China and the West

Ginsberg, Allen ; Snyder, Gary. The selected letters of Allen Ginsberg and Gary Snyder [ID D29191].
Letter from Allen Ginsberg to Gary Snyder ; Aug. 25 (1982).
I'm due for Chinese UCLA Conference Sept 21-23… I'll be in N.Y. till September 15. Aren't you due to attend this Mainland Chinese Lit. Conference also ?

Letter from Allen Ginsberg to Gary Snyder ; Sept. 10 (1982).
Probably see you next week in L.A. at mainland Chinese writers' meeting. Robert Rees the UCLA organizer said you were invited.

Letter from Gary Snyder to Allen Ginsberg ; Oct. 13 (1982)
How was Chinese Disneyland ? [Ginsberg had gone to Disneyland with a group of visiting Chinese writers]… China writers conference : I'm very glad I went, will be corresponding with Lin Bin-yan. Do hope there's a chance to visit there next year.

Letter from Allen Ginsberg to Gary Snyder ; Nov. 8 (1982).
Chinese spent all day at Disneyland – me too – Wu Qiang got lost, we found him 4:30 P.M. at exit gate where he waited.

Letter from Allen Ginsberg to Gary Snyder ; [ca. Febr. 24, 1983]
When China ? I'm committed now to fall '83 but will maybe maybe have five weeks free August 15-September 23, 1983. Tho that may be too short a time. Orvill Schell says he'd like to come along on the poets' trip to China. Have you written Peking yet ? Any plans formulated ? Maybe could do it after December '83 anytime – spring '84 ? I'll be free from then on.

Letter from Gary Snyder to Allen Ginsberg ; Nov. 22 (1983).
Charles Leong wrote me and said you were coming but his emphysema would keep him from attending the meeting. He is old and frail now, but still writes a beautiful calligraphy, and very witty sharp letters on the evolution of Chinese communist culture and politics.

Letter from Allen Ginsberg to Gary Snyder ; Nov. 13 (1984).
Airplane Wuhan to Beijing
Successful trip Canton to Chungking. Poets there took me to cat at last in market shops, all different dishes, sweet and pork dumplings. Boat three days two nites comfortable two person cabin (charming basic lounge-windows at boat bow to see) (OK food too) and fourth and fifth class passengers sleeping on stairway landings, passageways, steerage and eight- and sixteen-person dorms. Yangtze Gorges vaster than Li River trip, and one magnificent hairpin bend of river around mountain – village hill-cliff – sharp mountain, a complete U-turn walled by immense peaks with grotesque mythic rock formations atop. River brown – then widened out on plains the last day. Inexpensive hotels, but was met and accompanied everywhere except for three days on river. Wuhan – fantastic hall of 500 life-size arhats intact. Your camera a blessing, thanks.

Letter from Allen Ginsberg to Gary Snyer ; Dec. 2 (1984) [Baoding]
I'm packing to leave Baoding and take trains to Shanghai (overnite sleeper). Enclosed 'Dagoba Brand' emblem for toilet paper – maybe that indicates industrial Marxist view of stupa. Baoding is 'real' China – non tourist town, no active temples open in all the 50,000,000 population of Hebei Province. Talked to some intelligent Christians and Allah followers who said they were all decimated during anti-rightist campaign beginning 1958. The later Cultural Revolution was deeper extension of that, like Ai Quing the poet was sent off in 1957-8 with a million others. Official figure for persecutions now. I heard, is 27,000,000 people plus their children's disgrace – other elder says twice that.
Enclose some random papers – the 35 years gives account of present views. Apparently the Great Leap Forward was also a fiasco that ruined industry by decentralizing it into the hands of loudmouth hippie patty hacks. Production of iron went up but quality down so unusable. During Cultural Revolution 80 % of machine tool industry was crippled – and other industry and professions – so said Chinese man I met on Yangtze River Gorge boat, who'd written history of machine tool industry in Modern China - 'O' [opium] production, all imports, in 1880-1890.
Students are terrifically affectionate and eager and shy. The cadre at 'Foreign Relations' branch of this university whom I paranoically thought a sour spy cop turned out tipsy at last nite's farewell banquet and revealed he was an old vaudeville trooper from Chinese opera, read a scene of old sage with beard, Li Po (Li Bai) poems about Yangtze Gorges and monkeys chattering, and ended with song of Mao. 'Show Covers all North China'…
I spent another afternoon leisurely at the temple - here's more info on it – Sixth Patriarch's place you photo'd.
Tho Buddhism seems stamped out, in talking with students and old Chinamen, the breath activity practice which seems officially OK is 'Ch'i Kung (Qigong) involving something parallel to 'Tso Chan' or belly-sitting- also involving the chakras. Do you know anything about the relationship between the 'Chan' and 'Ch'i Kung' styles of practice ? Maybe they got some kind of Zen here without anyone knowing it.
Students do practice wushu and varieties of exquisite tai chi chuan so there is some awareness practice, very sophisticated, without the dharma except as theoretic Marxism provides bodhisattva turnabout of energy.
Approaching Yangtze Gorges
Two hours down river from Yichang / The rooster in the gallery / Crows dawn.
Yangtze stopover at 7 P.M., boat waits till 3 A.M. and starts down the gorges to pass them in daylight. We ate the chicken that day I guess.

Letter from Allen Ginsberg to Gary Snyer ; Shanghai Dec. 10 (1984).
Our Writer's Association tour translator, Xu Ben, who met us in Süchow, came to listen to my lectures and brought me two copies of newspaper with your 'Maple Bridge' poem he'd translated, and a verse of mine I'd written for him but not kept copy. Enclosed the Süchow News. I'm slowly recovering from bronchitis by now, and getting active – visit Nanking this weekend, next weekend, Kunming I hope.
Lecturing on Whitman is fun.

Letter from Allen Ginsberg to Gary Snyer ; Nov. 8 (1987).
Our Chinese project has been set for fall 1988 and I've been in touch with Wang Meng and the Writer's Union in Beijing, they've ok'd it – now for the final selection of poets. Any last months' suggestions ?

Letter from Gary Snyder to Allen Ginsberg ; Nov. 24 (1987).
Am going from Lhasa to Kashgar across Tibet next fall, as co-leader on a trip. David Padwa coming too.

Letter from Allen Gisberg to Gary Snyder ; Dec. 21 (1987).
Lhasa-Kashgar trip ! I don't know if I've physical stamina! My left knee healing tho weak, lost some thigh muscle, taking physiotherapy.