China Daily Global Edition (USA)
Our feathered friends are a faithful testament to Chinese wisdom
As summer sings its swan song, perhaps an ornithological homage “falls” into place here, no?
It’s popular to bring your pride and joy to the park to strut their stuff. And I’m chirping birds, not babies.
“I’m unoccupied, as osmanthus flowers fall,
This quiet night in spring, the hill is empty.
The moon comes out and startles the birds on the hill,
They don’t stop calling in the spring ravine.”
So reads Tang Dynasty poet Wang Wei’s (701761) birdy bard-backed Niaoming Jian (Birds Calling in the Ravine).
Wang, a Buddhist mystic, took an impartial, layman-esque observer’s take on the eighth century, middling and meddling among the masses as it were.
And a few cuckoo bird hipster bards of the ancient Middle Kingdom failed to imprint their chops on their choice cherishable quiz night chapter challenges. Mind you, cuckoos are the ultimate deadbeat dads, dropping their offspring’s DNA off at the nearest firehouse to cherish the child-raising challenge.
With the previous para percolating, let’s boldly bivouac back to the unattributed Chinese birding bravado with: “Living at a river, one comes to know the nature of the fish therein; Dwelling by a mountain, one learns to recognize the language of the birds thereupon”.
It’s “billed” an unattributed piece of prose, often parroted. But I like its feathered-friend fulsomeness, notwithstanding Hitchcock’s California-set crowcentric calumny about Tippi Hedren and her irrational fear of fowl. They were just trying to playfully peck her pupils to pulp!
And she wasn’t even a teacher. Needless ne’er-do-well nincompoopery.
Or here’s another authorless Chinese proverb: “A bird does not sing because he has the answer to something, he sings because he has a song.”
Be honest. How many of us have thought the same way? Perhaps on a karaoke Friday with colleagues?
“If I nail this Jay Chou ballad, my boss glaring at me from the sofa across the room will rubber stamp my raise request tomorrow. Yeah, go for it, showtime!”
“A bird can roost but on one branch, a mouse can drink not more than its fill from a river.”
It’s another salvaged but unclaimed Chinese featherheavy phrase that cuts all species, including us, down to size, perhaps.
And what bibliography of Chinese bards would be complete without Li Bai’s (701-762) poem?
It chirps: “The birds have vanished into the sky, and now the last cloud drains away. We sit together, the mountain and me, until only the mountain remains.”
And finally, “You cannot prevent the birds of sorrow from flying over your head, but you can prevent them from building nests in your hair,” an anonymous Chinese proverb that tells us sometimes the toast falls butter-side up.