Click here for the introduction (first post) to the Round and Square series "Longevity Mountain."
Click here for the table of contents (second post) to the Round and Square series "Longevity Mountain."
Longevity Mountain 1 Longevity Mountain 2 Longevity Mountain 3 Longevity Mountain 4
Longevity Mountain 5 Longevity Mountain 6 Longevity Mountain 7 Longevity Mountain 8
Longevity Mountain 9 Longevity Mountain 10 Longevity Mountain 11 Longevity Mountain 12
Click here for the table of contents (second post) to the Round and Square series "Longevity Mountain."
Longevity Mountain 1 Longevity Mountain 2 Longevity Mountain 3 Longevity Mountain 4
Longevity Mountain 5 Longevity Mountain 6 Longevity Mountain 7 Longevity Mountain 8
Longevity Mountain 9 Longevity Mountain 10 Longevity Mountain 11 Longevity Mountain 12
During the last two weeks of July and into early August I will be posting segments from my project dealing with five Chinese mountains that are often referred to as "the sacred mountains of China." They represent each of the "five directions" found in early Chinese thought (think of the ones you know and then add the middle as the fifth); they have figured prominently in Chinese political culture, travel, and religion for 3,000 years. I have spent almost 400 days on the mountains, and am working on a series of books that detail the mountains and their "home" areas. Mountains were said to connect earth (thought to be "square") with heaven (thought to be "round"). The entire project is called—this may or may not surprise you—Round and Square.
One volume is planned for each mountain, beginning with the southern peak, Mt. Heng, in Hunan province. The reasoning behind this choice of a starting place took me months to develop, but suffice it to say that these books will take the reader up and down each of the five sacred (sometimes called "Daoist") mountains and around the lunar calendar in an exploration of Chinese life and culture. As an introduction to the series, I have included an introduction that is based on a recent book proposal and a full "sample" table of contents. These are followed by nine "scenes" from Longevity Mountain that are meant to give readers a sense of the project as a whole. Photographs used in this series were taken during my travels, unless otherwise indicated. My photos are marked "RL."
One volume is planned for each mountain, beginning with the southern peak, Mt. Heng, in Hunan province. The reasoning behind this choice of a starting place took me months to develop, but suffice it to say that these books will take the reader up and down each of the five sacred (sometimes called "Daoist") mountains and around the lunar calendar in an exploration of Chinese life and culture. As an introduction to the series, I have included an introduction that is based on a recent book proposal and a full "sample" table of contents. These are followed by nine "scenes" from Longevity Mountain that are meant to give readers a sense of the project as a whole. Photographs used in this series were taken during my travels, unless otherwise indicated. My photos are marked "RL."
Scene One
Summer Wanderings
Hunan province is hot and humid as I arrive in the provincial capital of Changsha on a late June day. It is the end of the fifth lunar month, and it is time for me to climb the southern mountain, known to almost everyone in China by its “other name” as longevity mountain (壽嶽). The southern mountain is the mountain of summer, and all of the cosmological elements have come together in a palpably wet summer heat.
Summer Wanderings
Hunan province is hot and humid as I arrive in the provincial capital of Changsha on a late June day. It is the end of the fifth lunar month, and it is time for me to climb the southern mountain, known to almost everyone in China by its “other name” as longevity mountain (壽嶽). The southern mountain is the mountain of summer, and all of the cosmological elements have come together in a palpably wet summer heat.
[b] Qufu R |
So it is that I board a steamy little bus in the morning heat, and sit—my head hanging out the window, hoping for a chance of a breeze—as I endure the routine, so common with rural buses, of waiting until there are enough passengers to justify a trip. It is a treat, of sorts, to reach the bus “just in time,” and, as the bus revs up the engine, to take one of the unappreciated seats near the back, within full range of the open window. Today, I am not so lucky. I am the second person on the bus, and we wait forty-five minutes while potential pilgrims slowly fill the seats, still picking their teeth from leisurely hotel breakfasts.
[c] Southern green RF |
Do not be mistaken; the fear of others’ opinions has everything to do with understanding China—today and 3,000 years into the past.
Please, Zhongzi
Do not climb into our hamlet,
Do not break our willow trees.
It’s not that I begrudge the willows,
But I fear my father and mother.
You I would embrace,
But my parents’ words—
Those I dread.
Please Zhongzi,
Do not leap over our wall,
Do not break our mulberry trees.
It’s not that I begrudge the mulberries,
But I fear my brothers.
You I would embrace,
But my brother’s words—
Those I dread.
Please, Zhongzi,
Do not climb into our yard,
Do not break our rosewood tree,
It’s not that I begrudge the rosewood,
But I fear gossip.
You I would embrace,
But people’s words,
Those I dread.[1]
My “travel companion,” Marcel Granet (1884-1940) takes the same idea a step further, shrouding it in the seasonal activity of divided labor and the preoccupations of youth. He taps into the sociology of love and longing, and the result is nervous daughters and ostentatious sons who wish to take their spring engagements one steamy evening further before their inevitable autumn betrothals.
Please, Zhongzi
Do not climb into our hamlet,
Do not break our willow trees.
It’s not that I begrudge the willows,
But I fear my father and mother.
You I would embrace,
But my parents’ words—
Those I dread.
Please Zhongzi,
Do not leap over our wall,
Do not break our mulberry trees.
It’s not that I begrudge the mulberries,
But I fear my brothers.
You I would embrace,
But my brother’s words—
Those I dread.
Please, Zhongzi,
Do not climb into our yard,
Do not break our rosewood tree,
It’s not that I begrudge the rosewood,
But I fear gossip.
You I would embrace,
But people’s words,
Those I dread.[1]
My “travel companion,” Marcel Granet (1884-1940) takes the same idea a step further, shrouding it in the seasonal activity of divided labor and the preoccupations of youth. He taps into the sociology of love and longing, and the result is nervous daughters and ostentatious sons who wish to take their spring engagements one steamy evening further before their inevitable autumn betrothals.
Their first unions were celebrated in the Festivals of Spring, but they could set up house only after the Autumn Festivals. As long as the work in the fields lasted, even old couples were kept apart; nor were suitors allowed to join their betrothed except by night and furtively. They jumped the hedges and, hiding from their kin, courted each other; especially at the full moon, they sang their aubades, taking great care not to be surprised by the cock crow.
These meetings at night were doubtless chaste. The opposition of the sexes was so strong that a long preparation and favorable times were needed to bring them together; sexual union seemed so frightening that it was forbidden for long periods. But when it was allowed and regulated, when in the spring festivals all the young people of the community came together for the first time, what a unique and moving moment it was![2]
[e] Dreamy RF |
Mao Zedong (1893-1976) never read Granet, as far as I know, but he surely knew the lines above from the Classic of Poetry. Everyone educated in China in the last twenty-five centuries knows them. This was Mao’s home, and, as the bus bumps along slowly, I imagine a teenaged Mao—just nine years younger than Granet, reading translated verses from Baudelaire half a world away—sneaking away on hot summer nights for rendezvous with comely mountain daughters.
—Now this is countryside. Ever seen anything like it?
I am startled from my reverie by my young seatmate, who has noticed me staring out the window. I think to myself, “I have—I grew up in eastern North Dakota, the most fertile farmland in the world, where you can pick up a clump of rich, black earth and just see the crops that will sprout from its fecundity.”
—No, this is amazing. How lush. How beautiful.
[f] Xiang Yu opera mask P |
Mao is the exception, rising from peasant boy to local figure (that had been done before) to military leader (that, too, had been done), and ultimately to the leader of a people-powered movement (done once before—in the Taiping Rebellion) that carried it to power and a new political order (that is unprecedented).
I focus on this thought as the bus lumbers on to Shaoshan.
[1] Patricia Ebrey, Chinese Civilization: A Sourcebook (New York: Free Press, 1993), 11.
[2] Marcel Granet, The Religion of the Chinese People (New York: Harper & Row, 1974), 44.
[3] The irony here is palpable (check the link).
Bibliography
Ebrey, Patricia. Chinese Civilization: A Sourcebook. New York: Free Press, 1993.
Granet, Marcel. The Religion of the Chinese People. New York: Harper & Row, 1974.
Longevity Mountain 1 Longevity Mountain 2 Longevity Mountain 3 Longevity Mountain 4
Longevity Mountain 5 Longevity Mountain 6 Longevity Mountain 7 Longevity Mountain 8
Longevity Mountain 9 Longevity Mountain 10 Longevity Mountain 11 Longevity Mountain 12
NEXT
Mao and Then
The bus pulls in to Shaoshan—Mao Zedong's boyhood home. I am startled by...how much I am startled by...the teeming veneration before me.
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