This week looks a poem by Mao Zedong celebrating the communist defeat of a tiny parasite. "Shooing Away the God of Epidemics" was written in 1956 upon Mao hearing that a county in Jiangxi had eliminated all their blood flukes.
#1
China’s green waters and the blue mountains are so numerous
but even the great ancient Chinese medical theorist Hua Tou is unable to take care of this little worm,
The thousand villages are covered in vines and peppered with their leaking shit,
the ten thousand homes are abandoned, only ghosts sing inside them.
He sits on the Earth everyday and walks 80,000 miles,
He roams through the heavens and looks out the distance at the thousand rivers.
China’s Orion constellation desires to ask the God of Epidemics about it,
happiness and hopelessness are all the same as time goes by.
其一
绿水青山枉自11多,华佗2无奈小虫何!
千村薜荔3人遗矢12,万户萧疏13鬼唱歌。
坐地日行八万里,巡天14遥看一千河。
牛郎4欲问瘟神事,一样悲欢15逐逝波5。
#2
A spring wind blows through a billion poplar and willow branches,
the 600 million Chinese of today live like the sage kings of old, Yao and Shun.
Showers of red petals, and our fulfilled hearts have been translated into waves,
the green mountain has been carefully transformed into bridges.
High up, the people are using their silvery hoes to dig canals,
down low, they are using their iron biceps to shake China’s three great rivers.
May I ask, Old Man epidemic, where will you go, now [that communism has solved all problems]
maybe you can use the light from the superstitious paper money the people used to burn to light your way out of here.
其二
春风杨柳万千条22,六亿神州尽舜尧6。
红雨7随心16翻作17浪,青山着意18化为桥。
天连五岭银锄18落,地动三河8铁臂20摇。
借问21瘟君欲何往,纸船明烛9照天烧。
Nicky Harman Interview - Jia Pingwa's Sojourn Teashop
Ian Johnson Interview
Jin Yong - Sword of the Yue Maiden
Jin Yong - Part 1
Sima Qian - Letter to Ren An
Sima Qian - Biography of the Capitalists
Sima Qian - Southern Yue People
Sima Qian - Series Introduction
Children's Book Peek in the Farm
Huang Zunxian in Hong Kong
New Year
Su Dongpo Goes to Trial for Poetry
Qiu Fengjia - Taiwanese or Chinese Nationalist?
Qiang Flute - Interview with Zhang Yanshuo
Wang Anyi - I Love Bill - Interveiw with Todd Foley, the Translator
Book of Poetry - Spanking the Pan
She Bore the Folk
Cao Xue's The Hut on the Mountain - Nobel Rerun?
The Book of Poems - Those Tender Peaches
Book of Poetry - The Big Rat
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
The Modern West
Concrete Pastures Podcast
The Atlas Obscura Podcast
Travel with Rick Steves
Frequent Miler on the Air
Points Talk with the Travel Mom Squad