extract of “The book of Poetry 诗经”

“Those who know me

Would say I have wonders

Those who don’t understand

Would ask where I’m going

Oh sky so vast,

What indeed I am ? »

Comments by Kong Zi about « The book of Poetry » :

« Sadness without depression, pleasure without abuse ».

It is believed he selected three hundred poems, according to his ascetic taste and his urge to establish order, from three thousands.

October 25

I sometimes feel the comparison between Qing Ping and Haïku should not be automatic, not be of systematic necessity, just as we do not need to bring out Shakespeare that we love, whenever we talk about Dante.

October 20

Extract from 《The Book of Poetry》詩經

"When the mind wonders

I wash my clothes by a stream

In silence my thoughts

Cannot disperse"

CARNET

The entire humanity, not just a part of it, has arrived to a time where the voices of “heroes” will be recalled, because ”heroes” belong to tragedies.

October 9th

Today, Wechat sent in the most recent"Harvest". A lot of ink about Louise Glück. Liu Xiang Yang spent ten years (2006-2016) to translate her, but the author didn't want him to touch her poetry. In the interview with Peng Pai News, Liu appears very poetical.

His translations are in the collection "Silent classicals".

October 7th

Talking about the denominations about the calender, I suddenly recognized that, starting 1949 only, for the first time in its entire history, China adopted "common era", and ended its "one ruler one calendar" tradition.

September 30

Extract of 《The Book of Poetry》詩經

”Such a dark day

with rain and wind

Endless song

of neighbouring chicks

How to still be sad

when you arrived!’

Anonyme of Period Zhou, collected during Chun Qiu (春秋）time.