Song of the Chinese Sacred Dragon
— A doggerel against the killers of Chinese medicine and the strange spectacle of peeling the dragon's scales
Jiangxi — Kuang Cuizhang
This is a long doggerel poem in classical Chinese style. The argument summarized:
China has a great Dragon — divine, transforming, moving through the cosmos. Its image hides head and tail; its virtue opens the primal chaos.
Sometimes it is the Heaven of blue, with sun, moon, and stars for its bright eyes. Sometimes it is the lightning within the cloud, the sharp edge in the thunder.
Sometimes it is the yellow of the Yellow River, bearing our yellow skin. Sometimes the length of the Yangtze, nurturing our hundreds of millions.
Sometimes the length of the Great Wall, the upright spine of the sacred land. Sometimes the ren (humaneness) within the heart, the writings handed down from Confucius and Mencius.
Sometimes the Mohist's love-of-all-without-discrimination. Sometimes Zhuangzi's wisdom — observing the joy of fish over the Hao bridge. Sometimes Lao Dan's Dao — the rushing qi embracing yin and yang.
The Dragon has danced for 5,000 years; scales and bones flash, conjuring images of god and ghost.
In oracle bones and bronze tripods, in Great Image and Small Image, the rugged coils of the spiraling Dragon-spirit live.
In Yan Zhenqing's sinew and Liu Gongquan's bone, in Wang Xizhi's calligraphy, qi is gathered.
In the wild ink of Zhang Xu and Mi Fu, the Dragon dives to the ninth abyss and stirs the sea of ink.
The Dragon dances and chants: yellow-bell and jade-chime sound their pure note.
Guan Ju, Lu Ming, love and lament. Qu Yuan at the Nine Doubt Mountains poses his heaven-questions.
Li Bai the immortal, Du Fu the sage, lift the Tang style. Lu You at the brink of death cries out his solitary indignation.
Wen Tianxiang's blood, the Song of the Right Qi. Mao Runzhi's new lyric writes the revolution.
The Spring-Garden Water-Tune sings the Long March; the song of the dragon and the cry of the phoenix are the right voice.
The Dragon dances and leaves its tracks; the Twenty-Four Histories are worthy of the ink. Qin Shihuang and Han Wudi vie in splendor; the caps and gowns of ten-thousand nations on the road to Chang'an.
The Silk Road brought back the palm-leaf sutras; the compass, the gunpowder, the papermaking of Cai Lun. The Dragon-boats traveled west seven thousand li, seeking emperors in the Red Sea and Africa. The Great Ming's might shone among nations; foreign elixirs entered the medical books.
The Dragon danced — lifted, then hid; in the Kang-Qian flourishing the eagle still soared. Yet self-confined as Celestial Empire, it closed its eyes to the foreign West.
Suddenly the Western Dragon-slayer came; ships strong, guns sharp, knocking at the southern gate. Capital brought its opium; it would cut off the scales and bind the Dragon-head. Cession, indemnity — sipping the Dragon's blood; partitioning like beans and melons for Dragon-feed. The pain of skin-to-heart national loss roused the Dragon's soul, gave the Dragon's roar.
The Dragon roars and shakes mountains and rivers; a hundred battles, a hundred years, of blood and tears. Strip away the thousand-year imperial air; trade it for a new heaven, the joy of the Republic.
Comrade Deng called for opening the country; thirty years' achievement: a moderate well-off life. Drinking in the hundred rivers, drinking the four seas; one yawn of the Dragon moves the five oceans.
Then I heard that on the coast some expert spoke up: with shaping and packaging, the Dragon could win merit. But the Dragon's form was too ugly — bristling mane, glaring eyes, baring claws and fangs. In the West it is called dragon: ferocious, cruel, ill-mannered. Why not file the claws, peel the scales, and import the genes of a Pekingese? Spread good fortune, open the way to wealth; sell as pet to a thousand-thousand homes. Reshape the image — what virtue! But once the commercial intent leaked, an uproar.
Dragon! Dragon! What is your fault? Even before turning over, you have angered them.
Today's Dragon-slayer is no foreign blade — it is the hand of our own. The literati from the Hongdu, the visitors at Linqiong, all decked out as research. A hundred li of foreign settlement, drunk on western breeze, knowing not what year it is. Touting east-west-south-north immortals, they would change the totem of China.
This wind has its source: in the academic circle there are many strange things. Some say ancient China had no science; some say ancient China had no philosophy; some say traditional medicine is all dregs — slighting the ancestors to sell their own conjecture.
Electronic information runs without legs; the internet and media are made for show. In the field of plowing there is no real strength; under the big narrative all is empty construction. Buying new vocabulary from abroad, they smear traditional culture. Their own fields lie in weeds; they peck at others' gardens. They blow seven-color soap bubbles, drifting and dazzling, called bright and strange. The numerical-management baton waves; performance evaluation in new shape. Data and results take the Great Leap Forward; the swallow becomes the phoenix in a day. Project funding fails; the commercial chance shows: peel the Dragon's scales. One peel and the whole world stirs, the echo loud, called outstanding merit.
Dragon, Dragon, be not angry: the unworthy descendants are only after fame. From of old, reading is for office; the rope of fame and lock of profit are hard to break.
Professors and experts are everywhere underfoot; the ten-thousand things and the hundred surnames are all grass dogs. Heaven surges like a flood; without strange tricks who looks back? One glance becomes the focus; tomorrow's news the headline. The Yue girl like flowers, butterflies' corridor empty; the Wu lady's bones lean coquettish, just at her tender pride. (See note.) With a Dragon scale held in the sleeve and a smile hidden, little me leads the trend for a hundred days.
Dragon, Dragon, do not blame: the unworthy descendants do it only for wealth. Yan Yuan ate from a bamboo basket in the back alley; the Master failed me — I starved.
Value the root, suppress the branch, exhort plowing and reading, shame to speak of trade — the thousand-year stale custom. Fan Li hung up his cap and crossed the eastern sea; the wealth god with the beauty came home. The floating wineskin chasing profit was long suppressed; today the cage opens.
I have heard that of old, men opened graves and dug tombs; today the men of today do it more scientifically. Peel the Dragon's scales, hide the Dragon's pearl and egg, scatter them through the four seas — for the Dragon, too, to share the glory.
Dragon, Dragon, sigh long: moving with the times, what regret? If it benefits the people, I will die for them; to be mash or stew, the heart is willing. Better than rouge and clever smile, pushed to market for plaything.
But the Dragon-ancestor has only this body; once mashed and stewed, sold off, that is the end. If only I could clone this body myriad-myriad-thousand, to enrich the Dragon's descendants for ten-thousand-thousand years.
The Dragon's descendants, in fury, rise: to slander the ancestor for glory only shames the self. What the Dragon left us is not this single body but the unbroken five thousand years, the great wide cosmos, the swelling one-point-three billion people, the spirit of self-strengthening unceasing, ever-renewing, ever-fresh. By this spirit standing forth, a hundred years of revolution sought survival. By this spirit pure and clear, thirty years of opening drove the steeds far. The steeds today are in the wind, their will reaching the clouds. Tidy the saddle and bridle, commend the ancestral plan; the Dragon's wisdom leads further and farther.
Develop with the strength of Qian; create with the renewal of each day. Knowing where to stop, one is not in peril; seek the supreme good. Knowing glory and knowing shame, one is near humaneness.
Confucius's great-public will; the Book of the Great Harmony of Kang Youwei. Already-crossed, not-yet-crossed — harmony is treasured; Qian-qian, vigilant, by the abyss.
Do not say ancient China had no philosophy: the great Dao runs heavenly; the human is the root. Humaneness-learning, principle-learning, heart-learning — all ask what is it to be human?
If you say ancient China had no science: how did Zu Chongzhi seek the value of pi? Formal logic was indeed childlike; dialectical thought stood as a banner.
Do not say Chinese medicine is all empty mystery: systemic regulation has gained the true gist. Life's rising and sinking is one system; exterior, interior, yin, yang describe its tilt. Mend the tilt, return to the middle; nurture the true qi, complete the Heaven-allotted years.
Chinese tradition treasures harmony; on the new long march the Northern Dipper hangs. Around the four seas, gazing at the five continents, civilizations have stumbled often. Material civilization may have no end; the spiritual world is more lasting still. Science has shortened space and time; human desire flows wild on this small earth.
I have heard that in the West there is an expert: clash of civilizations, fanged teeth. Sage Jesus is helpless against angry Sage Muhammad; person-bombs and missiles strike first. Boeings shatter, skyscrapers crack — how is this earth a home?
I have also heard that in our country there is a worthy man, who has left sixteen words to those who come after: "Each sees his own beautiful; sees the beautiful of others; together brings beauty to common share; harmony with difference." (Fei Xiaotong)
The light of the Dragon's true marrow shines ten-thousand zhang to lead toward the great commonwealth. Harmony is like soup that holds difference; sameness is like the Ji-water — zero-entropy. Difference, harmonized, makes soup taste fine; zero-entropy systems sink into stillness.
Understand harmony with difference: civilization, faith, politics may all be plural. The plural world is spring in full bloom — why use hate to cut and kill, why share no sky?
Understand harmony with difference: why exhaust labor on image-shaping? Image lies in you and me, upright and proper, gentle and reverent, harmonious and active, sincere and diligent — wherever the Chinese descendants are, a fragrance is left.
The Dragon-dance has reached the Chinatowns; the Lion-dance leaps to please the four seas. Friends of the five continents do not find it strange; why need the feeble petty men trim and cut?
Sacred Dragon, sacred Dragon, sing a great song; Heaven and Earth beat the drum in harmony with you. Yangtze and Yellow River rest a while; the four seas and five oceans hold their waves.
Lead our one-point-three billion descendants to fly to the ninth heaven, bathe in the Silver River. Chang'e dances, Wu Gang laughs; the cosmos is a fine place to shuttle through.
The cosmos stretches a hundred billion light-years; five thousand years is the snap of a finger. Sacred Dragon of China is yet young: temper, strive, hide your light.
Keep the Dragon's spirit in the heart: vast, long-flowing, abundant, splendid — without end.
2006/12/20
Notes:
Wu Lady: a party secretary at a Shanghai university, surnamed Wu, who proposed reshaping the Dragon lest friendly countries take fright — hence the nickname Wu Lady. Not a reference to gender.
Bones-lean-coquettish: Mao Zedong said of Lu Xun, "He had not a hint of slavish face or coquettish bone." This Wu Lady, by contrast, has bones coquettish through and through.
(Source text continues in the original on cuiyueli.com.)