Today, the podcast gets to Wang Wei and a Buddhist poem he wrote with the eye of a painter. Wang Wei is the least popular of the three High Tang poets, at least, since the Song Dynasty, but, back in the day, he was the most popular, more popular than Li Bai and Du Fu. We'll travel to his empty mountain and see if we aren't too disturbed by women doing the laundry to learn a bit about Chinese poetry.

Living in the Mountains on the Cusp of Fall

Empty mountain after a new rain,

The air is late, fall is coming

The bright moon shines amid the pines,

the clear stream's water flows over a rock.

Hubbub in the bamboo, the washing lady returning

the fishing boat pushing through lotuses.

And then it happens that the flowers of spring die,

Me, a hermit, I can hang here for a while.

山居秋暝

空山新雨後，天氣晚來秋。 明月松間照，清泉石上流。 竹喧歸浣女，蓮動下漁舟。 隨意春芳歇，王孫自可留。

Today is the beginning of a three part series I am going to do on the three big Tang poets, Li Bai, Wang Wei and Du Fu. In this episode, we take a look at Li Bai, often considered China's Greatest poet, and his relationship with the regions to China's West, modern day Xinjiang and the Stans. Li Bai has a strange relationship with the West; in fact, he was probably born in modern-day Kyrgyzstan, and was probably Persian, Turkic or maybe even Jewish. That's right, China's greatest poet may not have even been Chinese. Take a listen to the podcast to find out more.

Today, Lee gets to chat with Susan Wan Dolling, Hong-Kong-American poet, novelist and translator. She recently published her latest book of Song poetry translations, What the Cuckoo Said, but she has long been working on translating Chinese poetry into an English that does what is hard to do, that preserves the music that you hear in the Chinese original.

If you want to check out more of her translations, check out Hundred Tongues (volume 1 of her Song poetry translations), Superstars (volume 1 of her My China in Tang Poetry series), Floating on Clouds (volume 2 of her My China in Tang Poetry series) and Friends and Lovers (volume 3 of her My China in Tang Poetry series).

Also, my book, China's Backstory: The History Beijing Doesn't Want You to Read is out! You can purchase a copy of it here from my publisher:

https://unsungvoicesbooks.square.site/product/china-s-backstory-the-history-beijing-doesn-t-want-you-to-read-preorder/BXJSID5U6P4RVONS7V4HSZSH

Or you can purchase it on Amazon here.

If you are interested, check out the nice things smart people have said about the book here.

On this episode, I give a brief update on the book's status, which should be in your hands by mid-November. And also, Rob returns, joining the podcast from France to talk about what he has been up to and also to chat with Lee about the book.

Today, I get to speak with Professor Emily Mokros about her fascinating book, The Peking Gazette in Late Imperial China - State News and Political Authority. The book is about a media outlet in the Qing Dynasty that published discussions that the emperor held with his bureaucrats.

This episode, the podcast takes a look at a poem Mao Zedong wrote in February 1936, after he and his party had undergone the near-death experience of the Long March. Yet still, Mao has the gumption to imply in the poem that he would be the greatest ruler China had ever seen.

My Translation of the Poem:

Spring in a Soaked Garden - Snow

The north country scenery,

frozen over for a thousand miles,

snow floating for ten thousand miles.

I look inside and outside the Great Wall of China,

all that remains is boundlessness.

Up and down the Yellow River,

it has suddenly lost its surging vigor.

The mountains dance like silver snakes,

the plains gallop like white elephants,

I want to compete with Heaven and see which of us is taller.

I must wait for a clear day,

and look at the snowy landscape wrapped in red and white,

it's really bewitching.

The rivers and mountains, this land, is so pretty,

it has brought out countless heroes to compete and serve the nation.

Pity Qin Shihuang, the first Chinese emperor, and Han Wudi, the greatest Han emperor,

their writing ability ain't all that good.

Tang Taizong, the greatest Tang emperor, and Song Taizu, the greatest Song emperor,

they kinda lack style.

Those northern barbarian rulers,

like Genghis Khan,

all they knew how to do was shoot arrows at big eagles.

Those guys are all dead,

if you want to count the true badasses

look to today.

Original Poem:

沁园春·雪

北国风光，千里冰封，万里雪飘。望长城内外，惟余莽莽；大河上下，顿失滔滔。山舞银蛇，原驰蜡象，欲与天公试比高。须晴日，看红装素裹，分外妖娆。

江山如此多娇，引无数英雄竞折腰。惜秦皇汉武，略输文采；唐宗宋祖，稍逊风骚。一代天骄，成吉思汗，只识弯弓射大雕。俱往矣，数风流人物，还看今朝。

This episode is a special one. The podcast has a conversation with Fox Butterfield, the first correspondent for the New York Times after 1949. Mr. Butterfield set up the Beijing Bureau for the New York Times in 1979 and was the bureau chief from 1979 to 1981.

Mr. Butterfield started studying Chinese in 1958, and was a student of John Fairbank.

In this episode, I got the priveldge of interviewing Mr. Butterfield at his home. We talked about his experience with John Fairbank, his friendship with Senators John McCain and Joe Biden, his work on the Pentagon Papers and many other topics.

In today's episode, we look at a work that tackles the controversial topics of aborition and the One-Child Policy. Today's story, by Nobel-Prize Laureate Mo Yan, watches a father/government official after his wife becomes pregnant with a son. Their first child, a daughter, is not good enough for the official's dad, he wants a son. But the official is tasked with enforcing the One-Child Policy, China's draconian rule that each family was only allowed to have one child. We watch as the official forces his wife to get an abortion while explosions happen all around them.