CHINA

DATE	DYNASTY	IDEAS	ARTS	RELIGION
1500 B.C.E. 1000 B.C.E. 500 B.C.E. 1	SHANG ZHOU QIN (Shihuangdi) HAN	Laozi, Confucius Zhuangzi	bronzes Great wall	ancestor    worship
500	SUI TANG (Wu Minghuang)	printing	Li Bo, Du Fu Bo Zhu-yi, Wu Daozi	Buddhism tolerance
1000	SONG (Wang Anshi)	gunpowder Zhu Xi encyclopedias	Su Dongpo Emperor Hui Zong Li Qing-zhao
1500 2000	MONGOL MING MANCHU REPUBLIC		spicy novels blue & white pottery

NAMES--The Chinese tend to think of family first and individual second.  So
they write their names with family name first and personal name second.
Remember this when trying to find Chinese names in any alphabetical listing.

PRONUNCIATION--The Chinese government has decided to make three useless
letters in our alphabet stand in for three sounds commonly heard in Chinese.
In the new system, C=ts, Q=ch, X=sh.

    This replaces an older spelling system that involved many apostrophes.
If you need those spellings to look something up in an older book, you can find
both versions in the index to this volume.

    (If you really want to know how it worked, the letters, K, P, T, and Ch
were pronounced the same as in English only when followed by an apostrophe.
Without the apostrophe they hardened: K became G, P became B, T became D,
and Ch became J.  Then to make it really confusing, J was always pronounced
like R.)  The new spellings are simpler.


26-27.  CONFUCIUS: GOODNESS WITHOUT GOD

    China seems to be the one civilization which developed without religion.
They began with philosophy.  But starting a civilization on philosophy requires
generations of study in organized schools, and a stable government to keep the
schools operating.  The beginning of Chinese civilization stretched over a
thousand years.

    Like most uncivilized tribes, the very earliest Chinese had practiced magic
and superstition--often in connection with the spirits of their ancestors.  As the
people became more civilized, they gave up these primitive practices.  But the
Chinese have continued to show respect for their ancestors, and to care for
their graves.

    Like Egyptians, the Chinese divide their history into the dynasties, or
families, of their rulers.  Legends go way back, but by about 1500 B.C.E. the
Shang (shahng) dynasty definitely existed.  Archaeologists have dug up bronze
cups and pitchers of boldly original design.  But not much else is known about
the way these earliest Chinese people lived.

    By the time of the Zhou (joe) dynasty, China had developed into many
small kingdoms.  Their petty kings supposedly listened to the Zhou king.
Actually, the rulers of each area did just about whatever they wanted.  Many
thinkers drew up plans for a better system of government.  The most important
of these philosophers was Confucius (kon-FEW-shus).  In Chinese, his name
was Kung Fu-tzu, which means "Teacher Fu of the Kung family."

    Probably no other human being has influenced the thinking of a whole
civilization as much as Confucius did.  For over two thousand years, his
thinking has shaped every part of Chinese life--from government to music to
cutting up vegetables.

    Confucius was a practical man with little use for gods, religion, magic, or
superstition.  His teachings form a political handbook.  He taught that before
anyone can become a good leader, he must first be a good person; then others
will want to follow.  The ideal Confucian official would spend his mornings
governing wisely and fairly; then he would spend his afternoons developing
himself as a person--through some hobby such as painting or poetry or music
or gardening.  Confucius invented the Civil Service System; anyone who wanted
a government job had to prove his wisdom in a written examination.

from THE ANALECTS OF CONFUCIUS

     I-5.  If you would bring a medium-sized state into System* be sincere
     as you respectfully attend to your duties; while being frugal,+
     love your fellow-men; work the people only at the proper
     seasons.

     II-1.  To be Excellent when engaged in administration is to be like the
     North Star.  As it remains in its one position, all the other stars
     surround it.

       3.  If the people are kept in System by administration and are all
     treated as equals in the matter of punishment, they may
     succeed in doing no wrong, but they will also feel no sense of
     shame.  On the other hand, if they are kept in System by
     Excellence and are treated as equals before the rites# they
     will reform themselves through a sense of shame.

       6.  When lord Meng Wu asked about filial@ duty the reply came,
     "Let the sole* worry of your parents be that you might become
     ill."

       7.  Yan Yan‡ asked about filial duty.
          "Today when people call a man filial they mean that he is
     supporting his parents.  But he does as much for his dogs and
     horses!  If he does not show respect for his parents, how is he
     differentiating between them and the animals?"

       13.  Duanmu Si asked about Great Man.
          "First he sets the good example, then he invites others to
     follow it.  

       20.  Lord Ji Kang inquired how to get the people to work hard and at
     the same time remain respectful and loyal.
          "If one is sedate+ in their presence, they will be respectful.  If
     one is filial and kind, they will be loyal.  If one employs the
     competent# as officials and instructs the less able, the people
     will work hard."

     IV--10.  Great Man's attitude toward the world is such that he shows
     no preferences; but he is prejudiced in favor of justice.

       14.  Do not worry about not holding high position; worry rather
     about playing your proper role.  Worry not that no one knows
     of you; seek to be worth knowing.

     VII-3.  Not to improve my Excellence, not to pass on all that I have
     studied, to be taught what is proper but be unable to change,
     to be unable to rectify my incompetencies:@ these are my
     worries.

       8.  I do not instruct the uninterested; I do not help those who fail to
     try.  If I mention one corner of a subject and the pupil does not
     deduce* therefrom the other three, I drop him.

       21.  The Master did not speak of anomalies,+ feats of strength,
     rebellions, or divinities.#

       30.  Manhood-at-its-best is no remote@ ideal!  We have only to
     desire it and straightway it arrives.

       35.  When the Master fell ill Zhong You asked him to pray, and he
     answered, "Are there any that can be said?"
              "Yes"   The eulogies* read, 'In prayer we turn to the
     divinities above and here below.'"
              "My prayer has been In progress for a long time
     indeed."

     VIII-8.  Stir emotions with The Poems.  Assign proper roles with the
     rites.  Provide unity with music.

     IX-4.  The Master recognized four prohibitions: Do not be swayed by
     personal opinion; recognize no inescapable necessity; do not
     be stubborn: do not be self-centered.

       14.  When the Master wanted to go live among the tribes somebody
     remarked, "What about their crudeness?"
              "If Great Man were living among them, how could they
     be crude?  His very presence would alter all that."

       23.  Juniors are to be respected.  How do we know that they will not
     be our equals in the future?  If at forty or fifty, however, they
     have achieved no reputation, they need no longer be
     respected.

       25.  Put loyalty and reliability first.  Have no friends inferior to
     yourself.  If you have faults do not fear self-improvement.

     XI-12.  Zhong You inquired about the proper treatment of spirits and
     divinities.
              "You cannot treat spirits and divinities properly before
     you are able to treat your fellow-men properly."
              When he inquired about death, the reply came, "You
     cannot know about death before you know about life."

     XII-7.  Duanmu Si inquired about the essentials of good government.
              "They are these: sufficient food, sufficient armament,
     and the confidence of the people."
              "Suppose a necessity arose and, despite oneself, it
     was impossible to have all three.  Which should be dispensed
     with first?"
              "Armament."
              "And if one of the remaining two had to be dispensed
     with?"
              "Food.  Everyone has always been subject to death,
     but without the confidence of the people there would be no
     government."

       13.  In hearing cases I am like everyone else.  The important thing,
     however, is to see to it that there are no cases!

     XIII-6.  If the official is himself upright, the people will play their roles
     without orders.  If he is not upright, even under orders the
     people will be disobedient.

       24.  Duanmu Si inquired, "What do you say of a man who is liked by
     all his townsfolk?"
              "I would not find him acceptable solely for that reason."
              "Suppose all his townsfolk disliked him?"
              "I would not reject him solely for that reason.  It is better
     that the competent people of the town like him, and the
     incompetent dislike him."

       25.  Great Man is easy to serve but hard to please.  If in your efforts
     to please him you stoop to what is contrary to System, he will
     not be pleased.  He employs men for special tasks according
     to their capacities.  Petty Man is hard to serve but easy to
     please.  In your efforts to please him, he will be pleased even
     if you stoop to what is contrary to System.  When he employs
     men, he expects them to be capable of anything.

     XIV-1.  Yuan Xian inquired about what was shameful.
          "When a state is following System, one enters its pay.  If one
     enters the pay of a state which is not following System, it is
     shameful."

       10.  To feel no resentment+ though poor is difficult; not to be proud
     though rich is easy.

       22.  Zhong You asked how to serve a prince.
          "Don't deceive him!  Resist him rather."

       23.  Great Man reaches complete understanding of the main
     issues; Petty Man reaches complete understanding of the
     minute# details.

       34.  Somebody asked, "What would you say of using Excellence to
     repay those who hate you?"
              "How then will you repay Excellence?  Do what is called
     for [or be polite] to repay those who hate you, and be
     Excellent in return for Excellence."

     XV-2.  In Chen, owing to warfare, Confucius and his party were
     deprived of food.  His followers fell so ill that they could not
     rise.  Zhong You then became angry and said, "Can Great
     Man too be reduced to the last extremity?"
              "Great Man can indeed be reduced to the last
     extremity, but when Petty Man is so reduced he loses all self-
     control."

       8.  If we fail to speak with a man who can be spoken with, we lose a
     man.  If we do speak with a man who cannot be spoken with,
     our words go for nought.@  The wise lose neither man nor
     words.

       21.  Great Man demands it of himself; Petty Man of others.

       36.  He who is Manhood-at-its-best does not need to make way for
     the teacher!

* harmony and justice
+thrifty
#shown equal respect
@of a son
*only
‡ Unexplained names are disciples.
+calm
#those with ability
@correct my weaknesses
*figure out
+freak events
#gods
@distant
*burial rites
+bitterness
#tiny
@nothing

     Because China went through two ages of ideas, mathematics developed in
two very separate stages.  One of the earliest discoveries was the so-called
magic square. where all of the numbers on a grid added up the same from any
direction.  Chinese mathematicians have always done their calculations on a
grid-like counting board.  This matched the Confucian ideal of everything in its
proper place.  Using the grid system, the Chinese figured out long division
centuries before anyone else.  Other cultures used mathematics to measure the
real world, and left unreal things to religion.  Instead, the practical Chinese
gave us negative numbers, so that even non-existent things (like the money
owed in debts) could be counted.  After this strong beginning, little else
happened until the stimulus of Arabic algebra quite late in Chinese history.

-----------------------------------------------------

28.  DAOISM--THE SIMPLE WAY OF NATURE

    A second important philosophy was Daoism (DOW-izm).  Like the
Egyptians, Jews and Christians, the Taoist philosophers believed that the
universe was originally one substance until it separated into all the different
parts of nature.  They reasoned that that substance (called the Dao) contained
all the secret of life.  If a person could commune with all parts of nature, he
would come close to understanding the secret and purpose of life.

    (Confucius used the word "Dao" to mean "the way" of proper conduct.
Some books confuse these two definitions.)

    The Taoists thought the Confucians were wasting their time looking for
man-made political order.  For eternal order already existed in nature.  The
best thing politicians could do was leave people alone in nature to discover the
purpose in their own lives.

    According to tradition, the first Daoist philosopher was Laozi (LOUD-zee).
After a lifetime of teaching, he decided to leave his region because its rulers
governed so corruptly he was ashamed to live under them, The border guard
recognized the old philosopher, and would not let him pass until he had written
down his wisdom in a small book.  Then Laozi left and was never heard of
again.  Some historians say the book was written by many people, and some
even wonder if Laozi ever existed.

    Another teacher, Zhuangzi (JWONG-dzee), told amusing little stories to
explain the philosophy of Daoism.

A leader is best
When people barely know that he exists,
Not so good when people obey and praise him,
Worst when they despise him,
Fail to honor people
They fail to honor you.
But of a good leader, who talks little,
When his work is done, his aim fulfilled,
They will all say, "We did this ourselves."

                --Laozi

Thirty spokes are made one by holes in a hub,
By vacancies joining them for a wheel's use;
The use of clay in molding pitchers
Comes from the hollow of its absence;
Doors, windows, in a house
Are used for their emptiness;
Thus we are helped by what is not,
To use what is.

                --Laozi

He who knows others is wise;
He who kaows himsblf is enlightened.
He who conquers others is strong;
He who conquers himself is mighty.
He who knows contentment is rich.

                --Laozi

     There was a man who struck out on his own, instead of yielding in confidence to
the Dao.  This man was so afraid of his shadow and he so disliked his own footsteps
that he determined to get away from them.  However, the more he moved, the more
footsteps he made.  And despite his fast running, he never left his shadow far behind.
So he decided that he was going too slowly.  He ran his fastest, without pausing for
rest.  As a result, he weakened and finally died.  He did not know that he could have
lost his shadow by sitting in the shade and put an end to his footsteps by keeping still.
Foolish indeed was he.  Woe to the reformers and the moralists who come preaching of
purity and goodness--they run from their own shadows.

                --Zhuangzi

-------------------------------------------------------

29.  THE FIRST EMPEROR

    The third important philosophy of early China was Legalism.  Legalist
philosophers believed that people obey their rulers only through fear and
rewards.  They called for harsh laws; anyone who knew of someone breaking a
law, and did not report its should be chopped in two at the waist.  Everyone
should be doing something "useful" such as farming or military service; the lazy
and those who wasted their time on music or history or morality should be
made slaves.  All should tremble before the law.  The tools of such government
include bribery, assassination, and war.

    About 200 B.C.E., one of the petty kings used the Legalist methods to
defeat all of the other kings.  He called himself Qin Shihhuangdi (chin sher
wahng dee), which means "First Emperor of China."  China was named after
him.  For the first time, China became one country with one ruler.  He
standardized the language throughout the nation.  He built roads and even
standardized axle lengths so all vehicles could travel the roads anywhere in the
land.

    To keep the northern barbarians from invading, he ordered the building
of a great wall fifty feet high and 1500 miles long.  (That is approximately the
same distance as the land border between the United States and Canada.
Astronomers have estimated that if Mars were inhabited by people with
telescopes as strong as ours, they would be able to see only one man-made
object: the Great Wall of China.)  The Chinese say a million people lost their
lives building the wall; the peasants began to hate their emperor.  But the wall
worked.  Invaders have entered China a few times since-- but only by invitation
from the gatekeepers along the wall.

    The prime minister convinced the emperor that he had changed China so
much that all of the old histories and philosophies had become useless--or
even dangerous.  So he ordered that all books be burned--except a few on
farming or medicine.  A few scholars managed to hide some books, but most of
those who tried were discovered and executed.  Much of China's early history
disappeared forever.

    By then, the old lords, the peasants, and the scholars all hated the man
who had brought China together.  One plot to assassinate him nearly
succeeded.  His greatest enemy volunteered his head so that the messenger
carrying it could get close enough to the emperor to stab him.  But the emperor
jerked free, ripping off his sleeve, and ran around and around a pillar trying to
get his sword unstuck from its sheath.  Meanwhile, his doctor beat the would-
be murder over the head with his medicine bag.  Another time, a blind musician
tried to clobber the emperor with a lead-weighted instrument similar to a
guitar.

    The crown prince had objected to the burning of the books.  When the
emperor suddenly died far away, the prime minister quickly forged a letter
telling the crown prince to commit suicide--which the dutiful young man did.
The prime minister secretly hurried across China with the emperor's body
decaying in the summer heat.  To keep anyone from suspecting that the
emperor was dead, he had a cart of dead fish follow the royal chariot.  At the
capital, he crowned the emperor's younger son who had never been trained for
politics.  Within three years, all of China rose in revolt.

    A proud general smashed the Qin empire and gave the old kings and
dukes their land again.  But the peasants remembered that they had been no
better off under the old system.  After five more years of civil war, a peasant
became the first emperor of the Han (hahn) dynasty.  The Han emperors let the
old kings keep their lands, but ordered them to divide the land equally among
all of their sons when they died.  In a few generations, there were hundreds of
miniature kingdoms with no power at all.  The Han emperors rebuilt the
Chinese government according to the teachings of Confucius.  Perhaps the
best-known Han ruler was the Emperor Wu, who grew so curious about tales of
another nation to the west, that he sent out explorers who eventually
established trade routes to Rome.

    Throughout Chinese history, whenever a new dynasty seized power, they
justified their position by a curious system of logic called the Mandate of
Heaven.  This meant that, for the orderly running of the universe, one family
had been chosen because of its goodness to govern China.  If that family lost
power, it was a sign that the last emperor had not been good, and was out-of-
step with the universe.  So a new family had been chosen.  Other civilizations
have used this same logic--usually adding a religious tinge-calling it the will of
the gods, or fate, or the Divine Right of Kings, or some other such name.
Regardless of name, it meant that whatever happened was right.

----------------------------------------------------------

29.  THE LADIES OF TANG

    The Confucians had taught that when a person dies, the body rots and
there is no such thing as a soul.  But if a person has been beneficial to others,
he will live on in the memory of those who come after.  By the end of the Han
dynasty, Confucianism had dried up into memorizing the correct answers to
pass the Civil Service examinations.

    Uneducated people had a hard time understanding Confucius.  They felt
more comfortable with their primitive superstitions. To gain supporters, the
Taoists mixed more and more with traveling magicians and quack doctors.
They boiled chemicals to discover an elixir of youth which would grant eternal
life.

    As the first philosophical age drew to a close, the Han rulers ignored the
politics of Confucius, and their empire fell apart.  In the scuffle for control,
barbarians were invited to bring in their armies for support.  Instead, the
barbarians seized the whole north half of China for themselves.  Those
barbarians were Buddhists, and the people of northern China soon became
Buddhist too.

    China has always absorbed its conquerors so that they adopted Chinese
ways.  Buddhism was acceptable as a religion without a god, but Chinese
Buddhism became very different from Indian Buddhism.  The most popular form
of Chinese Buddhism taught that another Buddha waited for the dead in the
Western Paradise--a garden of much food and rejoicing.  (This Paradise idea
had been added by Persian camel drivers along the caravan routes.  For Persian
religious ideas, see Chapter 50.)

     While China remained split, the different philosophies tried to drive each
other out.  After three centuries of confusion, the Sui (swee) dynasty reunited
all of China. Emperor Yangdi (yang-de) ordered workers to dig the Grand Canal,
connecting China's greatest rivers so that trade could flow everywhere.  It was
as important as the Great Wall.  But like the builder of the Great Wall, this
emperor also came to be hated.  People revolted.

    The new Tang (tahng) dynasty continued to govern a united China
throughout its most artistic age.  The Tang felt that beauty was far more
important than differences of opinion, so they tolerated all beliefs.  Ever since
then, many Chinese have believed in all three--Confucianism, Taoism, and
Buddhism.

    During the Tang dynasty, two adventurous ladies became important.
First was the Empress Wu (not to be confused with the Emperor Wu several
centuries earlier).  She had lived in the harem of an old emperor, where she
carried on a romance with his son.  When the old emperor died, she was sent to
a Buddhist convent for the rest of her life.  She was only twenty-four.  She soon
managed to get called back to the palace where she imprisoned the new
emperor's wife and married him, herself.  When the emperor suffered a heart
attack, she took over the government for him through the rest of his long reign.
At his death, their adult son became emperor, but she made him resign in favor
of his teen-age brother so she could continue to rule as guardian.  A few years
later, she made her younger son resign, and she ruled by herself.  The Empress
Wu was the only woman ever to rule China in her own name.  She convinced the
Buddhists that she was a reincarnation of the Buddha come to rule on earth.
The Confucians finally threw her out of office for flirting with young men when
she was eighty.  But she gave China long years of peace, and encouraged the
arts.

    Chinese painting and poetry reached their peak at the court of her
grandson, Ming Huan (ming wahn).  He founded a college of music.  But he is
best known because the great poets and painters told the story of the tragic
romance of this sixty-year-old emperor and the sixteen-year-old Yang Guifei
(yahng gway-fay).  She was his daughter-in-law, but he made his son divorce
her.  Ming Huan forgot about his empire and devoted all his attention to her.
Because she was plump, plumpness became the fashion of court ladies, and the
style of Tang painters.  She gave her obnoxious relatives government jobs.
There was a fat barbarian general whom Yang Guifei and the emperor often
invited to supper.  The three of them would sit laughing at the generals' clumsy
mistakes.  But secretly he raged, and one day led the army in revolt.  The
emperor and Yang Guifei started to flee, but their bodyguard mutinied.  They
killed her relatives, and warned the emperor that the only way to save himself
was to turn his mistress over to them.  He finally did, and they strangled her.
Ming Huan resigned the throne, and spent the rest of his life regretting his
selfish decision.

-------------------------------------------------------------

31.  LI BO, THE DRUNKEN GENIUS

    Of all the arts, the Chinese value poetry the highest.  Over the centuries,
they have written millions and millions of poems.  But China's most outstanding
poets lived during the Tang dynasty, and knew each other.

    Li Bo (lee bo) was a huge man--an expert scholar, swordsman, and
musician.  He may have committed murder.  He was condemned to death once,
and imprisoned three other times.  On moonlit nights, he would drunkenly
straddle a hill--fists on his hips and hair flying--and he would roar out the
most beautiful poetry of the Chinese language.  Emperor Ming Huan tried to
keep him at court.  The old emperor, himself, prepared Li Bo's food.  But the
poet was not impressed, and insulted Yang Guifei, who demanded he be sent
away.  The sad emperor let him go, but gave him a note entitling him wherever
he went to as much free wine as he could drink.  Again he could be seen sitting
drunkenly beside a stream, writing poems on scraps of paper and floating them
away.

    Li Bo wrote over twenty thousand poems, but never bothered to save
them, himself.  When he died, the story spread that he had drowned from
drunkenly bending over to kiss the moon's reflection on the water.

                          POEMS OF LI PO


A SIGH FROM A STAIRCASE OF JADE

Her jade-white staircase is cold with dew;
Her silk soles are wet, she lingered there so long....
Behind her closed casement* why is she still waiting,
Watching through its crystal pane the glow of the autumn moon?


A SPRING SONG IN SOLITUDE

The air of the world is changed by the East wind!
Water and woods luxuriantly welcome the Spring;
A white moonlight is shining on the grass;
The falling petals of Spring flowers fly one by one through the air;
And all the birds are seeking places for their nests.
Everything has a place to call its own,
But I am alone.
I gaze on this moonlit world,
And singing, I drink in the fragrance of the Spring flowers.


THE RIVER-MERCHANT'S WIFE: A LETTER

While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead
I played about the front gate, pulling flowers.
You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse.
You walked about my seat, playing with blue plums.

And we went on living in the village of Chokan:
Two small people, without dislike or suspicion.

At fourteen I married My Lord you,
I never laughed, being bashful.
Lowering my head, I looked at the wall.
Called to, a thousand times, I never looked back.

At fifteen I stopped scowling,
I desired my dust to be mingled with yours
Forever and forever and forever.
Why should I climb the lookout?

At sixteen you departed,
You went into far Ku-to-yen, by the river of swirling eddies,
And you have been gone five months.
The monkeys make sorrowful noise overhead.

You dragged your feet when you went out,
By the gate now, the moss is grown, the different mosses,
Too deep to clear them away!
The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind.
The paired butterflies are already yellow with August
Over the grass in the West garden;
They hurt me.  I grow older.
If you are coming down through the narrows of the river Kiang,
Please let me know beforehand,
And l will come out to meet you
             As far as Cho-fu-sa.


AMUSING MYSELF

With wine I did not notice the approach of evening.
All my clothes were covered with fallen petals.
Drunken I arose, and paced the stream by moonlight.
I saw few people or returning birds.

*window

--------------------------------------------------------

32.  DU FU, WHO WROTE BY THE RULES

    Li Po broke most of the rules of writing Chinese poetry.  Those who read
Chinese insist that his friend, Du Fu (doo foo), was a better poet.
Unfortunately, the polish of Tu Fu's writing can not be translated into other
languages.

    The rules were exact: Poetry not only had to have meaning, but had to
sound musical in the Chinese language.  It also had to have the same number
of words in each line, so it looked square on the page.  Eight lines was the
standard length.  The shape of each written character had to blend
harmoniously with the shapes of its neighbors.  And each pair of lines had to
contain parallel meanings.  This parallelism is about the only part that can still
be seen in the translations.

    Tu Fu worked as a quiet government official.  He wrote most of his
poems in old age in anguish at the civil war which was ripping apart his
country.  This was the rebellion which killed Yang Guifei, and dethroned Ming
Huan.  Du Fu condemned all war, and tried to remind people how sweet life had
been in peacetime.  He died wandering among battlegrounds, homeless and
alone.

                          POEMS OF DU FU


AUTUMN MEDITATION

Gems of dew wilt and wound the maple trees in the wood:
From Wu mountains, from Wu gorges, the air blows desolate.
The waves between the river-banks merge in the seething sky,
     Clouds in the wind above the passes meet their shadows on the
     ground.
     Clustered chrysanthemums have opened twice, in tears of other
     days;
The forlorn boat, once and for all, tethers my homeward thoughts.
In the houses winter clothes speed scissors and ruler;
     The washing-blocks* pound, faster each evening, in Pai Ti high on a
     hill.


THOUGHTS ON A NIGHT JOURNEY

Reeds by the bank bending, stirred by the breeze,
High-masted boat advancing alone in the night,
Stars drawn low by the vastness of the plains
The moon rushing forward in the river's flow.
How should I look for fame to what I have written?
In age and sickness, how continue to serve?
Wandering, drifting, what can I take for likeness?
--A gull that wheels alone between earth and sky.

*for clothes

    The Chinese musical scale is based on observation of nature.  Very early,
musicians discovered that if they blew across a section of bamboo pole, they
got a note.  And if they blew extra hard, they got a new sound four full notes
higher than the first (a musical fifth).  They found they could get this new
sound easier by cutting a second pipe 1/3 shorter than the first.  The second
pipe could also be overblown a fifth higher, but that was getting too high.  They
discovered they could bring this third sound down an octave by cutting a third
pipe 1/3 longer than the second.  By following this pattern through twelve
pipes, they could get all twelve notes of the musical scale,

-------------------------------------------------------------------
MUSICAL DIAGRAM GOES HERE
-------------------------------------------------------------------

    Notice that this system lumps all five "black notes" in one cluster, and all
seven "white notes" in another cluster.  This is important, for once a Chinese
musician picks his starting note for a song, he uses a scale of only five notes
(almost like playing the piano on the black notes only.)  Many eastern countries
now use this five-note system.

------------------------------------------------------------

33.  BO ZHU-YI, POET OF THE PEASANTS

    China's third great poet also lived during the Tang artistic age.  Bo Zhu-yi
(BO joo-YEE) wrote in simple language so that even uneducated peasants could
understand him.  It is said that he always read his new poems to an old woman,
and rewrote each part she did not understand.  Educated Chinese remember Bo
Zhu-yi mainly for his long poem about Emperor Ming Huan and Yang Guifei.
But foreign readers value his poems about the little worries of day-to-day
living.

                        POEMS OF BO ZHU-YI


THE RED COCKATOO

Sent as a present from Annam--*
A red cockatoo,
Colored like the peach-tree blossom,
Speaking with the speech of men.
And they did to it what is always done
To the learned and eloquent.+
They took a cage with stout bars
And shut it up inside.


LOSING A SLAVE-GIRL

Around my garden the little wall is low;
In the bailiff's lodge the lists are seldom checked.
I am ashamed to think we were not always kind;
I regret your labors, that will never be repaid.
The caged bird owes no allegiance
The wind-tossed flower does not cling to the tree.
Where tonight she lies none can give us news;
Nor any knows, save# the bright watching moon.


LONELY NIGHT IN EARLY AUTUMN

Thin leaves wave on the wu-tung tree beside the well.
Through the pounding of the washerwomen, autumn begins to sing.
Under the eaves, I find a place and sleep alone,
And waking, I see the bed half filled with the moon.


REMEMBERING GOLDEN BELLS@

Ruined and ill,--a man of two score;*
    Pretty and guileless+--a girl of three.
Not a boy,--but still better than nothing:
To soothe one's feeling,--from time to time a kiss!
There came a day, they suddenly took her from me;
Her soul's shadow wandered I know not where.
And when I remember how just at the time she died
She lisped strange sounds, beginning to learn to talk,
Then I know that the ties of flesh and blood
Only bind us to a load of grief and sorrow.
At last, by thinking of the time before she was born,
By thought and reason I drove the pain away.
Since my heart forgot her, many days have passed
And three times winter has changed to spring.
This morning, for a little, the old grief came back,
Because, in the road, I met her foster-nurse.

*Vietnam
+good speakers
#no one knows except
@his daughter
*forty
+honest

----------------------------------------------------------

FILMSTRIP:  EARLY CHINESE ART  (½ hour)

-----------------------------------------------------------

34.  THE LADY WHO INVENTED THE NOVEL

    During the artistic age, Chinese culture spread to Japan.  In fact, Japanese
men became so busy imitating Chinese poems that it was the women who
developed Japanese literature.  The most famous of these was Lady Murasaki
(moo-ra-SAH-kee).  She wrote the world's first novel, The Tale of Genji.  By the
time she finished, it had grown to many volumes.

    Lady Murasaki served as a lady-in-waiting to the Japanese empress.  Her
book shows the sensitiveness of daily life among the educated rulers.  People
exchanged notes several times a day--and always in poetry.  They took great
care to select paper of the exact texture and color to fit the mood of each
poem.

    Background for this selection: Prince Genji (GEN-jee) was once the
guardian of Empress Akikonomu (                       ) now home on a visit.  She of
course outranks the lady of the house, Genji's young wife Murasaki (who has
the same name as the author).  Genji has just built a new house with a separate
wing for each of the four ladies of his household.  Each wing looks out on a
garden specially planted for that lady's favorite season: spring blossoms for
Murasaki, brilliant autumn leaves for Akikonomu, shady bamboos for a lady
who liked the summer, and evergreens for an older lady who enjoyed winter.

from THE TALE OF GENJI by LADY MURASAKI

    When the ninth month came and the autumn leaves began to
be at their best, the splendors of Akikonomu's new garden were at
last revealed, and Indeed the sights upon which her windows looked
were indescribably lovely.  One evening when the crimson carpet
was ruffled by a gusty wind, she filled a little box with red leaves from
different trees and sent it to Murasaki.  As messenger she chose one
of the little girls who waited upon her. The child, a well-grown,
confident little thing, came tripping across the humped wooden
bridge that led from the Empress's apartments with the utmost
unconcern.  Pleased though Murasaki was to receive this prompt
mark of friendship, she could for a while do nothing but gaze with
delight at the messenger's appearance, and she quite forgot to be
resentful, as some in her place would have been, that an older and
more dignified messenger had not been entrusted with the Empress'
gift.  The child wore a silk shirt, yellow outside and lined with green.
Her mantle was of brown gauze.  She was used to running about on
messages in the palace, had that absolute faultlessness of turn-out
and bearing which seems never to be found elsewhere, and was far
from being over-awed at finding herself in the presence of such a
person as Lady Murasaki.  Attached to the box was the poem:
"Though yours be a garden where only springtime is of price, suffer*
it that from my house autumn should blow a crimson leaf into your
hand."  It was amusing to see how while Murasaki read the missive,+
her ladies crowded round the little messenger and plied# her with
refreshments and caresses.  For answer, Murasaki placed in the lid
of the box a carpet of moss and on it laid a very little toy rock.  Then
she wrote on a strip of paper tied to a sprig of five-pointed pine: "The
light leaf scatters in the wind, and of the vaunted spring no tinge is
left us, save where the pine-tree grips its ledge of stone."@
    The Empress thought at first that it was a real pine branch.
But when she looked closer she saw that, like the rock, it was a work
of art--as delicate and ingenious a piece of craftsmanship as she had
ever encountered.  The readiness of Murasaki's answer and the tact
with which, while not exalting her own favorite season above that of
Akikonomu's choice, she had yet found a symbol to save her from
tame surrender, pleased the Empress and was greeted as a happy
stroke by all the ladies who were with her.  But Genji when she
showed it to him pretended to think the reply very impertinent, and to
tease Murasaki he said to her afterwards: "I think you received these
leaves most ungraciously.  At another season one might venture
perhaps upon such disparagement*...for only from behind the shelter
of blossoming boughs could such a judgement be uttered with
impunity.+  So he spoke; but he was in reality delighted to find these
marks of interest and good will being exchanged between the various
occupants of his house, and he felt that the new arrangement was
certain to prove a great success.

*allow
+letter
#filled
@The older lady's winter garden keeps some spring green, but no fall colors.
*a put down
+assurance

    Japan did develop two forms of poetry all its own.  The Tanka (TAHNG-
ka) contains thirty-one syllables in five lines.  Many centuries later, the Haiku
HI-koo) form became more popular.  Haiku contain only seventeen syllables in
three lines.  Obviously, such short poems cannot tell a story--only remind the
reader of a memory which author and reader can share for a moment.

                          JAPANESE POEMS


MISTS

Spring wears mist-garments.
          They are too delicate--too delicate indeed--
For these rough zephyrs*
          Have torn them, and the shreds
          Are fluttering to earth.

                --Yukihira


LIGHTNING AT NIGHT

A lightning gleam:
          into darkness travels
        a night heron's scream.

                --Basho


HAIKU

Ancient pond...
Frog jumps--
The sound of water!

                --Basho

*breezes

------------------------------------------------------

35.  THREE SYSTEMATIZERS

    After an age of ideas then an age of arts, China experienced a second age
of ideas.  It was a time of mathematical and scientific discovery.  The Chinese
invented gunpowder, which they used mainly for fireworks.  They invented
paper.  They discovered printing, and published the first printed books.  And
they wrote the first encyclopedias.

    Perhaps the encyclopedia symbolized the age.  For the first age of ideas
had been one of moral philosophy.  The second age of ideas was one of
compiling all knowledge and systematizing it so it fit together.  Three of the
people who did this have remained famous down through time:

                                I

    Zhu Xi (joo shee) combined Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism into a
philosophy called Neo-Confucianism.  He demonstrated that Goodness, Tao,
and Heaven were really all the same.  But he warned that it seemed unnatural to
frolic in drunkenness and superstition the way some Taoists did, And it also
seemed unnatural to leave family and friends and shut oneself up in a
monastery the way some Buddhists did.  The best life lay between these two:
the Confucian ideal of being good in the midst of society.

    Zhu Xi showed how nature and the different fields of knowledge all fit
together. (This was originally a Daoist idea.)  Here are some of those
relationships:

         principle:    kindness    righteousness    sincerity    reverence    wisdom
planet:    Jupiter    Mars    Saturn    Venus    Mercury
season    spring    summer    monsoon    autumn    winter
climate:    wind    heat    humidity    dryness    cold
direction:    east    south    center    west    north
color:    green    red    yellow    white    black
                                                       animal:  dragon     phoenix                  tiger     turtle
element:    wood    fire    earth    metal    water
tone:    F#    C#    G#    D#    A#
flavor:    sour    bitter    sweet    tart    salty
                                                       smell:   goatish    burning       fragrant   rank      rotten
organ:    liver    heart    spleen    lungs    kidneys
emotion:    anger    joy    compassion    sorrow    fear
behavior    be mild    act    judge    retreat    think

    This series of fives also included much medicine.  There was a separate
series of twelves: the twelve possible musical notes, the twelve hours of the
day, the twelve months of the year, and the twelve annual signs of the Chinese
zodiac.  The Chinese calendar was a combination of heavenly and earthly signs.
It took sixty years to go through every possible combination then the cycle
began again. (5 x 12 = 60)

    During this same time, there developed another important philosophy
known as Zen.  It grew out of Buddhist teaching, but many Zen masters rejected
Buddhism.  A person who practices Zen finds joy in the simplest parts of life.
(For examples, see Chapter 37.)  Zen spread to Japan, where it became even
more popular.

    One Japanese Buddhist leader, Nichiren (NEE-chee-rren), taught that
people are born with just one possession: time--an unknown number of years
in which to accomplish something.

                                II

    Wang Anshi (wahng AHN-she) systematized government and economy.
The Song (soong) dynasty now ruled.  China had settled into a comfortable old
age, dreaming of its sunny past.  The poetess, Li Qing-zhao (lee ching-jow)
voiced the mood of the time:

LINES FROM A POEM BY LI QING-ZHAO

I recall
            another New Year's Eve
how I put on
                           the green-feather headdress
narrow snow-white sash
                    worked
                    with gold thread
Headdress and sash
                to vie* with any beauty
I
    haggard now
                  wind-tangled locks+
                 hair
                frosted white
                at the temple
Too diffident#
            to venture among flowers
I loiter
        under the window screen
eavesdropping
            on the talk
            and laughter
            of others

*compete
+h a I r
#afraid of failing

    Thus China lay basking in its ancient glory.  But Wang Anshi warned that
danger lurked in the near future unless drastic changes were made.  The
emperor became interested, and made this thinker his prime minister.  Wang
Anshi recorded and stored surplus food, to be distributed wherever needed.  He
established a graduated income tax so that the rich paid a higher percentage
than the poor.  He set up a system of farm loans to help poor farmers.  And he
limited the profits that rich merchants could make off the work of the farmers.
For crime control, he divided all of China into groups of ten families to be
responsible for the behavior of each of their members.  And to prepare for the
barbarians gathering north of the Great Wall, he ordered each citizen with grass
to raise one government horse.

    Many old-fashioned Chinese bitterly resented these changes.  The poet
Su Dongpo (soo doong-po) wrote:

ON THE BIRTH OF HIS SON by SU DONGPO

Families, when a child is born
Want It to be intelligent.
I, through intelligence,
Having wrecked my whole life,
Only hope the baby will prove
Ignorant and stupid.
Then he will crown a tranquil* life
By becoming a Cabinet Minister.

*peaceful

     (In the 1930's, American political leaders studied the political philosophy
of Wang Anshi.  They used many of his reforms--such as farm loans and the
graduated income tax--to steer the United States out of the Great Depression.)

                               III

    A third systematizer was the Emperor Hui Zong (wee tsoong).  He was one
of China's outstanding painters.  He brought together the largest collection of
oriental art the world has ever seen.  Just the paintings numbered over six
thousand.  He carefully analyzed the best paintings, and figured out rules for
determining good art.  Emperor Hui Zong's life ended in disaster.  The
barbarians invaded. and he lost his crown.  China split into two nations.  But
worst of all, his beloved art collection burned during the invasion.  Later artists
often followed his formulas rather than trusting their own creativity.

--------------------------------------------------------

36.  KUBLAI KHAN AND THE STRUGGLE FOR POWER

    Northwest of China, the Mongols had been an insignificant desert tribe.
But when Genghis Khan (JENG-gis KAHN) became their leader, he whipped them
into a ferocious army.  They raided into northwest China, butchering the
inhabitants so that not one in a hundred survived, That farmland has remained
desert ever since.  Genghis Khan conquered the barbarians already ruling the
northern half of China.  But his generals were disgusted to find the land full of
people, and planted to crops.  They only valued grass for their horses.  They
finally asked permission to kill all of the people and turn north China into a
pasture.  The advisor Yelüchucai (yel-LOO CHOO-TSĪ) saved the Chinese people
only by convincing the greedy khan that their taxes would enrich his treasury.

    Genghis Khan had turned west and conquered most of Asia.  After his
death, his sons continued the westward push.  Mongol armies defeated
Hungary and were preparing to conquer the rest of Europe, when they received
news that their ruler had died.  They hurried back across Asia to help choose a
new khan.  Only by this lucky accident of time did Europe escape.

    Genghis' grandson, Kublai Khan (KOO-blī KAHN), conquered the other
half of China.  Kublai Khan ruled the largest empire the world has ever known--
from Siberia in the north to Burma in the south, from Hungary in the west to
Korea in the east.  The Chinese regard the Mongol rule as the most uncivilized
period of their history. (For instance, Mongol law forbid its people from ever
taking a bath.) But Marco Polo, who visited China from Italy, was amazed at how
much more civilized Mongol China was than Europe at that time, He brought
many Chinese ideas back to Europe--from printing to gunpowder to paper
money to noodles.  When Kublai Khan died, his empire split into Moslem and
Buddhist halves.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
MAP OF KUBLAI KHAN'S EMPIRE
-------------------------------------------------------------------
    The emperors following Kublai Khan killed each other off in quick
succession.  The last Mongol emperor seriously considered solving his
problems by executing every Chinese person with the family name Zhang,
Wang, Liu, Li, or Zhao.  Since these are the most common names in China, it
would have meant killing ninety per cent of the Chinese people.  When this
news became known, rebellions broke out all over China.  The first rebel group
who happened to reach the capital was led by an ordinary bandit who made
himself the first emperor of the Ming dynasty.

    The Mings looked backward to the glory of China's past.  They tried to
imitate the vigorous Tang emperors; they despised the gentle Song rulers.
Artists also tried to imitate the Tang masters.

    At first, the Ming emperors continued the massive shipbuilding and
exploration of the Song dynasty.  Admiral Zheng He [Cheng Ho] several times
sailed his giant ships as far as Africa, bringing back zebras, a giraffe, and other
curiosities.  But he was Islamic and a eunuch.  Jealous enemies at court claimed
there was no money in these scientific discoveries, and managed to put an end
to all exploration.  Much smaller European ships first reached that part of the
world a few years later, and took over the profitable trade routes.

    Political plotting and turmoil plagued most of the Ming emperors.  The
bandit Zhang Xianzhung (JAHNG she-EN-JOONG) seized control of one state,
and is remembered as the bloodiest ruler in history.  In five years he executed
all forty million of his subjects.  It was said that he was angry with the people of
that area because he sat down on a prickly plant that grew there.

    Finally, one rebel leader invited the tribesmen of Manchuria in to help
him.  Instead, the Manchus made themselves the rulers of China.  They made
strict laws regulating dress, and made the men wear their hair in a pigtail.

     By 1800, Europe was eager for Chinese silk and tea.  But rather than
spend money, the British and other traders brought in opium.  Millions became
addicted.  The government tried to protect its people. but this led to the Opium
War with England.  China lost.

    A revolt by Chinese Christians almost succeeded. but the British decided
they would rather deal with the corrupt Manchu government, and put down the
rebellion.

    After 1860, China's emperors were children.  The real power was their
guardian, the Dowager Empress Cixi (tse-she).  Educated Chinese saw an
alarming need for reforms, but the tough old empress put down every call for
change.  For instance, she was given money to build a navy, but instead built a
boat-shaped palace.  Shortly after her death, China threw out the Manchu rulers
and became a republic.  The empire of two thousand years was dead.

-------------------------------------------------------

FILMSTRIP:  LATER CHINESE ART  (½ hour)

--------------------------------------------------------

37.  THE SMALL ARTS OF GOOD LIVING

    Many educated Chinese refused to serve in the government of Kublai
Khan and his barbarians.  Instead, they retired early and went to live in the
countryside.  There they developed themselves in the four accomplishments of
a gentleman: music, painting, poetry, and chess.  The Chinese have always
stressed the enjoyment of leisure time.

    Until Mongol times, poetry had been considered the only kind of
literature deserving respect.  Then some of the unemployed scholars passed
their time by writing spicy novels.  They felt ashamed to sign their names, but
the Mongol and Ming novels have delighted the Chinese ever since. Dream of
the Red Chamber is about young people, and is often considered the best.

    As cultural standards sank, wandering actors and acrobats wrote and
performed little plays which they called "operas."  These are nothing like
Western operas, but more like circuses.

    The rest of the world learned to make porcelain from the Chinese.  But no
one could match the lustrous glow of their white pottery.  Kublai Khan united
China with Arab lands.  From the Arabs, the Chinese learned how to make the
purest blue from cobalt.  Collectors usually rate the blue-and-white decorated
Ming pottery as the world's best.  But many Chinese insist that these are just
cluttered versions of the purer Tang and Song designs.

    The Chinese have always been a very practical people.  They realized that
the joy of living lay in doing the small everyday things really well.  They have
devoted centuries to the delicate and tasteful enjoyment of physical pleasures.
 
    Cooking is considered an art in China.  Confucian standards of balance
and harmony control every part of cooking.  Foods are expected to harmonize,
not only in taste, but also in color, shape, size, aroma, and texture (crisp,
smooth, crunchy, etc.).  A meal contains tiny helpings of many different dishes.
Even in restaurants, the food is served family-style; each person transfers a
little to his own bowl.  Daoist ideals also demand that the food be true to its
natural flavor, as well as nutritional.  The person who appreciates good food
would never dull his senses with liquor beforehand, or eat in a hurry or with
other things on his mind.

    After the meal comes tea.  The Chinese have developed three main types,
Green teas are simply dried leaves.  They include Gunpowder (leaves rolled into
pellets) and Jasmine (flower-scented) tea.  The Japanese Tea Ceremony uses
pure green tea.  Black teas have been fermented.  They include Lapsang
Souchong (smoked) and Lychee (strong flower-scented) tea.  Between green
and black are the half-fermented red teas.  Oolong is the best-known red tea.
An appreciator of Chinese tea never pollutes it with sugar or cream.  As with
the enjoyment of food, relaxation is necessary.

    The Zen philosophy of simpleness controls every part of the Japanese Tea
Ceremony: a mossy little teahouse with low door, situated in a small rocky
garden.  Perhaps a single flower in a vase.  Tea and maybe rice crackers or bean
curd served on clay dishes of simple beauty.  Zen philosophy also determines
every part of Japanese flower arrangement.

    The small arts of good living are available to rich and poor--whoever has
the common sense to enjoy simple things.  Confucius and Laozi said it long
ago.


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