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Hui-hung (1071–1128) was from Yifeng in Kiangsi province. Not much else is known about him other than that he was a Buddhist monk who lived at Chingliang Temple in Nanching. Clearly, he did not spend all his time in the meditation hall. The swing was introduced to the Chinese by northern nomads sometime during the first millennium B.C. For reasons I have yet to discover, it became part of the pastimes associated with Chingming, especially along the Yangtze in the land of Ch’u, where people usually stood rather than sat on the board. Toad Palace is another name for the moon, which is inhabited by a three-legged toad that is the transformation of Ch’ang O, Goddess of the Moon.

The Swing

HUI-HUNG

A pair of blue ropes swing from a painted frame

a beauty enjoys spring by a small pavilion

her crimson skirt flutters as it scrapes the ground

her beguiling jade face rises to the sky

the carved board glistens with apricot-blossom rain

colored ribbons trail in the green-willow haze

down she steps in silence and stands nonchalant

a banished immortal from Toad Palace it seems