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Ocean Culture and the Poetry of China

By Shu Xiaoyun



 

[©Daryl Benson/Getty Images]

Poetry is the bright jewel glittering brilliantly in the tapestry of Chinese literature. Chinese poetry embodies China's rich ocean culture. There are poems depicting the ocean or using it as the poetic backdrop; other poems portray maritime activities and seascapes.

As one saying has it, "Poems should be filled with grandeur, their expressions enticing." The sea is a theme uniquely suited to the expansive and valiant spirit of poetry. In the words of another saying: "The magnanimous ocean accepts and encompasses all the world's peoples." China's oldest geographical account, the Commentary on the Waterways Classic, describes the enormous virtue of water.

Poets desiring to pay tribute to nature's beauty and loftiness have found in the ocean ample subject matter. The boundless vastness of the sea dwarfs all other beings.

At times the power of the ocean remains soundless and silent. With the touch of the poet's pen the ocean becomes a divine spirit; its unfathomable energies fill people's hearts with awe.

The ocean arouses in poets philosophical thoughts. The mist-shrouded waters of the ocean surface surpass all conceptions of time and space. Zhang Zhao's (1691-1745) poem "Gazing at the Sea" depicts the sea thus:

This poem celebrates the sea as a masterpiece existing since the beginning of time and holding even the sun and moon in its embrace. What is truly immense is the human spirit.

The ocean brings us the tastes and flavors of life in all its variety. The following poem by Meng Haoran (c. 689-740), for example, describes a traveler's swelling excitement:

For the T'ang (618-907) period poet Cao Song, the seaside offers sights that excite a yearning for home:

Zhang Jiuling's (679-740) "Looking at the Moon and Thinking of One Far Away" depicts a splendid landscape:

Wang Bo's (c. 649-c. 676) "Farewell to Vice-Prefect Du Setting Out for His Official Post in Shu" reminds us of the universal nature of his sentiments:

Even those born and raised on dry land find themselves gasping in awe and astonishment at the sight of the sea. Our predecessors created a history of maritime trade and exchange, raising their sails to the fair wind, their wisdom at the helm, their unbreakable will their oars; they drank in the winds and tasted the waves, plowing and tilling the roiling surface of the sea.

The desire to surmount obstacles in a shared vessel beaten by rains and wind at times exacted a harsh price. When Li Bai (701-762) heard that his good friend, Chao Heng (Abe no Nakamaro) (698-770), had been shipwrecked returning to Japan after decades of living in China, he presumed the worst, voicing his grief in his "Lament for Chao Heng":

In this sense, the seas may seem to hinder our progress; this was the case for Si Ma Guang (1019-86) who bemoaned the lack of means to cross the oceans in pursuit of learning.

The legend of Jing Wei provides insight into yet another aspect of the relationship between human beings and the ocean, sparking imagination in many works of literature. The youngest daughter of Emperor Yan drowned in the Eastern Sea and became the mythical Jing Wei bird. Her hatred of the ocean was such that she decided to fill it up, carrying twigs and pebbles from nearby mountains and dropping them in the sea. Thus, "Jing Wei trying to fill the ocean" is a metaphor for dogged determination. Han Yu (768-824) was among those who used this story in his work.

The state of the ocean is a psychological projection of people's relationship with it. Poets construct, from the perspective of visionary fiction, the human-ocean relations that constitute an ocean culture.

The ocean is home to the human spirit. Its waves and winds stir people's imagination and fantasy. Li Bai's "The Difficult Path" offers a glimpse of the poet's valiant spirit:

Liang Qichao (1873-1929) is one of China's modern thinkers and political activists; among his important contributions was a revolutionizing of the study of history. In the depths of the night on which the 19th century turned to the 20th, drinking heavily aboard a steamer traveling from Japan to the United States, he penned "The Pacific Ocean in the 20th Century."

In this lengthy poem, he commits his ideals to the ocean's depths, allows his sorrows to drift across its surface. The poem comes to its conclusion on an optimistic note; the poet's spirit remains unbroken by his years in exile:

In 1917, Zhou Enlai (1898-1976) expressed his determination and resolve to realize his goals for studying in Japan, whatever difficulties might lie ahead:

Poets are a nation's representatives, poetry a culture's laurel crown. Poets' observation and insight into the events surrounding them reflect a process of conscious choice stressing aesthetic sensibility, inner reflection and spiritual experience. Poetry evoking images of the ocean expresses poets' grasp of human society's interactions with the sea, the psychology of ocean cultures.

The ocean's capacity to create richly diverse cultures comes into play only with the involvement and participation of different human actors. The poetics of maritime culture offer us a unique perspective, a frame of reference and a spiritual instrument for gauging the relations between people and the sea.

 

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