Archive for January, 2010
I’m A Willful/Wishful Child – 我是一个任性而渴望的孩子
Posted by Sylvia Xiaorui in Poems Talk to Me on January 31, 2010
Gu Cheng (顾城，1956-1993) was a famous Chinese modern poet, essayist, and novelist. He was a prominent member of the “Misty Poets”, a group of Chinese modernist poets.
Gu Cheng began life in privilege as the son of a prominent party member. His father was the army poet Gu Gong. At the age of twelve, his family was sent down to rural Shandong because of the Cultural Revolution(as means of re-education) where they bred pigs. There, he claimed to have learned poetry directly from nature.
In the late 1970s, Cheng became associated with the journal “Today” (今天) which began a movement in poetry known as “menglong”(朦胧) meaning “hazy, “obscure”. He became an international celebrity and travelled around the world accompanied by his wife, Xie Ye(谢烨). The two settled in Auckland, New Zealand in 1987 where Cheng taught Chinese at the University of Auckland.
In October 1993, Gu Cheng attacked his wife before hanging himself. She died later in a hospital.
– Wikipedia
Sometimes I guess I am expecting too much from Wikipedia since there should be so much ‘humanity’ behind each entry, when I read a topic been cut and dried so much that it’s reminds me a impersonal, academic study. This is the case of Gu Cheng.
The Voice of Gandhi Ji
Posted by Sylvia Xiaorui in Thoughts on January 30, 2010
One of coldest days, gloomy, murky. Someone was wiping Mahatma Gandhi’s statue when we walked pass the small but lush corner at Union Square.
It is a bit ironic to see Mahatma Gandhi Ji at the part of city, surrounded by high-end and discount retailers, crowded with overflowing tourists and locals. Well time is always money, For the boys at Union Square, as the lyrics goes.
Has anyone heard Bapu Ji talking, with his calm yet urging, soft yet convincing voice, on social justice, on universal love, on non violence, on disassociation with material life, on freedom and independence? Read the rest of this entry »
Don’t Ever Tell Anybody Anything
Posted by Sylvia Xiaorui in Books Speak to Me on January 29, 2010
Don’t ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody. This is the last sentence of the book.
Jerome David Salinger died, He said human’s natural life span is 120, and he could live to 140 years old. Now he died.
The Catcher in the Rye was the first book I read in English, a long, lazy afternoon sitting on the floor of the library, the only part of the school I liked, reading the three days of life of the sixteen year old boy, a boy of my age. His anger was my anger, his confusion was my confusion, his happiness was my happiness. Read the rest of this entry »
The Poets light but Lamps
Posted by Sylvia Xiaorui in Poems Talk to Me on January 27, 2010
The Poets light but Lamps
Emily Dickinson
The Poets light but Lamps—
Themselves—go out—
The Wicks they stimulate—
If vital Light
Inhere as do the Suns—
Each Age a Lens
Disseminating their
Circumference—
The poets light but lamps themselves go out. The first line of Dickinson is modest, yet at such a modern time it seems to be so untimely. Read the rest of this entry »
Facing the sea with spring blossoms – Haizi
Posted by Sylvia Xiaorui in Poems Talk to Me on January 26, 2010
面朝大海，春暖花开
作者：海子
从明天起, 做一个幸福的人
喂马, 劈柴, 周游世界
从明天起, 关心粮食和蔬菜
我有一所房子, 面朝大海, 春暖花开
从明天起, 和每一个亲人通信
告诉他们我的幸福 Read the rest of this entry »
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