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>Hey guys. Been a while. I'm studying Chinese IRL, so I've got less reason to focus on the blog, but I have been getting all the letters - thank you all. I've also received two guest posts that I'm embarrassed to say I haven't put up yet. Apologies, it may be a while, but they're coming. Right, on with the poetry.

Kinda kills me how little information is available on the modern Chinese writers, you know? A few of the most famous works have been translated, but most have only cursory mentions. Even the Wikipedia pages don't have nearly the amount of content that the Chinese encyclopedias offer. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dai_Wangshu" target="_blank">Dai Wangshu</a>, for example, is relatively unknown in the west. So who is this guy?

Dai Wangshu (戴望舒) was a famously-depressed modern Chinese symbolist poet, born in 1905, died from an accidental overdose of asthma medication in 1950 - asthma which he contracted when he was thrown in jail by the Japanese for advocating revolution. Seriously, this guy spent his entire life having the sadz. He threatened to kill himself a couple of times, once to force his girlfriend to marry him (she agreed, but then ran off with a refrigerator salesman, cuz I guess refrigerators were a big deal at the time), and once when his first wife fell in love with another man and asked for a divorce.<!--more-->

<img src="http://devenv.chinesereadingpractice.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/20160428-inline.jpg" alt="Learn to Read Chinese: Advanced Chinese Poetry, Modern Chinese Poetry" width="100" height="100" class="imgborder alignleft" /《雨巷》, Dai Wangshu's representative work was written in 1927 when he was 22. He'd just broken it off with his girlfriend and was spending much of his time in seclusion at a friend's house. This was also written soon after the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_massacre_of_1927" target="_blank">April 12 Incident</a>, during which the KMT (Guomindang) slaughtered a bunch of Communists in Shanghai, where Dai Wangshu was living, so we're talking a period of political uncertainty and upheaval. Because of this, there's been speculation that the poem has political overtones, but I don't think so. 

Like most of Dai Wangshu's work, 《雨巷》 is wistful, lovely and sad, and also a bit misty and dreamlike. It describes a single scene in which a woman, dressed in purple and holding an oil paper umbrella, passes the author on a silent rainy road. You'll see the word 丁香 appear frequently - that's a "lilac". Lilacs come up a lot here. The language is difficult at first, but then gets repetitive, as he uses the same words again and again in different configurations, until in the last stanza, there's no new vocabulary. 

I don't love the <a href="http://www.zg-wh.com/2014/03/a-lane-in-rain-poem-by-dai-wangshu.html" target="_blank">translation that's available</a> for this, so I made own translation below - it's not perfect. Like most Chinese poetry, if you translate with exact faithfulness, it sounds crappy in English, so small liberties have been taken. You may like the other version better, go check it out. Regardless of the translation, I think this piece loses its beauty in the English version. If you read the poem out loud in Chinese, you'll notice it's got a lovely cadence, with some off-tempo rhymes that get lost in any other language, so try reciting it, if you can.

彷徨 is interesting in that it has two meanings. One is to pace back and forth - a Chinese synonym for this might be 徘徊. But it also means "to hesitate". I personally used both definitions, one in the first stanza, a different one a little later on, so don't let that trip you up. In fact, I do something similar in a couple of places, use different definitions of the same word to make it sound a bit better in English. 

Little side note, these Chinese punctuation marks 《》 indicate the name of a book, movie, poem, or other written work - we use quotes or italics for this in English. 

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<div class="postintro">
<h4>Click to Listen</h4>
彷徨 - [pinyin]pang2huang2[/pinyin] - To pace (or to hestitate)
寂寥 - [pinyin]ji4 liao2[/pinyin] - Solitude / solitary
丁香 - [pinyin]ding1 xiang1[/pinyin] - Lilac
愁怨 - [pinyin]chou2 yuan4[/pinyin] - Worried and resentful (two separate words)
芬芳 - [pinyin]fen1 fang1[/pinyin] - Fragrance
哀怨 - [pinyin]ai1 yuan4[/pinyin] - Sad
彳亍 - [pinyin]chi4 chu4[/pinyin] - Walk slowly
凄清 - [pinyin]qi1 qing1[/pinyin] - Gloomy
太息 - [pinyin]tai4 xi1[/pinyin] - Sigh
凄婉 - [pinyin]qi1 wan3[/pinyin] - Bittersweet, sad but beautiful
颓圮 - [pinyin]tui2 pi3[/pinyin] - Crumbling, toppled
哀曲 - [pinyin]ai1 qu1[/pinyin] - Sad song
</div>
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<hr />

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<div id="chinesetext">
撑着油纸伞，独自
<strong>彷徨</strong>在悠长，悠长
又<strong>寂寥</strong>的雨巷，
我希望逢着
一个<strong>丁香</strong>一样的
结着<strong>愁怨</strong>的姑娘。

她是有
丁香一样的颜色，
丁香一样的<strong>芬芳</strong>，
丁香一样的忧愁，
在雨中<strong>哀怨</strong>，
哀怨又彷徨；

她彷徨在这寂寥的雨巷，
撑着油纸伞
像我一样，
像我一样地
默默<strong>彳亍</strong>着，
冷漠，<strong>凄清</strong>，又惆怅。

她静默地走近
走近，又投出
<strong>太息</strong>一般的眼光，
她飘过
像梦一般的，
像梦一般的<strong>凄婉</strong>迷茫。

像梦中飘过
一枝丁香的，
我身旁飘过这女郎；
她静默地远了，远了，
到了<strong>颓圮</strong>的篱墙，
走尽这雨巷。

在雨的<strong>哀曲</strong>里，
消了她的颜色，
散了她的芬芳
消散了，甚至她的
太息般的眼光，
丁香般的惆怅。

撑着油纸伞，独自
彷徨在悠长，悠长
又寂寥的雨巷，
我希望飘过
一个<strong>丁香</strong>一样的
结着愁怨的姑娘。
 
</div>
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[one_half last=last][hide-this-part morelink="SHOW ENGLISH TRANSLATION"]

Holding an oil paper umbrella, I
pace through a long, long, 
and solitary rainy alley.
I hope to come upon
A girl like lilacs, 
Distressed and grudging.

She has
The color of lilacs
The scent of lilacs
And a lilac's concerns,
Grudging in the rain,
Resentful and hesitating. 

She paces in the drizzling, desolate lane,
Holding her oil paper umbrella,
As I do,
Just as I do, 
Soundlessly wending,
Aloof, cheerless, and unhappy.

She walks quietly closer,
Walks closer, casting
A glance like a sigh,
She floats past,
As a dream does,
As a dream does, indistinctly bittersweet.

Floats by as a dream does, 
A single lilac,
The girl who floats past me, 
She is getting farther, farther,
Reaches the toppled fence,
Walks out of this drizzling alley.

In the rain's plaintive song,
Her color is washed away
Her scent dissipates
Washed out and dissipated, even her
Sighing eyes
Her lilac melancholy.

Holding an oil paper umbrella, I
pace through a long, long, 
and desolate rainy alley.
I hope to float by
A girl like lilacs, 
Distressed and grudging.

[/hide-this-part][/one_half]