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Yu, Qiuyu, 1946-

dramatist
 

West Lake: A Dream

The West Lake, in east China’s Hangzhou city, is famous for its natural landscape and cultural relics. But that is just part of the lake’s charm, as renowned Chinese scholar and writer Yu Qiuyu will reveal to us through his prose.
 
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Yu Qiuyu was born in 1946 in East China’s Zhejiang Province. He attended the Shanghai Drama Institute to study drama literature in 1963, and later taught there in 1970. In 1990 he was appointed director of the Institute, and was selected as one of the "ten most talented persons in Shanghai's higher learning" in 1992. After resigning from the post of director, Yu specialized in academic research and creative writing. Before he achieved fame nationwide as a prose writer, he had distinguished himself as a drama critic. But it was his collections of prose writings such as A Bitter Cultural Trek and Notes in a Mountain Villa that really made his name not only on the mainland, but also in Taiwan and other Chinese communities around the world.
 

On the surface, Yu Qiuyu’s prose is just a simple depiction of natural scenery, but actually, it pores over the culture that is an inseparable part of West Lake’s history. We’ll have a taster of his style in the following piece, entitled West Lake—A Dream. Here’s LSW to read it for us:
 

I came to know West Lake first through a cheap folding fan one of my elders had brought into the village from a trip to Hangzhou. The fan had a tourist map of the lake on it. The title that ran across the top of the map read, "Paradise Under Heaven." Since country children at that time had little access to pictures, I studied it every day and finally I learned everything on it by heart. Later, when I grew up and visited the lake, I found myself in a place I already knew. Each step I took as if in a trite dreamland.
 

A Japanese envoy wrote a poem after his visit to the lake during the Ming Dynasty :
 
 

I saw the lake in painting years ago
 

And doubted that such a lake could exist.
 

Today on the lake itself I have come to know
 

In an artist's hand its charm is largely missed.
 
 

This poem suggests that for many tourists even the first visit to the lake is like remembering an old dream. It has become a common image of Chinese culture. Whoever has known Chinese culture for any length of time will have this lake in his mind.
 

Among the historical sites at West Lake, Bai's Dike and Su's Dike are the pride of Chinese intellectuals. Not for literary reasons, not even for cultural purposes, but for the alleviation of people's hardships, these two great poets and literary giants launched water utilization constructions, had the lake dredged and the dikes built, leaving behind them two long lasting dikes full of life.
 

A later poet sings of Su's Dike: "When Master Su had the dike built, he aimed to help the people, not to add a sight." The very artists who knew what to see on a sightseeing tour were reluctant to carve out delicate sights from their cultural images. That's why the two dikes became the least affected existence on West Lake. I don't know other people's opinions, but as far as I am concerned, the most pleasant thing on West Lake is to stroll by myself along Su's Dike on a drizzling day. I am not compelled to cite any famous verse; I am not forced to have any reflections about bygone days; I feel no pressure from a solemn statue on my relaxed mood. The dike remains a dike in its proper natural function. Trees grow peacefully; birds sing spontaneously. All these are not the deliberate arrangement of scholar Su. He simply held the tenure of prefect here and fulfilled a good deed that conformed to his duty. This shows us Scholar Su was a man who attained the utmost achievement in the realm of beauty.
 

But compared to the overall conceptions of Bai Juyi and Su Dongpo, the two dikes are but insignificant material accomplishments. Both had a rather complete comprehension of the world and the universe, and rather solid awareness of reality and rational thinking. In terms of cultural quality, they were the most eminent representatives and backbones of China in their time. They could have led the national spirit in a much broader sense. Yet because of their literary writings they were chosen to be parts of a rigid mechanism, to be pulled down and put up at others' will. Accidentally they were installed to the prefect post on the boarder of the lake. There they conducted water projects, which other people also could have done.
 

As a contrast to this gloominess, a sprightly personality sportfully joins in the fun on West Lake.
 

The first of all was Su Xiaoxiao, a famous prostitute.
 

Whether you like it or not, this prostitute is senior to the above-mentioned celebrities. Even Bai Juyi of an earlier age took himself to be an admirer of Su Xiaoxiao:
 
 

"If you turn to Su Xiaoxiao for genuine love; / She lives in depths of verdant willow groves;" "Su's girl has been renowned for years; / Who in gentle breezes the world endears."
 
 

From these lines we can see that the poet Yuan Zicai's seal, "Su Xiaoxiao's country fellow at Qiantang" is justifiable.
 

Needless to say, of the literati who visited Su Xiaoxiao's site and wrote about her, not a few were frivolous men. There were, however, erudite men with a profound inner world. There must be some deep-seated reason for the admiration a prostitute has enjoyed for so long a time in a country such as ours.
 

The image of Su Xiaoxiao itself is a dream. She attached great importance to feelings, as is shown in her own poem "Song of Constant Love":
 
 

I ride in a lacquer-walled cart;
 

You sit on a piebald horse.
 

Where shall we swear eternal love?
 

Under the pines on the western hill.
 
 

The song in plain language demonstrates the immense joy young lovers experience in a tryst. The lovely cart and lovely horse, dashing ahead, present an overwhelmingly expressive picture of a date. A legend has it that during a chance encounter with a poverty-stricken scholar in a beautiful place, Su donated a hundred liang of silver to aid his journey to the capital for the imperial exams. But the scholar never returned to her. The world did not give her a due reward in feeling. Nevertheless she did not take her own life in resentment. Instead, she bravely and obstinately pursued beauty. She refused to be an entertainer or a concubine and thus fulfill a woman's lowly commission. She displayed her beauty to the streets and scorned the gorgeous, lofty mansions. She did not adhere to chastity, but to beauty, putting the man's world at her whims. Finally, as disease seized her life, she remained calm, feeling that death at the prime of her youth would leave her most perfect image to the world. She even thought that death's coming at her age of nineteen was her best deliverance from misery, and she had much to thank Heaven for.
 

So it's no wonder Cao Juren ascribes her to an aesthete of the type of the heroine in Dame aux Camelia. In my opinion she lived a life far freer than the lady Camelia. In comparison, other famous prostitutes in China's history of literary values all pushed themselves too hard. For the sake of an ungrateful lover, or an imperial court, they rambled in their pursuit of seriousness. Only Su Xiaoxiao remained detached in a philosophical way. Thus she became a sacred symbol in the hearts of Chinese men of letters.
 

From love to beauty, life was her theme. Su Dongpo converted beauty to poetry, prose and a lengthy dike; Lin Hejing found the expression of beauty in plum blossoms and white cranes; Su Xiaoxiao, however, consistently attached beauty to the existence of life itself. She did not bother to transform it into anything material, but she emitted the consciousness of life through her own presence.
 

A prostitute's life is, of course, not praiseworthy. Su Xiaoxiao, however, poses a peculiar confrontation to the orthodox personality. However morally straight a Confucian scholar may be, however flawless his character in the public's eye, he often suppresses the natural course of his own or others' lives. The ethic principles are in so solid and fortified structures, that the torrent of life consciousness has to become unfeeling and rampant, passing through a course squeezed by towering mountains. Here again we see the paradox concerning the moral and immoral, the human and inhuman, beauty and non-beauty. The turgid flow of social life holds some general concept of rationality, but in reality this rationality is realized only in a way that is so unusual that ordinary people can hardly stand it. On the contrary, the brilliance of social history is achieved at the expense of many important aspects of human beings. The ideal state attained through one-sided perfection is more likely a dream, wherein lies the greatest tragedy from which the human race can hardly get free.
 

Updated at 2002/11/01 15:56