What is the myth of China?

9208  what is the myth of China  20190720?

The myth of China is in a poem. It was supposed to be the best poem in China. Or the best of its kind in China. The great poet Li Bai once exclaimed when he first read the poem in the Yellow Crane Tower, "I have nothing to say about the beauty of the scenery here, it was all said by Cui Hao." And indeed, no one had written a better poem then Cui Hao.  

What had Cui Hao written? Why is it so good? Is it true it's the best poem?

It is all because, the poem carried a myth of China, and the myth is in a form of beauty in the poem.  

I shall translate the meaning of the poem here. 

The man was left riding a yellow crane

Remain was the empty building of yellow crane

Never returned oh ye crane

For a thousand years, white cloud floats on the empty vain 

Sun too bright on the river and Han Yeung trees too vividly clear

Fine grasses on the Island of Parrots were melancholy dear

The sun was set yet I know not where to go here

Floating on the waves a sad mood was near

And of course, it is an excellent poem in its original old Chinese form. The poem had raised an issue and the issue was so strikingly true and pierced into the hearts of those who really cares.

It is a feeling of lost. 

But what had been lost? 

Is it a guiding spirit that had been here with the Chinese but lost forever? 

Who am I? Where did I come from? What am I going to do? Many questions remain unanswered.

The Chinese were left alone empty handed. The ancient spirit has been gone.

It is a kind of a sadness that can never be brushed away, if you have really felt it. It was like the sunny trees. It was so vividly clear to you, that you are lost. You saw the trees and you know it is all true and your fate cannot be revised. It was written and it was painted like the trees on your eye. And they seemed to be living in an island of parrots. Fine people have nothing to say, while the parrots were noisy. The feeling was very clear. Li Bai must had been in the same feeling that he was suddenly dumped and suffocated. He cannot say anything. He closed his mouth and put down his pen. 

It was the feeling of an orphan in the contest of old Chinese culture. Modern Chinese culture is not like that, but the old wound had been a feeling never brushed away.

The most important teachings had been lost. What had been left was a few of the ancient stories and broken materials. 

There were two losts in Chinese culture. One was natural lost and the other artificial lost. The old Chinese culture was willfully rewritten and replaced by the rulers secretly since Zhou dynasty. Only the works of Confucius was left free. There were no books to read, as said by the author in the Dream of the Red Chamber. 

If some people do not agree on the artificial lost of the Chinese culture, they cannot deny the real and natural lost of Chinese culture.

Many of the science and knowledge brought into these days are without source. It seems that the Creator had left but luckily a manual was kept. The Chinese knowledge about the human body was just like a manual from the Creator, or a very wise alien from outer universe. Those who studied Chinese medicine found the Meridian points were so wonderfully designed and constructed, yet no one really knows where did they come from. 

If by chance we have a manual of the human body, what about the soul? Do we have a manual about the soul also? 

It seems that the real guidance had been left. And he was flown away by a yellow crane. 

And my point is that one ought to be happy, if one knows the situation that there is really a lost. If the lost be admitted and confirmed then the lost is not a lost. The missed truth can be recovered or recreated if you are aware of it. 

I went to see the Yellow Crane Tower recently. And I had written a poem about it. 

It was like this:

Second visit of the building of yellow crane

Loneliness is but emptiness as a feeling

It is more empty like thousand year clouds floating

Parrots are happily noisy while the bird was diminishing

A very bright river highlights the missing

Water flows for a return

Millions of birds, left or right and everywhere flying

Victories are knowing and searching

Celebration, oh my gloden crane, when you are back coming

Re:  Chinese version of the poems.

 黃鶴樓

昔人已乘黃鶴去

此地空餘黃鶴樓

黃鶴一去不復返

白雲千載空悠悠

晴川歷歷漢陽樹

芳草淒淒鸚鵡洲

日暮鄉關何處是

煙波江上使人愁

           崔顥

 再上黃鶴樓

寂寞原來就是虛空    

白雲千載更加虛空

鸚鵡饒舌鳥失長河

晴川歷歷渺渺跡蹤

滔滔江水去而復來

萬鳥凱旋右突左衝

知所以失問所以得

歸來黃鶴歡慶成功 

             李察

(空虛過去後，存在的就只有饒舌的鸚鵡。尚幸是一元復始，逝去的長江水必再來，滔滔不絕，永不間斷。讓我們同心歡慶吧。)

A note by the writer

Staying in China is a happy moment. Especially when I visited the Tower of the Yellow Crane. It seemed you are talking with the old friends, and they are so talkative, you feel lonely no more. Politics are not my interest, I never like to read the political news about HK, though friends are busy updating them for me. Literature and music are a beautiful time. I am never bored with the poems.