(1910–1996)
Born Jiang Haicheng into a landlord family in Zhejiang, Ai Qing was brought up, as a fortune-teller suggested, by a peasant woman in order to avoid bad karma. Trained to be an artist, he went to France in 1929 to study painting. There he was influenced by French Symbolist poets and turned to writing. Returning to China in 1932, he joined the League of Left-Wing Writers. The following year he was arrested by the Nationalist regime for his radical politics, and in jail he composed his best-known poem, “Dayanhe—My Wet Nurse” (1933), a loving tribute to the working class as represented by the peasant woman who had raised him. After the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War, he devoted himself wholeheartedly to the resistance movement and the Communist cause. Like most free thinkers of his generation, he was condemned in 1957 as a “Rightist” and exiled to remote regions for twenty years. In 1979 he was rehabilitated and allowed to write and publish. A major poet of twentieth century China, Ai was also the father of Ai Weiwei, the famous Chinese artist whose provocative work has made him a target of government censorship in recent years.
In the land where the Yellow River once flowed
In the countless riverbeds now gone dry
A wheelbarrow
With its single wheel
Squeals, sending the cheerless sky into spasms
Across the silence and chill
From the foot of this mountain
To the foot of that mountain
Reverberates
The sorrow of the north country people
On the days of snow and ice
Between destitute little villages
A wheelbarrow
With its single wheel
Cuts deep ruts in the yellow soil
Across the vast and wild desert
From this path
To that path
Crisscrosses
The sorrow of the north country people
Danyanhe, my wet nurse,
Her name was the name of her native village.
She was a child bride
Dayanhe, my wet nurse.
I am the son of a landlord,
But also the son of Dayanhe
Brought up on Dayanhe’s breast milk.
Raising me, Dayanhe raised her own family
And I was one raised on your milk
Dayanhe, my wet nurse.
Dayanhe, the snow today makes me think of you:
Your grass-covered snowbound grave
The dry weeds on the eaves of your shuttered house
Your mortgaged garden, ten feet square
Your stone bench by the door overgrown with moss
Dayanhe, the snowfall today makes me think of you.
With your thick palms, you cradled and caressed me
After you had stoked up the fire in the stove
After you had patted down coal ashes from your apron
After you had tasted the rice to make sure it was cooked
After you had set the bowls of soy paste on the black table
After you had mended your sons’ clothes torn by mountain thorns
After you had bandaged your little child’s hand cut by a firewood ax
After you had crushed one by one the lice on your children’s shirts
After you had collected the first egg laid that day
With your thick palms, you cradled and caressed me.
I am the son of a landlord
After I had drunk dry your milk, Dayanhe
I was taken back home by my parents.
Ah, Dayanhe, why did you cry?
I was a guest in the house of my birth!
I touched the furniture of red lacquer and floral carving
I touched the gold patterns on my parents’ bed
I stared dumbly at the “Family Happiness” sign on the eaves,
unable to read the inscription
I put on new clothes and touched the silk and mother-of-pearl buttons
I looked at my sister, whom I barely knew, in mother’s arms
I sat on a lacquered k’ang bench with a brazier underneath for warmth
I ate white rice that had been milled three times
Yet, I felt so uneasy! Because I
Was a newcomer in the house of my parents.
Dayanhe, to survive
After her milk had run dry
She began working with those arms that had cradled me
Smiling, she washed our clothes
Smiling, she carried a basket to the icy pond by the village
Smiling, she sliced turnips frozen in winter
Smiling, she stirred the grain hulls in the pig trough
Smiling, she fanned the flames under the stew pot
Smiling, she carried a winnowing basket of beans and wheat
to bake them in the sun of the village square
Dayanhe, to survive
After her milk had run dry
She put those arms that had cradled me to work.
Dayanhe, who adored the child she had suckled
At New Year’s, for him, she busied herself cutting rice candy
For him, who would sneak away to her house at the edge of the village
For him, who would walk up to her and call out “Mom”
Dayanhe, who would stick his bright red and green drawing
of Guan Gong on the wall by the stove
Dayanhe, who would brag and boast to villagers about her foster child
Dayanhe once had a dream she could not tell anyone:
In the dream, she was enjoying the wedding banquet of the child she
nursed
Sitting in a splendid hall adorned with silk garlands
And her beautiful daughter-in-law called her affectionately, “Mother”
. . . . . .
Dayanhe, who adored the child she had suckled!
Dayanhe did not awake from the dream.
When she died, the child was not at her side
When she died, the husband who beat her shed tears
Her five sons each cried bitter tears
When she died, she called out tenderly the name of her child
Dayanhe is dead
When she died, her child was not at her side.
Dayanhe, who left with tears!
Along with four decades of humiliation at the hands of the world
Along with countless sufferings as a slave
Along with a four-dollar coffin and a few bundles of rice straw
Along with a few-feet-square burial plot
Along with a handful of ashes from burning paper money
Dayanhe, who left in tears.
But these are what Dayanhe does not know:
Her drunkard husband is dead
Her eldest son became a bandit
Her second son died in the smoke of gunfire
Her third, fourth, and fifth
Live their days cursed by their teachers and landlords.
And I am writing condemnations of this unjust world.
When I returned to my village after years of wandering
On mountain ridges, in the fields
When I met my brothers, we felt closer than six or seven years ago.
This, this is what you, Dayanhe, resting quietly in your sleep
This is what you do not know!
Dayanhe, today, your child is in jail
Composing this hymn dedicated to you
To your spirit, a purple shade under the sallow earth
To your outstretched arms that once embraced me
To your lips that kissed me
To your gentle earth-colored face
To your breasts that once suckled me
To your sons, my brothers
To all of them on earth
Wet nurses like Dayanhe and their sons
To Dayanhe, who loved me as she loved her own sons.
Dayanhe,
I am your son
Brought up on your breast milk
I worship you
With all my heart!
—On a snowy morning,
January 14, 1933
(Translated by Yunte Huang and Glenn Mott)
On a Chilean Cigarette Package
On a Chilean cigarette package
One sees a picture of the Goddess of Freedom.
Although she holds a torch in her hand,
She yet remains a dark shadow;
For serving as a trademark, an ad,
Let’s give the goddess a space.
You can buy a pack with a few coins,
After you are through with it, in smoke it’s gone.
You toss away the empty package on the sidewalk.
People step on it, people spit on it.
Be it a fact, or be it a symbol,
The Goddess of Freedom is but a pack of cigarettes.
—1954
(Translated by Julia C. Lin)