China is a country of poetry
Thousands of poets in the Tang Dynasty left more than 20,000 poems
“Travel with Tang Dynasty Poetry”
4 episodes of this season
A poet of the Tang Dynasty
A journey of his
A guest stays in his company on the journey
The first episode is about Du Fu
Focusing on the most difficult time of his life
It’s also the time when he was most productive
Our guest is Xi Chuan
One thousand years, two poets
Du Fu fled to Qinzhou after the An Lushan rebellion
Which is today’s Tianshui city in Gansu
He set off from Tianshui through the mountains of Longnan
Arrived in Chengdu, Suchuan
The year Du Fu arrived in Chengdu
He built a thatched cottage on the bank of Huanhua River
He wrote down a lot of famous verses about the cottage
Where can I get a big broad shelter a thousand, ten thousand spans wide,huge roof
That all the world’s poor people can share with smiling faces?
His mind was different
He started from own little hut
Worrying about the suffering and safety of the entire human being
Chengdu people don't go on a pilgrimage to Du Fu Thatched Cottage
For them it’s more like visiting a neighbor’s house
A lot of kids
Are very familiar with Du Fu’s poems
“I was just too tired to explain”
It was called Kuizhou in ancient times
Now it’s Fengjie
Du Fu was in his 50s
During his two years there
He wrote 300 to 400 poems
Such as “Qiu Xing Ba Shou” and “Deng Gao”
They were all written during his time in Kuizhou
Xi Chuan climbed on to the Three Gorges
Then it rained heavily
Soon it stopped
Then you see the splendid view of the Three Gorges
In the film
The sky cleared
It must be the spirit of Du Fu
“At the source of Qujiang and Qutang Gorge”
That’s definitely Du Fu’s spirit
The BBC documentary
Is about the life of Du Fu
Michael Wood is a host that I like particularly
But they are looking from the outside
We apparently know more about Du Fu than they do
We can approach and understand Du Fu on a deeper level
Du Fu had an official position though not an important one
While Meng Haoran
Took the imperial examination for the last time after he turned forty
And he was very unfortunate to fail
But he was very famous
Li Bai
Big fan of Meng Haoran
Head back, Tabai
Haoran brother, farewell
“Song Meng Hao Ran Zhi Guang Ling”
At Yellow Crane Tower in the west My old friend says farewell
In the mist and flowers of spring He goes down to Yangzhou
It is March
When we went to Yangzhou for an interview
Full of tourists
A poem from the Tang Dynasty
Affects our economic life today in such a way
Meng Haoran had been to more places
比我们想象中的要多 Than we would imagine today
He went to Sichuan
And Wuyue
The main vehicle in the Jiangnan area is ship
The guest of this episode is calligrapher Lu Dadong
On Meng Haoran’s journey to visit his friends
We followed his steps by bicycle
Traveled in a slow pace
Over 400 kilometers
We traveled in the same way
As Meng Haoran described in his poem “Su Jian De Jiang”
My boat is moored near an isle in mist gray
I’m grieved anew to see the parting day
On boundless plain trees grow
On clear lake the moon is close
Among poets of the Tang Dynasty
Wang Wei, in my perception
He lives an ideal life
In traditional Chinese culture\
He was an officer
And meanwhile he was a hermit
He enjoyed success at a young age
Magnificent doors of the palace open one by one
Officers from all over the country come to worship the king
He works in Chang’an
At the core of the government
Chang’an was the biggest city in the world between the 7th and the 9th century
It was six times larger than the second big city Bagdad
In Chang’an
Parting and reunion is just another Wednesday
Please have another glass of wine
It will be hard to find a friend out of the Yangguan
In the tradition of Chinese farewell poems
It expresses friendship
As well as the best wishes to friends
To make greater achievements
Wang Wei retreated to Lantian in his last years
Which is Wangchuan today
He wrote 20 poems in “Wang Chuan Ji”
20 scenic spots were mentioned
Zhang Xiaodong, from the county of Lantian
He located the 20 scenic spots
According to the poems
Then Li Bo and Zhang Xiaodong
Went to “Luchai” in the poem
Only when they got there
They could see how Wang Wei composed the poem
What is meant by “In gloomy forest peeps no light”
At noon
It’s shaded by the mountain on the south
And in afternoon
Lights shine on the forest
Through the valley
The stormy night made so much noise, How many flowers fell, who knows?
They sing and read
We will see their faces as they read
The ups and downs in tone
There is communication between our guests
And the ancient poets
Chinese’s love of poems of the Tang Dynasty has never faded
We must find our root
Where we come from
There was a tradition of brilliant culture
What inspiration can be drawn from it
We behind the scene
All we can do is presenting a good show
Good enough to connect emotionally with today’s people