China and the West

Aufführung von Cyrano de Bergerac von Edmond Rostand im Theater Xianggang yan yi xue yuan = The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts in der Übersetzung von Zhong Jinghui, unter der Regie von Peter Jordan, mit Xi Hanuo als Cyrano.

Marián Gálik hält sich an den Universitäten München, Hong Kong, Berlin, Bonn und Taipei auf.

Workshop über Jane Eyre von Charlotte Brontë und Wuthering Heights von Emily Brontë in Shanghai mit 37 Vertretern von über 10 chinesischen Universitäten.

Aufführung von Rinoceros von Eugène Ionesco unter der Regie von Mou Sen in Beijing.

Bai, Juyi [Bo, Juyi]. Long bitter song. Transl. by Gary Snyder.
The "Long Bitter Song" (Chang hen ge) of Bai Juyi (Po Chü-i) is probably the best known and most widely popular poem in the whole Chinese cultural-sphere. Bai and his friend Wang Shifu (Wang Shih-fu) were visiting the Xienfu Chan Buddhist training center in 806, and were talking one night of the events of the reign of Emperor Xuanzong (Hsiian Tsung) and the An Lushan rebellion, sixty years earlier. Xuanzong was one of China's better rulers and presided over what has since been considered the golden age of both Chan Buddhist creativity and Chinese poetry. He took power in 712 and led a strong and innovative administration up to about 745. At that time he became totally infatuated with Yang Gui Fei (Yang Kuei- fei), the wife of one of his many sons. She became his concubine, the Sogdian-Turkish general An Lushan became an intimate of the couple and perhaps also a lover of Yang, the restive Northeast revolted under An, he led his troops into the capital, Xuanzong, Yang Gui Fei and the palace guard fled the city, and outside town at Horse Cliff the troops stopped, refused to go on, and insisted on putting Yang Gui Fei to death. That was in 755. The rebellion was quelled by 762, about the same time Xuanzong died. This rebellion marked a watershed in the fortunes of the Tang dynasty, beginning a period of somewhat more decentralized power, a rise of Chinese cultural chauvinism and contempt for the "third world" bor¬der peoples, and a greater weakness in relation to the borders.
The story of the Emperor and his lovely concubine had become legend. After that evening's reminiscences. Bai was inspired to write the story as a long poem. Within his own lifetime he then heard it sung on the canals and in the pleasure quarters by singing-girls and minstrels. Bai lived from a.d. 772 to 846. He was born in a poor family, passed the examina-tions partly on the strength of his literary brilliance, and became a life¬long political functionary of great integrity and compassion who wrote many stirring poems on behalf of the common people. He was a Chan Buddhist, and studied under the master Wei Kuan, who was a disciple of the outstanding Chan teacher Mazu (Ma-tsu).
This poem is in the seven character line, which gives it (in Chinese) this sort of rhythm:
tum tum / turm turm: turm turm turm
I have tried to keep to this beat as far as possible in my translation. I did the first version of it with the aid of Ch'en Shih-hsiang who was my teacher in graduate seminars at U.C. Berkeley in Tang poetics, in the early fifties.
I must take full responsibility, however, for idiosyncratic aspects of the translation—cases of both stripped-down literalism, and occasional free flights. My debt to his gracious, learned, unquenchable delight in all forms of poetry is deep indeed, and I am pleased to honor his memory with this publication of a poem that we took much pleasure in reading together.
Gary Snyder 28.X.86

I
Han's Emperor wanted a Beauty
one to be a "Destroyer of Kingdoms" Scouring the country, many years,
sought, but didn't find.
The Yang family had a girl
just come grown;
Reared deep in the inner-apartments,
men didn't know of her.
Such Heaven-given elegance
could not be concealed
One morning she was taken to
the Emperor's household.
A turn of the head, one smile,
—a hundred lusts were flamed
The Six Palaces rouge-and-eyebrow
without one beautiful face.
In the Spring cold she was given a bath
at the Flower-pure Pool
Warm pool, smooth water,
on her cold, glowing skin
Servant girls helping her rise,
languorous, effortless beauty—
This was the beginning of her new role:
glistening with Imperial favour.
Hair like a floating cloud, flower-face,
ripple of gold when she walked.
—In the warm Hibiscus curtains
they spent the Spring night.
Spring night is bitterly short
it was noon when they rose;
From this time on the Emperor
held no early court.
Holding feasts and revels
without a moment's rest
Spring passed, Spring dalliance,
all in a whirl of nights.
Beautiful girls in the outer palace:
three thousand women:
Love enough for three thousand
centered in one body.
In Gold House, perfectly attired
her beauty served the night;
In the Jade Tower the parties ended
with drunk, peaceful Spring.
Her sisters and brothers
all given land,
Splendor and brilliance
surprised her humble family.
Following this, on all the earth,
fathers & mothers hearts
No longer valued bearing males
but hoped to have girls.
The high-soaring Li palace
pierces blue clouds
Delights of Immortals, whirled on wind
were heard of everywhere.
Slow song, flowing dance,
music like frost-crystal
sifting from the lute-strings—
The Emperor could exhaust a day
watching—and still not full
II
Then Yuyang war drums,
approached, shaking the earth;
Alarming, scattering, the "Rainbow Skirt"
the "Feathered Robe" dances.
From the nine great City-Towers,
smoke, dust, rose.
Thousands of chariots, ten thousand horsemen scattered Southwest—
Kingfisher banner fluttering, rippling,
going and then stopping;
West out the city walls
over a hundred li
And the six armies won't go on:
nothing can be done—
Writhing, twisting, Moth-eyebrows
dies in front of the horses.
Her flower comb falls to the ground
not a man will pick it up—
Kingfisher feathers, "little golden birds",
jade hair-pin;
The Emperor hides his face
no way to help
Turns, looks, blood, tears,
flow, quietly mingle.
Yellow dust eddies and scatters.
Desolate winds blow.
Cloud Trail winds and twists
climbing to Sword-point Peak
Under Omei Shan
the last few came.
Flags, banners, without brightness,
A meagre-coloured sun.
Shu river waters blue
Shu mountains green
And the Emperor, days, days,
nights, nights, brooding.
From the temporary palace, watching the moon colour tore his heart
The night-rain bell-tinkle
—bowel-twisting music.
III
Heaven turns, earth revolves,
The Dragon-Chariot returned.
But he was irresolute,
didn't want to go;
And at the foot of Horse Cliff,
in the sticky mud,
Couldn't find the Jade Face
at her death-place.
Court officials watching him
soaked their clothes with tears.
Looking east to the Capital walls,
they returned on horses
Came back to Pond Park
—all was as before.
Taiye Hibiscus,
Weiyang Willow.
But Hibiscus flowers were like her face,
the Willows like her brow:
Seeing this, how could he
keep tears from falling.
Spring wind, peach, plum,
flowers open in the sun;
Autumn rain, Wutong trees, leaf-fall time.
Western palace, the inner court,
many autumn grasses.
Falling leaves fill the stairs
red: and no one sweeps.
The Pear-garden players
white-haired young.
Pepper-court eunuchs
watched beautiful girls age.
Evening, palace, glow-worm flight,
—his thoughts were soundless
He picked his single candle-wick down, couldn't reach sleep.
Slow, slow, the night bell
begins the long night,
Glimmering, fading, the Milky Way,
and day about to dawn.
Silent tile roof-ducks
are heavy with frost-flowers
The Kingfisher quilt is cold—
who will share his bed?
Far, far, the living and the dead
and the light years—cut apart.
Her spirit already dissolving,
not even entering dreams.
IV
A Linqiong Daoist priest
of the Hongdu school
Was able to deeply concentrate
and thus call up the spirits.
Hearing this, the Emperor
—troubled, twisting thoughts.
Ordered the Daoist priest
to make a thorough search.
Pushing the sky, riding air,
swift as a thunderbolt,
Harrowing the heavens, piercing Earth,
he sought everywhere
Above exhausting the blue void,
below, the Yellow Springs.
The ends of earth—vast, vast,
and nowhere did he find her.
Then he heard—that out on the ocean—
was a mountain of Immortals
A mountain at—nowhere—
a cloudy, unreal place.
Palace towers, tinkling gems,
where Five Clouds rise.
Within—lovely, wanton, chaste,
many faery people.
There was there one faery
called Taizhen;
Snow skin, flower appearance,
it had to be her.
At the Gold Tower of the West Wing,
he knocked on the Jade door:
Announcing himself to Little Jade
—and she told Shuang Cheng,
That the Emperor of the people of Han
had sent an envoy.
In the nine-flowered canopy
the faery's dreams were broken;
Holding her clothes, pushing the pillow,
she rose, walking unsteady.
Winding, opening the pearl door,
the inlaid silver screens.
Her cloud-like hair, floating on one side,
—just brought from sleep.
Her flower-cap unadjusted
she came down the hall,
Wind blew her elegant sleeves
floating, floating up—
Seemed like the "Rainbow Skirt",
the "Feathered Robe" dance.
Her jade-like figure small and alone,
she scattered her sad tears:
As though one branch of a blossoming pear
was holding the whole Spring's rain.
Restraining her feeling, cooling her look,
she told him to thank the Emperor;
"With that parting our two forms
were split by the World's vast shifting;
After Zhaoyang temple,
our love was cut off.
Here in Raspberry-tangle Palace
the days and months are long—
I look down, hoping to see
lands where humans dwell,
I never see Chang'an
but only dusty haze.”
Then taking some ancient treasures
rich in deep feeling,
An inlaid box, a gold hairpin,
to be delivered back,
Keeping a leg of the hairpin,
keeping half the box,
Breaking the gold of the hairpin, box cut in two—
"If only our hearts are strong as
this gold hairpin,
Above in heaven, or among men,
we will somehow meet.
Go back swiftly
tell him this message:
For it tells of one Vow
that two hearts know,
In the seventh month on the seventh day
in Long-Life Temple.
At midnight, no one about,
we swore together
If in heaven, to fly as
the 'paired-wing' birds;
If on earth, to grow as
one joined branch."
Heaven lasts, Earth endures,
—and both will end;
This sorrow stretches on
forever, without limit.

Shao, Yanxiang. [The evergreen Leaves of grass]. [ID D29885].
Shao wrote after reading the first complete translation of Leaves of grass by Walt Whitman, that, as a 'cosmic poet', Whitman appeals for the 'acceptance, integration and renovation' of the alien culture and proposes to 'shape it with our own character', a message that is close to us Chinese who are opening extensively to the outside world today.

Xiao, Qian. Mansifei'erde de san ge duan pian [ID D30060].
"…Most of Mansfield's works are limited in subject-matter to the family life of the middle class, which she knew very well. She spared no effort all her life experimenting with how to present the minute details of the inner world of her characters using the language of a poet… Mansfield can be regarded as the master of the short story in modern English literature. She has been dead for more than sixty years, and yet with the passing of time, her work is gaining more and more attention, having been translated into Chinese, Japanese, French, German, Russian, and many other languages, and generating a steady output of treatises and theses."

Aufführung von Xiao zhen feng qing = Our town von Thornton Wilder durch das Beijing Experimental Theater unter der Regie von Lois Wheeler Snow.
Chen Xiaomei : Only a stage photo of Emily and George's wedding with a brief description of the play was printed in Xi ju bao : "This play describes the ordinary daily events – through which one experiences the boundless universe – in a small town in America at the turn of the century." Our town arrived at the wrong time in the wrong place, when things 'Chinese' had been overtaken by numerous things 'Western'.

Aufführung von Deng dai Geduo = Waiting for Godot von Samuel Beckett im Shanghai Changjiang Theatre durch Studenten des Shanghai Drama Institute.
Introductory notes in the printed programme :
Deng dai Geduo, first performed during the fifties in Paris, is now more than thirty years old. The title is now a household word in the West, and the play is required reading for every college student in the humanities in the Western world. This is proof of the play's profound influence, which propelled its author Beckett to the first rank of the world's dramatists. And yet this play is a total stranger to us, since this is its first performance in our country. Why is this play considered to be the representative work of the Theatre of the Absurd ? Because it incorporates all the classic features of this lieterary genre : there is neither a lively plot nor an attempt at complege characterization ; ther is neither a clearly delineated topic nor the use of dramatic conflict. Even the dialogue is often illogical. The one action in the play - 'Waiting' – is advanced by a combination of realistic and abstract methods ; either by ideas or through the subconscious ; my means self-contained or extended ; through life's small incidents or by philosophical reflection ; all of this through the circular movement of its simple structure. Thus the play is transformed and expanded until it achieves for 'Waiting' a goal that transcends time and space, transcends national boundaries, and even transcends timelessness itself in its artistic effect – in order to reflect mankind's shared emotions. And the two tramps in the play become mankind's 'representatives'. The effect so produced shows the great power of pure art and its classic value. This play has had over a thousand performances in the United States. Once, when the author was asked by a director, 'Who is the Godot that everyone is waiting for in the play ?' the author's replay was that he himself did not know. We can perhaps offer the following attempt at an answer : 'So long as mankind has expectations, an equivalent degree of 'waiting' will exist ; so long as that degree of 'waiting' exists, it will be matched by an equal number of 'Godots' in the world. We hope that the performance of Deng dai Geduo will help advance our understanding of the West, and, at the same time, provide a new direction for out theatrical enterprise.
Lo Irving : The premiere of this Beckett play in China was fraught with a great deal of symbolic significance, beginning with the location of the theatre itself. The stage for the performance was sparsely but effectively set with a stunted willow tree at one end, substantial enough to have a rope thrown across the bough later. The costumes were Western, including the tight boots and the various hats. The entrances and exits for Pozzo, the elaborate gestures with the whip, the bustle with the bags and baskets were all stages in the grand manner, wich, together with the music and even the appearance of dancers, betrayed an unmistakable affinity to the tradition of the Peking Opera. In this sense the Chinese Godot, while presented as a work set in the Western world, was at least partially assimilated in the Chinese cultural orbit.

Aufführung von Happy days von Samuel Beckett durch die Zhong ying ju tuan = Chung Ying Theatre Company in Hong Kong, in Cantonese.

Aufführung von Cat on a hot tin roof von Tennessee Williams, Shanghai University Drama Institute.

Giorgio Casacchia ist Project Manager des Chongqing cultural heritage master plan.

Antonino Forte ist Direktor der Italian School of East Asian Studies, Kyoto.

Roberto Ciarla ist Mitglied der Hong Kong Archaeological Society.

Mario Sabattini ist presidente del Corso di Laurea in Lingue e Letterature Orientali dell'Università Ca' Foscari di Venezia.

Mario Sabattini ist Professore ordinario di Lingua e Letterature Cinese dell'Università Ca' Foscari di Venezia.

Alessandra Cristina Lavagnino erhält das Laureate in lettere moderne der Universität degli Studi di Roma.

Alessandra Cristina Lavagnino ist Professore associato di lingua cinese der Facoltà di Scienze Politiche Università statale, Milano.

Ellen B. Widmer ist Visiting Asistant Professor des Connecticut college (spring).

Bian, Zhilin.Translation and its positive/negative impact on modern Chinese poetry [ID D38994].
… We should extract new poetic forms from the natural rhythms of speech, in order to transmit new poetic concepts and emotions appropriately and accurately… Chinese character occupy an independent place, a in traditional poetry, and of building lines with monosyllabic rhythmic units…