4. However, these names do not sound familiar to me. So after consulting HK gurus from a site, its name is "Wah Tzi" (搲子)
Thursday, October 10, 2013
My Childhood
4. However, these names do not sound familiar to me. So after consulting HK gurus from a site, its name is "Wah Tzi" (搲子)
Monday, October 7, 2013
長安雨 - Changan Tears

流水急急, Waters flowing hurriedly
今日春光來 Today's spring is here
明朝去. Gone tomorrow.
半边空寢, Half the empty bed,
半边愁. Half the sorrow.
日落月起心思思. The sun sets, the moon rises, mired in thoughts.
人在何處? Where is he?
歸还昔日夢. Alas but to return to the dreams of old.
流水速速, Fast waters,
往東遊. Wandering towards the east.
花落葉飛. Blossoms fell, leaves in flight.
辜負丹心念. Disappointing my sincere thoughts.
扭轉乾坤有何用? Of what use to turn Heaven and Earth upside down?
追回舊影一場空. Futility in chasing dreams of old.
一樹梨花壓海棠1, A treeful of pear blossoms weighing down upon the begonias.
半天楓葉伴明月. Half the sky drowned in maple leaves accompanying the bright moon.
1. Without going into the nifty details of the allusion, figuratively it means an older man taking a much younger bride. The white pear blossoms refer to the whiteness of the groom and begonias, the redness of youth of the bride.
06 人何處?人何處? Where is he? Where is he?
07 難歸昔日夢 'tis difficult returning to dreams of old!
08 水流遠遠水遙遙 Waters floweth far away, waters so distant,
09 飛花落葉往東遊 Flowers in flight, leaves a falling, towards the east they wandered,
10 可憐丹心負 Pity this betrayed sincere heart!
11 還我舊時還我醉 Return my former times, bring my stupor back!
12 扭轉乾坤移星辰 Even turning Heavens and Earth topsy-turvy, constellations transforme
13 又何用? 又何用? Of what use is then? Of what use is then?
14 追回舊影空 Shadows of old chased back, but still in emptines.
15 一樹梨花壓海棠 A tree of pear blossoms pressing down upon the begonia,
16 半天楓葉伴枯情 Half the sky of maple leaves accompanying withered love.
17 長安一夜雨聲多 One night in the City of Eternal Peace - too much clangor from the rain,
18 冥府無日雷音細 Nary a day passes in Hades - too faint a sound from salvation!
01 Flowing water denotes time passing too quickly.
02 Reminiscent of Po Chu I's poem, 來如春夢不多時, 去似朝雲無覓處 - about his dalliance with a courtesan.
03 This line is intentionally structured to be a short bust to break the monotony and rhythm of the many long lines in the poem.
05 "thoughts of myriad emotuions" is a suggestion from ChatGPT which I thought was superior than my original. Have to admit, the program is far from perfect but once in a while, upon hitting the right spot, a job well done.
06 人 is more gender neutral than 君 to reflect modern standards of inclusive diversity. Use of repetition to reinforce the weight of the very short line of having three characters.
08 I wanted the second stanza to be mirrored but at the same time, some variation to break any monotony caused by this.
09 Due to the geography of China, rivers always flow toward the east. "wander" was chosen over "flow" as I like to limit repetition of characters to a minimum. Rather than using the old trope, this word connotates "aimlessly" blown by the wind to reach their conclusion. Flowers are seen as youth soaring to the heavens while the aged like leaves, fall to the ground.
10 The mirroring effect from line 3.
11 The idea of this line comes from ChatGPT for something else. I thought that this fits well here and shamelessly appropriated it.
12 移 means "moved" but it lacks power and "transformed" is used.
13 The mirroring effect from line 6.
15 海棠 is technically the Chinese crabapple but is too wordy and so begonia is used. Pear blossoms are white - hence white haired. Begonias can be red, to denote youthful bloom in the face. This line comes from an allusion about Su Dong Po's retort to his 81-year-old teacher on marrying an 18-year-old girl when the teacher wrote a poem boasting of his manliness.
https://jeffinous.blogspot.com/2014/05/lolita.html
16 An attempt to form a couplet. Red withered maple leaves flying in autumn to suggest aged days and therefore can be translated as "aged days, withered love" but this results in the loss of original imagery, an iteration to line 9.
17 Changan, the City of Eternal Peace is used as a symbol of past grandeur since it was the most magnificient city in all of Chinese history. It's imperial palace is about 6.7 times larger than the Forbidden CIty in Peking. Rain symbolizes tears.
18 Another attempt to form a second couplet. 冥 means "dark" and 府 means "seat of government" i.e. purgatory. "Thunder sound" refers to the "quiet" roar" of Buddhist chants, hence signifying salvation. 聲 means sounds coming from upper regions such as the sky while 音 are those made on the lower regions such as the earth or hades etc. Thus, 聲音 means all sounds. Hence we have word combinations like 風聲 but never 風音. However, there are exceptions such as 歌聲 to mean earthly songs so mellifluous that they came from the celestial world.
Wednesday, June 4, 2025