Cultural Revolution. this video explains the poem the answer in malayalam line by line. This study guide contains the following sections: Plot Summary Chapters Characters Symbols and Symbolism Settings Themes and Motifs Styles The Homecoming Summary. //= $post_title The example you gave me of the students using my poem in Tiananmen Square gives me a very complex mixture of feelings. If a thousand challengers lie beneath your feet. Why do a thousand sails contest the Dead Sea? The tacit choice he was given: come home and be silenced or live apart from everyone and everything you love. 81-83. . I found out that after great effort to preserve their relationship, his marriage to Shao Fei had sadly ended. Bei Dao which literally means "Northern Island" is the pen name of . Each ring has gates to the north, south, east and west and is heavily . The journal was banned after two years of publication, and in 1989 Dao was exiled from China for his perceived influence on the protests that led up to the Tiananmen Square massacre. Reading about his work, it is hard not to conjure up an almost mythic image of the man. For a more general statement on the position of Bei Dao's work in contemporary Chinese literature, see my "Writers and Performers, Their Works, In addition, on May 4th, 1919, the May Fourth movement took place in response to the unequal treaty the West has imposed on China. Bei Dao: "The Answer He has produced a series of poster poems for the British Labour Party among other causes. The danger we face is that we lose track of the genuine in our experience and in our work, that we become a parody of what were once our selves. It does not occur accidentally….I think it is the responsibility of every person to, first of all, acknowledge that this contradiction exists in life, that we are all a part of this contradiction and it cannot be avoided. misty poetry of 70s6. His poems have been translated into more than 30 languages. Before I left my country in 1989, I could count on a larger audience within China itself. On the other hand, it is a way up, a new growth. the poem the answer starts with the lines debasement is the password of the base and in the flow of the poem he wishes for a world without restrictions and oppressions. In a sense we were at the top of society. Wu ye zhi men (Midnights Gate), a volume of essays weaving political discourse with stories of his travels, was released in 2005. Now a U.S. citizen, Bei Dao is currently Professor of Humanities in the Center for East Asian Studies at the Chinese . Steven Ratiner is a poet, educator, and freelance writer. Once I goose-stepped across the squaremy head shaved barethe better to seek the sunbut in that season of madnessseeing the cold-faced goats on the other sideof the fence I changed direction. Bei Dao currently lives in exile in Denmark, but the Chinese government refuses to allow his wife and young daughter to join him. It is the very same method, I realized, required by the landscape of his poems, which, suddenly, seemed not so very foreign at all. See how the gilded sky is covered With the drifting twisted shadows of the dead. As my words were translated, a shadow of sorts swept across his expression. The visual imagery here can be tied in with the title as the visual images are pleasant, which hints the recollection of a pleasant and pure beauty that which the poet himself has encountered with different people (faces) on several occasions, although these people seem not to leave a trace which hints the numerous amounts of people the poet might have encountered with to emphasize his connection with all those he has come into contact with. To repeat a Chinese slogan, he began, One was born under the Red Flag and grew up under the Red Flag. From my childhood onward, right up to the Cultural Revolution, there were never any doubts in my mind because we grew up under the Communist system. Its like with computers: you get entered as a certain data, and every time this data is called up, you get called up with it. There is a joke in China about how poets must be worthy of incredible respect, because the government sees them as so important that they even put them in prison. Depending on which section you were seated inamong the silver-haired alumni in the front rows or the recent undergraduates toward the rearthe remarks were greeted with expressions ranging from outrage to wild applause. Bei Dao came to be considered the poetic voice of his generation, and his poetry gradually gained a hearing in official publications but was considered difficult and arcane. I watched as these words animated Bei Daos normally placid face and reminded myself of how I must always intuit the inner spirit of this poet and not merely rely on outward signs. It was Bei Daos way of fulfilling two contradictory needs: to comment on the totalitarian abuses that plagued his society, yet to do so in a manner that was somewhat shielded by the obscurity of his symbolism; and to explore a personal dreamscape where feeling and imagination could be given free reign. If, when the question was translated, the poet winced, I was not yet focused enough to detect it. His pseudonym "Bei Dao" literally means "North Island" and was suggested by a friend as a reference to the poet's provenance from Northern China, as well as his typical solitude. A Study Guide for Bei Dao's "The Homecoming Stranger," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Short Stories for Students. Since 2007, he has been a professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. By the third stanza, the poem nearly explodes with the spirit of defiance: Let me tell you, world,Idonotbelieve!If a thousand challengers lie beneath your feet,Count me as number one thousand and one.I dont believe the sky is blue;I dont believe in thunders echoes;I dont believe that dreams are false;I dont believe that death has no revenge. Bei Dao (literally: "Northern Island", born August 2, 1949) is the pen name of Chinese poet Zhao Zhenkai. destroy themselves in passion. Postscript When I first met with Bei Dao, he had been in exile from his homeland for only two years and was still trying to come to terms with his new life in the West. the poem the answer by bei dao summary malayalam3. . Save time and let our verified experts help you. "Knowledge of death is the only key that can open midnight's gate."Bei Dao Bei Dao has gained international acclaim over the last decade for his haunting interior poetic landscapes; his poetry is translated and published in some twenty-five languages around the world. Its very difficult to say what sort of cultural background he came from. This was because Chiangs Nationalist government angered both the peasants and middle class due to the governments inability to solve economic problems and rising inflation. Why was President Truman criticized for his response to the communist revolution in China?, Because of this, Qings government weakened even more and China grew angry and humiliated toward the British (www.chinaeducenter.com). As a writer and a poet, I am part of a search to find a new language of expression [within the Chinese]. From roughly 1979 to 1989, a group of poets called the Misty Poets (Mnglng Shi Rn) arose in post-Maoist China. The Opium War in China was disasterous to China, accelerating its downfall. Each of the three stanzas began with the word Not… and, in its negation, seemed to attempt to erase a portion of grief and remake the memory of the tragedy that occurred. The Genoese seaman, who had sailed. I began by asking the poet about the significance of his pen name, which in Chinese means North Island. It seemed a simple enough starting point. Commodus was the first of these emperors ruling from 180-192 C.E. Whether in conflict with the Westerners or neighboring Japan, China kept falling further and it proved to be a great humiliation. Question 2 a. Subsequently/Next, Bei Dao gets more serious about the issue as he states 'like the masthead light reflected in water', the 'masthead light' representing all the people in China, and the 'reflected water' being a mere representation of purity and innocence or a ripple affect, symbolizing how all the people who are suppressed seem to realize their own rights and are slowly starting to rub off on one another as more and more people get influenced and start fighting for themselves and their own freedom and happiness. The country that perceived themselves as superior to all outsiders and invincible in battle was shown just how incapable they were. The greatest turning point for me came during the Cultural Revolution when I was sixteen, with the call for youth to go down to the countryside and participate in production. Get expert help in mere They are the watchful eyes of future generations. / If a thousand challengers lie beneath your feet, / Count me as number one thousand and one" (11-16). Much of his early work, as well as that of other Misty poets, appeared in the influential underground journal that he co-founded in 1978, Jintian (Today). 10 minutes with: Explore how the human body functions as one unit in harmony in order to life //= $post_title it's war out there, he says. Every explosion heralds an instant of stillness, Every death reverberates forever. In the poem, Passed On written by Carole Satymurti, the poet illustrates the importance of a box filled with index cards, at the same time, she reminisces about her mother.. We use cookies to give you the best experience possible. A member of the Red Guards for a short time and then a construction worker, he began to write as a substitute for active political involvement and as a protest against contemporary official literature. 48 Vitosha Boulevard, ground floor, 1000, Sofia, Bulgaria Bulgarian reg. Yes, I told him. In 1990 the journal Jintian was revived in Sweden as a forum for Chinese writers abroad, with Bei Dao as chief editor. After the defeat in the Sino-Japanese War, China had to give up Korea and Taiwan, All of their attempts to reassert themselves were met with defeat as their authority were constantly undermined. Bei Dao's poem "The Answer" was considered to be defiant towards the Chinese government during the 1960s and 1970s. cookie policy. . and it contains some of the same sting as Solzhenitsyns rebuke. The struggle among artists and writers in China has been to separate writing and creative impulses from politics. 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