In the Mao memorabilia store, and some ancient poems.
Jul 29, 12:55 PM
I am in the Mao memorabilia store at the Yellow Crane Tower. One of the sales assistants approaches me. “Would you like to buy a copy of the quotations from Chairman Mao?”
“Oh, er, um, well….”
She leads me to a shelf of dog-eared copies in various languages. Presumably they are historical; at least, they are not cheap.
“This one is good. It is in English and Chinese, it’s very convenient.”
“Oh, yes, so it is. So on the one hand I can study Chinese and on the other hand I can study Mao Zedong thought.”
“Yes.” She doesn’t smile, but instead looks at me with a long and level gaze, and I realise that she is a woman who believes in her job.
“Hmmm…. In England we call that ‘Killing two birds with one stone.’” As I say this, I think that it sounds curiously like it could be a line from Mao himself, always one for spinning homely metaphors.
She doesn’t respond. “Very convenient. You should study it.”
“Well, thank you for your help. I should go.”
“No, come and look at our Chairman Mao bags. You can carry many things. The bag is very popular.”
I have spent the best part of a day in Wuhan out and about, and the weather is punishingly hot. I started the day – not long past eight and already sweltering – in the Changchun Daoist temple listening to music being played on the gu qin, whilst people came and went making morning offerings. And enterprising businessman was offering a fistful of incense whilst bellowing in his mobile phone. Then I headed to the Guiyuan Buddhist temple, in reality more of a Buddhist theme park, and to the Yellow Crane Tower – once a place of literary inspiration for the likes of Cui Hao and Li Bai. Cui Hao’s poem went something like this, in somewhat loose translation (this is, I should say, more a rendering than a translation, just going through character by character and seeing where it gets me):
Once a man mounted a yellow crane and flew,
but all that now remains is a yellow crane tower.
The yellow crane, once departed, will not return.
A thousand years of white clouds drift across the void,
the clear river reflects the Hanyang trees,
and parrot island is lush with fragrant grasses.
Dusk. Where is the passage to lead me home?
The mist over the surging river brings me only sorrow.
The original, for those who are interested, is here:
昔人已乘黄鹤去，此地空余黄鹤楼。
黄鹤一去不复返，白云千载空悠悠。
晴川历历汉阳树，芳草萋萋鹦鹉洲。
日暮乡关何处是? 烟波江上使人愁。
I like this poem, because written in the eight century it expresses already a sense that the great poet-sages have departed. Li Bai also stopped off here. Here’s his poem in Chinese, another poem filled with a sense of longing.
故人西辞黄鹤楼，
烟花三月下扬州。
孤帆远影碧空尽，
唯见长江天际流
Here is my attempt at a rendering of Li Bai’s poem – there’s a nice blog post, incidentally, on translating this poem here.
An old friend heading West
bids farewell at Yellow Crane Tower
in the third month of mist and flowers
and heads down to Yangzhou;
a lonely sail dwindles to a trace
in the jade emptiness,
until all I see is the river
flowing to the horizon.
In my version, I’ve got the old friend heading West, which may or may not be an illegitimate move; but it sits nicely, I think. I don’t know if it has become progressively more difficult to write poems at Yellow Crane Tower, but certainly it does not have quite the allure of Li Bai’s time, and I was not wholly filled with literary inspiration during my visit. Here’s a picture from the roof. The tower, incidentally, was completely rebuilt in the 1980s. You can see the Yangtze in the distance, but it’s not exactly jade emptiness out there.
Tomorrow I’m heading to the provincial museum, hoping that it’s not so much of a boot camp as is Hunan’s, and maybe I’ll pay a call to the foreign language bookstore which is relatively nearby here. Then the day after I’m heading to Jinan. Once again, I’m travelling overnight hard seat. No sleeper berths available again. What would the poet-sages of old have made of all this?
#1 · Amy
Jul 29, 01:27 PM
Yeah, you should’ve got the bag – very convenient. ;)
#2 · kathz
Jul 29, 01:40 PM
Surely you got the bag – I’m looking forward to seeing it. After all, you will need it to carry your convenient books. Did you buy a bust as well?
#3 · Will
Jul 29, 02:38 PM
There will be more opportunities, I am sure.
A bust might be a bit hefty, I think. Some airlines may charge more for hefty busts.
#4 · Rajeev
Jul 30, 08:55 AM
> What would the poet-sages of old have made of all this?
http://baike.baidu.com/view/2211.htm
(Travelling overnight that is, not unavailability of sleeper berths）
#5 · Rajeev
Aug 1, 03:50 PM
The Baidu page suggests that it is the Yellow Crane Tower that is to the west of Li Bai.
#6 · Will
Aug 2, 09:59 AM
Indeed, Rajeev. I may, perhaps, need to modify my version a little…