Sometime last year a reader asked about the Citron Fruit, Citrus medica var. sarcodactylus (Buddha Hand). I am posting a picture of the Buddha Hands, beside an apple for comparison, at the Yahoo CTB photo section:
http://www.chinapage.org/yahoo/yahoo.html . Photos of another fruit, the Dragon Fruit, are in the same album.

The Buddha Hands (Citrons) and the Dragon Fruits are strange-looking. I saw a painting of the Buddha Hand by Zhu Da (Ba Da Shan Ren) a few years before I actually saw the real fruit in Fujian Province in China in Oct.99. I managed to take a photo of the Buddha Hands in Fujian, but missed out on the Dragon Fruit, which is grown also in Fujian. The Citron is edible, but not tasty. They are sold in the Buddhist temples as offerings during prayers. It is a type of citrus fruit.

In Dec. 99 while in Beijing, I saw a hawker selling the same Dragon Fruit, but imported from Vietnam, whose products are now extremely cheap. I bought one for sampling, and it tasted like a Nashi Pear mixed with Passion Fruit seeds. Not bad, but it gave a strange feeling of eating something funny. I did not feel more healthy or sick, despite the purported medicinal properties on the fruit wrapping advertisement. I quickly photographed the fruit in the hotel before eating it.

Tin-Kay

'lao' also can have the meanings of 'extremly', 'very', 'experienced in' and (even) 'hard-boiled'! This all derives from the association of 'long duration'. 老成、老早、老長、老色、煮老 and 老辣 (! - see below).

'la' is 'bitter', 'pungent', 'acrid', 'cruel', 'harsh' (not only referring to taste but also to speech etc.) 辣口、辣味、辣手、辣詞.

'lao la' 老辣 is 'experienced and severe', 'decisive', 'firm in action'.
The way Chinese thinking is creating new words by blending two 'pictures' with each other (thus partly mapping and giving a new sense!) is very special. Translating those words into western languages appropriately very often is impossible: one just can give a huge description of it.

Alfred 奧龍

http://www.fa-kuan.muc.de
Traces of Butterflies' Dreams - 蝶夢痕 "Tieh Meng Hen"
My Poetry

The connection between Old and hot 老辣 is rather nebulous, and at most limited.

To cite examples of the word 老 , one should begin with the most common usage, namely:

老 子 father

老 師 teacher

老 鄉 people from same hometown

In discussion about food, the word is also used to differentiate between "old chichen" and "young chichen" and the like. Or when the food is "over cooked."

"Old gingers are hotter" 薑不老不辣
Whilst "old" may have positive or negative implications, "spicy hot" is only good for dishes and not to describe personality. So, the old ginger can be:
毒辣心腸 venomous and spicy hot in the guts.
心狠手辣 ruthless in heart and spicy hot in maneuvering
辣手摧花(華) destroying the flower (China) with spicy hot action
In almost all Chinese dishes, ginger is added as a preservative, appetizer, and bacteriocide. But for a personality, spicy hot ginger is to be avoided at all times at cost.

The recent saying "Old Ginger is more Pungent" 薑還是老的辣 brings to mind Chinese phrases on pungent 辣 and old 老.

The word la4 辣 can mean both spicy and pungent. In the case of spicy food, there is the saying:
四川人不怕辣 Sichuan people are not afraid of spicy food
江西人辣不怕 Jiangxi people, of spice, they are not afraid to taste
湖南人怕不辣 Hunan people are afraid it is not spicy enough.

(Siu-Leung, Sorry, in my last post, I meant Hunan and not Henan. As for the Hainan chicken rice, I meant the fragrant steamed, and not curried, chicken rice with tender flesh and light yellow chicken skin taken with fresh onion-garlic-chilli sauce.)

As for old 老, the Chinese have always respected age. Age has advantage as in:
老當益壯 The older, the stronger the determination.
老馬識途 The old horse knows the way.
老成持重 Old (experienced) and steady.
老成練達 Old and knowing.
老病不拘禮 Old and sick need not observe convention.
老將出馬一個頂倆 Old general in action can do the job of two.

Unfortunately for some miscreant or recalcitrant, age is an impedance. Hence, Old Ginger may become:
老氣橫秋 Arrogant on account of one's senority
老態龍鍾 Old and decrepit. (Why does "dragon bell" mean decrepit?)
老牛破車 Old bullock pulling a broken cart.
老調重彈 Playing the same old tune.
老而無恥 Old and shameless.
老而無用 Old and useless.
老羞成怒 Turning shame into rage
老王賣瓜自賣自誇 Old Wang selling melons, praises his own goods.
老驥伏櫪 志在千里 Old steed in stable aspires to gallop a thousand li.

Finally, the story is too "pungent" to be told 辣不可言, for Old Ginger realises
老人如同風前燭 Old man is like a candle in the wind.
老鼠過路人人喊打 Pest (mouse) crosses road, people will yell and beat.
老天爺有眼 Heaven has eyes, there is divine justice!

Tin-Kay

Ming

Hainan chicken rice has as many styles as the chefs! It varies with the amount of sugar, curry, coconut sauce, onion etc. It is really hard to say which is the most authentic. It is all in the client's taste.

As for gas versus electric stove, it is much safer to use electric stove. What you need is to pick a good wok and preheat it before adding the ingredients. I would prefer safety than taste in this respect.

Cantonese cuisine is probably the most varied among all regionals. It has combined a lot of the flavors of the other regions. Honan (Henan) cuisine is not that famous (unless you meant Hunan). Among the major divisions you mentioned there are also subdivisions. Shandong, Beijing, Suzhou, Yangzhou, Hangzhou, Fujian all have their own specialties. Some interesting dishes : fried scorpions (Shandong), vinegar fish (Hangzhou), red rice wine yeast ferment chicken [Hongzao Ji](Fuzhou and Hakka)....

Siu-Leung Lee
Asiawind.com

Correction of typo error:

Northern School (Beijing/Shandong); Saltish style (xian2)咸
Eastern School (Jiangsu/Zhejiang): Sourish style (suan1)酸
Western School (Sichuan): Spicy style (la3)辣
Southern School (Guangdong): Sweet style (tian2)甜
Neutral to all Schools: Bitter style (ku3)苦

Some people consider the Honan cuisine as the Central school, and the style is as spicy as the Sichuan school. The Fujian school specialises in seafood.

Dear Siu-Leung

For wok cooking, esp. stir fry, the gas stove is much better than the electric stove because of the fast heating and high temperature, as well as a more even spread of heat. If you have no gas connection, what alternative can you make? Does the flat bottom wok help? Also, I find it is very difficult for cooks to make a real tasty Hainanese chicken rice dish. Do you have any special technique for this dish?

Tin-Kay

Professor Pei's website already has quite a wide selection of topics. Culinary art is a very wide topic by itself. There are some Chinese sites with discussion on it if you can read Chinese GB:
http://www.qingyun.com
Yahoo also has a Chinese cooling Club with a lot of recipes (even though you said that is not in your mind). You can do a search to locate it. I think it is one of the best clubs around.

Dear Tin-Kay,
Please don't call me an accomplished cook. I was forced to learn as a poor graduate student in the old days when I could not afford the Chinese restaurants and got too tired of salads and hamburgers. It is all by experimentation, along with my organic chemistry practice.
I do have a very good book by Chan Wing, a famous Cantonese chef in Hong Kong - "30 Years as Chef". It is a very thin book autographed to my father. In only about 60 pages, it describes the tricks of a true chef. It is not just recipes. It tells you how to pick the materials, how to prepare it with some general theory. The dishes are the main ones we see in Cantonese banquets. The book is most likely out of print now.

There are some basic experience I can mention here:
1. Materials - select the best of the kind.
2. The order of cooking the ingredients has to do with the nature of the ingredient and the temperature. Some ingredients are never overcooked. Green onion should be added at last just before serving, and never burnt. Leeks are just the other way round.
3. Cutting of the ingredients should be even so the cooking is even too. Adjust the timing of cooking according to the thickness of the natural material. For instance, stems should be cooked separately first and then the leaves added.
4. Always stir fry with hot oil in a preheated pan/pot. Use high temperature and short duration, unless it is a stew.
5. Marination of meat in soy sauce, sugar, salt, and corn starch is a typical Cantonese way. This will seal the flavor and retain the tenderness.

Chinese culinary art was already well developed during the Confucius era. In Zhou dynasty, there are dozens of utencils, each for a different purpose in cooking and presentation. That is also the subject of a book by Professor K. C. Chang. It will take an encyclopedia to elaborate the different regional styles and the history.

Siu-Leung Lee
Asiawind.com

The former name of Manchu is Qing Dynasty.

You can find some paintings from that period at Paintings page.

Fran

An additional note to what Siu-Leung has posted. You can find a number of exchanges on Chinese Food and Cuisine at CTB Yahoo Page under Rudy in Messages No. 319 to 333:

http://www.chinapage.org/yahoo/yahoo.html

Chinese cuisine has five thousand years of history and is a very big subject covering the history, "philosophy" and methodology, plus the myriad of famous dishes for the banquet and for the home. Chopsticks started to be used in the Warring States Period (403-222 BC) and consequently Chinese food is always cut into small pieces for penetration of flavour. Hence, Confucius was once said to have remarked "Eat no food which is not cut properly!". The interest in and scope of Chinese cooking can certainly take a full Internet website, inclusive of all the world famous Chinese restaurants and chefs. Maybe some Chinese chef or gourmet should start one.

Basically, the philosophy of Chinese cuisine is based on the Four Schools and Consistencies, the Five Savours and the Six Flavours. The Four Consistencies are smooth (hua), brittle (cui), juicy (su) and dry (gan). The Four major schools with accompanying Savours are Northern or Shangdong/Beijing (savoury, xian), Eastern or Jiangsu/Zhejiang (sharp, suan), Western or Sichuan (sharp, suan) and Southern or Guangdong (sweet, tian) with bitter as unclaimed or neutral. The Six Flavours are rich (fei), flagrant (xiang), full bodied (nong), fresh (xian), fermented (chou) and crisp (song). Hunan and Fujian cuisine are also well known, though not as popular as the four major Chinese cuisines.

To quote Mao Dun, the famous Chinese author of the book "Midnight": Chinese cuisine has a long history. It is a precious cultural legacy, and must be carried on and developed. Eventually, it will enrich people's lives and promote cultural exchanges with other countries.

There are a number of cookbooks with good introductory chapters on the history and philosophy of Chinese cooking. Coincidentally, there is a particularly big book called "China the Beautiful Cookbook" pub. Weldon Owen ISBN 1-875438017 with elaborate explanations. I have checked whether Ming is also culinarily involved with this book, but his name is not there. Maybe Mrs. Pei is the kitchen expert.

A light easy book is by Zee called"Swallowing Clouds" ISBN ???. Another very well written book is by Deh-Ta Hsiung called "Chinese Regional Cooking: The Art and Practice of the World's Most Diverse cuisine" pub. MacDonald ISBN 0-356067947.

Other good cookbooks are:

1. Secrets of the Master Chefs of China pub. Angus & Robertson ISBN 0-207146152
2. The Complete Encyclopedia of Chinese Cooking edited by Kenneth Lo pub. Octopus Book ISBN 1-85050571
3. The Taste of China by Ken Hom pub. Pavillion Books ISBN 1-851452478
4. The Complete Chinese Cookbook by J. Passmore & D. Reid pub. Weldon ISBN 1-863020764
5. The Magic Wok by P. Paxton pub. South China Morning Post ISBN 9622240089
6. Chinese Family Feast Dishes pub. Shandong Science & Technology Press ISBN7-533111508/TS88

Unlike Siu-Leung who is an accomplished cook, I am only a taster of food. Bon appetit!

Tin-Kay

Professor K. C. Chang of Harvard University has written a very thorough book on Food in China. You can try amazon.com.

Siu-Leung Lee
Asiawind.com

In some respects, Chinese is easy; in other respects, Chinese is hard for someone whose mother tongue is English.

According to the Defense Institute of Languages, where many languages are taught to Americans, they classify various languages into four groups, in accordance to number of instructional hours to teach a student to attain Level 2 speaking proficiency.

Here I extract a few languages to give you some idea

Group 1; French, Itatian, Danish 480 hours

Group 2: German, Greek 720 hours

Group 3: Hebrew, Russian 720 hours

Group 4: Arabic,Chinese,Japanese 1,320 hours

Dear Alfred

You can check into the kingsoft website for the Ciba 2000:

http://ciba.kingsoft.net/

Tin-Kay

Anyway, in case you'll have, would you please kindly give me more info on Ciba 2000?

BTW, congratulations to our friend Stephen Hwang and all people interested!

:-) all the best in the future!

Alfred 奧龍

http://www.fa-kuan.muc.de
Traces of Butterflies' Dreams - 蝶夢痕 "Tieh Meng Hen"
My Poetry

Dear Tin-Kay, I do possess 宋代名人傳 (because indeed spending the money ;-) for it). You can find a list of quite some literature I own privately in my anthology's sources ("Quellen").

Alfred 奧龍

http://www.fa-kuan.muc.de
Traces of Butterflies' Dreams - 蝶夢痕 "Tieh Meng Hen"
My Poetry

Dear Alfred

I have not read Franke's "Song Biographies", but they have been discussed or quoted in some of the Western history books that I have read. I think you should be able to borrow a copy at the university in Munich, since Prof. Franke hailed from there. Reference libraries may keep some copies in the foreign language section. I wonder whether photocopy rules apply for research. If I manage to find any out of print books in English by Franke or Granet, you can be sure that I will buy them, if they are not terribly overpriced.

Like you, I have made the mistake of not buying a book because of its cost, and then, later on, regretted about it. Nowadays, if I find a book of value, I would just buy it and forget about the cost, if it does not equate to an arm or a leg. I recently bought a set of books on the names of the Chinese historical places and their present day locations. I also obtained a "reverse" dictionary 漢英逆引詞典 with the Chinese head character as the end position, unlike the usual dictionary with the head character at the front.

I regret having little time to spend at second hand book-shops where one may see a good book now and then. Sometime back, I managed to get a rare copy of Thomas Watters' "On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India (AD 629-645)" published by the Royal Asiatic Society of London, and under permission, printed by an Indian publisher in New Delhi. Watters was a sinologist who felt that the great Buddhist monk, Yuan Chwang 元奘 (Yuan Zhuang), better known as Xuan Zhuang 玄奘, was one of the three mirrors that reflect Indian Buddhism in China. Imagine all the Chinese characters (Hanzi) in the book intact and yet printed in India in 1961 (when China was her arch enemy over the McMahon Line at the Himalayas)!

I have just been recommended by a Chinese patient on a wonderful Chinese software called Ciba 2000 (not related to the famous Swiss pharmaceutical company called Ciba). If the cursor touches an English word, the Chinese explanation appears, and if it touches a Chinese character, the English explanation appears. The explanation box can allow you to click into the dictionary immediately for a full explanation of the word or character, including all the phrases. Life is getting easier with the computer.

I have a strange feeling that you have some streak of bibliomania like me. The problem is when to finish reading all the books and where to keep them.

Tin-Kay

I have the exact version as the one posted by Rudy's link. You can go to the site he cited.
http://homer.span.ch/~spaw2081/tuibeitu/europe.html
I have not seen a Tui Bei Tu with 152 versions. The 60 pictures represents the full cycle of a combination of Tian Gan and Di Zhi.

Siu-Leung Lee
Asiawind.com

Alfred 奧龍

http://www.fa-kuan.muc.de
Traces of Butterflies' Dreams - 蝶夢痕 "Tieh Meng Hen"
My Poetry

一大人一小兒各？頭紅袍玉帶 (? = p'u2)

黑兔夜走青窿日
欲去不盡不敢說
只有外邊枯樹上
三十三上子孫結

一人？頭紅袍玉帶二美人侍立大泣 (? = p'u2)

賊害才得人為主
？乃隄防千里花
百個宗杖皆盡死
始知稚子福無涯

(As I cannot access Yahoo CTB since yesterday, I am posting this here!)

Alfred 奧龍

http://www.fa-kuan.muc.de
Traces of Butterflies' Dreams - 蝶夢痕 "Tieh Meng Hen"
My Poetry

Alfred 奧龍

http://www.fa-kuan.muc.de
Traces of Butterflies' Dreams - 蝶夢痕 "Tieh Meng Hen"
My Poetry

Alfred 奧龍

http://www.fa-kuan.muc.de
Traces of Butterflies' Dreams - 蝶夢痕 "Tieh Meng Hen"
My Poetry

From the Homepage, click on "A is for Love" and see all the alphabets. Learn to read, write and speak the words.

This is a reprint of my reply dated December 23, 1998

English translations of this classic novel are available at the bookstore. From the Homepage, click on "buy book" and scroll to the Journey to the West book. The book is over 300 pages long.

This is a wonderful novel, and no one should be disappointed by that fact. There are 8 chapters of the book (in Chinese) at this website.

In Chapter 1, it describes in detail the birth of Monkey king (He came out of a piece of rock.) which leaves no doubt that the story is methology.

The story uses Tang Dynasty Monk as its central character, and weaves a tale of how he went to India to seek the writings of Buddha. The Monk is a real person. He, more than any other person, established Buhdaism in China, which subsequently spreaded to Korea and Japan. The facts of his life is fully documented in history.

Prof Chang Shu-Chi is a well-known painter of the early 20-th century. I am sure that his paintings are available in Taiwan and elsewhere.

In fact, there are many prints of his paintings in the store.

The Art Institute of Chicago had a special exhibit of his paintings in Sept/October 1943. You can check the reference at http://www.artic.edu/aic/libraries/musarchives/archhist1940-1944.html

I plan to add a page of his paintings soon. Watch for them under the Main Paintings Page.

Please read again my post dated March 9.

I will move your postings to Yahoo Club.

Please work together on this.

Ming

Dear Alfred

You have given me too much credit in calling me an expert. I am a neonate in the midst of the Muses! Thanks for the Robert Browning's poem "A Toccata of Galuppi's". I cannot fathom his line "I was never out of England...". In fact, one year after meeting Elizabeth Barrett and the torrent of love letters, they were married, leaving for Italy a week later. They were to stay in Italy for most of their married life.

Two years ago, I was raiding most of the libraries around my Sydney suburb for books on Chinese history in English. I remember borrowing and reading Marcel Granet's "Chinese Civilization", which was a refreshing interpretation. I am not aware of his interest in Chinese philosophy. Apparently, he translated the Book of Odes (Shi Jing) 詩經 into French. It would be interesting comparing his work to that of Arthur Waley's work on the Book of Odes.

Other Granet's books, now out of print, "Festival and Songs of Ancient China" (Danses et legendes de la Chine ancienne) and "Religion of the Chinese People", were translated into English, though I have not read them. The first book costs US $250 at Barnes and Noble. Even his "Chinese Civilization" is out of print. I doubt you can find any translation of "La pensee chinoise" pub. 1934, rpt Paris, Albin Michel in 1968. It may be worthwhile asking the group of philosophy enthusiasts at: http:/clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/comparativeethics .

You are right in that Granet is a great European sinologist. Another renown Frenchman, Jacques Gernet, wrote the very well-researched "A History of Chinese Civilization" pub. Cambridge University Press. A third, though lesser known French sinologist, is Jean Pierre Dieny. Certainly, Herbert Franke is a giant in this field with his contribution of the "Song Biographies" and "China under the Mongols".

Foreign interpretation always change the shade of meaning. Even a discussion of Chinese philosophy translated from French to English will not be the same as from French to German. As a back-door student into the world of Chinese history and culture, my view point is definitely not as accurate as Ming, Siu-Leung, Julian, Rudy, Stephen and Yoon-Ngan who have initial grounding in Chinese (Hanyu).

It is interesting to ask ourselves what is the language of our thoughts. Even if one is equally fluent in two or three languages, there is a dominance of one over the others. I find that if one talks in his dreams, then that is probably the dominant language. Like the drunk with the loosened tongue, truth pours out from the realm of the unconscious (or semi-conscious).

Tin-Kay

The first Son of number nine or Son of Tian/Heaven (天 子).

Ji Fa (姬發), the leader of the powerful Zhou Clan (周族), destroyed the Shang Dynasty (商朝1783BC to 1122BC) and established the Zhou Dynasty (周朝 1134BC to 250BC). Ji Fa was better known as Zhou King Wu (周武王)who proclaimed that he was the "Tian Zi" (天子 Son of Heaven) and he had the "Tian Ming" (天命 Mandate of Heaven) to destroy the preceding wicked Shang Dynasty. He also claimed that he was the mediator between man and nature. As a result of this proclaimation all the future Kings and Emperors (the title Emperor Huang Di 皇帝 was first in used by 嬴政 in 221BC) called themselves the "Son of Heaven" and that they possessed the "Mandate of Heaven" to do so. Zhou King Wu also proclaimed that the rules of inheritance should be from father to son and not from brother to brother as the preceding Shang Dynasty.

Zhou King Wu now controlled a vast country. The primitive communications at that time made it impossible to govern such a big country efficiently from a centralised authority. Instead Zhou King Wu gave the authority to relatives, officials, generals and aristocrats to rule on his behalf. That was the beginning of feudalism.

Zhou King Wu created five titles to honour his relatives and followers:

(1) Gong (公) or the Duke;

(2) Hou (侯) or the Marquis;

(3) Bo (伯) or the Count or Earl;

(4) Zi (子) or the Viscount;

(5) Nan (南) the Baron;

Ancient Confucianism (儒家) worshipped nine heavens.

According to Chu Ci (楚辭) dictionary the nine heavens are:

(1) 東方的昊天 (2) 東南方的陽天 (3) 南方的赤天

(4) 西南方的朱天 (5) 西北方的幽天 (6)西方的成天

(7) 北方的玄天 (8) 東北方的變天 (9) 中央的鈞天

大玄玄里的九天是?p>

(1) 中天 (2) 羨天 (3) 從天 (4) 更天 (5) 晬天 (6) 廓天

(7) 減天 (8) 沈天 (9) 成天

All these Tians do not mean anything to me.

Last week, carnival (in my country, and in *Venice*/Italy) has ended. Some friends also were to Venice with beautiful self-tailored ancient-style costumes. As we also talked about music and '人生如夢', I'd like to lead your attention to a poem of Robert Browning on my poetry site...

Alfred 奧龍

http://www.fa-kuan.muc.de
Traces of Butterflies' Dreams - 蝶夢痕 "Tieh Meng Hen"
My Poetry

Further to his query on the Emperor’s Number, Sandy emailed me an interesting but difficult question: How often did ancient Chinese emperors get a new change of clothes?

I think this question must be qualified by time (which season or ceremonious occasion) and by which dynasty. Does Sandy mean formal or informal dress? If this question is connected to another Sandy’s question of “12 coat day”, then one would assume that this is an indication that the Emperor would have changed his attire 12 times on a certain auspicious day.

It is easy to read on the attire and costumes of the common Chinese people, but difficult to find material on the Emperor’s private day to day living. Many etiquette and taboos regarding the Emperor will be based on a strict Confucian protocol code respecting rites and tradition. Even when the Emperor is best to have sex is regulated by astronomical events. Such references to imperial conduct would be found more likely in classical and scholarly Chinese writings. The Qianlong Emperor, himself, wrote a book on how the incoming Qing Emperors should conduct themselves properly. Lay persons in China would be executed if they portrait that Heavenly Person as a person with common needs.

From a Western historical research angle, the Qing Dynasty was under the most scrutiny by contemporary Western eyes. Marco Polo may have brought attention about China under the Mongols, but it is now debatable whether Marco Polo was indeed in China at all, since his description of the Yuan Dynasty Chinese and the Mongol Emperor (Kublai Khan) might have been a write up from a Persian or Middle Eastern travel book. (Marco polo did not mention the Great Wall or Lily Foot, nor was his name ever mentioned in the Chinese historical annals) Hence, Chinese Imperial life-style was more described, albeit a long-ranged one (from a distance), by foreigners who did not have to suffer any punishment meted by the Chinese imperial court for its subjects.

I have read Spence’s “Emperor of China: Self Portrait of K’ang-hsi”, but cannot recall any mention of the Imperial Attire. Similarly, I cannot recall the Emperor’s dressing habit to be discussed in Reginald Johnson’s “Twilight of the Forbidden City”, or in the recent book “Last Emperor”. Guide books on the Forbidden City mentioned the beautiful Imperial gowns, but not about their day to day use.

The most complete description on Imperial Dressing that I can find is in Puyi’s autobiography “From Emperor to Citizen”. I quote the ex-Emperor:

“ Just as food was cooked in huge quantities but not eaten, so was a vast amount of clothing made which was never worn. I cannot now remember much about this, but I do know that while the Dowager and the High Consorts had fixed yearly allocations, there were no limits for the emperor, for whom clothes were constantly made throughout the year. I do not know what exactly was made, but everything I wore was always new. I have before me an account from an unspecified year headed ‘List of materials actually used in making clothes for His Majesty’s use from the sixth day of the tenth month to the fifth day of the eleventh month’. According to this list, the following garments were made for me that month: eleven fur jackets, six fur inner and outer gowns, two fur waistcoats, and thirty padded waistcoats and pairs of trousers. Leaving aside the cost of the main materials and labour, the bill for such minor items as the edgings, pockets, buttons and threads came to 2,137.6 silver dollars.

My changes of clothing were laid down in regulations and were the responsibility of the eunuchs of the clothing store-rooms. Even my everyday gowns came in twenty-eight different styles, from one in balck and white inlaid fur that I started wearing on the nineteenth of the first lunar month, to the sable one I changed into on the first day of the eleventh month. Needless to say, my clothes were far more complicated on festivals and ceremonial occasions.”

There is an interesting book called “Behind the Veil of the Forbidden City” (ISBN 7-5071-0335-8) pub. Panda Books, by various contributors and translated into English, which give an insight into imperial life of the Ming and Qing Dynasties. It described the Imperial dress, which I summarise as follows:

“ The Qing Dynasty modelled itself after the Ming; the Manchu rulers not only inherited the Ming system of rank and dress, but improved it. The emperor, his sons and their eldest sons wore four circular insignias, one on the breast, one on the back, and one on each shoulder. The emperor’s insignia was not sewn on but embroidered on his garment, which was called the imperial dragon gown. The dragon gown was of a rich azure blue colour, with a full face five clawed dragon embroidered in gold; the insignia on the right shoulder represent the sun, the right one the moon; and those on the breast and on the back took the form of the character “shou4”壽 meaning longevity. All the robes for the Qing emperors and their families were supplied by the three imperial bureaux in charge of silk manufacture in Nanjing, Hangzhou and Suzhou. They were made from strictly specified measurements and designs, sewn with the finest fabrics and tailored with meticulous care and skill. The large collection of the emperors’ ceremonial robes in the Palace Museum at the Forbidden City are important objects for the research of dress in the Qing Dynasty.”

I hope Sandy’s sartorial interest in the Emperor and his number 9 will graduate to a more extensive study and understanding of the Chinese culture. BTW, the officials at the Chinese imperial court from the Wei Dynasty and Jin Dynasty onwards were graded into nine levels, each with their own uniform of plain black fabric with animal symbol design on a square insignia denoting the rank.

Tin-Kay

When I was in the Chinese primary school the arithmetic teacher taught us how to skip table nine. It is like this:

count forward from zero to nine and count bacward from nine to zero

0-9

1-8

2-7

3-6

4-5

5-4

6-3

7-2

8-1

9-0

Well done on the numher nine.

On the number nine

Heaven/T'ien (天) is usually represented by the (odd/male) number 'one' 一, earth/Ti (地) by (even/female) 'two' 二. Man (人–男) is standing between heaven and earth (their conjunction?), hence represented by the (odd/male) number 'three' 三 (=1+2). 'Nine' 九 represents the square 'male' 男 element (3x3=9). As Tin-Kay already pointed out, it is the emperor's number (also having the symbol of 龍 dragon). The I-Ching 易經 refers to the first diagram 'Kien' 乾: "If there are appearing all 'nines', this means a flock of dragons without heads are appearing, all gets into motion and will change to 'Kun' 坤."
Heaven is divided into nine fields, earth into nine regions, the country has nine mountains, the mountain has nine passes, in the lakes are nine islands. The mythical emperor Yu is said having tamed the nine-headed dragon (=the nine streams) and having travelled the nine provinces. Also think of Hongkong's Kowloon 九龍 ('nine dragons'), maybe standing for the number 81 (=9 emperors or 9x9). In the Han dynasty 漢朝 'hell' was called 'the nine springs' 九泉. On 九九 the nineth day of the nineth month a festival called the 'double yang' 雙陽 festival is celebrated, when men 男 used to climb the mountains drinking tea flavoured with chrysanthemum blossoms. The imperial capital of Peking 北京 according geomancy rules 風水 was arranged in nine areas with the 'forbidden city' as the centre (of the empire/world) - the dragon's throne!

Alfred 奧龍

http://www.fa-kuan.muc.de
Traces of Butterflies' Dreams - 蝶夢痕 "Tieh Meng Hen"
My Poetry

Dear Sandy, Ming, Yoon-Ngan and Friends

I must apologize for not breaking up the paragraphs. It was getting to 2 am, so my brain must have got switched off. I am re-posting for easier reading.

The Emperor's Number in Ancient China is Number Nine. This is a fascinating number since any multiple of nine when added up will again end up as number nine. It is the largest single digit number. Odd numbers are considered masculine and even numbers as feminine. Hence, nine is the supreme masculine number. (Macho's macho)

Nine was a jealously guarded number in China because it belonged to the Emperor, like the dragon symbol and the colour yellow. If you go to the Forbidden City in Beijing you will see many things in accord with the number nine (or multiple of nine), such as the number dragons, the number of steps, the number of pillars, the number of knobs or studs (nine rows of nine knobs) on the gate-way doors. (If you should go there, you should see the very impressive famous Nine Dragon Screen of multi-colored glazed tiles.)

However, there is an exception in the Forbiden City. At the Hall of Supreme Harmony, you will find that there are ten not nine figurines, at each end of the ridges of the roof. They represented the dragon, phoenix, lion, heaven horse 天馬, sea horse 海馬, suanni 狻猊, xiayu 狎魚, xiezhi 獬豸, divine bull 斗牛and xingshi 行什, preceded by an immortal on a phoenix and followed behind by an ox-like head or gargoyl with antlers.

In the Temple of Heaven in Beijing, the three tiers have nine concentric rings for the first tier, eighteen for the second tier and twenty seven for the third tier. In the Summer Palace, the seventeen arched bridge has the middle (number nine) arch with the widest span. Also, imperial palaces will usually have nine court-yards.

The Emperor sometimes went the the ridiculous extent of having ninty-nine dishes at the Spring Festival (Chinese New Year). On his birthday, stage performances should try to add up to ninty-nine as a symbol of good imperial luck. Five can sometimes be combined with nine such as the Great Hall in Tian An Men being nine bays wide by five bays deep. Five was also the number of claws of the imperial dragon.

There are two instances when common people could have the number nine. One was the great sage, Confucius, whose Temple in Qufu, was allowed to have nine courtyards. Another is at the Temple of Guan Yu (also called Guan Gong, God of War) at Luoyang, with the Red Gate wooden doors having nine rows of nine knobs (studs). Guan Yu, sworn brother of Liu Bei, the King of Shu in the Three Kingdom Period, was considered equal to an Emperor after his death.

A last twist to the Imperial Nine Number is at the Sun Yat-Sen Mausoleum in Nanjing. I was surprised to count ten rows of ten knobs(studs) at the gate-way doors. Hence Sun Yat-Sen is considered greater than any Emperor, since he has an extra knob.

Number Nine has also some Feng Shui (geomancy) implication, but I leave it to Rudy Chiang who is our expert on this subject. As for the twelve coat day, I must admit my ignorance and hope that a more enlightened member of CTB will give you an answer.

Tin-Kay

It was believed that the number for sky was nine and for earth ten (天九地十). 18000 years ago the earth was like a big egg. Pan Gu (盤古) was a giant who cracked open the egg. In one day he changed himself nine times from sky god to earth god and other gods. Then the sky began to rise and each day it rose by one Zhang (丈 or ten feet). The earth also began to grow by one foot thick a day. After two thousand times nine years the sky stopped rising and the earth also stopped growing. ( see 夏曾佑中國古代史).That was why the sky was so high and the earth so thick. Of course it was only an ancient belief.

Just to supplement Tin-Kay's observation on the Nines.
Say you have 128 nine's. 128 x 9 = 1152. Now adding up 1+1+5+2 = 9 !

Just a reminder again to keep this space open for the general readers.

Our own posts of the more scholarly nature should be posted on the Yahoo Club.

To the question, "I like it here. Why not send the general readers to the Yahoo Club?"
My answer is, "That would be selfish and impractical. Yahoo Club requires member registration. It is not reasonable to require someone to go through registration just to post a simple question. Since we are all members already, it is more logical for us to use Yahoo."

Hope you will understand.

Yoon-Ngan, your story of the T'ang scholar dreaming his whole life is very beautiful and impressing - I had it nearly forgotten. There is the same idea behind it like in Chuang-tzu's dream of the butterfly. What is life? Does it matter whether your life had been long or short, when it's over? Is it just like awakening from a dream into just another dream etc.?

Siu-Leung, thanks again for your thorough explanation on music and the way it 'works' in our feeling and psyche. Maybe one should add that in our times there also exists music not (directly) addressing the emotions but the intellectual parts of ourselves: think of modern jazz, experimental music etc. This is kind of an almost mathematical 'Glasperlenspiel' (playing-with-glass-beads) for those in the know - an intellectual pleasure just for insiders.

Alfred 奧龍

http://www.fa-kuan.muc.de
Traces of Butterflies' Dreams - 蝶夢痕 "Tieh Meng Hen"
My Poetry

The following site is very useful and highly recommended for any one who want to learn Chinese from a non-Chinese background:
http://www.zhongwen.com

Siu-Leung Lee
Asiawind.com

For your K-12 students, there is a better page at this website, for Zhang Ji You will find the Chinese text, English translation, sound file, as well as a video clip for the same poem that you had used before. The English translation is a different version though.

I am not too happy about your dwelling on the term "jue ju". It is not appropriate for the K-12 students at all. It would be much sensible to simply refer to "poetry from the Tang Dynasty".

If you insist on adding the term, I would use the English term "quatrain" instead. At least it will mean something to you and to your readers.

I am not trying to do your thesis. If you picked this topic, you should have some idea of what it is and how you should go about completing it. I just want to mention some key points. In Chinese art, there is a saying : "Count the blank as black too". Meaning the blank is not really blank. Their location relative to the black(ink) is an important part of the picture as a whole. The blank space is usually sky, water, cloud, mist, rain,..... It is part of the composition. To organize the balance of blank and ink is the key to a good picture. The rest you will have to find examples in real paintings and put in your thoughts. Or, it won't be a thesis.

SL Lee

I would like to pick up the lead again in responding to your few questions why some music are pleasing to some people and annoying to others.

The basic elements of music are : rhythm, , melody/key, harmony, and tonal color. The rhythm probably is the most primitive and fundamental of all music. The most ancient music only consists of drum beats and other percussions. Rhythm can affect one's heart beat and generate the emotion. By changing the pitch along with time and rhythm, one gets a melody. Low pitch sounds symbolize solemnness, gravity, strength, while high pitch sounds are dynamic, playful, and penetrating. It has to do with the resonance with part of our cochhlea structure. The same melody sung in different keys may have different effects. Back in 1100 BC, the 12-keys system and heptatonic scale were already know to have different emotional impact in conducting religious ceremonies:
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The idea of major/minor keys was already in the primordial forms.

Harmony (and discord) is a combination of sounds of different pitches to yield a "volume" and "depth" (This is most lacking in Chinese music and the biggest deficiency). Tone color is really a more complex form of overtone combinations for a particular instrument including human voice.

It is amazing how different combination of the four elements can produce music that affects our emotion. Rhythm as tied to heart beat is the most international language and easily appreciated by all. Melody is mostly derived from a specific language as I pointed out earlier about Indian music and others. This is where music dichotomizes in different ears. Chinese music from the tonal language background and the way it is used to accompany poetry becomes limited to the pentatonic or heptatonic scale. European languages essentially do not have the limitation and thus there is a greater freedom of expression, which is what Chinese music is catching up on. Tone color of instruments can have universal acceptance as well as cultural specificity. The instruments in western orchestra has evolved quite elaborately to a universally accepted core. Yet I think it is not totally unimprovable. For instance, plucked strings are seldom present.

You mentioned that(and we all noticed) many Asian youngsters are getting into western music. I think it has been a tradition that music is regarded as an essential part of education since the days of Confucius. It has become a custom for families to bring up their kids with some capability in musical instrument at least to help the children appreciate. Although many Asian families do not want their children to become musicians. There is a joke: "You know you are Chinese if your parents insist you learn piano or violin but don't want you to become a musician."

It is also true that we are seeing more and more Asian prodigies in music (Sarah Chang, Midori....). This has something to do with the family tradition. Of course, there are also van Cliburn, Isaac Stern, and Itzhak Perlman too.

Siu-Leung Lee
Asiawind.com

During the Tang Dynasty ( 唐 朝 618AD to 907AD) there lived a
dispirited scholar by the name of Lu Sheng ( 廬 生). He was poor and unemployed and had the habit of often sighing under the burden of his problems.

Once he stayed at an inn in the city of Han Dan (邯鄲 present day
Han Dan city in Hebei province 河北省). An old monk occupying the next room repeatedly heard Lu Sheng verbally despairing about his life. He went over and talked to Lu Sheng who related his life of despair and hopelessness. The monk gave Lu Sheng a ceramic pillow to rest his head when he went to bed that night.

It was still daylight and in the inn's kitchen the innkeeper was
cooking yellow millet. Curious about what it could do, Lu Sheng laid in bed with his head on the ceramic pillow. Before long he fell asleep.

He then had the sweetest dream. He arrived in an unrecognised
country and married a beautiful girl by the surname of Cui (崔). He was appointed an official and led a comfortable life. He was later blessed with many sons and daughters who were extraordinarily gifted. He lived till the ripe old age of eighty and was survived by many descendants.

Lu Sheng woke up to see the monk standing next to his bed and
became aware that the innkeeper was still cooking the yellow millet as dusk approached. He realised that he had just had a dream. He had been a prosperous man for fifty years with many offsprings. Now he was back to being a dejected scholar. He concluded that rich or poor after all was just like a short dream.

Dear Yoon-Ngan

Thanks for posting my favourite Li Yu's poem. Unfortunately for him, and fortunately for us, he started to become very expressive with ci poems after he lost his Southern Tang "empire", and became a melancholic prisoner. This ci poem was sung very well by the famous Taiwanese songstress, Teresa Teng, 鄧麗君, who died prematurely of asthma while with her French boy-friend in Chengmai, Thailand.

The last line of the poem has contributed a well known phrase "A river, overbrimming, (i.e. filled with spring water), flowing east" 一 江 春 水 向 東 流. This phrase was used as the name of an old and sad Chinese film made in 1947 starring Bai Yang 白楊. When I first saw it, I found my tears flowing, despite my generally tough, platonic self.

The film also featured Meng Jiao's 孟郊 famous poem "Song of the Departing Son" 游子吟, when the hero was leaving the family during the Sino-Japanese War. The Chinese are generally very attached to their mothers because of the maternal sacrifices. I append the poem from Ming's poetry corner at http://www.chinapage.org/tang300.html#Tang001 :

045 孟郊 遊子吟

慈母手中線
遊子身上衣
臨行密密縫
意恐遲遲歸
誰言寸草心
報得三春輝

I quote touched up a translation by Zhuo Zhenying 卓振英

'Tis with threads in the loving mother's hand,
Making clothes for her parting son to wear;
For fear he might stay long in a strange land,
She's sewing stitch by stitch with kindly care;
The grass' grateful heart can ne'er repay,
The spring sun's maternal warm, whatever way!

Bai Yang was sadly imprisoned during the Cultural Revolution by the machinations of the evil Jiang Qing, wife of Mao Zedong. She finally left for the United States where she was featured, before her death, in a documentary on China, edited by her own talented daughter.

Tin-Kay

虞 美 人。 by 李 煜。

春 花 秋 月 何 時 了,
往 事 知 多 少。

小 樓 昨 夜 又 東 風,
故 國 不 堪 回 首 月 明 中。

雕 欄 玉 砌 應 猶 在,
只 是 朱 顏 改。

問 君 能 有 幾 多 愁﹐
恰 似 一 江 春 水 向 東 流。

LiYu(李煜)was the emperor of Southern Tang Dynasty (937AD to 975AD) which was subjugated by Zhao Kuang Yin (趙匡胤), the founded of the Song Dynasty (960AD to 1279AD). Li Wang captured by the Song troops and was imprisoned in the Song capital Dong Jing (東京 present day Kai Feng 開 封 city in Henan province).

During his birthday dinner, on the seventh day of the seven moon in 975AD Li Yu and his family members sang his newly composed poem 虞美人. Later he played the lute and his mistress, who was the younger sister of his wife Zhou E Huang (周娥皇) sang alone.

Sleet is not white-colored, thus does not associate with the white hair.

I do find the poem in 300 Selected Tang Poems

The expression 回頭是岸, is usually associated with Buddhist teachings.

Yoon-Ngan, I like the 'picture' 回頭是岸, it is very impressive... (Sometimes the common sayings are still better than philosophers sophisticated words, aren't they?)

Alfred 奧龍

http://www.fa-kuan.muc.de
Traces of Butterflies' Dreams - 蝶夢痕 "Tieh Meng Hen"
My Poetry

In the 4-th line, I think "frost" is better than "sleet".

I am also dubious about the choice of the words heller Rauhreif

其十五

白發三千丈。
緣愁似個長。
不知明鏡里。
何處得秋霜。

Dreitausend Klafter lang die weissen Haare,
Als maessen sie des Fremdlings Gram.
Wer weiss, woher in meinen blanken Spiegel
Des Herbstes heller Rauhreif kam.

(tr. Prof. G. Debon)

White hair of thirty thousand feet,
like measuring the stranger's grief.
Know not how in my shining mirror
happened to enter autumn's sleet.

(just a try)

I'm having problems with 綠愁 which G. Debon translated with 'Fremdlings Gram' (stranger's grief).
After thirty years of Chinese studies, I just know next to nothing - still being a student and far from scholarship, I'm going to be an 二毛人 and running short of time.

Alfred 奧龍

http://www.fa-kuan.muc.de
Traces of Butterflies' Dreams - 蝶夢痕 "Tieh Meng Hen"
My Poetry

We are on the same wavelength, pun intended. :) I can't understand how people can listen to country and rock everyday as I can't tell the difference of one song from another in content, tune or beat, given my musical experience of 40 years. The screaming and yelling of deafening base over untrained or overworked voice is enough to drive me crazy in one minute.

I might have misled you as a language expert, which I am not. In this case, when I said tonal I probably meant melodic. It is not related to the change of meaning by changing the tone, but the melodic way of speaking. I don't know anything about Indian laguange except I can sense the tonal changes when they speak and the melodic pattern that is constructed with zither music. They are almost like people speaking. There is a type of drum(tabla) music that the drummer "sings" out the rhythm and then play it after. They similate the tonal change of the drum with exageration. I really love that. See:
http://www.chandrakantha.com/tablasite/

Siu-Leung Lee
Asiawind.com

As for Blues, Country etc., you're right and wrong: there are lots of marvellous songs I cherish since my schooldays - yet when in U.S./Canada and listening to country channels, to me it's all like one single tasteless porridge! Mass production, commerce - forget it! (It's quite the same with American food, all the toppings and sauces etc.: despite being coloured in red and green and looking juicy - aweful tasteless because mass production instead of something like homemade. How can you stand all this over there?!)

Alfred 奧龍

http://www.fa-kuan.muc.de
Traces of Butterflies' Dreams - 蝶夢痕 "Tieh Meng Hen"
My Poetry

Dear Tin Kay,

This is not about your two-hair poem, but an old man and his white hair. This could be the problem that we all have to face sooner or later. I use to tell my friends that I have no grey hair but plenty of cotton hair.

白 髮 賦 written by 晉 代 名 人 左 思 and my humble English translation.

老 人:

星 星 的 白 髮 喲!
你 長 在 我 的 鬢 旁,
你 破 壞 了 我 的 儀容,
我 的 上 進, 我 的 前 途,
都 因 你 在 而 受 影 響,
窩 要 用 鑷 子 把 你 拔 掉!

白 髮:

我 的 命 運 好 不 幸 喲﹗
我 出 生 在 你 的 晚 年!
生 出 來 就 是 白 色,
你 每 天 一 照 鏡 子﹐
瞧 見 了 我 就 討 厭。
早 上 我 才 出 生﹐
晚 間 你 就 拔 我。
窩 有 什 麼 罪 喲﹖
你 這 樣 的 厭 惡 我﹗
請 你 高 抬 貴 手 吧﹐
不 要 再 來 拔 我﹗

老 人:

星 星 的 白 髮 喲﹗
你 好 不 懂 世 故﹐
在 當 前 社 會 �堙M
那 一 個 人 不 慕 虛 榮?
老 年 人 年 紀 老 了﹐
年 輕 人 才 是 才 俊。
甘 羅 年 少 就 拜 了 相﹐
賈 誼 少 年 也 享 大 名。
我 要 拔 你 就 拔 你 喲﹗
大 權 握 在 我 的 手 上。

白 髮:

你 拔 我 我 好 痛 喲﹗
你 不 懂 事 我 受 冤﹗
甘 羅 憑 智 慧 才 拜 相,
不 是 有 黑 髮 才 上 朝﹐
賈誼 有 才 華 才 成 名﹐
不 因 有 烏 髮 才 受 尊 敬!
我 聽 先 人 說 過﹕
國 家 用 人 重 在 老 成,
周 文 王 起 用 姜 太 公 喲﹗
周 朝 社 會 從 此 安 定﹐
商 山 四 皓 來 到 漢 朝﹐
漢 朝 政 治 走 向 光 明。
你 為 何 定 要 拔 我﹖
去 尋 找 那 些 虛 名﹖

老 人﹕

星 星 的 白 髮 喲﹗
你 說 的 話 雖 然 有 理,
但 你 要 知 時 代 已 經 不 同?
現 在 用 人 不 重 老 成﹐
長 滿 白 髮 的 老 人 喲﹗
只 有 回 到 自 己 故 鄉。
孔 子 是 「聖 之 時 者」﹐
所 以 我 必 須 把 你 拔 去﹗

白 髮:

你 拔 我 我 好 心 疼 喲﹗
膚 髮 本 來 就 相 依 為 命﹐
如 今 卻 不 能 有 始 有 終 喲﹗

Old man:

White hair, white hair!
You grow on the side of my head,
You spoil my appearance,
Your existence will affect
My advancement and my future,
I want to use the tweezer to pull you off!

White hair:

My fate is so unfortunate!
For being born at your old age!
I was born white,
Every day when you see me in the mirror,
You hate me.
I was born in the morning,
You pull me off in the evening.
What guilt do I have? Have mercy on me,
Do not pull me off!

Old man:

White hair, white hair!
You don't understand the ways of the world,
In the present day society,
Who doesn't esteem vanity?
Old men are too old to do anything,
The talents are from the young men.
Gan Luo became the assistant of Lu Bu Wei (*)
At the age of only twelve,
Gu Yi (**), who was only twenty years old, was
appointed as a doctor of philosophy by Emperor Wen.
Whenever I want to pull you off from my head
I will pull you off, as I have the prerogative.

White hair:

When you pull me off I feel the pain!
Don't you understand that I am the victim!
It was due not to his black hair that Gan Luo became
the assistant to Lu Bu Wei, but his talent,
Gu Yi was famous and respectful, not because of his
black hair but his erudition.
The ancient Sages said: "Must use the old and expierenced men
to run the Government".
The Zhou Dynasty (***) became peaceful and properous after Zhou King Wu engagged Jiang Tai Gong to administer his Government.
The politics of the Han Dynasty (****) became frank and
straight forward only after the four old wisemen from
Shang Shan had reformed the Han administration.
Why do you insist to get rid of me?
Is it because you could obtain vainglory?

Old man:

White hair, white hair!
Although what you are saying is correct,
Yet you should know that time has changed.
People, nowadays, employ old men not,
The only way for the old men with plenty of white hair
is to retire to their villages!
Confucious was the "Sage of his contemporary."
I have to pull you off!

White hair:

Oh! I feel the pain when pull me off!
The skin and me share the same vein,
From now on we cannot born and die together!

(*) Prime minister of the state of Qin from 249BC to 237BC.
(**) 200BC to 168BC.
(***) 1135BC to 256BC.
(****) 206BC to 220AD.

Zuo Si (Jin Dynasty 265AD to 420AD)

A major difference of Chinese music from western music as I mentioned is the origin of the tonal language. Chinese music was composed to imitate human voice and accompany human voice. Because of the tonal restriction, so the music is limited. Western music, not being tied to a tonal language, has much more freedom. The tonal nature is not only characteristic of Chinese music but you can certainly find that in Indian music and Islam music too.

Traditional Chinese music is supposed to provide a peaceful mood and less dramatic. The expression of rage and other extremes is often suppressed. The Silk-Bamboo music of Jiangsu/Zhejiang typifies this intention. This limits the creativity of the composer. On the other hand after listening to hundreds of blues, rocks or country's in US, can you tell one from another? Don't they fall into the same monotonous program as dictated by the marketability of the album?

I guess most of you have not listened to the recent Chinese music, which I have the misfortune to do so. Attempting to break this tonal barrier, some new songs are composed with negligence to the Ping/Ce and almsot close to repeating the Christian preacher's joke I mentioned. The rapid commercialization also has also pushed production of artwork prematurely. There is lack of training and lack of polishment for the work under the pressure of pop culture. Frankly, some of the recent music I heard in the new year festival broadcast from Beijing was a lot worse than eating chopsui.

I still, however, maintain my hope that a new generation of true artist will emerge from the novice experimentation to maturation. And ther ehave been good examples of such development. I hate to use the Butterfuly Lover's violin concerto as the only example. But that is the correct way of development. No one would not recognize its Chinese origin, and no one would call it music unfit to play in Carnegie Hall.

Music was more dispensible than a meal when the economy barely met the demand of 1.3 billion mouths. Now after 16 years of continued economic growth, people can finally pay more attention to arts. Let's see what comes next.

Siu-Leung Lee
Asiawind.com

I think, in many early civilizations, music first of all was for religious purposes (dancing as a performance of worship). Just in a further regard it also became an expression of personal/common feelings (joy, sadness etc.), e.g. the songs compiled in the 詩經 (Book of Odes). I wonder if - for this reason - the pronunciation and meaning 'lao/le4' (joy) is much 'younger' than that of 'yao4' (music) or if there exists a still older expression for 'music'.
Chinese music (and of course 'opera' music) is very strange for most Western ears and very often regarded as inferior to classical (Western) music. (A collegue of mine even uttered, Asian music being 'next to nothing' compared with Beethoven's or Mozart's works. When answering that I didn't think so, but having too less knowledge about this and unable to give him arguments, he asked me: "Why are all those high-talented Japanese, Korean and Chinese artists dealing with Western classical music?! Because they surely regard their own music as inferior, thus preferring western music!") In my opinion, people most stick to their accustomed 'taste' with eating dishes and listening to music. Yet, Chinese dishes have conquered the whole world (although China cuisine in Western restaurants very often doesn't deserve its name - only when in PRC, I really learned to appreciate Chinese dishes!), whereas the music is widely unknown or rejected. I don't know why. Maybe there are socio-psychologic reasons for people's appreciation or disapproval. Why e.g. was I touched when for the first time hearing Greek music and moreorless unimpressed or even bored by Turkish or Arabic music? Why do most people cherish Beethoven, Mozart etc. and e.g. dislike (modern) Gyorgy Ligeti? What is music's 'mechanism' having effect on our psyche? ...and arousing feelings of joy, sadness - or failing to do so...

BTW, thanks to Tin-Kay and Siu-Leung for their good contributions on 'patriotism' etc. in the Yahoo club - indeed worth reading!

Alfred 奧龍

http://www.fa-kuan.muc.de
Traces of Butterflies' Dreams - 蝶夢痕 "Tieh Meng Hen"
My Poetry

This famous poem by Li Bai is in the 300 Selected Tang Poems which is in our website as #006
An English translation at the Univ of Va is also available from a link at the top of this page.

About the fourth line of the poem, " ... the three of us" refers to Li Bai, his shadow and the moon. I don't believe that he meant the cup in his hand.

Ancient Chinese music also sound monotonous because it emphasize more on melody than harmony. Instruments usually play in unison. The minority ethnic groups however ar very rich in harmony.

For the scholars, music is more a self expression than to entertain (other than the imperial court music which was composed for the imperial family to enjoy). Thus, finding someone who understands his music would mean a great deal to a scholar.

Siu-Leung Lee
Asiawind.com

Thanks for pointing out two duplicate #88 and #52 poems in Li Bai page They have been removed.

Repetition of a word in a poem is not a crime in Chinese poetry. On the contrary, it is done very often by many poets.

Interesting that two inquiries about Chinese music came in one day. I have a lot of references on Chinese music. A major one would be the History of Ancient Chinese Music by Yang Yin Liu (more than 1000 pages) describing Chinese music from prehistory to Ming/Qing dynasty. It would be hard for me to translate everything here. I do hope to set up a Chinese music page some time (along with too many other things I wanted to do). I will give a brief answer here.

Music was a crucial part of Chinese life in ancient time in hunting, honoring ancestors, various religious ceremonies, etc., often accompanying dances. About 2500 years ago, the musical instruments are divided into eight varieties by their material: metal, stone, silk(string), bamboo, gourd, earthware, leather, wood. The oldest playable instrument in the world was the flute made from animal bones. They were found in China (Henan). After 7000 years, several of them are still playable.[See earlier discussions in this forum]. A most unique Chinese instrument is GuQin, a 7-stringed zither, played flat on a table. It has been around for at least 3000 years.

According to Confucius, music is one of 6 disciplines for a scholar : etiquette, music, archery, chariot riding, writing, and mathematics. The word "music" is the same word as "happiness" in form but not in pronunciation. So it is an expression of emotion, mostly happiness. In Chunqiu era (2500 years ago), music has already been found to sculpture a person's personality. Bad music was strongly discouraged.

It has always been taken that Chinese music is pentatonal, not as rich as western music which is dodecatonal (an octave is divided into 12 equally spaced notes). The discovery of Zeng Yi Hou serial bells from a Chu tomb (before or around Han dynasty) totally disproved this misconcept. The serial bells each produces two tones 1.5 full notes apart. The entire series can play any western music with all the half notes. There is paper in Scientific American years ago. The serial bells have toured in US.

I have to jump to Song dynasty, which was the most prosperous dynasty for a while. A lot of foreign musical instruments were "imported" and adapted to Chinese music. These include the instrument I play, erhu, a two-stringed bow instrument. Along with pipa that came to China around Sui/Tang period, Chinese music was enriched and used in accompanying the singing of "Ci", which later evolved into "Qu" in Yuan dynasty. Before Tang, music probably stayed mostly within the imperial court and the higher class. In Song dynasty, music started to become a popular entertaintment for all people. People were singing Ci and dancing at the same time. Su Dong Po's famous Ci says, 起舞弄清影，何似在人間. Chinese dance is less recorded as music. But references of Tang dances in Dunhuang grottos are plenty. Also in painting scrolls and sculptures. There is a full set of dancing figurines and musical troupe.

With 56 ethnic groups each having her own characteristics of music and dances, it is hard to define what Chinese music/dance is. The best way is to experience it. For this, I would like to strongly recommend the following CD album "China -Time to Listen" a 3-CD set produced by Ellipsis Arts, 1998. I got it as a gift and it is available from a half-price bookstore for $10. It is the most rewarding set covering the widest (and wildest) of Chinese music.

I have a number of links on Chinese music at my website:
http://www.asiawind.com/hakka/china.htm
Through them, you might find more, some with short sound pieces. This short answer can never describe sufficiently about Chinese music and dances. The Encyclopedia Britannica has a very good article on Chinese music too.

Siu-Leung Lee
Asiawind.com

I must admit that I have not read or heard of the original version of the above poem. But I think it is worth knowing as I always wonder why Li Bai, as the greatest poet would repeat the word 明 twice in a short poem. Repetition of a word is a no no in poems. However, if Li Bai wrote it as a young age of ten, then even he could have made a "mistake". : )

Dear Alfred

On searching through my library, I have not yet located when the poem Tranquil Night 靜夜思 was written, though I am sure it was when Li Bai was at age ten years or younger. I have found four poems in English ( said by Dyer Ball under Poetry in "Things Chinese" ) to have been written by Li Bai at the age of ten years, viz.

1. To a Firefly

2. A Visit to the Clear Cold Fountain

3. A Visit to the Rapids of the White River and

4. The Poet.

Presently I have no time to run through the complete Tang poems 全唐詩 to locate them.

The poem which most Chinese school kids can rattle off by heart, as quoted by you, was actually touched up by others while compiling an anthology of Tang poems:

床前明月光

疑是地上霜

舉頭望明月

低頭思故鄉

The original Li Bai's poem has first line 床前看月光 instead of 床前明月光 and third line 舉頭望山月 instead of 舉頭望明月. However, most people are used to the revised version of using 明月 twice in the poem. Hence the original poem was:

床前看月光

疑是地上霜

舉頭望山月

低頭思故鄉.

You posted Prof. Xu Yuan Zhong's (Prof. XYZ) translation

A Tranquil Night

Abed, I see a silver light,

I wonder if it's frost aground.

Raising my head - the moon's so bright,

Bowing - in homesickness I'm drowned.

May I add my own humble translation in English:

Before my bed, the moon doth glow,

The ground, likened, a frosty show;

Lifting my head, the moon-lite light,

Nodding to home, my mind aflight!

Du Fu, who admired the older Li Bai, was also a child prodigy in poetry. He started composing at the age of six years. We all know that as a young man, he accompanied Li Bai for a while, and strangely, did not follow him into alcoholism. Li Bai was rather reckless about his own life and family, having married four times and leaving his wives and children to cater for themselves. Du Fu even had to support Li Bai's family. Both poets died in poverty.

Although Li Bai was a romantic poet par excellence and second to none, Du Fu in his own right was a realist with a touching melancholic and sympathetic feel that can bring out a crying of the soul. Li Bai did not seem to reciprocate Du Fu's feelings for him and his family. In his younger days, Li Bai had himself admired another poet, Meng Haoran, who was dedicated the poems "To Meng Haoran" 贈孟浩然 and "Seeing Meng Haoran to Kuangling " 黃鶴樓送孟浩然之廣陵 (also called Sending Meng Haoran off at Yellow Crane Tower)in AD 728. Li Bai was then twenty-eight years old and Meng Haoran at forty years.

Ming has two poems under almost three sinilar names at the CTB Poetry section http://www.chinapage.org/libai/libai1.html#TCG:

送孟浩然之廣陵 022 & 黃鶴樓送孟浩然 088

故人西辭黃鶴樓

煙花三月下揚州

孤帆遠影碧空盡

惟見長江天際流 and

黃鶴樓送孟浩然之廣陵 052

峨媚山月半輪秋

影入平羌江水流

夜發青溪向三峽

思君不見下渝州

The second poem should be 峨眉山月歌 059 rather than 黃鶴樓送孟浩然之廣陵.

Two years ago I was at the Yellow Crane Tower 黃鶴樓 in Wuhan, but it was a rebuilt tower as the original was burnt down in 1884. The original tower was built in AD 223 by Huang Wu, and was the subject of over a thousand poems and many landscape paintings. There is a story that before the tower there was an inn, in which an Immortal paid for his drink by drawing a crane on the wall. This crane would turned life-form to entertain the guests, until the Immortal later returned and flew away on the crane. The Tower pavillion was then built in memory of the Immortal and the Crane.

Tin-Kay

I forward the following query hoping anybody can help (I am first of all thinking of Siu-Leung):

"Hello, I came across your web site when I was searching for information on Chinese music. Do you know of any literature on music in the Sung dynasty? Thanks. Jaime Taylor"

Karen, go to my poetry site (see below) and look into "Other poems in different languages", where you will find this Li Bai poem and several famous translations. If you still will have questions on it, we'd surely like to discuss this with you, o.k.?

Alfred 奧龍

http://www.fa-kuan.muc.de
Traces of Butterflies' Dreams - 蝶夢痕 "Tieh Meng Hen"
My Poetry

BTW, if anyone is interested in some examples of really excellent translation of (German) poetry, please have a look into:
http://www.fa-kuan.muc.de/GEORGE.RXML

Alfred 奧龍

http://www.fa-kuan.muc.de
Traces of Butterflies' Dreams - 蝶夢痕 "Tieh Meng Hen"
My Poetry

丹青 = picture (pigments to paint pictures)
汗青 = fire-cured bamboo strip for writing records.
These two terms are unrelated.

丹青畫象麒麟台 is an honor given to accomplished people.

In the last two lines of this poem by Li Bai, he used two words DanQing 丹青 instead.
司馬將軍歌 代隴上健兒陳安

title(公 無 渡 河)

黃 河 西 來 決 崑 崙﹐
咆 哮 萬 里 觸 龍 門。
波 滔 天﹐
堯 咨 嗟﹐
大 禹 理 百 川﹐
兒 啼 不 窺 家﹐
殺 湍 凐 洪 水﹐
九 州 始 蠶 麻﹐
其 害 乃 去﹐
茫 然 風 沙。
被 髮 之 叟 狂 而 癡﹐
清 晨 險 流 欲 奚 為?
旁 人 不 惜 妻 止之﹐
公 無 渡 河 苦 渡 之。
虎可搏﹐
河 難 憑﹐
公 果 溺 死 流 海 洲﹐
海 洲 有 長 鯨﹐
白 齒 若 雪 山﹐
公乎 公 乎 掛 胸其 間﹐
箜 篌 所 悲 竟 不 還。

The first four lines are about the source and the journey of Yellow River. The second four lines talk about how 姒 文 命 (大禹) tamed the river for 13 years Even though he passed his own house three times yet he did not go in to see his wife and his son. He divided the land into nine states when he became the leader of the land. He began the industry of sericulture. The fifth and the sixth lines tell the harmfulness of Yellow River.

The rest of the poem is about an old story of a boatman called 霍里中子 who, one early morning while he was roaring his boat, saw an old thin man with unsound mind and untidy long hair from far away, crossing the swiftly flowing Yellow River. His wife standing on the bank of the river was trying to stop him from crossing, but it was too late. Eventually he was drown. His wife cried and cried. After crying she played the "箜篌" (a kind of musical instrucment) and sang\

"公 無 渡 河﹐ 公 竟 渡 河﹐ 墜 河 而 死﹐ 當 奈 公 何﹖"

After singing she jumped into the Yellow River in search of her husband.

靜夜思

床前明月光
疑是地上霜
舉頭望明月
低頭思故鄉

A Tranquil Night

Abed, I see a silver light,
I wonder if it's frost aground.
Raising my head - the moon's so bright,
Bowing - in homesickness I'm drowned.

I once found the lines (done by Xu Yuan-zhong), yet I give them by heart. It doesn't seem that Li Bai wrote thoughts like those already as a child.

Alfred 奧龍

http://www.fa-kuan.muc.de
Traces of Butterflies' Dreams - 蝶夢痕 "Tieh Meng Hen"
My Poetry

Dear Karen, Ming, Yoon-Ngan and friends

I remembered reading somewhere that Li Bai wrote that short piece of simple yet so lovely poetry when he was a child. Will have to check on the circumstances leading to that poem.

Li Bai's poem is as beautiful and graceful as Mozart's Little Night Music. Which Chinese man of letters wrote that poetry is music, and music is poetry?

Yoon-Ngan, artistic translation of Chinese poetry is still beyond me. I can only adjust some words to fit the English context.

The invention of paper according to most people and records was by Cai Lun in East Han. However,in a West Han tomb in Gansu, a paper map was found, indicating the invention was earlier than East Han.

1986年，中國考古工作者在甘肅天水放巴灘漢墓中發現一幅紙質地圖（西漢文帝景帝時，即前179──前156年前后），其殘片長5.6厘米，寬2.6厘米。紙質薄而軟，表面光滑平整，沾有污點，呈黃色，紙上用細墨線條繪制出山脈、河流、道路等圖形。這次出土的地圖是目前所知道的中國最早的紙實物。表明早在蔡倫之前的西漢時期，中國已發明了紙。

Cai Lun was probably the one who systemized the methodology for mass production.
http://www.cathay.cn.net/zgss/zaozhi.htm

I am quite sure that it was printed by wood block technology. The differnence between movable type and wood block is not difficult to detect by careful examination of the printed page.

The largest collection of the Dunhuang materials are in the British Library. I have given some small financial support to BL to have these published on the Internet.

You picked the most famous poem by the greatest poet to write about. There are countless writings in Chinese through the ages about Li Bai, but I do not remember any specific background story about this particular poem.
I have a page on this poem with several translations. You might like to take a look.
If you send me a copy of your book report, I will be glad to read it.

There are quite a few Han Chinese surnames with two characters. Those with three or more characters are most likely from ethnic minorities. Many of the complex surnames have been simplified to one character now. Yoon-Ngan has posted a number of surnames and their history at my Hakka Homepage site:
(a href="http://www.asiawind.com/hakka">Hakka Homepage
I have two Chinese books on the surnames. One book has 1286 names, and the other 5600 ! An interesting series of surnames is Number One, Number Two..... Number Eight. 第一， 第二。。。。These were the surnames derived from the Tians of Qi princedom. To date, there is still a Cantonese joke to humiliate others by saying they are Number Nine, which means nothing. At least that is what I think the origin of this joke.

Many surnames are actually derived from the same group. For instance the Li's was originally 里. Later it became 李 理 利. 李 became the largest surname in China because Tang emperors like to award the imperial surname to those with exceptional achievements. Many non-Lee became Lee. It just grew bigger and bigger. 7.9 % of Chinese are Li(Lee). So, that amounts to 100 million. It has not included the Vietnamese Le, Korean Rhee, etc. which are also derived from the same clan. It is the largest surname in the whole world.

I doubt if the Diamond Sutra (868 AD) was printed with movable types. Song dynasty started in 960 AD. In Tang dynasty, a whole page was carved out with the words and pictures for printing.

Alfred 奧龍

http://www.fa-kuan.muc.de
Traces of Butterflies' Dreams - 蝶夢痕 "Tieh Meng Hen"
My Poetry

Is the scroll of the Diamond Sutra (AD 868) made from movable or non-movable print?

Tin-Kay

With the increasing mobility of family members in the last hundred year or so, this practice has been ignored more and more.

Thank you for your comments. It has been a difficult problem for me since the inception of this website nearly 5 years ago, trying to satisfy several groups of readers. I have discussions with my Advisors about ways to make the pages easier for those who do not read Chinese at all on the one hand, and those who would prefer to have every thing in Chinese.

I am forever hoping to have good people to help me with the task. Would you like to help out?

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The woodblock print (non-movable types) was obviously earlier.

The earliest woodblock print (not of the Hundred Children) is said to be a scroll of the Diamond Sutra found in Dunhuang, Gansu Province, and dated around AD 868.
See this at print1.html page

Dear Alfred

Ci Yuan written 啅埭 and not 啅埻 .

Tin-Kay

Dear Alfred

First I tried CiYuan 啅埻 without much help. Then I looked into CiHai 啅漆 and the explanations are there. The new 5 volume CiHai is expensive but is worth my Chinese education. The prints are big (my near sight is failing) and with colored pictures.

Tin-Kay

Dear Anna and Ming

Like Ming, I don't know about any specific story of a Hundred Children. In China, the Hundred Children is usually a woodblock print of a happy hundred Chinese children. If you look closely at the picture, they are all boys, because the Chinese are very pre-occupied with male heirs to carry on their lineage. The picture can be related to any playground or family scene, with related symbols such as Wen Wang, lotus, dragon lantern, kites, books or pond. The print is always for the Chinese New Year (Spring Festival).

The earliest woodblock print (not of the Hundred Children) is said to be a scroll of the Diamond Sutra found in Dunhuang, Gansu Province, and dated around AD 868. Later, prints of various themes became more popular in the Song Dynasty, especially almanacs, which were printed yearly with pictures and words. The themes could be various gods, Chinese heroes or heroines, filial piety, animals, flowers and people, icluding the Hundred Children. Since the Southern Song Dynasty, these prints were sought after for hanging out at the Chinese New Year (Spring Festival).

The most famous woodblock printing production sites were Yangliuqing �轀醾� in Tianjin and Taohuawu 朊豪�] in Suzhou. The Yangliuqing started in the Ming Dynasty and the Taohuawu in the reign of the Qianlong Emperor (Qing Dynasty AD 1736-1795). (However, a Suzhou book on woodblock New Year Prints 妶笣朊豪�]躂啣爛�� claimed that it began in Suzhou during the Southern Song Dynasty.)

Taohuawu was named because it is near the cottage called Taohua-an 朊豪甂 owned by the famous Ming painter/poet, Tang Yin 昄窌 (Tang Bohu 昄皎誥), also famous for his courtship of a maiden called Fragrant Autumn, Qiu Xiang ⑦眅. Tang Yin also wrote a poem called "Song of the Peach Blossom Cottage" 朊豪甂貉. There were also various other woodblock printing centers in Nanjing (Jinling), Yangzhou and Nantong in Jiangsu Province, as well as in Anhui Province.

Many famous Taohuawu woodblock prints were destroyed during the Taiping Revolution. Fortunately, some are still found in Japan. In fact, the Japanese woodcut historian, Ono Tadanori, believed that the rise of the Ukiyo-e woodblock carvers during the Tokugawa period was a result of the importation of the Suzhou New Year prints.

Tin-Kay

Dear Tin-Kay, I ran through my dictionaries and could not find these expressions, in 宋元語言辭典 either. Nor is the poem respective in one of my anthologies. Since 'mao' 毛 also can translate by 'fur', 'hair' ('hairy'), I thought of the (Mongol) 'barbarians', and the (Chinese) 'Krauts' (菜) ;))).

In James A. Michener's novel "Hawaii" you can read about the Pun-ti and Hakka people living close together, yet in separated villages (downhill the Cantonese 本地, uphill the 客家). There is also thoroughly described the way Hakka families take the names for her descendents out of 'family poetries', just like Yoon Ngan tells us. In the novel, the one consulted for choosing appropriate names for Nyuk Tsin's sons had to take the generation's name Chow 洲. Yet he preferred to break the rule: Thus, the five sons with the surname Kee got the names Ah-Chow 亞洲, Ou-Chow 歐洲, Mei-Chow 美洲, Fei-Chow 非洲 and Ao-Chow 澳洲. (BTW, Nyuk Tsin, the mother, also got a new name: it was 'Wu Chow's Aunt' 五洲 - this was because she was not officially married to her Pun-ti husband whose legal wife stayed back in old China, whereas Nyuk Tsin and her family were living in Hawaii and grew to a big and influential clan there.)

Alfred 奧龍

http://www.fa-kuan.muc.de
Traces of Butterflies' Dreams - 蝶夢痕 "Tieh Meng Hen"
My Poetry

I have never heard about this story. Can you give any details about it?

In the meantime, why not read some of the stories in my website? From the homepage, click on the logo marked "Story / Parable".

Test: Pretty Park.exe :)
name-of-my-friend

And an attached file which is a file with exe extension. I did not open the file, and immediately wrote to my friend asking for explanstion.

Well, he wrote back and told me that it is a virus program, sent to me from his computer.

If I had open the file, this program will stay in my computer, look up the email addresses in my computer, and send out copies of itself to everyone.

Moral of the story: Do not open any attached files with ext extension even if the email comes from your own mother.

Dear Alfred

I checked on "two-hair man" 媼禱�� and it refers to the speckles of white hair amidst the black hair, indicating that the person was ageing 唯啞腔螹?,都蚚眕硌橾爛��.

As for 坋匐�拆^珨粕旯, it may refer to the awareness of the stretch of eighteen banks of the Gan River 渧蔬 of which HuangTanKong 鉻謁�� (Perilious Beach or Bank) is the most famous.

Well, Ming, Siu-Leung, Julian or another of our friends may come out with some esoteric meaning.

Tin-Kay