Greetings everyone!
  


In just a few weeks, the Columbia College Study Abroad Program will be off to China.  I think there are 14 of us this year, eager to cross the Pacific again, skipping the drama in Hawaii, and the less picturesque Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

 Nope, we'll be headed for Beijing, then Xian, and ending in Shanghai.  Hopefully, we'll find a bit of Chinese food, and get to compare it to the cuisine of the Midwest.  And not a foregone conclusion on who will win.  After all, the fortune cookie was invented in California, likely by Japanese immigrants.

Meanwhile, although no one is taking my Chinese poetry course (and I'm not sure anyone should be admitted into China without some exposure to the poetry:  "You don't know Li Bai?  Get right back on that plane...No wantons for you!"), I would encourage folks to read a bit about this crucial part of Chinese culture.  

There are several good anthologies of Chinese poetry, most exploring the several millennia tradition.  Useful, but I'd like to suggest this book, Finding Them Gone:  Visiting China's Poets of the Past  , by Bill Porter/Red Pine.  


He does include (his own) translations of quite a few poems, but rather than the usual disembodied survey, he presents poems as he tours around China, visiting the graves, homes, and monuments of these poets.  Since he's doing this geographically, rather than historically, we don't get the same time line.  We do get a sense of what these poets knew and loved when they were alive, as well as what local people still know about their poets, often after 1000 years...

And that might help us begin to see a crucial difference in what poetry means, there and here.  Most of us won't know the personal details of the poet who lived down the road from us, even 100 years ago.  Nor have local societies that have tended the grave for centuries, or take care of the 800 year old tree that a poet celebrated. 



Beyond just a great introduction to the poetry, and the culture of Chinese poetry, the book has more than a few insights about negotiating with Chinese taxi drivers, the quality of hotels and highways, and a sense of the landscape.

Well, try some poetry!

5 Famous Poems that Every Chinese Kid Knows 

Chinese Poems 

Top 10 Most Influential Chinese Poems   

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