“Waiting for the Unicorn” | Open Indiana

(29 MAY 1848–28 MARCH 1905)¹

Huang Tsun-hsien (Kung-tu) was born in Chia-ying-chou (modern Mei-hsien) of Kwangtung province to a reasonably well-off family of the Hakka minority. His family suffered from the depredations of the Taiping rebels, but Huang was able to pursue a youth of study and poetry writing. He had his first contact with non-Chinese culture when he visited Hong Kong in 1870 after failing the provincial examination for the second time. In 1876, he obtained the degree of provincial graduate (chü-jen) in Peking, wherupon he was appointed to accompany the new Chinese ambassador Ho Ju-chang (1838–1891) to his post in Tokyo. Huang was overwhelmed by the vitality of Japanese civilization after the westernizing reforms of the Meiji Restoration, and while in Japan wrote his Jih-pen tsa-shih shih (Miscellaneous Poems on Japan), which described the new Japan with great admiration and exhorted Chinese intellectuals to follow the Japanese example of reform. At the same time, he also started his highly influential Jih-pen kuo-chih (Monograph on the Japanese Nation), which was completed in 1887 and became a textbook for the reformers of late nineteenthcentury China.

In 1882 Huang was appointed the Chinese consul-general to the United States in San Francisco and arrived shortly before Congress prohibited Chinese immigration to the United States. Huang was outraged by this insult to the Chinese government and the cruel abuse of the Chinese people that he witnessed in San Francisco. After returning from the United States, Huang spent four years in retirement before he was assigned a post in the Chinese embassy in London. His stay in London and travels on the continent allowed him to witness the power of the European countries at first hand, which only strengthened his desire for reform. Finally he served as Chinese consul-general in Singapore from 1892–1894.

The disastrous defeat of the Chinese in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895 galvanized the reformers into action, and on his return to China, Huang began cooperating with Liang Ch’i-ch’ao and K’ang Yu-wei (qq.v.) in promoting reform through editing journals and making speeches; Huang was particularly active in the province of Hunan, which had become a hotbed of the reform movement.

In 1898, the famous “Hundred Days Reform” under the Kuang-hsü Emperor began, but Huang was unable to join his fellow reformers in Peking, because he had become seriously ill. His illness was fortunate, because the Empress Dowager Tz’u-hsi carried out a coup d’etat, seizing control of the government once again. Six of the reformers were beheaded, while Liang Ch’i-ch’ao and K’ang Yu-wei managed to escape to Japan. Huang’s home in Shanghai was surrounded, but he was allowed to return to his native village. He remained active until the end, writing poetry and contributing articles on reform to overseas journals under a pen name. Huang Tsun-hsien died in his native village in 1905.

Huang Tsun-hsien was the major poet of the late Ch’ing “Poetic Revolution.” Although the term “revolution” did not mean precisely the same as it does in China today, Huang’s poetry marked a major innovation in the Chinese literary tradition. Even by his early twenties Huang was writing:

My hand writes what my mouth says;

How can antiquity inhibit me?

Huang constantly stressed the need for the poet to express his immediate experiences:

There is really no such thing as ancient and modern in poetry. If one is able to take in immediately what the body experiences, the eyes see, and the ears hear, and write this into his poetry, then what need do we have of the ancients? Poetry is already present in my self. . . . The age which I experience today, the environment which I perceive, no matter when, I am always present. I gaze upon the ancients who came before me and look to those who are to follow me in the future, and none of them can contend with me.

The result of such a theory of literature is that much of Huang’s finest verse is characterized by a vividness and immediacy rare even in China.

Huang felt that one of the most important missions of the poet was to regenerate Chinese culture, and so much of his verse attacks the ineptness of the Ch’ing government in dealing with foreign imperialism and the failure of the Chinese people to reform a society wracked with corruption, ignorance, and poverty. Therefore, his poetry paints a vivid picture of a China constantly humiliated by foreign armies and enslaved by smug conservatism, autocratic government, oppression of women, and superstitious religions. Although Huang wished to imitate the finer points of Western culture, he was appalled by the rabid racism and internecine warfare of the West.

Generally speaking, Huang Tsun-hsien felt that the most effective way to realize his goals was to instill new thought into the old form of classical verse. This did not prevent him from occasionally infusing his poems with vernacular language, and by his old age he was calling for the abandonment of classical Chinese and the adoption of the vernacular for the sake of educating the masses. More important than his use of the colloquial was the freedom with which he introduced foreign terms and new concepts into his verse, and his description of the new technology within the form of classical Chinese verse is almost as startling today as it was in the late nineteenth century.

Huang’s contemporaries such as Liang Ch’i-ch’ao considered him the greatest Chinese poet of the late nineteenth century, and at least until the beginning of the Cultural Revolution in 1966 his reputation was still untarnished in China.

(J.D. Schmidt)

____________________

1. Chao-ying Fang, ECCP, 1:350–351.

The Ballad of Ch’ao-chou¹

When men are born in disorderly times,

Their plans frequently go awry.

One evening we moved three times,

Our footprints without fixed abode.

Coming to live at Three Rivers,²

We name it our Promised Land.

It is not man’s nature to pity the unfortunate

And disasters assail us without mercy.

Chirp, chirp, the yellow bird sings:

“You cannot stay long in this land.”

A single river stretches to Ch’ao-chou,

Where we must go to live now.

This time the north wind was frigid;

Our smooth oars agitated the level river.

On and on, about to reach the city,

Where hearth fire smoke was dense as threads.

Suddenly our boat did not advance;

Bandits hiding in the forest scrub!

We raise the alarm, the thieves upon us;

Their fast oars flying like raindrops.

Our boatmen quickly make fast our boats;

Flailing pikes fend them off left and right.

Suddenly we fear we are not their equal;

We may end up provoking their wrath instead.

Striking the boat’s sides, we frantically shout:

“Better let them take what they want!”

Drifting aimlessly, midst calamity and disaster,

Practically nothing in our traveling cases.

At least it will fill the bandits’ sacks,

And we will escape kidnap or slaughter.

With a roar, the thunder of cannon!

“Kill the bandits!” the bandits flee.

Our lives delivered from the tiger’s mouth;

So happy, we cry as we talk.

I look back at my little brothers and sisters,

Lying on their bellies like a pack of rats.

“Get up! Get up!” We call them to sit straight,

And try to comfort them with kind words.

Leaning on the bed with ashen faces,

They lie, claiming they weren’t really scared.

Alas! Midst calamities and disasters,

We have suffered every possible pain.

Soon we will arrive in Ch’ao-chou

Where we must quickly find help.

Then we will cut spirit banners to summon back our souls,

To summon back our souls by the river’s bank.³

(JCL, p. 19)

(Tr. J.D. Schmidt)

Song of the Exile

Chinese started to travel to America during the Tao-kuang and Hsien-feng reigns, at first because of the demand for workers. Those who followed in their footsteps increased in number, eventually reaching two hundred thousand. Since the local people began competing with the Chinese for a livelihood, they noisily discussed expelling the Chinese, and in the sixth year of Kuang-hsü (1880), the American Republic sent three representatives to China to negotiate a treaty limiting the immigration of Chinese workers. After the treaty had been signed, in the third month of the eighth year of Kuang-hsü (1882), Congress used the treaty as a pretext to pass a law prohibiting the immigration of Chinese workers. I wrote the following to give vent to my feelings.

Alas! What crime have our people committed,

That they suffer this calamity in our nation’s fortunes?

Five thousand years since the Yellow Emperor,

Our country today is exceedingly weak.

Demons and ghouls are hard to fathom;

Even worse than the woodland monsters.

Who can say our fellow men have not met an inhuman fate,

In the end oppressed by another race?

Within the vastness of the six directions,

Where can our people find asylum?

When the Chinese first crossed the ocean,

They were the same as pioneers.

They lived in straw hovels, cramped as snail shells;

For protection gradually built bamboo fences.

Dressed in tatters, they cleared mountain forests;

Wilderness and waste turned into towns and villages.

Mountains of gold towered on high,

Which men could grab with their hands left and right.

Eureka! They return with a load full of gold,

All bragging this land is paradise.

They beckon and beg their families to come;

Legs in the rear file behind legs in the front.

Wearing short coats, they braid their queues;

Men carry bamboo rainhats, wear straw sandals.

Bartenders lead along cooks;

Some hold tailors’ needles, others workmen’s axes.

They clap with excitement, traveling overseas;

Everyone surnamed Wong creates confusion.

Later when the red-turbanned rebels rose up,

Lists were drawn of wanted rebels.⁴

Pursued criminals fled to American asylums,

Gliding like snakes into their holes.

They brandished daggers in the same house;

Entered markets, knife blades clashing.

This was abetted by the law’s looseness,

And daily their customs became more evil.

Gradually the natives turned jealous.

Time to time spreading false rumors,

They say these Chinese paupers

Only wish to fill their money bags.

Soon as their feet touch the ground,

All the gold leaps out of the earth.

They hang ten thousand cash on their waists,

And catch the next boat back to China.

Which of them is willing to loosen his queue,

And do some hard labor for us?

Some say the Chinese are shiftless;

They first came with bare arms.

When happy, they are like insects milling about;

Angry, like beasts, biting and fighting.

Wild, barbaric, they love to kill by nature;

For no reason, blood soaks their knives.

This land is not a hateful river;

Must it hold these man-eating crocodiles?

Others say the Chinese are a bunch of hoodlums,

By nature all filthy and unclean.

Their houses are as dirty as dogs’;

Their food even worse than pigs’.

All they need is a dollar a day;

Who is as scrawny as they are?

If we allow this cheap labor of theirs,

Then all of us are finished.

We see our own brothers being injured;

Who can stand these venomous vermin?

Thus, a thousand mouths keep up their clamor,

Ten thousand eyes, glare, burning with hate.

Signing names, the Americans send up a dozen petitions;

Begging their rulers to reconsider.

Suddenly the order of exile comes down,

Though I fear this breaks our treaties.

The myriad nations all trade with each other;

So how can the Chinese be refused?

They send off a delegation to China,

To avoid the attacks of public opinion.

A dicer can sometimes throw a six after a one;

They have decided to try their luck with this gamble.

Who could have imagined such stupidity,

That we would agree to this in public, eyes closed?

With all of the iron in the six continents,

Who could have cast such a big mess?

From now on they set up a strict ban,

Establishing customs posts everywhere.

They have sealed all the gates tightly,

Door after door with guards beating alarms.

Chinese who leave are like magpies circling a tree,

Those staying like swallows nesting on curtains.

Customs interrogations extend to Chinese tourists;

Transients and even students are not spared.

The nation’s laws and international relations

Are all abandoned in some high tower.

As I gaze east, the sea is boundless, vast;

More remote, huge deserts to be crossed.

The boatman cries, “I await you”;

But the river guard shouts, “Don’t cross!”

Those who do not carry passports

Are arrested as soon as they arrive.

Anyone with a yellow colored face

Is beaten even if guiltless.

I sadly recollect George Washington,

Who had the makings of a great ruler.

100

He proclaimed that in America,

There is a broad land to the west of the desert.

All kinds of foreigners and immigrants,

Are allowed to settle in these new lands.

The yellow, white, red, and black races

105

Are all equal with our native people.

Not even a hundred years till today,

But they are not ashamed to eat his words.

Alas! In the five great continents,

Each race is distinct and different.

110

We drive off foreigners and punish barbarians,

Hate one another, call each other names.

Today is not yet the Age of Great Unity;⁵

We only compete in cleverness and power.

The land of the red man is vast and remote;

115

I know you are eager to settle and open it.

The American eagle strides the heavens soaring,

With half of the globe clutched in his claw.

Although the Chinese arrived later,

Couldn’t you leave them a little space?

120

If a nation does not care for its people,

They are like sparrows shot in a bush.

If the earth’s four corners won’t accept them,

Wandering in exile, where can they rest?

Heaven and earth are suddenly narrow, confining;

125

Men and demons chew and devour each other.

Great China and the race of Han

Have now become a joke to other races.

We are not as simple as the black slaves,

Numb and confused wherever they be.

130

Grave, dignified, I arrive with my dragon banners,

Knock on the custom’s gate, hesitant, doubtful.⁶

Even if we emptied the water of four oceans,

It would be hard to wash this shame clean.

Other nations may imitate this evil;

135

No place left to hold our drifting subjects.

In my far travels I recall Ta-chang and Shu-hai;⁷

In my recent deeds, ashamed before Generals Wei and Huo.⁸

I ask about Sage Yü’s travels, vast, limitless;⁹

When will China’s territory expand again?

140

(JCL, pp. 350–365)

(Tr. J.D. Schmidt)

My Small Daughter

We sit around the lamp talking, hating to leave;

Hidden deeply within curtains, the door not closed.

My small daughter grabs my beard, struggling to ask questions;

Her mother does not answer her, but she pulls mother’s clothes.

“The sun must be really close to our heads;

Is the ocean as large as my two hands clasped together?”

I want to spread out a world map to show her everything;

A wind blows the curtain, night lamp, moths flutter around.

(JCL, p. 422)

(Tr. J.D. Schmidt)

Ballad of the Great London Fog

The blue sky has died, the yellow sky rises;

Oceans churn, clouds reverse, spirits assemble.

Suddenly heaven appears drunk and God dreams in a stupor;

The whole country sinks into confusion at the loss of the sun.

Vast and boundless, the nation is confused, muddled;

Dark and hazy, like the black, sweet land of slumber.

I sat in my ladle-sized room several months,

Facing the wall, I worship my king, the lamp.

I cannot tell if it’s morning or night;

I cannot distinguish north from south.

Flickering low, my wick turns green,

While everywhere fly Armageddon’s black ashes.

I feel like crossing the desert’s endless yellow sand,

Or probing a bottomless cavern too dark to measure.

Things transform into dust, and the dust is blackened;

I watch the air, but the air is ink.

No names can be given to these colors or shapes;

Our eyes and nose are all blocked up.

How could we find another creator P’an-ku

To come forward and reopen the skies?¹⁰

Could this have been the work of devils¹¹

Stirring the sea and beating up the waters?

Suddenly we plunge into the boundless night of Avici Hell;¹²

Startled by this evil wind that drove our ship to Demon Land.

I go outdoors but cannot take more than one inch strides;

Everywhere on the boulevards is the sound of bells.

Carriages and horses disappear and hide like roosting chickens;

In this mirage of towers and pavilions, the air stinks.

Heaven’s net is finely spread, yet a hole appears,

Where we see the sun’s red wheel, colored like blood.

Dim, dim, not enough light to irritate the eyes;

Pallid and chill, it can’t even warm my hands.

I have heard that the earth circles the sun, the moon circles the earth;

Now the English colonies spread over five continents.

There is nowhere the red English sun does not shine;

Its glory extends far and wide to the horizon’s end.

But who would have thought their capital can’t see the sun?

And people here are worried the sky is going to fall!

I have also heard the earth’s moisture evaporates to form rain;

And clever mathematicians can calculate the number of raindrops.

This nation has always made its home on the water—

Not to mention the smoke from ten million hearths.

If you could add up all the fog within the Four Seas inch by inch,

It would still be less than the fog in London City!

(JCL, pp. 509–514)

(Tr. J.D. Schmidt)

NOTES

1. The prefecture of Ch’ao-chou, in Kwangtung province, is located about 870 li east of the provincial capital Canton. This poem describes an encounter the Huang family had with river pirates when they were forced to escape the fighting during the Taiping Rebellion.

2. The town of Three Rivers (San-ho), 40 li west of Ta-p’u, was the scene of a major battle in 1865 between the Ch’ing army commanded by Tso Tsung-t’ang (1812–1885) and the Taiping forces. The poet’s family took temporary refuge in the town before moving to Ch’ao-chou.

3. Although Huang is referring to the shamanistic practice of summoning a soul, he merely means that the family will be able to calm down in Ch’aochou. Spirit banners were used to summon the spirits of the dead. Here the poet was merely trying to express a longing for a calmer life once the family moved to Ch’ao-chou.

4. The Taiping rebels.

5. The Age of Great Unity was the final stage of social development in which all would live in equality and fraternity, according to the Confucian prescription in the classics.

6. Huang arrives on his mission to San Francisco.

7. According to the Huai-nan tzu, the sage emperor Yü traveled from Chang-hai in the east to Shu-hai in the north, a distance of two hundred and thirty thousand Chinese miles.

8. Wei Ch’ing and Huo Ch’u-ping were Han dynasty generals who drove off the barbarian Huns.

9. The sage emperor Yü rescued China from a vast flood, delimiting the area of the country during his extensive travels.

10. According to popular mythology, P’an-ku created the world by separating the sky from the earth.

11. Monsters in Buddhist terminology, or asuras.

12. In Indian Buddhism, Avici was the lowest level of Hell.

Waiting for the Unicorn