- Joined
- Feb 23, 1999
- Messages
- 4,855
Welcome to the year of the wood monkey. This year January 22 is the first day of the Chinese New Year, and it is also the date of my marriage to a Chinese lady, Ms. Kuang Danhua. The poem below commemorates the event.
I worked with a Chinese scholar (Kang Laoshi) to cast this poem in a traditional Chinese structure. A Song Dynasty rhyming dictionary was used to get the classical Chinese rhymes.
One of the neat things about Chinese is that each word can have many meanings. This special translation of the poem conveys one of its meanings as a new year gift for my internet friends. Cinnabar was a crucial ingredient in the alchemical mixtures the Daoist adepts used in their quest for an elixir of immortality. The heavenly stems and earthly branches are elements of the traditional Chinese 60 year calendrical cycle. The 12 earthly branches correspond to the 12 animals of the Chinese horoscope.
Dan zhen mo ran cang shan zhong
Hua mei qiao ru you zi meng
Li ming yu wo ru fu yun
Si bao gan zhi jie wu qiong
The cinnabar treasure lies silently hidden in the mountains,
Its magnificence softly enters the wanderers dreams.
Wealth and honor are to me like drifting clouds,
This treasure, like the heavenly stems and earthly branches, will never be exhausted.
Xin nien kuai le
Ao Lisi
I worked with a Chinese scholar (Kang Laoshi) to cast this poem in a traditional Chinese structure. A Song Dynasty rhyming dictionary was used to get the classical Chinese rhymes.
One of the neat things about Chinese is that each word can have many meanings. This special translation of the poem conveys one of its meanings as a new year gift for my internet friends. Cinnabar was a crucial ingredient in the alchemical mixtures the Daoist adepts used in their quest for an elixir of immortality. The heavenly stems and earthly branches are elements of the traditional Chinese 60 year calendrical cycle. The 12 earthly branches correspond to the 12 animals of the Chinese horoscope.
Dan zhen mo ran cang shan zhong
Hua mei qiao ru you zi meng
Li ming yu wo ru fu yun
Si bao gan zhi jie wu qiong
The cinnabar treasure lies silently hidden in the mountains,
Its magnificence softly enters the wanderers dreams.
Wealth and honor are to me like drifting clouds,
This treasure, like the heavenly stems and earthly branches, will never be exhausted.
Xin nien kuai le
Ao Lisi
