Du Fu is in Hong Kong

Du Fu is like Jiang Zhaohe

Foreigners also come to visit the "Tofu" Caotang

Du Fu, who is known as "poetic history" and "poetic saint", has been to many places in his life, one of which is Chengdu, where there are grass halls. Du Fu lived in the Caotang for four or five years, this Du Gongbu house, thousands of years have been repaired and expanded many times; now the Caotang is grand in scale, for the national 4A level tourist attraction, is our shrine to the great poets, I have visited many times. In the crowd, the "hall" of Yanhuang descendants from all over the country needless to say; every time there are foreign tourists with "red beards and green eyes", holding heavy tour guide books, to greet "Du Fu" and identify the pavilion gardens of the scenic spot. Once, a foreigner talked to me and pronounced the word Du Fu as a sound like "tofu", which made me wan'er. Western academics have always been interested in China's "poetic saints", although their concentration is far less than That of China's "national treasure" Shakespeare to Britain. This spring, the BBC launched the documentary "Du Fu: The Greatest Chinese Poet", which was well received, and the choreographer told the life of the poet, the camera naturally focused on Chengdu, and also took the audience to other places where Du Fu had been, such as Xi'an, Gongyi, Qufu, Chengdu, Luoyang, Tianshui, Kuizhou, Changsha, Pingjiang, etc.

Du Fu was intelligent since childhood, "seven years old thinking is strong, opening his mouth to sing the phoenix", Gongyi is his birthplace; "to Jun Yao Shun, and then make the customs pure", the scholar longs to enter the shi, the capital Chang'an (present-day Xi'an) is his ideal place; in Luoyang and Li Bai's "double star" met, passed on as a beautiful talk; Caotang for the middle-aged poet who avoided chaos, like Taoyuan, Chengdu became his capital of peace and happiness; "old and sick have a lonely boat", and the Pingjiang River where this boat moored is the terminal station of his life. "Poetry is my family affair", Du Fu writes poetry all the time and everywhere (almost like people who like to send dynamics to the WeChat circle of friends today, there are pictures and texts every day); tracing the land where Du Fu set foot is a historical and cultural journey about poetry, the land is poetry, and poetry is the ground. In the above other places, there are "historical sites" left by Du Fu, both real and virtual, which are favored and often regarded as treasures for the development of tourism resources. Recently, the information of "Following Du Fu to Travel to Tianshui" appeared on the Internet, and Tianshui (ancient Qinzhou) immediately aroused the interest of the gentlemen to "punch in".

Li Baishi gave Du Fu only "wine" and "drunkenness"

It is said that Hangzhou is also the place where Du Fu lived. In the late spring of this year, I met friends in Hangzhou, and the place of dinner was in "Du Fu Village", and there was a subway "Du Fu Station" in the village, and the literature said that Du Fu lived here for about ten days. Hangzhou is a famous historical and cultural city, and Du Fu has been here. In the midst of the conversation, I boldly said: Hong Kong also has a history and culture, and Du Fu has also come to Hong Kong and grew up in Hong Kong - which means that Du Fu's poetic art and benevolent ideas have long come to Hong Kong and exist in Hong Kong.

Even during the British colonial period, most of hong Kong's young students knew more about the caotang poet Du Fu than they did about Shakespeare by the Avon River. The Chinese departments of universities in Hong Kong have taught and studied Du Fu's poems, and the related works are quite impressive. Brother Kwong Jianxing, an old colleague of the elderly scholars, studied in Greece for eight years and received a doctorate, and his cultivation of classical Chinese literature is exquisite. It is reasonable for him to discuss why the number of poems donated by Li Bai and Du Fu is so great. Among the works that have been handed down, Du Fuhuai gave Li Bai fourteen or five poems, and Li Baihuai gave Du Fu only two poems. After reading Professor Kwong's book, I revisited the relevant poems and found that Du Zimei praised Li Taibai's poems, including "Bai Ye poetry is invincible, floating and thinking is not crowded", "the pen falls into the wind and rain, the poem becomes a weeping ghost god"; Taibai misses Zimei, and also sees the deep affection of "Sijun Ruowen Water, Vast Southern Expedition", but the keywords of Taibai's two poems are "wine" and "drunkenness", and "poetry" is not with Yan.

Why Li Bai did not talk about Du Fu's poems, Professor Kwong has explained. Li Bai was eleven years older than Du Fu, and Du Fu met Li Bai in Luoyang when he was thirty-three years old, when Li Bai's poetry was all over the world, and Du Fu had no name in the political and poetic circles. Two years later, Du Fu went to Chang'an, although Chang'an was not easy and not smooth, he lived for ten years, in the international metropolis with convenient information, Li Bai's new works were easy to circulate to Beijing, so that Du Fu could appreciate it; in turn, Li Bai was frustrated by the imperial court, and after leaving Chang'an, he wandered here and there, and the location was not easy to circulate to Li Bai. Professor Kwong also pointed out that Meng Haoran, who is twelve years older than Li Bai, has a very prominent poetry name, and Wang Wei, Li Bai, and others have poems to give meng Haoran, but their "poems have not commented on Meng Haoran's works." In this way, writing poetry friends without talking about their poems may be the custom of the time. I might add that Du Fu not only loved poetry, but also loved music, painting, dance, and other arts, and was also a good person; it is not surprising that he gave Li Bai's poems and praised the works of "poet brothers" with "creativity".

Professor Kwong's book "Du Fu's Treatise on the Draft" has many insights, such as the discussion that Du Fu could "stand among the first-rate poets of the Tang Dynasty" by relying only on the chapters written before the Anshi Rebellion, etc.

"Four Du" said: Wen Du, Mu Du, Zhi Du, You Du

Quite a few scholars in Hong Kong have paid attention to "improving" their studies, and have not forgotten to "popularize" them. Dr. Chan Yiu-nam, a former professor at the Department of Chinese at the University of Hong Kong, in addition to many academic monographs, his book "Chen Yaonan Reading Du Poems" often extends and publishes arguments when he expounds his works, and his writing is as vivid and funny as his eloquence; this book has its own value of academic treatises, and its contribution is mainly in "popularization". "Li Du's article is here, and the flame is long", Professor Chen of course also admired Du Fu, believing that everyone should read Du Fu. He said: "For the poetry saints, it is best to be: young Wen Du, young Mu Du, prime-aged Zhi Du, and old age Friend Du. He then explained how to smell, admire, rule, and friends, and said that when we read Du's poems, they "should be read, readable, and readable, because artistically, it shows the most attractive characteristics and techniques of Chinese and Chinese; emotionally and ideologically, it reveals the brilliance of human nature and the weakness of human beings."

Professor Chen recounted Du Fu's deep affection for his friends, to all sentient beings, to the fortunes of the country, and to the lives of the people, and also to explain Du Fu's good language. In the Song Dynasty, Wang Anshi talked about the language of Du Fu and Bai Juyi, and Professor Chen quoted them and elegantly interjected: "Just as Wang Anshi's famous saying 'the world's common language has been exhausted by lotto' (unfortunately, he has not read the Hong Kong gossip magazine), and 'the world's good words have been exhausted by the old Du Dao'. Contemporary Chinese academia, with many Westernizers, often like to study how writers and works are "accepted" (there is a so-called reception theory). We know that before "acceptance", there must be "dissemination". Professor Chen did not have much of a spread of Du Shi a thousand years ago, he wrote: Du Fu "wandered into the rivers and lakes, floating family pan house in a broken boat, and it is not as good as today's boat owners can pull rab strips to demonstrate; even tofu can not continue three meals, I really do not know how he wrote so many poems, how to preserve, how to distribute"! Chen Wen is "grounded", the "boat household" mentioned here refers to the "water people's home" in Hong Kong, and "tofu" is in harmony with Du Fu, as mentioned above.

Old and sick and poor Zimei: hospice care

Many Readers of Tang poetry probably can't answer the questions of "preservation" and "distribution." I can't, and I believe that another poet who revered Du Fu, Yu Guangzhong, couldn't either. However, Du Fu cherished his works, and Yu shi was convinced of this. Yu Guangzhong transferred from Taiwan to Hong Kong in 1974 as a professor at the University of Chinese, where he taught English literature and Chinese literature in Hong Kong. He has deep roots in classical Chinese literature, and has published many articles on Tang poetry during the Taiwan period, including long essays on Li He. As a professor in the Department of Chinese, he was more exposed to ancient poetry, and often sang about the ancient literati in his creation; "Xiang Death" written in 1979 was subtitled "Du Fu's Monologue in the Boat Before Death", and there were more than a thousand words of "Appendix" to examine and judge Du Fu's death.

Yu Guangzhong wrote according to Du Shi and "no word and no origin": In his later years, Du Fu "went out of the gorge for two years and was a wandering tour", and his mind was "the cry of Qin", "the soldiers who poured out the flood and the waves did not extinguish everywhere", "falling ill" was "panicking" and "nightmare"; there were also and more in his mind were Qu Yuan, Jia Yi, Li Bai, Gao Shi, Cen Shan, and Yan Wu in ancient and modern times, "the old song of Li Guinian", "Li Niangjian dance", "Gongsun's dancing sleeve", and the general Cao Ba, who "came out of the divine horse on the nanxun temple"—Du Fu's head was filled with poets and painters he admired. Musician, dancer. Feng Zhi's "Fourteen Elements" has a poem "Du Fu", and the image of Du Fu in this poem is not clear and prominent. Different in the afterglow, the protagonist's life deeds can be seen everywhere in "Xiang Death", Du Fu is sick, but the image is alive. Yu once jokingly called Du Zimei's foreign name "Jimmy" (perhaps Hong Kong's college and middle school students also joked about Du Fu), but "Xiang Death" is deeply emotional.

Comparing Feng and Yu's writings to Du Fu, there is still something to say. Feng Zhi wrote "Du Fu in His Later Years" in 1962, which describes Du Fu's interactions with farmers and fishermen in Tanzhou (present-day Changsha). Du Fu sympathized with the sufferings of the people and asked for their lives; they helped each other, Du Fu bought medicine, and the fisherman sold fish. Du Fu met the poet's confidant here, and Feng Zhi only briefly described it. The narrative focus of Yu's "Xiang Death" is very different from that of Feng Wen. Before going to Tanzhou, Du Fu had the sigh of "a hundred years of song suffering, not seeing a confidant", the old poet of the "Xiang Death" book of the old poet's concern for poetry and its transmission, the last five lines of these eighty lines of long poems are "Han Shui has no part, I am afraid that it is difficult to see the Yellow River in this life / Only verses, through the hooves of Huma / Ride the wind, ride the waves, ride the backpack of the returnees / One day, will arrive under the rain and clouds in the northwest / Chang'an of the young man in the dream". "Poetry is my family affair", it can also be said that "poetry is a Yu family affair", both ancient and modern poets are extremely concerned about the inheritance of "self-cherishing" works. At the time of writing Xiang Death, Yu Guangzhong had already become famous in Taiwan, Hong Kong and overseas Chinese literary circles, and would his poems spread to the mainland (mainland)? Du Fu's wish in "Xiang Death" is also the wish in the afterglow of reality - later with the poem "Nostalgia", the wish became a fact.

"Radiant" illuminates the Xiangjiang River

The above example is a glimpse of how Du Fu was "accepted" in Hong Kong. In Hong Kong, although the way and center of gravity of "acceptance" are inevitably different from those of the mainland because of the society of the times and the subjective attitude of the recipients, the compatriots of the same kind who are "radiant" and have the same language also respect and praise the "history of poetry" and "the saint of poetry". Du Fu's spirit and poetry have always been in Hong Kong, and they have always been across Taiwan, which is separated by "a shallow strait". How the poets and scholars of Treasure Island respect the "saint" and study the "history" is another topic.

Postscript: After writing this article, I found that this year is the 1250th anniversary of Du Fu's (712-770) death, and this article is just a commemoration.

Source Beijing Evening News | author Huang Weiliang

Editor: Zeng Jiajia

Process Editor Wu Yue