Usually Fuling was a riot of horns and construction projects, but at that moment in that classroom it was completely quiet. There was respect and awe in that silence, and I shared it. I had read the poem countless times, but I had never heard it truly until I stood in front of my class in Fuling and listened to their stillness as they considered the miracle of those fourteen lines.
A moment later I asked them to describe what they saw in that silence, Shakespeareâs woman through Chinese eyes:
Her skin is as white as snow and as smooth as ice. Her long hair is like waterfall; her eyes are so attractive you will never forget after you see her. She is plentiful, she is tall. Her little mouth as red as roses, and her eyebrow is like the leaves of willow. Her fingers are so slender that scallions canât compare with them.
She looks like a slim and graceful lotus that is beginning to blossom. Her long hair is like a waterfall. Her elbow is like a crescent moon. Her mouth is like a red cherry. She has bright eyes. She is as gentle as water.
She is slim, with long black hair. Her eyes are big and bright, full of soft and shyness. Her brows are like two leaves of willow. Her lips seem very active. Her skin is white and soft, like cooked fat.
Her hair is just like golden wave. Her skin is so smooth that you will suspect it is made of marble. Her waist is as soft as watergrass and her fingers are slim as the root of onion.
She has natural, plain beauty as a woman in the countryside. She is as pure as crystal. She looks like a floating poem.
In our imagination, she is very beautiful and have something of melancholy. In Chinese history, there are four beauties, maybe, she looks like one of themâWang Zhaojun. For us, we canât find some description about their beauty, because their beauty is beyond description. We can only say: they are very beautiful.
THERE WAS AN INTENSITY and a freshness to their readings that Iâd never seen before from any other students of literature, and partly it was a matter of studying foreign material. We were exchanging clichés without knowing it: I had no idea that classical Chinese poetry routinely makes scallions of womenâs fingers, and they had no idea that Sonnet Eighteenâs poetic immortality had been reviewed so many times that it nearly died, a poem with a number tagged to its toe. Our exchange suddenly made everything new: there were no dull poems, no overworked plays, no characters who had already been discussed to the point of clinicism. Nobody groaned when I assigned Beowulf âas far as they were concerned, it was just a good monster story.
This was the core of what we studied in that cramped classroom, and on the good days we never left. But there was always a great deal that surrounded us: the campus and its rules, the country and its politics. These forces were always present, hovering somewhere outside the classroom, and it reached the point where I could almost feel the moments when they pressed against us, when some trigger was touched and suddenly the Party interfered. Occasionally students wrote about how Shakespeare represented the Proletariat as he criticized English Capitalism (because of this theory, many Chinese are familiar with The Merchant of Venice ), and several pointed out that Hamlet is a great character because he cares deeply about the peasantry. Other students told me that the peasants in A Midsummer Nightâs Dream are the most powerful figures in the play, because all power comes from the Proletariat, which is how Revolution starts.
I had mixed reactions to such comments. It was good to see my students interacting with the text, but I was less enthusiastic about Shakespeare being recruited for Communist Party propaganda. I found myself resisting these interpretations, albeit carefullyâin light of my studentsâ backgrounds, I couldnât bluntly say that the peasants in A Midsummer Nightâs Dream are powerless
A moment later I asked them to describe what they saw in that silence, Shakespeareâs woman through Chinese eyes:
Her skin is as white as snow and as smooth as ice. Her long hair is like waterfall; her eyes are so attractive you will never forget after you see her. She is plentiful, she is tall. Her little mouth as red as roses, and her eyebrow is like the leaves of willow. Her fingers are so slender that scallions canât compare with them.
She looks like a slim and graceful lotus that is beginning to blossom. Her long hair is like a waterfall. Her elbow is like a crescent moon. Her mouth is like a red cherry. She has bright eyes. She is as gentle as water.
She is slim, with long black hair. Her eyes are big and bright, full of soft and shyness. Her brows are like two leaves of willow. Her lips seem very active. Her skin is white and soft, like cooked fat.
Her hair is just like golden wave. Her skin is so smooth that you will suspect it is made of marble. Her waist is as soft as watergrass and her fingers are slim as the root of onion.
She has natural, plain beauty as a woman in the countryside. She is as pure as crystal. She looks like a floating poem.
In our imagination, she is very beautiful and have something of melancholy. In Chinese history, there are four beauties, maybe, she looks like one of themâWang Zhaojun. For us, we canât find some description about their beauty, because their beauty is beyond description. We can only say: they are very beautiful.
THERE WAS AN INTENSITY and a freshness to their readings that Iâd never seen before from any other students of literature, and partly it was a matter of studying foreign material. We were exchanging clichés without knowing it: I had no idea that classical Chinese poetry routinely makes scallions of womenâs fingers, and they had no idea that Sonnet Eighteenâs poetic immortality had been reviewed so many times that it nearly died, a poem with a number tagged to its toe. Our exchange suddenly made everything new: there were no dull poems, no overworked plays, no characters who had already been discussed to the point of clinicism. Nobody groaned when I assigned Beowulf âas far as they were concerned, it was just a good monster story.
This was the core of what we studied in that cramped classroom, and on the good days we never left. But there was always a great deal that surrounded us: the campus and its rules, the country and its politics. These forces were always present, hovering somewhere outside the classroom, and it reached the point where I could almost feel the moments when they pressed against us, when some trigger was touched and suddenly the Party interfered. Occasionally students wrote about how Shakespeare represented the Proletariat as he criticized English Capitalism (because of this theory, many Chinese are familiar with The Merchant of Venice ), and several pointed out that Hamlet is a great character because he cares deeply about the peasantry. Other students told me that the peasants in A Midsummer Nightâs Dream are the most powerful figures in the play, because all power comes from the Proletariat, which is how Revolution starts.
I had mixed reactions to such comments. It was good to see my students interacting with the text, but I was less enthusiastic about Shakespeare being recruited for Communist Party propaganda. I found myself resisting these interpretations, albeit carefullyâin light of my studentsâ backgrounds, I couldnât bluntly say that the peasants in A Midsummer Nightâs Dream are powerless
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