The Confucius Institute at the University of Guyana (CIUG) celebrates its 10TH Anniversary today, having been inaugurated on May 19, 2014, in an official ceremony involving the President of Guyana and the Ambassador of China. A culturally rich and very colourful anniversary ritual will mark the occasion at 4.00 pm today on the UG Turkeyen Campus.
To mark this, the CIUG presents in these pages representative samples of Chinese literature – a literature that is strong in tradition and distinctive cultural characteristics that can be found in its various forms from the very ancient creations up to prevailing contemporary varieties. Both the poem “How Rare the Moon” and the story “Yugong Moves Mountains” demonstrate the delightful ring of these elements handed down from a very old literary culture. This includes the scribal poetry and the wide range of traditional narrative tales.
Even in this remarkable English translation the poem reflects these characteristics, as one of those which contemplate universal phenomena, landscape or nature. In this case, using a typical style and phraseology, the poet muses on the empathising but often contrasting nature of the moon from its romantic associations to the manner in which it is unfeeling and disunited with individual emotions. It holds the moon as a fixture in a global sense.
The story is a special one that, again characteristically, expresses factors of Chinese culture. It has a prevailing theme of perseverance, faith, positive thinking and resolution, showing, even if in a sort of magical way, the triumph of the capacity of the folk to demonstrate these qualities. It takes advantage of folk tale elements, drawing on myth, legend and their tension with history and real existing features of Chinese geography, events and scientific origins. Some of these are explained by the tale, as if it were true (a main quality of myths).
These samples were selected by the Confucius Institute, Dr Guo Zhiyan and Ren Weihuan from the literary and language resources of the 10-year-old institution.
How Rare The Moon
When will the moon be clear and bright?
With a cup of wine in my hand, I ask the blue sky.
I don’t know what season it would be in the heavens on this night.
I’d like to ride the wind to fly home.
Yet I fear the crystal and jade mansions are much too high and cold for me.
Dancing with my moon-lit shadow,
It does not seem like the human world.
The moon rounds the red mansion,
Stoops to silk-pad doors,
Shines upon the sleepless bearing no grudge,
Why does the moon tend to be full when people are apart?
People may have sorrow or joy, be near or far apart,
The moon may be dim or bright, wax or wane,
This has been going on since the beginning of time.
May we all be blessed with longevity
Though far apart, we are still able to share the beauty of the moon together.
Yugong Moves Mountains
Once upon a time, there were two huge mountains standing in the south of Jizhou and the north of the Yellow River.
An old man named Yugong, literally foolish old man, lived in the north of the two mountains. Though 90 years old, Yugong still kept reclaiming wasteland for farming with his children and grandchildren. With his hard work, crops in his fields grew impressively well. Yet, with the mountain blocking the ways, the villagers had to make big detour whenever outing.
Looking at the two huge mountains, Yugong decided to move them out of his way. He called his whole family together for discussion.
“The mountains kept blocking our way. What would you say if I suggest that we remove the mountains, to make a path directly to the south of Yuzhou (in today’s Henan Province) and the Hanshui River (in today’s Shaanxi Province)?” said Yugong.
Yugong’s wife doubted that Yugong could remove a small hill like the Mount Kuifu, let alone the huge Taihang and Wangwu mountains, considering his age. And she also questioned about where to deposit the earth and rocks. Yet, all the other family members showed support. They suggested moving the earth and rocks to the shore of the Bohai Sea in the northeast.
“Let’s do this! I would never doubt our ability to remove the mountains,” said Yugong.
Yugong, his sons, and his grandsons started to break up rocks and dig earth, and tossed them into large baskets in full swing.
Hearing the news, men from neighbouring villages all rushed to join Yugong while women helped delivering water and food. A 7-year-old boy of a widow also came to help carry rocks with his bamboo basket.
They kept digging every day with backbreaking effort and tossed earth and rocks into large baskets. When the baskets were full, they transported them to the distant Bohai Sea on shoulder or back.
It was a long journey that took the old man and his crew more than half a year to travel back and forth once. Winter left and summer came. They wore beast skin when they left and came back in linen clothes.
Seeing that Yugong’s white beard had grown longer and that his back stooped even more, his wife said with loving care, “Have a rest.”
Yugong said, “Look at the high mountains, when on earth would I finish the ordeal? We will definitely remove the mountains as long as we keep on it.”
After drinking some water, Yugong went back to work.
“Grandpa is right! Look, it seems the mountain is a bit lower,” said the little boy who had grown taller after the six months. In nearby Hequ lived an old man respected for his wisdom. He persuaded Yugong to quit, “How foolish you are! How is it possible to remove the mountains with human labour?”
Yugong heaved a sigh and said, “Everybody says that you are wise, but I see you not. Even a widow and child know better than you.”
The wise man’s face blushed with embarrassment. He said, “At your age, old and feeble as you are, you cannot even remove a corner of a hill, let alone the enormous mountains.”
Yugong laughed, “Sure I will die. But there will still be my sons and grandsons, who will have their sons and grandsons to keep up the work. My offspring will grow, but the mountains will not. Why is it impossible to level them?”
The wise man left without a word.
Yugong laughed after the wise man challenged his determination of moving the mountain, saying that his offspring will carry on the job in the future, when he was no longer here, and the mountain will eventually be moved.
A god of mountain heard about the event. He was worried that the old man and his offspring would really level the two mountains, so he reported to the Lord of Heaven. Moved by Yugong’s determination, the Lord of Heaven commanded two giants, the sons of Kua’e, to move the mountains elsewhere.
It was an easy job for the two giants. Each of them carried one mountain on back and walked away in big steps. They put one mountain in east of Shuozhou and the other in south of Yongzhou, and then reported back to the Lord of Heaven. As Yugong got up the next morning and went out for work, he found the mountains disappeared without a trace. With tears in eyes, he called his family, “Look! The mountains are gone.”
All the villagers came out and saw a vast plain and a level road leading to a long distance away. The children jumped with joy. Ever since, there were no more mountains blocking the way between southern Jizhou and the Hanshui River. Though the story of Yugong is merely a legend, the Taihang Mountains and Wangwu Mountain are real.
The Taihang Mountains are a Chinese mountain range running down the eastern edge of Loess Plateau in Shanxi, Henan and Hebei provinces. The names of Shanxi and Shandong provinces, which literally mean the west of the mountains and east of the mountains respectively, are actually derived from their locations with the Taihang Mountains.
And the Wangwu Mountain, sitting northwest of Jiyuan City of Henan Province, is a famous Taoist site. Legends suggested that the Yellow Emperor used an altar on top of the mountain to offer sacrifices to heaven where he received the “Book of Nine Elixirs,” one of the earliest Chinese alchemical texts.
