Recently, Du Mu's "Mountain Walk" caused an uproar because of the sentence "stop and sit in love with the maple forest evening", and some parents even flaunted the poem as "too dirty" and demanded that it be removed from the textbook. Could it be that a few words of ancient poetry really have such great "destructive power"?
Du Mu, a poet of the Tang Dynasty, was known for his sharp rhetoric and deep emotions. The line in his poem "Mountain Walk", "Stop and sit in love with the maple forest at night", has always been regarded as a model for depicting the beauty of autumn. I never thought that in our seemingly open 21st century, some people would have such a big misunderstanding of this ancient poem.
The story goes like this, after some parents read this poem in their children's Chinese textbooks, they think of modern words such as "parking" and "sex", and mistakenly think that this poem is suspected of bad guidance. This interpretation is a peculiar display of imagination – after all, it takes a lot of "creativity" to associate a poem describing natural beauty with vulgar content.
This can't help but remind people of Mr. Lu Xun's irony: "When I see short sleeves, I immediately think of white arms, immediately think of nakedness, immediately think of genitals, immediately think of sexual intercourse, immediately think of hybridization, and immediately think of illegitimate children." Today, when some people see "stop and sit and love Fenglin Evening", it seems to be such a psychological jump.
Du Mu's poem actually depicts the poet being attracted by a fiery red maple forest when he was traveling in autumn, and involuntarily stopped his carriage and horses and immersed himself in this beautiful scenery. His originally tired journey was temporarily relaxed and enjoyed by this maple forest. "Parking" here refers to stopping the carriage, while "sitting and loving" describes the poet's obsession and love for this maple forest.
Interpreting such a fresh and refined picture as "dirty" makes people sigh that there is something wrong with our aesthetics, or is there something distorted in our minds by modern society? In today's highly developed network and information, although people are exposed to a lot of information, their understanding of traditional culture is becoming more and more superficial.
There are also voices that such misunderstandings also reflect the lack of modern education in inheriting traditional culture. How should we correctly guide children and the public to understand and appreciate the true connotation of traditional culture, instead of being confused by some inconsequential ambiguity?
The protests and misinterpretations of these parents have also sparked a discussion about how to preserve and pass on the classic culture. It was suggested that such verses should be removed from textbooks to avoid misleading, while others argued that it was a misunderstanding of traditional culture and that education and interpretation of traditional culture should be strengthened rather than simply deleted.
On the web, the controversy quickly heated up. On the one hand, there is support for parents' concerns that the healthy development of children should be the priority in modern society, and on the other hand, there are more voices calling for the public to re-examine and appreciate these traditional cultural heritages. After all, these poems are treasures of Chinese culture, and each line of poetry contains profound cultural heritage and historical value.
We often say that "poetry is a drop of water that precipitates history", and every ancient poem is a witness to history. Through these poems, we can not only perceive the emotional world of the ancients, but also reflect on today's social environment and cultural attitudes. Today's controversy may be a manifestation of a lack of self-confidence in our culture.
In reality, poetry education is still an important part of language education. By learning these poems, children not only learn language and writing, but more importantly, understand and perceive life through poetry. Isn't the purpose of education to cultivate children's aesthetic ability and sense of cultural identity?
In this context, how we should balance tradition and modernity, education and misunderstanding, has become a question worthy of deep consideration by every educator, parent and even the whole society. We need more wisdom and patience to interpret these seemingly simple but profound traditional poems, so that they can bloom with different brilliance in the context of the new era.
Du Mu's "Parking and Sitting in Love with Maple Forest Evening" should not only be regarded as a "dirty" poem, but also as a manifestation of the profound heritage of Chinese culture. In this era of change, it is more important for us to cherish and pass on these cultural treasures, rather than discarding them because of a momentary misunderstanding. The light of tradition should not be overshadowed by the dust of the times, what we need is a pair of eyes to discover beauty, and a heart that reveres and loves tradition.