Can Li Bai, China’s greatest poet, be translated into frat-boy-ese? Lee tried. It is not as crazy as it sounds. Li Bai is an alcoholic poet. Though he has long been translated into a highfalutin English that sounds like a stuffy Shakespere. But Li Bai is just talking about getting drunk. Does Lee’s translation work? […]
In this episode, Part Two of our two part series on Chen Qiufan’s first novel, Rob and Lee try to pivot away from the narrower discussions of what happens in the novel and more on a broader discussion of its place in Chinese Science Fiction. Whether or not they succeed in doing that…well, we’ll let […]
This is part one in a two part series on the novel called Wast Tide. This is Chen Qiufan’s first novel, its a science-fiction novel that touches on environmentalism and transhumanism. Join Rob and Lee as they struggle with this novel .
How many cats have been immortalized in poetry that we are still reading a millenium later? At least one, Mr. Five White. Here, we stand with Mei Yaochen as he gives Mr. Five White the appropriate send off after his death. My Translation Offering a Sacrifice to My Cat Since I got my cat, Mr. […]
This week, we will really be the last poem in our short series on wierd poems. Today’s weird poem is one written by an editor at the Xinhua News Agency, China’s state-sponsored answer to Reuters or Bloomberg. Chairman Xi visited Xinhua and told them that the news needed to support the Party. During the visit, […]
This week’s weird poem is weird in an unexpectedly weird way. Upon first glance, it is an anodyne poem published in the overseas edition of the People’s Daily, the official rag of the CCP. Until you see the political message hidden in the poem that caused a small controversy in the 1990’s. This was supposed […]
One San Francisco poet, writing in the early 20th century, wrote something that no other poet ever said in the history of Chinese literature (probably): having money is more important than having sons! This is a huge statement that runs against much of traditional Chinese thinking. But, this anonymous poet, though writing in a mixture […]
This week and next week, in honor of Asian American History month, we are interrupting our weird poetry series to shoehorn in two poems by Chinese-speaking poets. This week, we look at a poem by an unnamed poet who was jailed by immigration officers in San Francisco on Angel Island and writes of his mistreatment. […]
The beginning of our weird poetry series, today we look at a crazy poem written by a Qing official to celebrate Empress Dowager Cixi’s 60th Birthday. What makes it strange: it is written in English, in the Scottish dialect, and it celebrates a leader of the Boxer Rebels who attacked foreigners and those Chinese people […]
Last week, we did Zhang Jie’s Song Dynasty poem, the “Water Dragon Chant.” This week, we look Su Dongpo’s response to that poem, his own poem with the exact same title, “Water Dragon Chant.” We explore why Su Dongpo’s poem is so much better. Here is Lee’s translation: It seems like the poplar flower is […]