How To Understand Difficult Chinese Poems

You know, if you were going to teach like a college course on Dream of the Red Chamber and you expected to go through the whole book like they sometimes do with these great book series and stuff like that, if you were going to do this, a single semester would not be enough time. Heck, a full year would probably not be enough time. And today I'm going to show you one of the reasons why. So of course, as you know by now, Dream of the Red Chamber is a love story or it's kind of a love story, but actually when you really dig into this there's a lot of social and cultural and literary commentary going on. And more than anything else, this is a book that features a collection of some of the greatest poetry in the history of the Chinese language, something that can really be challenging if you're not a native speaker. So the thing that, you know, people like you and me are missing here is context. We're talking about an entirely different literary world than what you and I are used to. This is a world that's filled with its own traditions and with its own artistic culture. And that really is the thing that makes Dream of the Red Chamber so difficult to understand. And I'll show you. So the most famous translation of Hongluo Meng is this one, The Story of the Stone, translated in the 1970s and 80s by the famous British sinologist David Hawks. Now Hawks was known for his translations of Chinese poetry before he did this job. In fact, his mastery of Chinese poetry is how he eventually became well known as a professor at Oxford University. Since Hawks was such a master of old Chinese poetry, his poetic translations ought to be the highlight of Dream of the Red Chamber, right? Well, honestly, I mean, I don't know. Maybe these poems are a highlight of his translation and maybe they aren't. In fact, let's look at one of them together. Let me know if you think that this makes any sense. Okay, we're going to look at chapter 17 of the book, which is where we start seeing the really difficult poetry. This is where we first see the famous Grandview Garden, or the Daguanyuan, which winds up being really important later on in the book. Jia Baoyu's father, Jia Zheng, takes him and a group of scholars and others on a tour of the garden and asks them to compose poetry to enhance the scene. All right, I know what you're thinking. You don't have to tell me. You're worried this is going to be boring, right? You're worried that like this whole video is going to be filled with poems about like lilies and pansies and other girly flowers like that, right? Well, I've got some news for you, right? It's nothing like that. It's nothing like that at all. Actually, some of this poetic imagery is vivid and fiery and very unexpected. But does this show in the translations that people have put out of this book? Well, let's go take a look. About a fourth of the way through the chapter, Jia Zheng takes the group through a mountain opening to look at a pool of water surrounded by white stone railings with a This is actually quite good. I think the overall picture probably looks something like this, except that the focus was on the bridge and pavilion that here is on the left-hand side. But of course, the thing is that this passage is not here just to like describe stuff. No, it's actually a passage of poetic and literary commentary to an extent. It's also a passage that kind of points towards things that are going to happen in the future. And it's really not as easy to understand as you might think at first. While Jia Zheng asks the scholars around him to come up with a title, they come up with a few ideas that are stolen from the past. David Hawks translates the first one as Poised Pavilion. Jia Zheng then recommends something called Gushing Jade instead, quoting the old poet Ouyang Shou. Zhao Baoyu then speaks up after he is asked and replies that he thinks that Ouyang Shou reference isn't quite fitting. He calls the reference improper and too obvious, which naturally causes Jia Zheng to challenge him to do better. His response is to use a name called Drenched Blossoms, which is a name that apparently shocks everybody. And then he comes up with a poem that apparently shocks everybody again. Three pole thrust lengths of bankside willows green, one fragrant breath of bankside flowers sweet. Uh, yeah. So, uh, yeah. So what does that mean? Why is that shocking? What's going on here? And why is Jia Zheng okay with this poem? Why does this kind of like shock him? Well, it turns out that the famous translation in The Story of the Stone includes absolutely none of the information that you need to make heads or tails of this poem, or any of the other poems in this chapter, or any of the other poems in the entire book, to be honest with you. You see, the issue here is that there are tons and tons of literary illusions going on just in this small segment of this small chapter of this book, right? This is stuff that you're going to have a real hard time figuring out unless somebody like points it out to you and tells you what's going on. So let's start over. All right. So in my translation, I decided to split the segment up into two, mostly because the scene of them entering through the mountain pass itself is a strong literary illusion. This entry through a narrow mountain pass into an amazing world is an obvious reference to Record of the Peach Blossom Spring by Tao Yunming, which is one of the most famous stories in the history of Chinese literature. It's so famous that I actually knew this before doing this translation, believe it or not. Anyway, in that story, a fisherman explores a bit. He stumbles his way through a very narrow mountain passage, and he winds up in a world that has been preserved over time with incredible scenery and people who had lost contact with the rest of the country. So this is one of those cases where the specific details are not quite as important as the overall feeling of the story. And the thing is, you don't actually need to know that literary reference to understand this. If you've ever gone and done exploring in mountains or caves or whatever, I've done this with my family a couple of times, right? You know that feeling of like going through a real narrow passage and coming out to like something that widens up and seeing incredible stuff that you wouldn't have seen otherwise. That's what this whole thing is about. So that part is actually easy to understand, but it's the rest of this that will go over your head unless you know what's going on. All right, if you're reading the Chinese original, you'll know that the first reference is to a piece by a man named Ouyang Xiu, of course, because he's mentioned by name. In fact, the name of the thing he wrote is written right here. I've translated it as the account of the old drunkard's pavilion. Now, the key phrase is this one, a pavilion with outstretched wings, which prompts the scholars to want to call it outstretched wings. And yeah, I think this is a better translation than poised pavilion by David Hawks, since that doesn't make any sense to me. In fact, if you read this translation of the original Chinese essay on Wikipedia, notice this specific wording. It says it right here, a pavilion with outstretched wings. So what's wrong with that, right? Why wouldn't outstretched wings be a good name for this pavilion? Well, the problem here has to do with the setting of that story by Ouyang Xiu, which is something that you would never know unless you've read the story or unless somebody else reads it and tells it to you. Anyway, Jia Zheng recommends a different title, Pouring Out Jade, which is another concept taken straight from that Ouyang Xiu's story. In this translation, it refers to water streaming out between two peaks, though the word xie actually means to pour out. Of course, that means that Jia Zheng's phrase is pretty descriptive. The water is so green from the nearby trees that it looks like jade is being poured into it. So what in the world is wrong with that description? Why would Jiabao Yu not like it? Well, he tells us a little bit about it himself, but you really can only understand what he's saying if you not only know that Ouyang Xiu piece of literature, but if you also understand how common this sort of description really was. Jiabao Yu tells us his logic here, though it might seem kind of confusing. There are two problems that he sees. First, the spring that Ouyang Xiu saw was different than what he and Jia Zheng were looking at, and second, that character xie, to pour out, was too direct for an imperial visit. Now, if you look again at the Ouyang Xiu story, you'll realize the problem. The water was flowing out of the mountains. In contrast, what we're looking at in the scene in Dream of the Red Chamber is a pool of water with a small green stream. There's no mountains and nothing's being poured out. So in other words, Jiabao Yu is telling us that this is basically the wrong image. Of course, you can only, again, really understand this if you know what the original text says, which is going to be a problem for foreigners like you and me who have likely never read it, right? The book doesn't assume that, oh, some laowai who's from wherever, from Utah, is going to read this and, you know, doesn't know what's going on. No, I mean, I'm not part of the target audience, so when I go to read this, I have to do extra work to try to make sure I understand what's going on. Now, as far as that word pour out being too direct, Jiabao Yu is actually 100% right here, though even if you're a native speaker of Chinese, you might not fully understand this at first. The indirect approach that he comes up with as a response to this makes it abundantly clear that he's right. Jiabao Yu comes up with this two-character title, Qin Fang, or Soaking Up a Fragrant Smell. That David Hawk's name, Drenched Blossoms, not only doesn't make much sense, but it's not even the right sense. We're talking about smell, not about being wet. And Jiabao Yu's poem is really striking. In the first line, he talks about the trees next to the river, soaking up emerald from the river itself. This is kind of a backwards image, since the truth is that the river looks green because of all the trees. And then in the second line, the flowers push their fragrance along the river in a single flowing vein. The first line literally means Qin, or to sow up. It's all about the trees soaking up the emerald green from the river. And the second line means Fang, or fragrance, since it describes that fragrance of the flowers being blown over to the other side of the river, almost like they're attacking you. So do you see what I'm saying here? There's this certain brilliance to this poetic work, and there's this brilliance that you're not going to understand unless somebody slows you down and tells you to pay attention to what's happening. This is the problem with reading poetry. I run into this all the time, right? Because you're like, oh, I'm going to be Superman. I'm going to read through this really quickly. I'm going to get it, like, just like that because I'm a genius or whatever. Every time I've told myself that, I end up, like, missing the most obvious thing in the world. And I'm like, oh, the poem makes no sense. It must be bad. And then I just go on with my life, right? You don't want to do that. You don't want to go fast. You want to slow down. You want to appreciate it. So this idea here that these trees are soaking up the green, you know, the green of their bamboo, or I'm looking out my window right now. It's right behind the camera. I'm looking at these, you know, I guess they're fir trees or whatever that are very green. Like, the idea that a tree like that would be soaking up its color from the river is just absolutely amazing. It's just fascinating, right? Because as you and I know, like, the river looking green is probably because the opposite thing is happening, right? It may be the reflection of the trees on the water, or it might be like the reflecting pool that President Trump is so upset about, you know, algae and stuff like that. I mean, this idea that the trees are soaking up the emerald from the river reminds me of that old Charlie Brown joke about the snow growing up from the ground and then the wind, like, blowing it around to make it look like it's coming down, right? And the other image that we have here of the flowers spraying their fragrance across the river, that's an unexpected metaphor. I don't think I've ever read that one anywhere before. But there's more, of course, including some other stuff in this chapter that really hints at what's going to come in the future. Now, the thing is that Jia Zheng has a problem. He's frustrated with Zhao Baoyu's brilliance, and he wants to cut his son down to size. In fact, at least in my opinion, one of the reasons Zhao Baoyu is so fascinated with women is because his chief male role model in his life, you know, his dad, is a total jerk. And, of course, it's not like any of the other men in this book are paragons of virtue or intellect. Now, I should be careful before I'm too critical of them, right? It's not like, I'm not like father of the year, or the greatest man who ever lived, or the greatest husband of all time, or whatever, right? But let me just say that I do believe that you could go a long way with a psychological evaluation of this novel, and especially of Zhao Baoyu. In fact, you might want to look very closely at the relationship that he has with his father, and in terms of, like, how this impacts the sort of person he is, and the way that he acts. Honestly, Freud would have absolutely loved Dream of the Red Chamber. Anyway, there's this series of these poems here in this chapter. I'll give you a little bit more of a taste of a few more. For example, as they continue to walk along, they come to a small set of rooms surrounded by natural beauty, including a stunning grove of green bamboo trees. Zhao Baoyu recommends that they call this place the Phoenix Arrives in Ritual Splendor. That name only makes sense if you've done a little bit of research, and you realize that Zhao Baoyu is quoting from an ancient Chinese classic, where a mystical phoenix comes in and performs a ritual dance for the legendary King Shun. But Zhao Baoyu's poem here is nothing short of fantastic. There's a kettle with tea that is warm and steam coming out of it that is green. That green color is probably because of the brilliant color from the trees that come in from the window, right? This is really subtle. But there's nobody near that window. The chess game has been abandoned, and the fingers have gone cold. So the idea here behind this poem is that, like, the person, I suppose, is so amazed by the view outside of that window, maybe of the trees, that they've abandoned their tea, which is still warm, right? Because you have steam rising from it. And they also abandoned the chess game, and the fingers grew cold, right? Or maybe the idea is that the person has already departed, despite the fact that, you know, the tea was brewing. Maybe they were so amazed by the view that they just forgot about everything, and they went out. You have to go out and see it yourself, right? Or it's also possible that they've left, and we've forgotten about them, right? Because this fits the old Chinese idiom 人所悄然 very, very well, right? And that's an idiom that means that, like, when somebody's gone, departed, passed away, or whatever, we tend to forget about them, right? The idea, the warmth, and all this stuff that we had when they were there ends up becoming a fleeting memory that diminishes as time goes on. Really kind of a sad thing to think about. That's the worst part of this, of course, which is that this might all be a sign of somebody's coming death. In fact, this might be the potential death of a main character that we have come to know and love over the course of the novel. The problem, of course, is that getting to this level of understanding requires taking a lot of time to read through a lot of old poetry. There are a lot of literary allusions in this book, and they can be extremely difficult to keep track of. My recommendation is to use Google or Baidu as your friend if you're trying to read this yourself, since you're almost certainly not the only person who has had a question about what, like, this means, or what that means, or whatever. Or if you want to skip a few steps and get an answer in English, you could also just ask your favorite chatbot for assistance. And if you start thinking about what you're reading and do a little bit of research yourself, you can use this tool to springboard your way to a right answer and to some pretty deep insights. Anyway, that right there is my recommendation for dealing with the hard stuff, especially the real hard stuff that has a bunch of, like, literary allusions and references and other things that are really hard to figure out. For me, when I'm going through Dream of the Red Chamber, if I come across a passage and I'm, like, looking at it and my eyes are, like, wide, right, and I'm, like, I have no idea what's going on here, that's a sign that it's time to pull out Google, it's time to pull Baidu, it's time to start, like, searching for stuff, it's time to see what other people have said about it. And if all else fails, it's time to turn to, like, DeepSeek and say, hey, what's going on here? Don't be afraid to ask for help, right? There's a difference between, like, making AI slop, in other words, I don't know what to do for the script of this video, so I'm going to feed it over to, like, Claude or whatever and do whatever it says, right? There's a difference between that and being, like, I'm trying to do research and understand what this means, and it would take me, like, hours upon hours to read this stuff in Chinese, so I'll take a little shortcut and see if AI can't give me stuff. You still have to worry about hallucination, right, which is something that's a real pain in the neck and it happens all the time, but, you know, sometimes you can catch that if your language is good enough and you can tell that it's just lying to you. The thing is, The Dream of the Red Chamber really is a difficult book to read. It's a hard book to read if your native language is Chinese. This would have been a hard book to read in the late 18th century when it was first published, but it's not difficult because the characters are unusual or hard or something like that. No, it's hard to read because there's a lot of deep meaning going on here, and it's really difficult to understand it without that literary context, right? But the cool thing is that we can learn what that context is, and once we do, we'll understand this book better than David Hawkes ever did.