CH 32

The Shen Residence was built halfway up Solitary Hill, any trace of people was rare and the scenery was beautiful and secluded. When the group arrived at the entrance of the villa, Cui Xie sent Cui Yuan and his son off to go to the mountains and play. He tucked the box of prints into his sleeves and attended the poetry gathering with his schoolmates.

The villa was surrounded by clear, rippling streams, with winding corridors and pavilions, the entire residence full of red maple and yellow poplar trees, all encircling tall, yet simple and elegant buildings. The interior of the flowerbeds were full of hydrangea-like plumes and white chrysanthemums. Along the corridor, more flowers were growing in pots, like red peonies, purple-robed golden belt peonies and other famous products such as the big decorative red lion ribboned balls, turtle-dove feathers and faded snowy flowers.  

The scorching autumn flowers were full of cloud-like trees, who brandished their red autumnal leaves. If one were to shake them, the leaves would fall in autumn spirit. Furthermore, there was a maid wearing a red and white shanqun that shuttled in and out of the flowers, her face flushed as she constantly rushed and bustled about, the person compared to a flower, was similarly lovable and delicate. The scholars took in this happy occasion of wonderful scenery, all full of creativity, warp and weft in weaving poem verses, the poetry gathering occurring in full swing.

Shanqun: shan means short clothes worn on the upper body, qun means dress of the lower body, so all together it becomes shanqun. This was common attire for commoners in both Ming and Qing Dynasties. Below is what the maid would have looked like, but the quality and hair ornaments would most likely be a lot less luxurious.

Yue shixiong could be considered half the owner of this mountain villa and touched by the scene, his mood and interest was higher than the rest of the group. While bringing his schoolmates to the garden, he could not help but chant a poem: “Thickets of chrysanthemums growing in the Chongyang courtyard, the autumn mud on the trail carries fragrance. Patterned frost forms on the old leaves and is worthy of appreciation, cut out a new verse to match the mountain scene. The plants and grasses are unaware or worried that they are past one’s prime…”

Shixiong: senior male fellow student, apprentice/disciple; peers of the same generation often refer to this (male only)

As they approached the moon gate, suddenly, everyone heard a clear and sonorous voice chanting out loud from inside, “….Numerous clear and frosted flowers float on the edge of the water, the setting sun’s rays slanting into the branches and wind. Thou deeply comforts the desolate autumn, intoxicated by wine, chatting and accompanied by poets.”

Moon gate (月亮门; yuèliàngmén): is a circular opening in a garden wall that acts as a pedestrian passageway and is a traditional architectural element in Chinese gardens and can have great spiritual meanings. These gates were generally only found in the gardens of wealthy Chinese nobles.

Although it was only four phrases, the artistic conception in the poem was so lonely and far-reaching that it overshadowed Yue shixiong’s poem and he was embarrassed to finish saying his. 

The group that was with him were a bit dispirited, halting and loitering outside the gate, not wanting to enter. The poet in the interior courtyard had not meant to interrupt Yue Su, so he walked out quickly and asked, “Which friend was chanting poems outside? It is my fault that I have disturbed the friend’s poetic mood.”

A few young scholars in their twenties and thirties walked out from the moon gate. The poet that had been chanting a few seconds ago walked in the very front, a trace of surprise appearing on his face when he saw the group.

Next to him, a tall shengyuan with delicate features and a dark complexion came out and pulled on Yue shixiong, smiling and introduced to everyone, ‘This is my biaodi from my aunt (father’s sister), Yue Su and these little friends are his classmates. They are all studying under the Shi shixiong and they are here today to broaden their horizons.“

Biaodi: younger male cousin via maternal line

Shengyuan: (生員, lit. “student member”), also commonly called xiucai (秀才, lit. “distinguished talent”), an entry-level licentiate who had passed the college exam

The tongsheng hurriedly cupped their hands in greeting, and Shen Zheng pointed to the scholar who had just chanted the poem saying, “This is our Qian’an county’s most famous talent, the Yang Harmonizer, Guo Yong. This individual is Dingyou year’s examination’s anshou, Tang Ningtang from Changping District; diplomat Yu Zixing who wrote “Diao Yi Qi Fu” and profound, meritable Huang Taizhang.

Tongsheng (童生, lit. “child student”), an entry-level examinee who had passed the county/prefecture exams but not the college exams

Yang: positive energy, meaning sun and male (taoism)

Dingyou: 34th year of the 60 year cycle

Anytime you see a word in front of the examinations, it usually refers to the year in the 60-year cycle used in ancient times. The Chinese 60 year calendar cycle is based on combinations of a cycle of ten heavenly stems and twelve earthly branches. It is how people kept track of birth years and dates back then.

Anshou: highest ranking linsheng (1st class/top class performers of the college exam)

These xiucai were only a few years older, but they all looked at them with the lenient expression an elder would look upon the younger generation, and said with a smile, “It turns out to be the students of Shi shixiong, can be considered as basically our own disciples.”

Guo Yong conveniently pointed out to Yue Su with a few words, picking out the defects with the rhythm: crane’s knee, wasp’s waist and raised tail. He also taught him to focus on having intent before compositing poems, concentrating on artistic mood, intonation, and stressing certain characters. Only poems with unobstructed flowing ‘veins’ could come to life. Those fragmented and pieced together poems, while keeping in accordance with the rhyme and tonal schemes, in the end, it could not be counted as top quality.

crane’s knee, wasp’s waist and raised tail: these three faults/mistakes of poetry rhythm is a part of the “Four Tones and Eight Defects”, rules of tonal euphony made by Shen Yue, a poet, statesman and historian serving in the Liu Song Dynasty, the Southern Qi Dynasty and the Liang Dynasty. This is Shen Yue’s prosodic theory (language relating to rhythm and intonation; features include pitch, intotation, stress, pause etc). In this case, the actual rules are a bit complicated but basically, they wanted the sounds and rhymes within the five syllables (of a line) to be completely different.

Hearing this, Yue Su’s heart began to move deeply, a look of yearning admiration present in his simple and honest face. He had long forgotten that his poems had been compared and beaten to the point that only a few shameful dregs were left. The other tongsheng looked at Guo xiucai eagerly, wishing to hear him compose a few good verses.

Shen Zheng, the host of the gathering, laughed, “If you want to teach, don’t teach here. Let’s first sit at a table first. I have asked someone to prepare freshly extracted chrysanthemum wine as well as Sanlihe Restaurant’s freshly harvested crabs packed full of fat and meat. I have also instructed servants to invite the daughters of Wen mama and Liu mama from the Third Pavilion. Later, when we are competing with poem composition, we will ask them to drink wine together. Whoever makes the best poem will be allowed to pick someone to sing.”

嬷嬷(mā mā): while it is pronounced mama, it refers to old female servants, and is used similarly to pozi

The eyes of several scholars turned bright, and they began to search one’s guts and belly to think of good verses, hoping to win the first prize in one fell swoop.

Search one’s guts and belly(idiom): to rack one’s brains for a solution

Only Guo Yang was calm as usual, or maybe he had been forewarned in advance. While others were full of thoughts on how to make good poems to suppress and conquer the audience, the scholars still thought of these students and took the initiative to ask them, “Will the little friends also write poems or match couplets? When you come to a poetry gathering, there must be a proper victory or defeat. As shengyuan, it is not good if we compete with them, but we can oversee the event as judges and select the ones who were good to pick someone to duqu.”

Duqu: composing lyrics and music and usually the lyrics are taken from the previously written articles. In this case, whoever wins will get a courtesan to sing their poem into a song for them.

The “little friends” also hoped that the poems they composed could be sung by beauties. This last month, they had racked their brain’s in preparation for this poetry gathering and naturally wanted to compose poems.

Because all the scholars in the courtyard were all wearing black fangjin and the tongsheng all donned white rujin, only Cui Xie wore a jade-colored changshan and wangjin——he hadn’t even taken the examinations yet, so he could only wear varicolored robes—Guo Yong even specifically asked Cui Xie, “How long has this little friend been in school for, can you compose or negate poems?”

fangjin(方巾): means four-cornered flat cap, distinguished by the fact that its four corners are all approximately right angles. Fangjin were typically worn by Confucian scholars and priests during the Ming era

Rujin: a type of headscarf, literally means Confucian towel.

It would be the style of number 1 in the diagram

Changshan: a traditional dress or long robe worn by men, male equivalent of women’s cheongsam/qipao. 

Wangjin: headscarf used to tie up Ming Dynasty males’ hair, a very symbolic type of dress, It is because “no one is noble or low, it is all wrapped up”. These headscarves were also the piece of clothing least associated with social hierarchy. Although this ornament was small, the social and cultural implications of the Ming Dynasty carried by it are extremely rich. They are typically woven from black silk, horsetail, brown silk, and other materials.

He lowered his head and just caught sight of Cui Xie clutching onto a book box made of porcelain blue paper and asked, “You brought books with you on an autumn outing? Truly a studious temperament.”

Porcelain blue paper was used by Ming and Qing literati. It is a gorgeous dyed, processed paper that is thick and heavy. It can be peeled off in layers or dyed with indigo. It is called porcelain blue paper because of the paper which is like the celadon glaze of porcelain.

Cui Xie bowed his head and humbly replied, “It does not have any books in it, but is adorned with a few poems. Wansheng does not know how to write poems and am here today just to record a few good verses from the seniors and bring them back to show them to my classmate Zhao Yinglin shixiong.”

Wansheng: I (self-deprecatory, in front of elders)

Shen Zheng said with a smile, “That is good too, when we compose our poems, we will need a supervisory officer. Whoever is good, write the verses down on paper and the bad will be discarded. But, there is no need to provide your own paper, I will ask someone to bring you paper and a brush. Go go, let me take you to the table.”

The banquet had been held in the Shen family’s garden and there were quite a few older, senior scholars attending the banquet. A few tender and beautiful courtesans were just playing pipa in addition to a sizhu ensemble, accompanying the scholars for a chat. Shen Zheng took Guo Yong and the others over, regardless of the shengyuan, the courtesans hurriedly rose from their seats to greet them, bashfully and tenderly looking at the group of young scholars.

Pipa: four stringed Chinese musical instrument belonging to the plucked category of instruments

Sizhu: style of traditional Chinese instrumental style and in this case a Chinese woodwind/stringed ensemble. Literally made of silk (strings) and bamboo (winds).

The middle-aged scholar in the guest seat smiled and said, “Ai yah, as soon as youngsters arrive, no one wants us old men anymore.”

Shen Yu grinned, “Xu xiong do not get angry. Ask Guo xiong to come over and sit here and the beauties will naturally follow.”

Xiong: elder brother (xiong is the same in shixiong, but this is more formal while shixiong is often used for peers in the same school, sect etc

He arranged the xiucai to be seated in the atrium, but the tongsheng could only sit on the side seats set under the veranda in the corridor, the two sides as rivers Jing and Wei separate clearly. Yue Su’s own cousin did not even call Yue Su to the table either, but asked him to entertain the schoolmates he had brought with him.

as rivers Jing and Wei separate clearly (idiom): to be entirely different

Atrium looks Something Like This 

Shen Zheng pointed to a courtesan and ordered her to sit with the tongsheng and later on, she would need to sing their composed poems later.

Although the courtesan was a little reluctant to leave the group of xiucai, after sitting and looking at the group of shy and jerky teenagers, seeing Cui Xie’s appearance that warmed the heart and delighted the eye,  the dissatisfaction vanished like smoke in thin air.

warmed the heart and delighted the eye (idiom): pleasing, delightful

Vanish like smoke in thin air (idiom): disappear

She squeezed next to Cui Xie’s side and asked them with a smile, “How should I call you little young masters? Want to listen to this servant sing a few songs to accompany the wine-drinking?” She directed these words towards Cui Xie’s direction.

A few schoolmates, facing such a tender face, could not bear this and promptly righteously sacrificed their bodies to block Cui Xie, but this squeezed him off the seat. Fortunately, the host Yue Su was qualified and pulled him from outside, so this way Cui Xie was not squeezed directly to the ground.

However, Cui Xie had not properly gotten up yet when behind him came a familiar-sounding, vaguely angry shout, “What are you all doing?!”

Yue Su’s face paled and he withdrew his hand sloppily. Cui Xie almost fell to his knees, holding onto the corner of the table and supporting himself up, swaying and shaking a few times before standing firm. Several of his schoolmates were desperately sitting upright, not daring to have any contact with that singing courtesan whatsoever.

Cui Xie looked back, and saw Teacher Lin’s halberd hair and beard, his face full of blatant anger looking towards Wang, Luo shixiong and the other senior brothers. The host, Shen Zheng and a few of the older scholars went up to greet them. On account of his friends’ faces, Teacher Lin spared them temporarily, but the few tongsheng bowered their heads, their faces flushed, not daring to make trouble anymore.

Frightened! Primary school students entered with their peers in a morally problematic place, and accidentally stumbled across the sight of their Teacher and the Host chatting and laughing with each other. Was there anything more embarrassing than this?

Of course there was.

That is, Teacher Lin, under the numerous criticized students, individually singled him out as a model of moral character and pulled him out to praise him a few phrases. And he personally said their names, “Yue Su, Cui Xie, you two are sensible, pull those bastards up for me!”

The tongsheng restrainedly and cautiously stood up, and Shen Zheng, as the host, hurriedly helped to smooth things over, smiling, “This is all my fault, asking an incompatible young lady to serve them. These little friends please sit, you will have to write poems later, don’t let fright spoil the poetic mood.”

Teacher Lin snorted coldly, “What poems would they write, it will be merely nonsense!”

Guo Yong said a few nice words for them: “Why not? When we were in the outer courtyard, we heard a few of the little friends composing poems, there are still some redeeming qualities. Although Young Master Cui does not know how to, he said he was willing to be a supervisory officer for us and help us transcribe down good poems. Shi shixiong, just forgive them this time.”

Teacher Lin could not contradict his friend’s words and have them lose face, so he just snorted twice, ignoring his students for the time being, telling them to go back and copy the《Great Learning》ten times each—Cui Xue and Yue Su who hadn’t made trouble did not need to copy.

Envious and secretly bitter gazes immediately fell upon the two who did not get punishment, staring at them so hard until their robes were going to fall off.

Shen Zheng grinned, “Since everyone is here, let us start writing poems and then choose a Chief Poet to start up the banquet’s festivities. Su–di will take care of you little friends on my behalf and since this Young Master Cui is to be the supervisory officer, he should come to the table in front to prepare to transcribe the poems.”

-Di: younger brother

Teacher Lin said, “I am old, I do not want to fight with you talented youngsters, so today, I will precede over the event as a judge.”

Everyone had come to compose poems and no one argued with him on the matter. He got up and said to the xiucai: “Since it is the Chongyang Festival, you should compose poems on the Chongyang Festival, referring to chrysanthemums as the subject. Each person should compose one, use new ones and don’t half-heartedly just take out old ones.”

Chongyang Festival: Double Ninth Festival or Double Yang Festival occurs on the ninth day of the ninth lunar month which is said to have a lot of yang (sun/warm) energy and is a very auspicious date. It is customary to climb a high mountain, drink chrysanthemum liquor and wear the zhuyu (japanese cornel dogwood) plant (considered to have cleansing qualities). Chongyang cake is popular and incense sticks are burned. Some Chinese will visit the graves of their ancestors to pay respects on this day as well.

The courtesans laughed and begged these talents to compose good poems for them to sing. No matter how talented the xiucai and tongsheng were, under the attention of beauties, they were full of energy, spreading open the paper and brushes with confidence.

The maid of the Shen family lit incense to measure the time and then gave Cui Xie brush, ink and exquisitely colored paper for him to copy any masterpieces. Cui Xie refused and instead pointed to his paper box and said, “I have my own paper, but thank you for your trouble jiejie.”

Jiejie: older sister

Teacher Lin was sitting at the main table, not far from Cui Xie. He glanced and saw the paper box on his table and asked, “What book did you bring? Could it be the homework that still hasn’t been finished yet?”

No, I brought this big box to act like a pretentious prick, just waiting for someone like you to ask about it.

Cui Xie looked down and smiled, “Responding to Teacher, this is the newly made chrysanthemum paper from my bookstore. This disciple felt it was more suitable to copy Chongyang poems using chrysanthemum paper and specially brought it with me for today.” 

“Chrysanthemum paper?” The people at the guest tables were not in a hurry to write poems and looked at the box with interest. “Could it be that it is paper with chrysanthemums printed on it? It is a graceful and elegant artifact, take it out for us to see what the chrysanthemum looks like, seeing if it is worthy of the chrysanthemum poem written by these talented Qian’an youth.”

Cui Xie responded swiftly and flipped open the box, revealing flowered paper rolled into a cylindrical shape. Using the end of both hands, he spread it out from right to left very slowly.

At first, what was exposed was only the empty yellow-dyed paper, with a slanted watermark in the empty corner of the paper. Shen Zheng joked, “If it is just dyed with a yellow color, it cannot be considered as flower paper. This kind of paper cannot match up to the words of our county’s number one talent.”

Everyone looked at Guo Yong and laughed. He seemed a bit bashful and replied, “I think this flower paper is too big and the chrysanthemum printed in the corner hasn’t been revealed yet.”

The flowered paper continued to unfold, revealing a little light-green skirt and an autumnal cloth. The smile on Teacher Lin’s face was restrained and he revealed a trace of surprise, doubting, “You hired someone to paint this for your shop? Actually painting on paper, it takes a lot of work, but it is quite extravagant.”

Cui Xie’s fingers made a mistake, and the entire drawing unfolded, revealing a sweet, fair and graceful woman holding a white chrysanthemum. Now, it was not just Teacher Lin, but the host Shen Zheng and the guest of honor, Guo Yong, who were known for their talents and had seen their fair share of calligraphy and paintings, could not help but stand up, asking in amazement, “Whose painting is this? How can such a painting be used as paper?”

Cui Xie raised his head, smiling slightly to everyone and explained unhurriedly, “Wansheng’s father is a poor, but upright official, how could he be so extravagant to ask someone to paint this as paper? A few days ago, Teacher Lin bestowed upon wansheng a roll of good works obtained from the capital and among the works, this chrysanthemum painting was specially painted to match with it. One thought the painting was appropriate for the Chongyang festival, so I asked the artisans in the study to print it out for amusement, and it did not cost much material or effort.”

He opened the roll of prints, giving one to each guest, pointing to the little poem next to the beauty and said, “It is precisely this poem, that wansheng truly adores and merely reciting it was inadequate, so I manufactured it into a print.”

No one even cared about reading the poem, just staring at the beauty next to it, their eyes unable to move away. After a while, someone sighed, “How is this chrysanthemum paper, this is clearly a beauty paper?”

Teacher Lin nearly crumpled the paper, but managed to control his strength, coughing lightly to ask, “Who did you learn to paint from? Where did you learn to make such paper, how can you print such gorgeously colored paintings? Is it a method from the capital?”

This was not quite right. Although Qian’an was located in a remote geographical location, close to the mountain and coastal guards, it was still in North Zhili and it was not difficult to transport goods from Beijing. But the paintings he had bought in Nanjing and Beijing, had never been so exquisite and beautiful, the painting unlike a mortal object.

Cui Xie simply said, ‘This disciple learned painting from Lu juren in Jiangxi, but does not know how to make paper. It is just that I temporarily wanted to make colored paper and asked those artisans to try it out, and they printed it like this.”

Juren (舉人, lit. “recommended man”), a qualified graduate who passed the triennial provincial exam

….What kind of master artisan were they ah! Teacher Lin’s heart trembled slightly and he could only sigh, “As expected of artisans from an official’s house and then asked Cui Xie, “Does this paper have a name?”

Cui Xie shook his head, “It is just chrysanthemum paper, Chongyang paper, etc, just call it like that. But the person in this portrait is the fox demon encountered by Jingyang‘s top scholar Fang Ning, Wan Ning. Should the paper be called ‘Wan Ning paper’ then?”

Jingyang: famous metropolis in ancient China

Guo Yong suddenly opened his mouth and said with a sense of lamentation, “If you can print such a colored paper drawn in fine brushwork, why bother about what picture is drawn on the paper, or what holiday it is? I think your shop’s paper will be most suitable named ‘Cui paper’. After today, I am afraid the two capitals and 13 provinces will all compete to buy this Cui paper!”