Memories of Mount Qilai: The Education of A Young Poet

We worked in the classroom with all the windows wide open, the bright morning air flowing through. The girls were embroidering flowers. They each held a piece of pretty fabric in their left hand; in the middle of the fabric was a double bamboo ring that held the fabric taut. Various designs-peonies, butterflies, and goldfish—were drawn on the fabric. Each plied a needle with her right hand, stitching various colors of thread within the ring, each so intent and beautiful. The boys were making small desktop bookshelves. They were arranged in small groups, some of which sawed the wood, while others hammered nails. The whole classroom was filled with sawdust. I disliked the dirt and disorder, and was totally disinterested in such work. I looked up frequently at the girls embroidering by the windows, with their short, shiny black hair, white necks, and delicate fingers holding their needles, quietly embroidering. I thought it was so beautiful. Behind them, the green banyan trees and flame trees shone. It was so very beautiful.

At that moment, from what seemed like an unimaginably distant place, a faint sound between have and have-not was heard approaching, mysteriously; from out of nowhere, a frightful sound arrived before we were completely aware of it. At the very same time, the whole world began to shake. Earthquake! The whole world swayed left and right. Instinctively, we wanted to run out of the classroom. “Don’t run,” sternly shouted the female teacher, “take shelter under your desks!” We each crawled under our little desk, but the ground continued shaking, increasing in intensity. When it swung northwest, our desks and chairs were thrown together in the northwest corner; when it swung back to the southeast, we rolled back, crowded under our desks along with the embroidery rings and needlework, the pieces of wood and the nails. The tools followed us as we rolled back and forth. A muted cry continued to fall from the sky. Helplessly we shouted. It was like a nightmare from which we could not wake. Afraid and anxious, we finally abandoned our efforts. The earthquake stopped.

We climbed out from under our desks, some crying. Many people were standing outside, shouting to us. During the earthquake, everyone else at school had run outside and gathered in the middle of the playground. Only our class stayed put to be tossed around. The row of classrooms beyond us had collapsed, and only ours was intact. If it had collapsed, we in all likelihood would have been crushed to death. In a matter of a few minutes, half the houses in Hualien had crumbled, the railroad tracks had been twisted, cracks had opened in the streets, and wells had gone dry. Countless stories and gossip followed with the aftershocks that occurred one after another.

The reaction to the aftershocks was like negotiating with a celestial being, allowing you to really discover the existence of a (or many) transcendental spirit(s) beyond outer space, vast and unknown. Although the earthquake had stopped, the small city perched on the ocean continued to tremble and shake for the next two weeks. Sometimes it would shake softly, making a person look back with helpless apprehension, not knowing what to do. The most vexing thing was that each time there was an earthquake, regardless of how slight, the clock on the wall would stop. Surprisingly, being shaken several times, it would stop ticking. In those instances, we’d straighten it, reset the time, and set the pendulum swinging before it would begin ticking again. But after a while another large tremor would hit and everyone would rush outside. Upon returning, we’d look up and the clock would be crooked and stopped, and we’d have to start all over. Gazing at the clock, I found it to be the most pitiful machine around. After I looked at it for a while, it ceased to be a machine—the hour and minute hands looked like eyes and the pendulum looked like a tongue. It ticked on, but some distant spirit disliked that way of proceeding, so with its hand started an earthquake that stopped it. I wondered if time was not the same. As time continues ahead, we cannot grasp it; suddenly that spirit took a dislike to the way it advanced, and with its left hand set the earth to quaking, stopping time in its tracks.

Sometimes the aftershocks were violent, and you could feel them coming. At that time, our new house had a lotus pool in the backyard, the source of water for which had been cut off after the violent shake. All that remained were some broken leaves on top of the mud, and all the carp of South Asia were caught and cooked in soup. We dared not live in the house, because Japanese houses in those days were roofed with tiles. If we ran out-side when a strong quake hit, there was a chance that one of the gray roof tiles would fall off and hit us on the head—that was the frightening reason I heard—so at night we slept in a tent pitched in an open space beyond the lotus pond. At first I thought it was interesting to sleep in a tent, but I was often awakened in the night by a tremor, which finally led to fear. The most frightening of all was while dreaming, I seemed to hear a dark howl come from the other side of the sky and like a demon approach my drowsy soul, half awake or half asleep, listening to it rapidly press closer, closer, closer, then finally the earth shook violently. I awoke, clutching my blanket, fearing lest the tent collapse. When I determined that the tent wouldn’t collapse, I then thought of how only a tightly stretched mat separated my body from the ground. What would happen if the earth split open? If a crack opened, I’d lightly fall in; then it would close again and no one would be able to find me.

That pursuing howl set a person to trembling, proving that there was a metaphysical majesty between heaven and earth. Recalling how I surmised this at the end of childhood and thinking of the subtle and hidden meaning today, I cannot help but feel that that realization is the maturation of the classical source of myth. That majesty was awe-inspiring like the thunderbolt of Zeus, bursting forth in a flash, cutting through the dark sky, descending on the world of men with a deafening roar, leaving us terrified and panic-stricken. This is a myth that was produced before Plato, in an extraordinary corner of the northern Mediterranean, where as the people evolved, they relied on their imaginations to create the myth—perhaps it’s better to say that they relied on experience, on the collective unconscious of the community, to determine the image of the thunderbolt of Zeus. Fear, a human fear of metaphysical majesty, produced the power to create myth. I was conscious of how my insignificant life had entered a new unconscious stage, amid the howling and shaking, gestating the structure of myth. That is to say that the origination of that myth was much earlier than the earthquake that spring, perhaps in the storms and torrents in the mountainous wilds, in the bloody light and the tears. It happened long before, in my uneasy tracks—if this was the case, then the howling pursuit and the dizzying shaking of that spring served to bring my portion of the structure of myth to maturity. Ah, spring, black spring.

Assuming that this must be the case, then what that black spring bestowed upon me was an inkling of poetry.

Assuming there was poetry in any of this, that poetry was produced in the process of the maturation of myth. It was impossible to keep this inkling secret. “And you actually believe that war occurred among the gods, and there were dreadful hatreds, battles, and all sorts of fearful things like that? Such things as the poets tell of, and good artists represent in sacred places; yes, and at the great Panathenaic festival, and the robe that is carried up to the Acropolis is all interwoven with such embellishments?” Poetry is the explanation of myth.

When the earth shook, it woke a miraculous beast hibernating inside me. In that tumultuous time, like a soldier crouched behind a boulder on open ground to take cover from an enemy grenade, my heart beat quickly as I watched the room swaying left and right, like pomegranate blossoms wavering in the breeze. The wooden door creaked like it was about to split, as if it would topple at any moment. Sensitive, I prayed to God, making various promises as I stole glances at the high clouds, as if there really were an absolute power between heaven and earth with which I could share a certain kind of secret. In that brief second, I felt that I was different from other people, like a high priest given the idea by the gods. I possessed a special supernatural power that allowed me to speak with them directly. I was the first to do their will and who prompted the ordinary people to express their desires and concerns so they could judge pitifully, and I could do my best to interpret their orders.

Sometimes my prayers were not answered. I assumed it was due to conflicting opinions among the gods. Thus, in my imagination, I constructed all sorts of conflicts, the debates among the gods, their struggles, their fights, and all out wars. Until one day I grew tired of so many disappointing fantasies and decided to banish the gods from my imagination, leaving a single abstract concept that I could wholeheartedly kneel to and worship, and it could forever play the role of my guardian, omnipresent, omnipotent. It was the universe, vast and eternal; it was the mountains, the dust, happiness, sadness; it was everything. It guided me like the calm northern star, it inspired me and tempered me, molded a tireless soul for me to explore and pursue, forever and ever. From an immature pantheism, I moved to a cheerless monotheism—cheerless because that god was my creation, not my creator. After many years, when I was no longer able to bear that mutually reliant faith alone, I returned to the world of many gods, happy with their indifference to me.

This repeated asking and praying was actually religious in nature; however, I have never been clear about the real nature of religion. All I know is that people practice their own faiths, respectfully, devoutly, carefully, fearfully, you can usually tell from the expression on their faces. The one thing I have never been able to understand is why the forms of worship practiced by people always transcend natural beauty.

That earthquake destroyed many houses, but I never heard of a temple or church being destroyed. There must be a reason, sacred mysteries perhaps. How could anyone have his own explanation? After the earthquake, the largest city god temple to the smallest earth god shrine on a country road, as well as the scattered churches, all stood erect with no damage. Even though I couldn’t penetrate the sacred mysteries, I secretly developed a curiosity about all of it.

I have all along treated the god images in temples with respect and fear, and have never dared look at them directly. This has always been a strange and contradictory matter for me, revealing a conflict between the real and the unreal, even after so many years, the gap between essence and phenomenon, internal and external, past and present. In short, it was always an illusory experience, latent within the process of growing up, that left me in an unsteady trance, but in fact closer to the world of poetry and art. Shortly after moving into our new house, I noticed that near the lotus pond there was a pomelo tree, under which grew a lot of cockscomb flowers. Beyond that was a row of banana trees, and a bit farther on was a hibiscus hedge. I saw an opening in the hedge and squeezed through. Outside was a clean courtyard and to the right was a small shrine to a deity with which I was unfamiliar. Incense smoke rose around it. Outside the shrine sat a pale, heavyset, middle-aged man, who was busily carving something while speaking off and on with a skinny old man. The old man was the keeper of the shrine. I approached them while intently watching the pale, heavyset man. In his left hand he wielded a chisel; in his right hand, a wooden mallet. He was carving an unblemished piece of wood with beautifully skilled gestures, hard and soft and up and down strokes. The wood chips fell like flower petals in front of him. He never stopped chatting with the old man, talking and laughing. I sat down, my eyes fixed on that piece of wood. The pale, heavyset man smiled at me, but didn’t pay any special attention to me. He kept tapping the chisel against the wood as he chatted and laughed. The warm sun shone all around, while a heady scent continued to waft from the incense burner, making a person dizzy. A number of turkeys strutted around the courtyard; in the randomly strewn shadows of the trees it was quiet and peaceful. I was pretty sure in my mind that he was carving the statue of a deity. I was so certain of this that I didn’t ask. A form emerged very quickly from the piece of wood: a head, body, and four limbs. A blanket of fine wood chips covered the ground as the sky grew dark. When I returned the following day, the man had just awakened from his noon nap, and, after a flurry of activity, sat down and set about carving again. His tools were much finer this day; he gently scraped the wood with a small fine chisel and sanded it and smoothed it with his fingers, then brought it close to his lips to blow away the dust. He smiled as he lifted the unfinished image for me to look at its nearly complete likeness—helmet, face, and armor. I sang its praises: “That’s really great!” He was very happy. On the third day, he spent more time to smooth the image with sandpaper, till his hands and face were covered with dust. Even I was dusty. On the fourth day, he painted the image with beautiful colors, but had not applied any paint to the good-looking face. On the fifth day, I arrived later than usual, and he said, “I didn’t think you were coming today.” I asked why. He said, “I’m going to draw the deity’s face today.” He took up a fine brush, drawing the outline of his two lips and the ridge of his nose in crimson red. Then he delineated the hair on his temples, and eyebrows in black ink, and finally added the eyes before stepping back to examine his handiwork for a while. “Look good?” he asked. I promptly said yes, then asked “What deity is it?” “Guan Ping,” came his reply.

Is this really how gods are created? No, no. Over a five-day period spent with the woodcarver, I watched as a piece of wood was transformed into Guan Ping, who, along with Zhou Cang, would serve Guan Gong in a new temple. It was not a deity before me but rather a beautiful work of art, prompting joy and warmth. Later, it was more than just Guan Ping, more than just Guan Gong, Zhou Cang, and Guan Ping; that pale, heavyset man produced countless deity statues. Some were handsome like Guan Ping; others had black faces and long hair like Zhou Cang; others had green faces and fangs like demons. Large and small, they all took shape under his mallet and chisel and paints. Sitting in that quiet courtyard, smelling the dizzying incense, I had no fear of those deity statues. I liked them immensely, because they were beautiful works of art. They were not deities, nor were they ghosts.

Why was it then that every time I entered a temple, I never dared look directly at a deity statue? I feared their green faces and fangs, the black face of Mazu and the red face of Guan Gong, the solemn face of Guoxing Ye, and even Guan Ping. Deities are the products of our minds, as are ghosts. The carving in the courtyard that afternoon was a delightful work of art. Housed and worshipped in a temple, and steeped in incense smoke, and owing to our sincere desires, it would become a god that would prompt in us stirrings transcending the mundane. For me, it would always be frightening, robbing me of the courage to look at it. A contradiction existed that was difficult to explain, if not ridiculous, while also being very real. These issues repeatedly arose in my young mind, troubling me; analysis was impossible, and I was left helpless as they rampaged through my young heart.

Again, I considered how intriguing the carving process was. That man focused his spirit on creating a work of art, and others were determined to become involved, making the artwork a symbol of a deity, adding to that kneeling and worshipping and the fostering of fear and respect in the individual. What was behind all of this, propping it up? If I chose to be an artist, I wondered what I would do. For example, I too could learn to carve and paint, making lifelike images, to please, to make people bow, to teach and admonish people. I could exercise my mind and my imagination, employ my tools, vigorously pursue and explore in order to realize my art. The process of realizing a work of art would also be the process of my real work. The tapping, the wood shavings and dust, and the smell of paint and ink would all vanish when the work was realized. What people—myself included, sometimes—saw was that art expressed the inner spirit, which would possibly become eternal, but which was no longer just the original materials. That is creation. Creation was so intriguing.

I hated making a desktop bookshelf, but I was enthralled with imagining myself carving a statue to prove my creativity. I was not a craftsman, but an artist.

I would pour all of my passion into a work of art; I would focus my spirit on the object of creation. Day and night I would trace and search, reverently and earnestly facing my materials, I’d attain, like a high priest, prophetic insight into the secrets of the universe, observing an order and categories never seen by common mortals, fully expressing it all, first moving myself and then others. For myself and for others, I would reproduce that sacred splendor, capturing that fleeting beauty, fixing all that is good, so that we could always be close, recognizing human attributes while being concerned about them and loving them. Suddenly it was as if I had encountered a huge challenge, a tempering of life, and a secret I could not tell anyone about grew inside me. Only I could feebly bear the burden. In that distant age, I knew I was reluctantly bidding farewell to my childhood.

Frequent aftershocks continued after the big earthquake, propelling me with all vigilance into the dark world of the imagination. I knew that bodily trembling and pain were real and that the trembling and pain of the spirit were equally as real. When I was enjoyably fantasizing alone, my spirit would stir me ever so lightly, like the whirr of cicada wings, each time more quickly, finally becoming a speedy stimulant, hastening through the world of my imagination, as if there were a goal, struggling forward, oscillating, leaping in that moment unknown to others. In the days of the aftershocks, rumor had it that a tsunami was coming and the land would sink.

The sea was the same sea.

I sat on a high spot of the beach and watched the sea. That deep blue rarely changed. On sunny days, all the more since it was spring, the warm southeast stirred vastly as far as the eye could see, all the way to the horizon. What was a tsunami? Sinking of the land? A number of fishing boats could be seen plying the waves. Even in those days of a potential surprise disaster, a number of fishing boats set out to sea and returned to port. I suddenly thought of Mazu’s black face, auspicious and kind, though frightening.

It is said that when a tsunami occurs, heaven and earth roar, howl, and wail. The sound comes over the surface of the ocean, sweeping across the endless deep blue. At that moment, billions of tons of water would rise up, rolling, sweeping toward Hualien. At that moment the color of the sky would be beyond my imagination. Would it perhaps be all purplish red, or white like the face of a dead person? The seawater would easily break the dike at the coast at Nanbin, immediately swallowing the houses on the eastern side, and from Milun Stream in the north to the mouth of the Hualien River in the south. Then the water would surge ahead, rolling toward the foot of the mountains, passing over Gongxia and Fengchuan, spreading south along Xiulin County, inundating all of Hualien then breaking the embankment at Qijiaochuan and rolling on to hills in Ji’an County. The sea would repeatedly surge for several days, singing boisterously as if the world were ending, like a lament from hell. That’s why it’s called a tsunami. As it rolled through old Hualien, it would tear up the ancient alluvial fan, ultimately washing away the city’s foundation, washing away the land, with the entire delta flowing like mud to the bottom of the sea. The houses, railroad tracks, bridges, factories, farmland, and all the trees and flowers would all flow into the Pacific, floating and drifting on the waves, and finally vanishing without a trace. That is what is meant by the sinking of the land. It is said that at that time, another round, funnel-shaped bay appeared to the north of Mount Milun, from Mount Qijiaozhou in the west to the dense forest slowly rising on Mount Liyu in the southwest. The sea would gradually spread into the longitudinal valley all the way to the Papaya River, halting at Mount Yuemei in the east.

I sat on a high point on the beach, looking into the distance. The thin white clouds floated over the surface of the sea like a school of slow-swimming fish. The sky and the ocean were the same color and appeared permeated with a dense mist. A spring breeze blew through the trees on the shore, tapping lightly in response to the waves caressing the fine sand. Occasionally an errant wave would strike the reef, sending up spray that disappeared just as quickly. The spring breeze carried a heartbreaking fragrance—the smell of salt mixed with fish scales and seaweed as well as dreams and fantasies, foolishness and curiosity, fear and reverence, boundless longing under the bright sun. Oh, a fragrance that instilled worry in you that all of this was soon going to disappear; a fragrance incomparable and irreplaceable, on the solid and complete coast of Hualien. I sat there and felt a gnawing pain; my spirit trembled, my body gradually grew numb, the internal and the external interacted, conflicting and tormenting. Ahead and to the right was the beginning of the Taidong Coastal Mountain Range. I took a quick look back and Hualien had not sunk to the bottom of the sea. The lofty mountains towered as if nothing had happened. In a moment I felt another tremor. The earthquakes had not entirely ceased, as if a deity had caused an earthquake with a special gesture, instructing me that wallowing in an excess of sentiment, these sharp pangs of love, was inseparable from the motion of the universe and all things in it, that everything had to conform to certain rules: age would come, followed by weakening, decay, and death, all without exception. The moment I abandoned myself to these thoughts and feelings, when I heard the breathlike sweep of the waves, saw the reflected sunlight, dazzling as the smile on a face, I felt the desire-filled breeze toying with me, with a feminine concern. In that direct and powerful metaphor I seemed to discover a secret that made me feel secure. I lay down. The earth shook again, or perhaps it didn’t, and though it may have been just a hallucination, I thought I had discovered the eternal clue. But I finally understood that many things were right then rapidly disappearing, those years where green, brown, and blue crisscrossed, days of long cicada cries, reed flowers, water dripping from the eaves, and dragonflies following one another were all disappearing, because there was a greater universe and that universe had rules of motion that would naturally send me on my way to another place. It was hard to say if it would be a strange and distant place, to explore, search, and create, with no regrets. When I grew up or grew old, and white hair covered my weary temples, and my eyes had probably grown dim, I would, by then, have grasped these eternal worries and longings with no regrets, but with a few sentimental feelings: