A Conversation with Hyun Woo Kim
Hyun Woo, I remember coming across your Substack and wondering how on earth this person knows Chinese so well, and ancient classical Chinese at that. Can you tell me about how you came to learn Chinese and be interested in Chinese poetry?
Hi, Clare! To answer your question, I believe we should first clarify what the term “Chinese” refers to. When people say “Chinese”, what they often have in their mind is Standard Chinese or Putonghua 普通話. However, you would have to say my Standard Chinese is limited. For instance, a few days ago, I received a voice message on WeChat. It was a very simple sentence: “我和我的弟弟出去散步”. I, and my little brother, are going for a walk. However, I had to ask: “You and your brother are going where?” This is basically how well I know “Chinese”.
The “Chinese” I know would be called Classical Chinese, or Hanwen 漢文. Speakers of Standard Chinese may find the term Wenyan 文言 more familiar. For those who do not know what Classical Chinese is, you could say that if the modern Standard Chinese were Italian, Classical Chinese would be Latin. Of course, Latin and Italian are very much alike, but learning Latin does not mean that one will be able to speak Italian and vice versa. I can still understand much of modern Standard Chinese sentences when they are written out, though.
To elaborate, I do not even read Classical Chinese, phonetically, as a Mandarin speaker would. For instance, a Mandarin speaker would read “春來不似春” as “chūn lái bù sì chūn”. That is “chun lae bul sa chun” for me, without the intonations. This is how Koreans read Hanja 漢字. Now you can better understand how I can “read” even some modern Chinese texts but cannot “speak” modern Chinese.
So, how did I come to learn Classical Chinese? In elementary school, I was required to learn Hanja, which basically means I had to memorize Chinese characters. Many Korean words come from Chinese roots, so it helps if you know them. Then I took Hanmun 漢文 (that is, how Koreans would pronounce Hanwen) classes. The difference was that this time, I was not just memorizing the characters but also learning how to decipher sentences written with Hanja. At the same time, there was a volume of the Confucian classic Four Books and Three Classics 四書三經 at my home, which included the original Chinese texts and their Korean translation. (I believe the Chinese often say Four Books and Five Classics 四書五經, but Spring and Autumn Annals 春秋 and Book of Rites 禮記 are often omitted in Korea, which makes it Three Classics.) Then I found out that even with so little I learned at school, I could match each part in the original texts and their translations. The very fact that I could read texts in Classical Chinese made me feel excited in a sense, and so I kept on reading.
I still remember the first Classical Chinese poem that I read. It was Jia Dao’s 賈島 Looked for the Hermit, Did not Meet 尋隱者不遇. Had I not liked the imagery of this poem, I would have never been interested in Classical Chinese poetry.
Though he is in this mountain
As the clouds are deep, cannot know the place
只在此山中
雲深不知處
For me, it is the inverse— I learn Korean, and it is thanks to Hanja or Hanmun that learning Korean is a lot easier for me as a Chinese. I’m also intrigued that you would have a copy of the Confucian classics at home. I wonder how much of the same classics are read by both Koreans and Chinese in school and how much of a shared cultural background we have.
In regards to the Tang poets in Three Hundred Tang Poems, do you relate to the different poets in different ways? For example, which poet is best suited for what frame of mind, as an introduction for those who are new to the Tang poets.
I believe much of the influence of traditional Chinese culture in Korean society is already gone, or disappearing rapidly. I do not believe that it is specifically about Chinese culture, though. For instance, most contemporary Koreans, especially those who are younger, do not read Mencius anymore, but it does not mean that they have begun to read Aristotle instead. I consider myself lucky that the copy happened to be at my home, even though I have never seen anyone else read it but me. Still, there must be some shared aspects between Koreans and Chinese in their mentalities, though not always visible.
If we are mostly thinking of those who are new to the Tang poets, Bai Juyi 白居易 is always a good starting point. Though very different in themes and styles, I sometimes think of Anna Akhmatova when I read Bai Juyi. His language on everyday life is clear and simple, and his works often do not require prior knowledge to appreciate. However, even if your main goal is not to get a taste of Tang poetry, Bai Juyi is still a great poet to visit, especially when you are distressed. There is such a crystal-clear pathos within him that everything becomes so simple after reading his work. For instance, in The Night Zither 夜琴, it ends with
I play by myself, to come back to quitting myself
自弄還自罷
Again, there is no need for other men to hear it
亦不要人聽
To quote a phrase from the same poem, this is where his “淡無味” is. Though inadequate, this could be translated into ‘pale tastelessness’.
If you are a fan of grotesque and sensual images full of erotic/thanatotic tension, your choice will be Li He 李賀. For me, discovering Li He was mind blowing. When we think of Tang poetry, we usually think of images like a hermit living a quiet life in a mountain, a peaceful farming town, sometimes fervent patriotism and social concerns, and so on. In contrast, Li He writes about seduction, ghosts, and blood. His imagery often reminds me of Gogol, and his poems sometimes sound like those of Baudelaire. One of his most famous works is called “The Song of the Big Embankment 大堤曲”. In this poem, the “Big Embankment” refers to a red light district in Xinangyang.
You eat the carp’s tail
郎食裡魚尾
I shall eat the orangutan’s lips
妾食猩猩脣
Don’t you point at the road of Xiangyang
莫指襄陽道
The words of seduction from a prostitute and the imagery here are mind-blowing.
Last but not least, Li Shangyin 李商隱’s depiction of delicate emotions and visual details never fails to touch my heart. We lovers of poetry often know there are certain feelings within us, the names of which we do not know. These feelings can come to life with a single drop of rain or a silent moment in the night. Again, is there something inside you that sometimes wails and sometimes weeps? Go to Li Shangyin. He will find it and say it out for you. Here are four lines from his poem that lacks a title.
At fourteen, I hid among my family
十四藏六親
lest others would guess I am not married yet
懸知猶未嫁
At fifteen, I cried at the spring’s breeze
十五泣春風
turning away, under the swing
背面秋韆下
Li Shangyin’s keen yet simple descriptions that penetrate how a teenage girl discovers life and love are still surprising for me.
Chiang Hsun, a Taiwanese painter, refers to Li Bai as 詩仙 (poet-deity), Du Fu as 詩聖 (poet-saint) and Wang Wei as 詩佛 (poet-Buddha), and I think of these terms when I read their work. What do you think of these poets personally?
I believe people referred to them as such even before Chiang Hsun. And I find it interesting that you translate “仙” as “deity”. I always translate “仙” as ‘hermit’. Of course, it seems to me that both versions are inadequate as there is no corresponding notion of “仙” in the West. I would like to point out, in addition, that Li He was referred to as 詩鬼(poet-demon).
Those somewhat familiar to Tang poems have this notion that Li Bai is Taoist, Du Fu is Confucian, and Wang Wei is Buddhist. This is a great lens through which we can understand and appreciate their works. However, I am sometimes skeptical of such prejudices. Are they really so? Or, are the prejudices hindering us from truly appreciating each poem from them?
Look at Li Bai when he writes:
Lying high in the Eastern Mountain, I wait for the time to rise to come
東山高臥時起來
I hope that it probably is not late to save the people
欲濟蒼生未應晩
When he mentions the “eastern mountain”, he is referring to Xie An 謝安, a minister of Eastern Jin who lived as a recluse in the Eastern Mountain until age forty. Later, he left the mountain and saved the empire. In the passage I quoted, Li Bai is implying that he will serve as an official when the time is right. Now, doesn’t Li Bai sound very Confucian? Confucius once said, “If the country has Tao, serve; if the country has no Tao, pack up and hide 邦有道則仕 邦無道則可卷而懷之.” Not so much of a hermit we expect from a Taoist, is he?
We can say the same thing about Du Fu and Wang Wei. While many poems of Du Fu sound Confucian, he would also write lines like:
In the Zen temple, there is nothing but comfort […]
Nothing gets born; there are drawing-ups and pullings
禪龕只晏如[…] 無生有汲引
Buddhist words like “禪龕” (Zen temple) and “無生” (nothing gets born) are also found in his poems, and it is natural since he grew up in a Buddhist household and befriended Buddhist monks. In addition, when Wang Wei writes: Day by day a man gets old in vain/ Year by year the spring returns again/ Let us be joyful, in that there is a jar of wine/ There shall be no need to be sad about the petals flying away 日日人空老/ 年年春更歸/ 相歡有樽酒/ 不用惜花飛”, he does not sound so Buddhist.
What I am trying to say is that maybe we should stop throwing our prejudices on them when we read their poetry. Personally, I like Wang Wei the best when he doesn’t sound so Buddhist and Du Fu when he writes in a more personal voice. Meanwhile, Li Bai is Li Bai. He was too much of a free man to be even regarded as a hermit or a deity of poetry, and he is always looking at the bigger picture from the smallest moments, not the already-given set of beliefs or ideologies. His name, a single character, Bai1, is enough.
I guess this is true for stereotypes and labels in general; it is a good guide to understanding a concept or a literary figure, but it is impossible to encapsulate an entire person and their body of work into one stereotype or catch-phrase.
You also touched upon the difficulties of translation. Do you encounter any difficulties in translation, and have there been any particular phrases or poems that have been particularly difficult to translate?
Do I encounter any difficulties in translation? Of course I do, every single time! I would rather say that I encounter challenges each time, though. So I don’t really remember a particular poem that was difficult to translate since each of them comes along with its unique challenges. Still, I can tell you what comes to my mind right now. In many cases, descriptive Cheobeo 疊語 are difficult to translate. It literally means ‘piled up words’. For instance, 苒苒 is an expression used to describe the passing of time, and 澄澄 describes the state of being clear or pure. But how do you translate these words while preserving their musicality?
Another thing that comes to my mind is the situations where there are no corresponding concepts in the Western thoughts. I already mentioned this, but what would “仙” be in English, Portuguese, or Russian? You translated it as “deity” and I chose “hermit”, You once mentioned 仙 is like 仙女 to you, in which you picture a female deity in floating clothes. But to me and to many Koreans, 仙 is like 神仙, a mysterious old man with long white hair and a beard who gives you the peaches of heaven So I guess neither translation is entirely adequate. Another example would be the concept of 閑. It could mean being relaxed, leisurely, or even idle, but nothing really fits perfectly. And what about all those words that get translated as ‘pure’ or ‘clear’, such as 淸, 精, 淡, 淨, and 澹? There are certain cultural contexts attached to these words, but it is hard to show them in translations.
Maybe it is these gaps in interpretation and the multitudes it contains that allow these poems to come alive across time and space. For my final question, can you introduce Tao Yuan Ming to readers and why he is your favorite poet?
While I am translating a poem from the Tang dynasty every weekend, Tao Yuanming is in fact not a Tang poet. He is a poet from the Six Dynasties era (220-589), who lived in Eastern Jin and Liu Song to be precise. That puts him about three hundred years ahead of Li Bai and Du Fu.
While our readers may have not been aware of it, this interview has been going on for some weeks. In a sense, we have been exchanging short letters on Tang poetry and other related themes. After receiving the question above, I had to let it sit for a week. Tao Yuanming is my favorite poet indeed, but it is not so easy to answer why and decide how to introduce him to the readers.
Almost everyone who has an interest in Chinese literature has something to say about Tao Yuanming. Even Zhu Xi 朱熹, who is like the Thomas Aquinas of Neo-Confucianism, and Lu Xun 魯迅, a 20th-century figure who fathered modern Chinese literature, were no exceptions. Wang Wei did not shy away from it either. There are also so many pre-modern Koreans who read Tao Yuanming and commented on him, and I am pretty sure it would have been the same in Japan too. Yet, although I partly disagree with Su Shi 蘇軾 regarding his assessment of Tao Yuanming’s personality and poetry, his letter to his brother Su Zhe 蘇轍 contains the best pithy remark on him: “Regarding Yuanming, however, how can one only like his poems? What he was as a man truly has something touching. 然吾于淵明, 豈獨好其詩也哉? 如其爲人, 實有感焉.”
There are many people who wrote my favorite poems; however, for me, Tao Yuanming is the most admirable and honorable person who was engaged in poetry. I do not consider everyone who writes poems to be a poet. Then what does it mean to be a poet? I will let Pushkin speak here:
[...]
But once it is the Word Divine
He subtly senses has been uttered,
The poet’s soul becomes aflutter
And like an eagle starts to climb.
To him all worldly thrills are idle;
He finds all common gossip lame;
And at the feet of no man’s idol
Will he incline his head in shame.
And he escapes, morose and savage,
With sounds and turbulence replete,
To shores where waves beat at his feet
And rustling oak trees offer salvage… (Poet, tr. Yuri Menis)
Although Pushkin’s romantic notion of a poet does not match the life of Tao Yuanming entirely, I see an interesting comparison here. “And like an eagle starts to climb”—Tao Yuanming’s poetry often contains rich imagery of birds, which seems to reflect his own self. “The captured bird misses the old forest 羈鳥戀舊林”, “Gazing at the clouds, I feel ashamed at the high birds 望雲慚高鳥“, “A bumbling bird that lost its flock 栖栖失群鳥/ still flies alone while the sun is setting 日暮猶獨飛”, “A bird knows to come back when it gets tired of flying鳥倦飛而知還” and many more, including the four serialized poems titled “The Bird that Returns 歸鳥”. The difference between Pushkin and Tao Yuanming is that while Pushkin’s poet is an eagle that soars above his wordly restraints, Tao Yuanming’s poet is a captured bird that strives to return to its natural habitat. There is a subtle difference here, as you can see.
However, Tao Yuanming and Pushkin are in agreement that “at the feet of no man’s idol/ Will he incline his head in shame./ And he escapes, morose and savage”. Tao Yuanming served as a government official for about 10 years, but being tired of politics and corruption, famously quit and returned to the country to live a simpler, pastoral life. When he quit being a government official for good, he said: “How can I bend my waist to a small village kid for five baskets of rice? 我豈能爲五斗米折腰向鄕里小兒” The “small village kid” was not a literal kid, of course, but a government inspector, meaning he did not want to kowtow to a corrupt inspector for a mere pittance of a salary. Tao Yuanming could see through the idol of title and figure out he was nothing but a small village kid in truth. This is why he exclaims “go back! 歸去來兮”, choosing not to live in the world of falsity.
I genuinely admire Master Tao 陶先生 in that he strived for a life of truth and never tried to cover up his trials and errors. We often think of Tao Yuanming as a 隱者, “recluse” or “hermit”. But Lu Xun was right in that the so-called 隱者 were actually 顯者, people who showed off that they were hiding. If you are really hiding, how can people know that you are hiding? Now let us think of how recluses are often presented in Chinese literature. When a guest visits them, a servant boy will always come out and tell them some bullshit (I wholeheartedly mean what I say: a total bullshit) like his master is unavailable. In most cases, these recluses, whether caricatures from literature or real people from Chinese history, are not really intending to hide but staging themselves in a way to protest against the world or save their necks from political turmoils, but can’t let go of their cozy cottages and handy servants. It is still a way to engage in the socio-political sphere, while pretending not to. I will quote Zhu Xi here to show our readers that this is not merely a groundless bashing of mine: “The (prominent) figures of Jin and Song, although they said that they revered what is pure and aloof, each of them, however, wanted a government position 晉宋人物 雖曰尙淸高 然個個要官職” I tried to make this translation as literal as possible.
In contrast, even before he quit the job, Tao Yuanming wrote a poem about begging for food in his twenties. Hunger and poverty are never romanticized in Tao Yuanming’s poems. After he quit the job and began farming, he wrote another poem, this time about his house burning down and having nowhere to live. From time to time until his death, he still had to accept help from others, and did not shy away from expressing in his poems how hard it was for him to live on like that and how sorry he felt for his wife and sons.
On this Wang Wei sneered at Tao Yuanming, saying: “[Tao Yuanming] was ashamed [to flatter the government inspector] and did not endure, but was ashamed all his life [... He] forgot what was big, kept what was small, and did not know the flaw [that would follow] afterwards. 慚之不忍 而終身慚乎 [...] 忘大守小 不知其後之累也”
When you asked me what I think about Wang Wei, I did not give my full response. Now I will be totally honest with you. I think he was a writer of mostly clumsy poems (though there are a few exceptions) and nothing more than a larper. In other words, I do not consider him to be a poet. He spent all his life surrounded by influential officials and members of the royal family, and even managed to (politically) save his neck during and even after the An Lushan Revolt. Obviously, I am not saying that he was not a poet just because he was well off. My belief is that a poet should stand for what he or she writes with all his or her life. You can live like your poems only when they hit the right notes and you are truly serious about them. Did Wang Wei’s life match with his Buddhist observations in his poems? I believe not. I believe, to Wang Wei, poetry was nothing more than an expression of gentlemanly refinement or a sideshow, or a self-justification. Again, writing poems won’t make you a poet. In this regard, Sappho, St. John of the Cross, George Herbert, Rimbaud, Dickenson, Whitman, Mandelstam, Mayakovsky, D’Annunzio, and Pound were all excellent poets. Of course, their poems are excellent too.
But now back to Tao Yuanming. It is clear why someone like Wang Wei can never grasp the sublimity and beauty of a life/poetry like that of Tao Yuanming. He does not understand that living and writing like Tao Yuanming, where life and poetry become one, is not a matter of choice. What really fascinates me is that unlike those “recluses” from Chinese history, Tao Yuanming sticks to the life as a bird who flew away from its captors while being honest and earnest in dealing with life’s ups and downs. It is true that there were “flaws” in Tao Yuanming’s life, and he often felt “ashamed”. However, Tao Yuanming never feels that he made a bad life choice. Why? I will let Tao Yuanming speak for himself:
When young, I did not fit in the worldly sounds;
My character, by its nature, loved hills and mountains.
By a mistake I fell into the dusty net;
Thirty years gone, straight away.
[...]
I was in a corral and a cage for a long time;
Again I have returned to the natural state.
少無適俗韻
性本愛邱山
誤落塵網中
一去三十年
[...]
久在樊籠裏
復得返自然
I ask again: how does one become a poet? By staying true to his or her self. If you are pretending to be someone else when writing, your life and your poetry can never become one to make you a poet. It’s not about a free choice, but about what is already in you. Once you recognize that inner poetry, there’s no going back. To quote Tao Yuanming’s own words one more time: “Truly, I have taken a wrong road, but not far along;/ I have understood that today is right and yesterday is wrong 實迷途其未遠/ 覺今是而昨非” Even through all the hardships and errors, Tao Yuanming chose to be true to the present reality.
I will wrap up with a quote from my favorite Korean poet, Baek Seok.
I am taking a bath together with people of China-land,
Together with offsprings of countries called something like Yin, Shang, Yue,
Taking a bath, in the same tub.
That everyone, stripped naked, warming up the body together in the water,
Even though we did not know each other’s ancestors, spoke different languages, ate and wore different things for generations,
Is a lonely matter, come to think of it.
[...]That person, who seems to enjoy something by himself, unceasingly looking at the evening glow, with a long neck;
Tao Yuanming must have been someone like him[...]
I truly adore and revere such old and deep hearts,
That are so idle and lazy, and at the same time capable of really loving something, either called life or living[...] (At a Bathhouse)
I think Baek Seok truly understood Tao Yuanming.
Thanks for reading!
Bai: “white” or “blank” in Chinese, i.e. white space
Thanks to you both for sharing!
Also, in my view, Red Pine is the Tree of Chinese PoetryTranslators.
Perhaps Hyun Woo Kim will have a similar moniker soon enough. (But first they might rethink the idea that Putonghua, a recent invention, is Standard Chinese. Taiwanese and Hong Kong folk would grumble about that! 🙏😅
Thanks again for the wonderful interview!