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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. This is

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Speaker 1: Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and today we're bringing

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Speaker 1: you an episode from the vault. This is the first

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Speaker 1: part of our series on the Shanhai Jing, also known

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Speaker 1: as the Classic of Mountains and Seas Uh, the great

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Speaker 1: old Chinese text that has all these excellent bits of

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Speaker 1: mythic geography and monsters. This episode originally published on February nine,

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Speaker 1: so we we hope you enjoy this. Rewind. Welcome to

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Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind, production of My Heart Radio. Hey,

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Speaker 1: welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name is

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Speaker 1: Robert lam and I'm Joe McCormick. And boy, we've got

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Speaker 1: a couple of episodes this week that I am really

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Speaker 1: excited about. Yeah, that's right. We're you know, we're celebrating

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Speaker 1: Chinese New Year, the coming of the Metal Ocks, and

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Speaker 1: so you know, on on this show we enjoy explorations

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Speaker 1: of celebrations and explorations of mythology, legend in folklore. We

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Speaker 1: love a good monster, and around this time of year,

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Speaker 1: we especially like to explore topics related to the Chinese cultures.

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Speaker 1: So in this episode, we're going to open up an

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Speaker 1: ancient Chinese text known is the shan Haijing, the Classic

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Speaker 1: of Mountains and seas As. It sometimes translated um. Other

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Speaker 1: times it's translated as guide ways through mountains or seas.

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Speaker 1: I've also seen it called the Cannon of the Mountains

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Speaker 1: and Seas. Yeah, and so it's you know, different different

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Speaker 1: translating translations are going to be uh, something we're gonna

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Speaker 1: touch on a lot in this episode. But basically the

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Speaker 1: plan is we're going to talk about what this book

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Speaker 1: is with a few examples from it in this episode,

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Speaker 1: and then the next episode will mostly just be strange

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Speaker 1: creatures and monsters. It's gonna be so much fun. Okay.

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Speaker 1: So the Shannaijing could be thought of in a in

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Speaker 1: a few different ways. I mean, we can get more

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Speaker 1: into the as we go on, but in in some

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Speaker 1: ways it is a text that is difficult to categorize,

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Speaker 1: though some people have sort of uh, some people have

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Speaker 1: characterized it as an ancient travel guide of sorts. It's like,

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Speaker 1: you know, you go by that book in the gas

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Speaker 1: station that tells you about all the cool stuff in Delaware.

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Speaker 1: This is like that, but it's like all the cool

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Speaker 1: regions and monsters surrounding the ancient civilized regions of China.

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Speaker 1: So you could also look at it as a work

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Speaker 1: of mythic geography, a kind of magical geographical encyclopedia that says, Hey,

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Speaker 1: here are the parts of the world, and here are

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Speaker 1: all the different kinds of flora and fauna and monsters

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Speaker 1: and gods and magical entities you will find in these

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Speaker 1: parts of the world. But one of the major focuses

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Speaker 1: of this book is something that you know, you know us,

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Speaker 1: you know what kinds of things draw our attention. Uh,

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Speaker 1: it's going to be the guay Wu, which this author

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Speaker 1: named Richard Strasburg translates as strange creatures. Now we're gonna

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Speaker 1: be referring to a couple of books throughout these episodes,

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Speaker 1: So I guess the first one, just since I'm already

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Speaker 1: mentioning his name. Uh, this is a book called a

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Speaker 1: Chinese Best Jerry Strange Creatures from the Guide Ways through

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Speaker 1: Mountains and Seas. And this is a translation and notes

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Speaker 1: by Richard Strasbourg, who is a professor of of Chinese

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Speaker 1: I think at U C. L A. So to give

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Speaker 1: some context for what these strange creatures, the guai Wu

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Speaker 1: represented to ancient Chinese readers of this text. I wanted

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Speaker 1: to start with an example that that Strasburg also uses

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Speaker 1: right at the top of his introduction. Uh So, this

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Speaker 1: is a story from an ancient Chinese text known as

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Speaker 1: the Guanzi. Also that translates usually to Master Guan, which

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Speaker 1: is a sort of compendium of tales and knowledge for

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Speaker 1: political leaders. It's it's state craft. It was composed and

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Speaker 1: collected probably between the fifth and the first century b C.

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Speaker 1: But it is attributed to this guy who lived farther

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Speaker 1: back in the seventh century b C. Ease traditionally said

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Speaker 1: to have been his sort of thoughts and writings, and

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Speaker 1: that is the titular Master Guan or guang Zong. Uh So,

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Speaker 1: back in the seventh century b C, there was a

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Speaker 1: ruler in the eastern Chinese state of Qi known as

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Speaker 1: Chi Huangong or du Quan of Chi, who lives six

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Speaker 1: eight five to sixty three, and the story goes like this.

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Speaker 1: One day, the duke was out riding past the safety

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Speaker 1: of the city walls, and he's accompanied by his prime

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Speaker 1: minister or chancellor guan Jong, who again this is traditionally

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Speaker 1: said to be the author of this text. Now, of course,

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Speaker 1: when you venture out past the city walls. There they

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Speaker 1: are all these dangers that lie in wait. You know,

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Speaker 1: the untamed wilderness is out there. It sort of represents

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Speaker 1: chaos in some form, and it could reach out and

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Speaker 1: claim you. So, while du Quan and Guangjong are riding along,

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Speaker 1: they suddenly spot a tiger lying in wait. It's sitting

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Speaker 1: there ready to ambush, and the predator locks onto the

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Speaker 1: duke in his horse, and there's every sign that the

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Speaker 1: tiger is about to attack him. But then at the

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Speaker 1: last minute, the tiger seems to think better of it

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Speaker 1: and then does not spring from its ambush, and instead

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Speaker 1: it refrains. It SLINKs away, and the duke is perplexed

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Speaker 1: what made the tiger shy away from him? And Guan

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Speaker 1: Jong has an answer to this. He says it must

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Speaker 1: be because the duke's horse bears a strong resemblance to

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Speaker 1: a strange creature known as the bow. Now, a bow

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Speaker 1: is in some ways like a western unicorn. If you've

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Speaker 1: ever seen it in illustration, you might have just mistaken

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Speaker 1: it for that Western unicorn tradition. It is a horse

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Speaker 1: that has a horn on its head, but it is

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Speaker 1: more than that. And just to give you a flavor

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Speaker 1: of the raw text itself of the of the shan Haijing.

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Speaker 1: I want to quote from Strasbourg's translation of the entry

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Speaker 1: in this text about the bow. So it goes like this.

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Speaker 1: Three hundred lee farther west stands Mount Winding Center. There

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Speaker 1: is much jade on its southern slope, and much realgar

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Speaker 1: white jade and metal on its northern slope. There is

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Speaker 1: a beast dwelling here whose form resembles a horse, but

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Speaker 1: with a white body, black tail, a single horn, and

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Speaker 1: tiger's teeth and claws. It makes a sound like a

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Speaker 1: drum and is called the bow. The bow devours tigers

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Speaker 1: and leopards. It can also protect against weapons. There is

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Speaker 1: a tree growing here that resembles a wild plum, but

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Speaker 1: with round leaves and red fruit that is as large

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Speaker 1: as a papaya. It is called the Hawaii tree, and

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Speaker 1: eating of it will increase one's strength. And then after this,

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Speaker 1: after telling the story about du Quan, Strasburg says that

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Speaker 1: the story kind of illustrates the importance of understanding of

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Speaker 1: strange creatures for powerful and learned people in ancient China.

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Speaker 1: And so, to quote from his introduction here, Strasburg writes

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Speaker 1: Duke Kuan, who has become legendary as the first of

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Speaker 1: the five great hegemons of the Joe dynasty, is shown

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Speaker 1: displaying his control over the wild periphery. The tiger not

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Speaker 1: only represents a threat to mand still feared in many

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Speaker 1: areas of China at that time, but symbolically other nobles

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Speaker 1: who occasionally challenged the Duke's rule. The Duke's pre eminence

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Speaker 1: among men is matched by his horse's resemblance to one

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Speaker 1: of the more fearsome strange creatures, and the Duke's supremacy

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Speaker 1: appears only momentarily threatened before he is cleverly reassured by

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Speaker 1: his Prime minister. The original readers of this anecdote were

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Speaker 1: mostly members of the literate elite with political ambitions as

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Speaker 1: officials or advisors in the courts of the feudal states.

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Speaker 1: They understood guan Jong's timely reply as an example of

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Speaker 1: his legendary success as an official, and read the story

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Speaker 1: as a recommendation that they too, equipped themselves with such

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Speaker 1: useful knowledge of the strange. And so this is so interesting.

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Speaker 1: I I love what is the kind of picture of

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Speaker 1: the culture that's inculcated by by this anecdote? The idea

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Speaker 1: that if you want to be a learned person, a

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Speaker 1: good advisor, who has who can sort of adapt to

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Speaker 1: any situation, you don't just need to know how politics works.

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Speaker 1: You don't just need to know astronomy. You don't just

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Speaker 1: need to know the ways of divination and and and

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Speaker 1: the will of the gods and all that. You also

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Speaker 1: need to understand monsters. You need to understand the strange beasts.

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Speaker 1: You must have the best jerry within your own mind. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: this is this is a really an interesting way to

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Speaker 1: think about it. Right, the world is full of these

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Speaker 1: strange creatures, but there's there's there's an advantage in in

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Speaker 1: knowing about them and understanding their properties because they are

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Speaker 1: ultimately part of the world as well, Because in the

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Speaker 1: various ways of looking at it and the creatures that

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Speaker 1: pop up in this book there they're not they're not

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Speaker 1: considered outsiders. They are part of the world. And if

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Speaker 1: you want to know the world, you need to know

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Speaker 1: it's denizens. Yeah. Sometimes I get the impression when reading

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Speaker 1: about this that that it means something different to be

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Speaker 1: a strange creature in this ancient Chinese understanding of the world.

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Speaker 1: Then it would mean to be like a supernatural creature.

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Speaker 1: Does that make sense? Yes? But then, but then a

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Speaker 1: lot of the strange creatures, some of the strange creatures

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Speaker 1: are definitely supernatural, and their gods, even or demi gods

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Speaker 1: have have some of relationship with God's. Others are just

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Speaker 1: strange creatures. Like uh, well, like one example that comes up,

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Speaker 1: if I can briefly just read a quick passage from

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Speaker 1: this translation by Anne Barrel that I'll be referring to

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Speaker 1: again and again. Here, uh the text says, and this

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Speaker 1: is again from the shaun Haijing. There is a bird

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Speaker 1: here which looks like a duck, but it only has

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Speaker 1: one wing in one eye. It can only fly if

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Speaker 1: it and another bird joined together. Its name is the

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Speaker 1: South Wild. Whenever it appears, there will be severe floods

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Speaker 1: overall under the sky. So, um, a half duck. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so a half duck that comes together with another half

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Speaker 1: duck and becomes a thing that can fly. Um, you

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Speaker 1: know it. It doesn't sound like this is a divine being.

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Speaker 1: There is a certain amount of magic to it. I

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Speaker 1: guess in that it's something it does can be an

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Speaker 1: omen or you know, con clue you in about what's

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Speaker 1: happening in the world. At large, but that seems to

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Speaker 1: be part of the the the world view of the

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Speaker 1: time anyway. So so yeah, it's it's not like all

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Speaker 1: of these are magical creatures versus uh in traditional creatures,

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Speaker 1: because there are a lot of non magical there are

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Speaker 1: a lot of We'll discuss more about this in a bit,

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Speaker 1: but you know, it's it's not just filled with with

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Speaker 1: creatures that do not exist. There are also creatures within

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Speaker 1: this book that are very much real creatures. And to

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Speaker 1: be clear, that mixing of the mythical realm with the

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Speaker 1: utterly mundane natural realm uh that appears in other types

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Speaker 1: of bestiaries from from other parts of the world too. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: probably the I mean the main thing we're talking about

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Speaker 1: when we're talking about bestI areas, of course, medieval bestI

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Speaker 1: areas of Europe. Uh, there were these were among the

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Speaker 1: most popular illuminated texts in like Northern Europe at the time.

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Speaker 1: They were compendiums of beasts real and imagined that were

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Speaker 1: generally described in terms of their religious meanings. Um. There's

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Speaker 1: a second century CE text called the Physiologists, and this

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Speaker 1: is the earliest known example of this sort of text,

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Speaker 1: and it was based on information compiled from other sources

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Speaker 1: such as Aristotle's History of Animals, uh, the work of Herodotus,

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Speaker 1: and of course another key text that we've referenced again

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Speaker 1: and again on this show that imagine a number of

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Speaker 1: you are already thinking about as a parallel to the

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Speaker 1: to the shan Hajing, and that is, of course plenty

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Speaker 1: of the Elder's natural history, right, his natural history, of course,

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Speaker 1: plenty of the Elder was a Roman military officer, politician,

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Speaker 1: and author who lived in the first century CE, and

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Speaker 1: his natural history is a great window into what was

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Speaker 1: thought to be known about the world during that time

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Speaker 1: in ancient Rome. Yeah, a ten volume attempt to compile

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Speaker 1: all ancient knowledge concerning a multitude of subjects then included

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Speaker 1: no shortage of magic and monsters. Now, Strasburg makes some

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Speaker 1: comments in his introduction that I thought were interesting, which

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Speaker 1: is that while the Shannaijing has some similarities to these

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Speaker 1: Western ancient and medieval best cheries, it is very different

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Speaker 1: in that it does not do allegorical moralizing the way

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Speaker 1: especially medieval best jerries in Christian Europe did um so

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Speaker 1: I guess to clarify on that. Like a lot of times,

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Speaker 1: if you read one of these medieval best cherries would

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Speaker 1: be like here's a monster, here's the cockatrice, or here's

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Speaker 1: the unicorn, here's the basilisk and uh. And then that

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Speaker 1: becomes sort of a metaphor for something about like sin

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Speaker 1: or redemption. You know, it has special meaning within like

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Speaker 1: Christian theology. For the authors of the Shannhaijing, I think

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Speaker 1: it seems clear that this would be more akin to

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Speaker 1: something like what Plenty was doing. It was about just

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Speaker 1: the literal preservation and transmission of what was believed to

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Speaker 1: be real knowledge about the world. Yes, now, not to

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Speaker 1: say that some of these various creatures end up taking

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Speaker 1: on additional meaning later on and are used to push

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Speaker 1: various points. But yeah, for the most part, this is

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Speaker 1: an idea of this, this is the world. Let us

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Speaker 1: try and chronicle what is going on in the world,

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Speaker 1: both the Chinese world and the world outside the limits

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Speaker 1: of Chinese culture. So the shan Haijing consists of eighteen

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Speaker 1: books uh that attempt to chronicle the world, and it

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Speaker 1: has it has no known author, though it was long

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Speaker 1: attributed to the mythic ruler You the Great. This is

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Speaker 1: the individual who is said to have quelled the great

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Speaker 1: flood of China during the twenty one century BC. Now,

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Speaker 1: another interesting thing about the shan Haijing, brought up by

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Speaker 1: both key sources for this episode, is that it has

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Speaker 1: a long resisted easy classification. Now, not to the extent

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Speaker 1: of say the Vonage Manuscript, which you know, it seems

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Speaker 1: like it's perhaps a nonsense text, right, we we can't

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Speaker 1: apply any understanding to it. Uh, we just have theories

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Speaker 1: about what it possibly could be. Um, So it's not

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Speaker 1: on that level. But it is to the extent that

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Speaker 1: different commentators across the centuries have looked to it as

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Speaker 1: different things and for different answers. So the shaan Haijing

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Speaker 1: has been seen as a book of ancient wisdom, a

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Speaker 1: book of omens, a book of geography, a book of cosmology,

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Speaker 1: a book of fiction, a book of mythology, a book

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Speaker 1: of traditional medicine, and and more. So this is one

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Speaker 1: of the reasons that the text is survived so long

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Speaker 1: while others have been lost to history as a long

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Speaker 1: you know, tradition of writers, first in China and eventually beyond,

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Speaker 1: continued to come back to a time and time again,

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Speaker 1: and thus a text with origins dating back to as

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Speaker 1: you know, as far as the fourth century b c.

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Speaker 1: Remains a popular text to this day and has been

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Speaker 1: translated into numerous languages numerous times. Uh, you know, and

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Speaker 1: survived purges as well, you know, like like, oh, you're

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Speaker 1: throwing out cosmology books, Well, this is a book of fiction, etcetera.

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Speaker 1: And while we don't want limit the Shaanajing to just monsters,

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Speaker 1: we did put monsters in the title of the episodes

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Speaker 1: because you know what we like and we know what

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Speaker 1: you like, so we thought it was a good way

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Speaker 1: to the ground it. Um, you know, we wanted to

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Speaker 1: catch your eye. But it is filled with a lot

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Speaker 1: of strange creatures, and and not just creatures that are

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Speaker 1: strange to modern Western readers, but creatures that were strange

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Speaker 1: to Chinese readers throughout the book's history as well. Uh. Though,

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Speaker 1: as the first commentator of the book, go Po wrote, quote,

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Speaker 1: A thing is not strange in itself. It depends on

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Speaker 1: me to make it strange. I love that. Uh. And

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Speaker 1: that's that's a quote that Strasburg uses at the opening

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Speaker 1: of his book. Uh. So we just had to mention

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Speaker 1: it here because I love it in context here discussing

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Speaker 1: uh this book. But it's also just a great quote

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Speaker 1: in general. Well, I feel like in many ways that's

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Speaker 1: sort of one of the the underlying morals of themes

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Speaker 1: of of at least what we tried to do on

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Speaker 1: this show, I guess to expand the broader quote from Gopu,

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Speaker 1: he says that you know, people call something strange and

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Speaker 1: they don't know why they call them that. They call

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Speaker 1: something's familiar, yet they know not why either. What is

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Speaker 1: the reason behind this? A thing is not strange in itself.

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Speaker 1: It depends on me to make it strange. It is

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Speaker 1: from me that this strangeness results. It is not that

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Speaker 1: the thing is fundamentally strange. It makes me think about

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Speaker 1: how often we just try to remind you how strange

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Speaker 1: something that you think is normal is if you really

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Speaker 1: think about it, right. Yeah, and then the reverse is

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Speaker 1: a useful exercise at times as well. The thing that

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Speaker 1: is strange, that is it therefore intimidating or terrifying to you. Um,

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Speaker 1: if you you you turn it around, sometimes it's easier

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Speaker 1: to to comprehend it. Now. One theme that I was

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Speaker 1: finding interesting when reading about this book is its relationship

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Speaker 1: to time and history in the past. Um. One comment

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Speaker 1: that that Strasburg makes is that by like six b C.

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Speaker 1: The year six b C. The book was already regarded

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Speaker 1: as a compendium of lost knowledge, so it was already

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Speaker 1: the kind of thing that people were looking at and saying, Okay,

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Speaker 1: this might not actually be a perfect description of what's

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Speaker 1: going on, of of what the world is like today.

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Speaker 1: It's this encyclopedia of a bygone era. And this reminds

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Speaker 1: me of something that I don't know. It's it's an

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Speaker 1: interesting way of viewing the world that I think is

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Speaker 1: common to children. But it was at least true about

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Speaker 1: me when I was a child, which was uh, when

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Speaker 1: I was a kid, I would watch like fantasy, you know,

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Speaker 1: movies and TV and read books like that that wizards

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Speaker 1: and dragons and stuff. And I think, for a while,

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Speaker 1: I believe that wizards and dragons don't exist today, but

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Speaker 1: they used to exist in the past, like my just

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Speaker 1: the distinction was not like, you know, uh, mundane is real,

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Speaker 1: magical is not real. Instead it was like mundane is

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Speaker 1: now magical was past? Interesting. Well, on one hand, I

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Speaker 1: envy you for for having ever uh, you know, gotten

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Speaker 1: to believe dragons were real. But but at least I wondered,

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Speaker 1: you know, it seemed like it seemed like, okay that

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Speaker 1: maybe that's a plausible view of how things were. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: but I mean it makes it makes sense because that's

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Speaker 1: I mean, fantasy often is, especially modern fantasy, is the

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Speaker 1: the extra. It's like sci fi and reverse. It's the

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Speaker 1: exercise of engaging with an imagine past that tells us

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Speaker 1: something about the present. But I think it's interesting sometimes

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Speaker 1: people would navigate this difference by saying, Okay, a an

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Speaker 1: encyclopedic work that has lots of monsters and and strange

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Speaker 1: creatures in it. It's not so much that this is

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Speaker 1: unreal and mythical and magical. Instead, it's like a reference

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Speaker 1: to some lost previous time and place. Yeah, yeah, like

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Speaker 1: the time when these creatures roamed. Uh. And of course

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Speaker 1: that's sort of a view of time. You do this,

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Speaker 1: see that reflected in a lot of different traditions and cultures,

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Speaker 1: you know, like there was a time when there were giants,

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Speaker 1: there was a time when there were dragons or unnatural

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Speaker 1: beings walked the earth because of some cat clisum. Well,

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Speaker 1: and I think it's interesting that it seems like people

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Speaker 1: were making this distinction even in the ancient world. In

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Speaker 1: the Bronze Age, people would have this idea that like, oh,

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Speaker 1: there was a wilder, more magical time in the I

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Speaker 1: don't know what, you know, the Antediluvian time, like before

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Speaker 1: the flood, there were more of these, uh, these magical

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Speaker 1: creatures roaming around now. And I can't remember offhand if

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Speaker 1: it was Barrel or if it was Strasburg who points

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Speaker 1: this out, but some, at least some of the creatures

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Speaker 1: described in the in the in the book in the

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Speaker 1: shaun Haijing could be creatures that went extinct. So you know,

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Speaker 1: not to say that's the case with say that the

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Speaker 1: half a duck that comes together with the other duck,

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Speaker 1: but various other creatures that maybe don't seem to match

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Speaker 1: up with things that live today. It could be something

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Speaker 1: that was say hunted to extinction, that sort of thing,

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Speaker 1: not not like a stegosaurus, but you know, something more reasonable. Uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, it could be the case, right, No, oh,

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Speaker 1: I see you're not saying like it's a theory that

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Speaker 1: dinosaurs survived into the recent past. But just like you know,

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Speaker 1: normal fauna, maybe there was like a deer with a

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Speaker 1: different kind of horn or something like that. That yeah,

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Speaker 1: that is being yeah, being interpreted as a mythical creature today.

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Speaker 1: But it was just another large mammal, right, or some

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Speaker 1: of the more mundane animals that are mentioned in there

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Speaker 1: as well. Um, So, so let's go ahead have a

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Speaker 1: proper note about the sources here. So we've already touched

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Speaker 1: on a Chinese bestiary Strange Creatures from the Guideway through

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Speaker 1: Mountains and Seas, translated and with notes by Richard Strassburg.

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Speaker 1: Uh U c l A. Uh. This is a really

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Speaker 1: really beautiful book. Yet it has more illustrations than some

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Speaker 1: of the other texts you'll find out there, and the

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Speaker 1: illustrations are are really part of the fun, uh of

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Speaker 1: these uh of this text. Now. I think we were

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Speaker 1: talking about this before we started recording. The illustrations in

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Speaker 1: the Strasburg version are wonderful, but I think they're they

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Speaker 1: do not date back as far as the text does.

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Speaker 1: They're more like a few hundred years old. They came

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Speaker 1: from some more recent edition of this text. There may

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Speaker 1: have been illustra rations going as far back as the

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Speaker 1: text does, but we don't have those older illustrations anymore. Right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: when we see this with other old books elsewhere, right,

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Speaker 1: like the illuminated version is old, but the text itself

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Speaker 1: that was transcribed in here and then illuminated. He is older. Still,

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Speaker 1: you can also compare it to things like the sword.

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Speaker 1: The blade itself is much older, the sword handle, the

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Speaker 1: hilt is newer um. And that's pretty much what the

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Speaker 1: illustrations are here. But there was another book that was

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Speaker 1: a full translation of of the classic that you were reading, right, Yes,

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Speaker 1: I was reading The Classic of Mountains and Seas. Translation

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Speaker 1: and notes by Ann Beryl, an author of numerous books

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Speaker 1: on Chinese mythology. She taught Chinese and Chinese literature at

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Speaker 1: Cambridge University in the City University of New York. And

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Speaker 1: this is a book from I've referred to Burrel's work before.

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Speaker 1: She she has a book just titled Chinese Mythology that

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Speaker 1: I that I have, and in Strasburg references Burrel's translation

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Speaker 1: of the Shanhai Jing as being a good one and

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Speaker 1: sites here in his book, though he notes a quote

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Speaker 1: highly imaginative rendition of the names and places and things,

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Speaker 1: the names off places and things. Uh. We'll touch on

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Speaker 1: this later. But both of these texts are available at

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Speaker 1: reasonable prices in hard or soft back. I don't think

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Speaker 1: either one can be purchased as a as a digital book.

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Speaker 1: At this moment. But these books are out there and

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Speaker 1: they can be obtained, so if you're interested after this episode,

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Speaker 1: I highly recommend checking these out. Alright, so let's talk

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Speaker 1: a bit more about the book and where it came from,

406
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Speaker 1: and just I guess starting by talking about the world

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Speaker 1: that it describes. So the first way to look at

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Speaker 1: the book is to look at it as a textual

409
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Speaker 1: model or a map of the world as envisioned in

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Speaker 1: ancient China. And this largely conforms to the umbrella heaven

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Speaker 1: model Strasburg tells us, in which quote, heaven is like

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Speaker 1: a rounded cover or canopy supported at key points by

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Speaker 1: sacred mountains above a flat, square shaped earth. And then

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Speaker 1: this square Earth is encompassed by four seas. So when

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Speaker 1: you know the idea that's the classic of the mountains

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Speaker 1: and the seas, that's what we're talking about here. And

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Speaker 1: the seas are like the limits of the world, and

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Speaker 1: lands beyond those seas are you know, far flung distant places. Yeah. Uh.

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Speaker 1: When you see this represented sometimes it looks almost comically symmetrical,

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Speaker 1: like it doesn't look like a real map of the world. Um.

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Speaker 1: But I mean when you think about it, I think

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Speaker 1: if you had not actually been able to explore all

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Speaker 1: of the borders around you. Seems like a perfectly reasonable

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Speaker 1: thing to imagine that a map of the world would

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Speaker 1: be symmetrical, because I don't know, there are symmetries caused

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Speaker 1: just by the fact of like the curvature of the earth.

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Speaker 1: That like, if you look out in a flat area

428
00:23:49,880 --> 00:23:52,159
Speaker 1: in both directions, it seems to fall off at the

429
00:23:52,200 --> 00:23:56,200
Speaker 1: same place. Uh, that kind of thing. Yeah, So, Strasburg

430
00:23:56,200 --> 00:23:58,760
Speaker 1: writes that quote. In the distant past, the concept of

431
00:23:58,840 --> 00:24:02,240
Speaker 1: seas may have been more metaphorical, referring to anybody of

432
00:24:02,280 --> 00:24:04,560
Speaker 1: water or even a land mass that lay beyond the

433
00:24:04,560 --> 00:24:08,040
Speaker 1: limits of the home territory. As the local Chinese ethnic

434
00:24:08,160 --> 00:24:10,960
Speaker 1: culture has expanded and had more direct contact with the

435
00:24:11,000 --> 00:24:15,199
Speaker 1: oceans to the northeast, east, and south, the term seas

436
00:24:15,320 --> 00:24:19,159
Speaker 1: took on more concrete meaning, while the magical concept of

437
00:24:19,200 --> 00:24:23,040
Speaker 1: four remained more symbolic than real, especially with regard to

438
00:24:23,080 --> 00:24:26,240
Speaker 1: the quote Western Sea. So the Western Sea might have

439
00:24:26,280 --> 00:24:29,399
Speaker 1: been more like, you know, the the expanse of land

440
00:24:29,400 --> 00:24:35,800
Speaker 1: reaching out towards Central Central Asia and Europe and India. Yes, exactly. Now.

441
00:24:36,480 --> 00:24:39,240
Speaker 1: In terms of comparing the Shawn Haijing, two books that

442
00:24:39,640 --> 00:24:42,399
Speaker 1: more that listeners are more familiar with in the Western world.

443
00:24:42,800 --> 00:24:45,400
Speaker 1: Another one we might compare it to is the Bible,

444
00:24:45,520 --> 00:24:49,080
Speaker 1: because like the Bible, we have different authors and different

445
00:24:49,119 --> 00:24:52,760
Speaker 1: works from different periods of time coming together in a

446
00:24:52,800 --> 00:24:56,439
Speaker 1: single collection. Yes, as a as a big appreciator of

447
00:24:56,480 --> 00:24:59,399
Speaker 1: the Bible, this is actually like maybe the one note

448
00:24:59,480 --> 00:25:02,479
Speaker 1: I would give of somebody to better understand the Bible.

449
00:25:02,600 --> 00:25:06,239
Speaker 1: I think the single biggest problem modern people have with

450
00:25:06,359 --> 00:25:10,000
Speaker 1: understanding and interpreting the Bible is failing to recognize it

451
00:25:10,080 --> 00:25:13,959
Speaker 1: as a collection of books written by different authors across

452
00:25:14,040 --> 00:25:18,080
Speaker 1: hundreds of years, working their own distinct perspectives. I think

453
00:25:18,160 --> 00:25:22,320
Speaker 1: so much modern confusion about the Bible arises from the

454
00:25:22,400 --> 00:25:25,880
Speaker 1: tortured logic of trying to interpret it as like as

455
00:25:25,960 --> 00:25:28,479
Speaker 1: if it were a single book by a single author

456
00:25:28,520 --> 00:25:33,080
Speaker 1: representing one unified message. Yeah. You can really get stylistic

457
00:25:33,080 --> 00:25:37,520
Speaker 1: whiplash too, going from one of the Bible to another. Yeah.

458
00:25:37,560 --> 00:25:39,880
Speaker 1: So yeah, I mean that's you know a former former

459
00:25:39,920 --> 00:25:42,359
Speaker 1: show guest Bart Irman who came on to talk about

460
00:25:42,400 --> 00:25:45,080
Speaker 1: the origins of the concepts of heaven and hell um.

461
00:25:45,359 --> 00:25:47,720
Speaker 1: He talked, he talks about this a good bit too,

462
00:25:47,760 --> 00:25:50,080
Speaker 1: that like you've got to let each of the books

463
00:25:50,080 --> 00:25:52,560
Speaker 1: of the Bible be its own work and like understand

464
00:25:52,600 --> 00:25:55,400
Speaker 1: what it's individual author was trying to do with it.

465
00:25:56,359 --> 00:25:58,840
Speaker 1: But now I would say the Shannhaijing is somewhat different though,

466
00:25:58,880 --> 00:26:03,160
Speaker 1: because it's not like, hey, here's one book that has

467
00:26:03,200 --> 00:26:06,320
Speaker 1: a distinct author and then it's always identified. This is

468
00:26:06,359 --> 00:26:10,480
Speaker 1: more like a collection of things that don't always identify

469
00:26:10,600 --> 00:26:14,840
Speaker 1: them as coming from a different author, right, Yeah, I mean,

470
00:26:14,840 --> 00:26:17,600
Speaker 1: and and in general we just have the authorship is

471
00:26:17,600 --> 00:26:19,880
Speaker 1: a is anonymous because we don't really know who wrote

472
00:26:19,920 --> 00:26:23,200
Speaker 1: any of these pieces. Yeah, is an Barrel points out.

473
00:26:23,359 --> 00:26:28,119
Speaker 1: It's it comprises quote several texts of varying chronology and authorship.

474
00:26:28,920 --> 00:26:33,200
Speaker 1: And the most obvious textual divide occurs between books five

475
00:26:33,280 --> 00:26:36,560
Speaker 1: and six. Because books one through five are often known

476
00:26:36,640 --> 00:26:41,640
Speaker 1: collectively as the Five Treasures the Classic of Mountains. So

477
00:26:42,200 --> 00:26:44,720
Speaker 1: for starters, just to talk about, you know, the Five

478
00:26:44,760 --> 00:26:48,320
Speaker 1: Treasures here, these five books concerned in glowing terms, the

479
00:26:48,440 --> 00:26:53,000
Speaker 1: square earth of the Chinese realm um, the the the

480
00:26:53,080 --> 00:26:56,040
Speaker 1: Chinese world you know that is, you know, surrounded by

481
00:26:56,040 --> 00:26:58,960
Speaker 1: the seas. When we venture into books six through eighteen,

482
00:26:59,280 --> 00:27:03,600
Speaker 1: we venture to be increasingly barbaric and strange lands beyond

483
00:27:03,720 --> 00:27:05,959
Speaker 1: the borders of China. So that's one way to look

484
00:27:06,000 --> 00:27:08,480
Speaker 1: at these books, with the first five chapters representing the

485
00:27:08,520 --> 00:27:12,200
Speaker 1: known Chinese world and the other books looking beyond its

486
00:27:12,240 --> 00:27:15,680
Speaker 1: borders to stranger lands. And now this is interesting to

487
00:27:15,880 --> 00:27:19,560
Speaker 1: Barrel also classifies these first five books as being more

488
00:27:19,600 --> 00:27:23,520
Speaker 1: of a proto scientific document by someone who was seemingly

489
00:27:23,680 --> 00:27:27,560
Speaker 1: a traveler naturalist who acquired information about the regions of

490
00:27:27,680 --> 00:27:31,320
Speaker 1: China firsthand. Most of the details relate to botanical and

491
00:27:31,400 --> 00:27:36,680
Speaker 1: zoological information, but there's also some geology and medicine, particularly

492
00:27:36,720 --> 00:27:39,840
Speaker 1: concerning the medicinal use of the various plants and animals

493
00:27:39,840 --> 00:27:43,159
Speaker 1: that are explored. Uh. Then the animals mentioned again, they

494
00:27:43,240 --> 00:27:47,680
Speaker 1: range from um, you know something that that clearly is

495
00:27:47,920 --> 00:27:50,280
Speaker 1: an actual animal and was extant at the time, to

496
00:27:50,400 --> 00:27:55,600
Speaker 1: potentially extinct and just outright mythical and magical beings. Just

497
00:27:55,640 --> 00:27:57,399
Speaker 1: to give an example of this that I'm going to

498
00:27:57,480 --> 00:27:59,840
Speaker 1: read once more from from Barrel, and this is from

499
00:27:59,880 --> 00:28:04,200
Speaker 1: the the first five books. The river View contains numerous

500
00:28:04,200 --> 00:28:07,639
Speaker 1: patterned flying fish that look like carp They have a

501
00:28:07,680 --> 00:28:10,840
Speaker 1: fish's body but a bird's wings. They have bright blue

502
00:28:10,880 --> 00:28:14,560
Speaker 1: markings and a white head with a scarlet mouth. These

503
00:28:14,600 --> 00:28:18,040
Speaker 1: flying fish often travel to the West Sea and Sport

504
00:28:18,119 --> 00:28:20,920
Speaker 1: in the East Sea. They travel by night. They make

505
00:28:20,960 --> 00:28:23,919
Speaker 1: a noise like a wonderbird chicken. They have a sweet

506
00:28:23,920 --> 00:28:26,639
Speaker 1: and sour taste. If you eat some, it will cure madness.

507
00:28:27,040 --> 00:28:30,080
Speaker 1: Whenever it appears, there will be bumper harvests all over

508
00:28:30,240 --> 00:28:32,919
Speaker 1: under the sky. Now we see several things here that

509
00:28:33,000 --> 00:28:37,560
Speaker 1: are repeated in lots of the animal or monster entrees

510
00:28:37,680 --> 00:28:43,040
Speaker 1: within the Shannhaijing, because you'll often get like a place

511
00:28:43,080 --> 00:28:47,000
Speaker 1: where this is found a physical description. It makes a

512
00:28:47,120 --> 00:28:51,280
Speaker 1: sound like X if you can be used to cure

513
00:28:51,520 --> 00:28:56,120
Speaker 1: hy ailment and is an omen for Z right, you know.

514
00:28:56,160 --> 00:28:59,720
Speaker 1: So there's like a standard format to these. Yea, not

515
00:29:00,120 --> 00:29:02,920
Speaker 1: all of them follow, but that's a really common, recurring

516
00:29:03,000 --> 00:29:06,160
Speaker 1: kind of structure. Yeah. So so this is what Barrel

517
00:29:06,160 --> 00:29:08,200
Speaker 1: has to say about this quote. It has to be

518
00:29:08,280 --> 00:29:10,880
Speaker 1: said that the discussion of botany and zoology in the

519
00:29:10,920 --> 00:29:14,800
Speaker 1: first five books is not conducted according to taxonomic principles,

520
00:29:15,000 --> 00:29:18,040
Speaker 1: and it is often based on mythological inspiration or misguided

521
00:29:18,120 --> 00:29:22,560
Speaker 1: errors of identification, which diminished scientific accuracy. On the other hand,

522
00:29:22,600 --> 00:29:25,080
Speaker 1: given the lack of development in classical science in the

523
00:29:25,080 --> 00:29:28,959
Speaker 1: ancient world. Generally, the attention to botanic and zoological detail

524
00:29:29,000 --> 00:29:32,120
Speaker 1: in the Classic is quite remarkable and serves as evidence

525
00:29:32,280 --> 00:29:36,200
Speaker 1: for a foundation. However, rudimentary of the scientific method in

526
00:29:36,240 --> 00:29:39,480
Speaker 1: ancient China. Absolutely. I mean, one of the first and

527
00:29:39,600 --> 00:29:43,280
Speaker 1: most important steps in studying the natural world is making

528
00:29:43,320 --> 00:29:46,960
Speaker 1: a catalog of things. You have to like survey what's

529
00:29:46,960 --> 00:29:50,200
Speaker 1: in the world right down its characteristics, so that other

530
00:29:50,280 --> 00:29:53,120
Speaker 1: people can read it, identify the same thing, and then

531
00:29:53,160 --> 00:29:56,600
Speaker 1: talk about it and compare their notes. Right so, even

532
00:29:56,600 --> 00:29:59,520
Speaker 1: though it ends up including things that they clearly never existed,

533
00:29:59,560 --> 00:30:02,400
Speaker 1: like the half ducks. Um, you know, like the the

534
00:30:03,280 --> 00:30:05,360
Speaker 1: template is sound, you know, if you're gonna attempt to

535
00:30:05,400 --> 00:30:08,600
Speaker 1: catalog everything like that's these are some good points to consider.

536
00:30:09,040 --> 00:30:11,560
Speaker 1: I'm shocked at your closed mindedness. You don't think there

537
00:30:11,640 --> 00:30:15,720
Speaker 1: was ever a half duck? Well, you know, who knows?

538
00:30:15,880 --> 00:30:18,840
Speaker 1: Who knows? Um, especially when we get into some of

539
00:30:19,040 --> 00:30:22,720
Speaker 1: the translation issues. Will discuss in a bit um. So anyway,

540
00:30:22,760 --> 00:30:25,640
Speaker 1: there are editorial interventions in these first five books, but

541
00:30:25,680 --> 00:30:29,320
Speaker 1: then books six through eighteen lean increasingly towards the mythic

542
00:30:29,320 --> 00:30:32,800
Speaker 1: and the fantastic. Also in dealing with foreign people's we

543
00:30:32,920 --> 00:30:36,000
Speaker 1: see the same sorts of xenophobic myth making that all

544
00:30:36,040 --> 00:30:39,640
Speaker 1: ancient cultures engaged in foreign people's are discussed in terms

545
00:30:39,640 --> 00:30:43,600
Speaker 1: of barbarism and beastliness, though as Barrel points out, quote

546
00:30:43,600 --> 00:30:49,320
Speaker 1: inhabitants who wear a cap and belt are given mild approval. Yeah,

547
00:30:49,360 --> 00:30:51,760
Speaker 1: there are all kinds of things that are I guess

548
00:30:51,760 --> 00:30:55,880
Speaker 1: you would say that there's somewhere between ethnographies of neighboring

549
00:30:56,240 --> 00:30:59,760
Speaker 1: you know, groups of people and discussions of beasts, because

550
00:30:59,760 --> 00:31:03,160
Speaker 1: they're will be like entries about people who have I

551
00:31:03,160 --> 00:31:06,360
Speaker 1: don't know, faces in their torsos or something. This is

552
00:31:06,400 --> 00:31:10,600
Speaker 1: obviously not real people, but they're treated as if they're

553
00:31:10,640 --> 00:31:13,120
Speaker 1: like a tribe of humans. Right, And of course this

554
00:31:13,400 --> 00:31:17,000
Speaker 1: corresponds directly with things we see in plenty, right yea um.

555
00:31:17,080 --> 00:31:18,760
Speaker 1: But anyway, there's there is a you know, a sense

556
00:31:18,800 --> 00:31:23,560
Speaker 1: of cultural superiority and discussing um, Chinese culture and other

557
00:31:23,600 --> 00:31:26,040
Speaker 1: people's from other realms beyond the boundaries of the ancient

558
00:31:26,120 --> 00:31:28,600
Speaker 1: Chinese world, and it's also reflected in the sort of

559
00:31:28,720 --> 00:31:32,160
Speaker 1: names given to foreign creatures and even foreign places. There's

560
00:31:32,200 --> 00:31:35,040
Speaker 1: a strong sense of the inner Chinese world as a

561
00:31:35,080 --> 00:31:38,600
Speaker 1: sacred environment and the lands outside is profane or even

562
00:31:38,600 --> 00:31:41,960
Speaker 1: cursed given such names as these are translated of course

563
00:31:42,400 --> 00:31:45,440
Speaker 1: by Barrel black tooth. And I love this one, the

564
00:31:45,520 --> 00:31:50,160
Speaker 1: land of Ghoul and the name okay oh, I was

565
00:31:50,200 --> 00:31:52,680
Speaker 1: just gonna say, I like the people who have weird ears,

566
00:31:52,720 --> 00:31:55,440
Speaker 1: like they're people with like long ears, and then the

567
00:31:55,480 --> 00:31:58,680
Speaker 1: people with pendant ears, and then the people with there

568
00:31:58,720 --> 00:32:01,320
Speaker 1: are other kind of ears I think too loppy ears.

569
00:32:01,400 --> 00:32:05,240
Speaker 1: Is one hound armor um, which I'm not sure exactly

570
00:32:06,000 --> 00:32:09,760
Speaker 1: what that would mean, but um, you know this, this

571
00:32:10,200 --> 00:32:12,280
Speaker 1: it gives you something to go on like those words.

572
00:32:13,160 --> 00:32:15,680
Speaker 1: And this is all an example of what Strasburg is

573
00:32:15,720 --> 00:32:18,880
Speaker 1: talking about regarding Beryl's use of names. It reminds me

574
00:32:18,880 --> 00:32:21,160
Speaker 1: a lot of something we talked about recently on the show,

575
00:32:21,760 --> 00:32:25,200
Speaker 1: the names of demons and Dante's Infernos and uh and

576
00:32:25,280 --> 00:32:29,680
Speaker 1: translations of Inferno, all the demons of the Mala Bronca group,

577
00:32:29,760 --> 00:32:32,240
Speaker 1: the evil clause. I mean, Mala Bronca sounds a lot

578
00:32:32,280 --> 00:32:35,360
Speaker 1: cooler than evil clause, but that is what it translates to.

579
00:32:35,480 --> 00:32:38,440
Speaker 1: But I'd rather just call him Mala Bronca. Yeah, Like, like,

580
00:32:38,480 --> 00:32:41,680
Speaker 1: who do you want to read about Scarmiglion or troublemaker,

581
00:32:41,880 --> 00:32:45,880
Speaker 1: Malacoda or evil tale um you know, did the non

582
00:32:45,880 --> 00:32:49,680
Speaker 1: Italian speaker either choice miss is something right? I think

583
00:32:49,680 --> 00:32:52,320
Speaker 1: one of them is translates to something like bad pig

584
00:32:52,440 --> 00:32:55,840
Speaker 1: or something or something mean mean pig. Yeah, I mean

585
00:32:55,880 --> 00:32:59,680
Speaker 1: it's tough, right because on one hand, like the the

586
00:32:59,680 --> 00:33:04,200
Speaker 1: the more literal translation like evil tale, evil pig, troublemaker, etcetera,

587
00:33:04,680 --> 00:33:06,440
Speaker 1: it gives you a little more to go on, like

588
00:33:06,520 --> 00:33:09,960
Speaker 1: concrete description, you know, uh, and you can you can

589
00:33:10,200 --> 00:33:13,040
Speaker 1: begin to form an image of that awful demon in

590
00:33:13,040 --> 00:33:17,040
Speaker 1: your mind. But then the the Italian uh you know

591
00:33:17,440 --> 00:33:21,400
Speaker 1: often has this. It works like this, like the name itself.

592
00:33:21,640 --> 00:33:24,160
Speaker 1: It has a certain sound, It has a certain energy

593
00:33:24,200 --> 00:33:27,480
Speaker 1: to it that is not going to necessarily survive translation.

594
00:33:27,800 --> 00:33:30,160
Speaker 1: And of course it's it has it has a foreign

595
00:33:30,160 --> 00:33:33,040
Speaker 1: air to it. It feels exotic. Oh, this reminds me.

596
00:33:33,120 --> 00:33:35,520
Speaker 1: A few years ago, we did an episode on a

597
00:33:35,600 --> 00:33:40,720
Speaker 1: concept known as idiophones, which is the the the suggestion

598
00:33:40,800 --> 00:33:44,120
Speaker 1: that there are certain types of sounds that two people

599
00:33:44,240 --> 00:33:49,400
Speaker 1: seem to convey particular meanings despite having no uh, despite

600
00:33:49,400 --> 00:33:53,240
Speaker 1: having you know, no no linguistic relationship and a dictionary definition.

601
00:33:53,320 --> 00:33:57,080
Speaker 1: Since the fact that like in any language, apparently like

602
00:33:57,200 --> 00:34:01,280
Speaker 1: hard k sounds are naturally associated with like sharp corners

603
00:34:01,280 --> 00:34:04,360
Speaker 1: and abrasiveness and stuff like that. Yeah, and I think

604
00:34:04,440 --> 00:34:06,840
Speaker 1: some of that really comes through in Dante's names for

605
00:34:06,840 --> 00:34:10,919
Speaker 1: for the demons of the Malibranca troupe. But also there's

606
00:34:10,960 --> 00:34:13,720
Speaker 1: another layer there, which is that I think it's hypothesized

607
00:34:13,760 --> 00:34:17,720
Speaker 1: by some scholars that Dante was literally trying to create

608
00:34:17,760 --> 00:34:20,520
Speaker 1: the names of these demons to sound kind of similar

609
00:34:20,600 --> 00:34:24,239
Speaker 1: to names of people from Tuscany that he didn't like. Well,

610
00:34:24,280 --> 00:34:27,480
Speaker 1: that that sounds perfectly reasonable. Yeah, that's that's that's Dante

611
00:34:27,520 --> 00:34:31,520
Speaker 1: to a t Alright. So, yes, all these things concerning

612
00:34:31,880 --> 00:34:34,879
Speaker 1: the translation of demon names in the Inferno, I feel

613
00:34:34,880 --> 00:34:37,160
Speaker 1: like they're all they're all present here as well, dealing

614
00:34:37,239 --> 00:34:41,040
Speaker 1: with this translation. But that's just Italian into English. It's

615
00:34:41,080 --> 00:34:45,760
Speaker 1: even more complicated when you're translating ancient Mandarin into modern English.

616
00:34:46,280 --> 00:34:50,640
Speaker 1: So Strasburg stresses that the Chinese graphs possess one or

617
00:34:50,680 --> 00:34:55,000
Speaker 1: more meanings. So names in the Classic might be rather comprehensible,

618
00:34:55,360 --> 00:34:58,960
Speaker 1: they might be ambiguous or convey multiple meanings, or they

619
00:34:59,040 --> 00:35:02,600
Speaker 1: might be names that quote cannot be understood with any certainty,

620
00:35:02,680 --> 00:35:07,320
Speaker 1: even if the graphs may function semantically in other contexts. Okay,

621
00:35:07,320 --> 00:35:09,680
Speaker 1: what does that mean? Okay, So, for instance, there's a

622
00:35:09,719 --> 00:35:13,480
Speaker 1: creature that that pops up in book fourteen that is

623
00:35:13,520 --> 00:35:16,320
Speaker 1: described as a beast that quote looks like an ox

624
00:35:16,640 --> 00:35:19,400
Speaker 1: with a bright blue body, but it has no horns

625
00:35:19,520 --> 00:35:21,840
Speaker 1: and only one foot. When it comes out of the

626
00:35:21,840 --> 00:35:24,560
Speaker 1: water and goes back in, there are there's there are all.

627
00:35:24,600 --> 00:35:27,680
Speaker 1: There's always wind and rain, and the glare from it

628
00:35:27,719 --> 00:35:30,440
Speaker 1: is like that from the sun and the moon. The

629
00:35:30,560 --> 00:35:34,400
Speaker 1: animal makes a sound like thunder. And its name is

630
00:35:35,200 --> 00:35:37,920
Speaker 1: and then it depends on what translation you're reading. So

631
00:35:38,280 --> 00:35:42,919
Speaker 1: Brel translates its name as awe struck. I am awe

632
00:35:42,920 --> 00:35:45,279
Speaker 1: struck by its glare like the sun in the moon,

633
00:35:45,360 --> 00:35:49,120
Speaker 1: and it's one foot. Strasburg merely writes he is called

634
00:35:49,200 --> 00:35:55,439
Speaker 1: ka um. The kui is to use our alphabet. Uh

635
00:35:55,520 --> 00:35:58,399
Speaker 1: So there you see the divide. The divide here Now again,

636
00:35:58,440 --> 00:36:01,280
Speaker 1: I kind of feel like I like both because, uh,

637
00:36:01,320 --> 00:36:05,040
Speaker 1: you know, the the the more Mandarin name like it.

638
00:36:05,160 --> 00:36:08,200
Speaker 1: It has all of that. It feels um, it feels exotic,

639
00:36:08,320 --> 00:36:10,600
Speaker 1: it it has this kind of magical energy to it.

640
00:36:10,840 --> 00:36:13,879
Speaker 1: But then awestruck also gives me something to go on. Um,

641
00:36:14,200 --> 00:36:18,080
Speaker 1: so I can see the argument made. Uh, from from

642
00:36:18,160 --> 00:36:21,080
Speaker 1: from either translation, it's also described as a as a

643
00:36:21,080 --> 00:36:23,040
Speaker 1: thunder beast, and and just to give a little more

644
00:36:23,040 --> 00:36:24,760
Speaker 1: detail about it, because it has a fun little story

645
00:36:24,760 --> 00:36:28,200
Speaker 1: with it, the great God Yellow, which it may also

646
00:36:28,239 --> 00:36:32,040
Speaker 1: be translated as the Yellow the Arc, but more commonly

647
00:36:32,080 --> 00:36:35,160
Speaker 1: known as the Yellow Emperor. I feel like that's how

648
00:36:35,200 --> 00:36:37,640
Speaker 1: I see this. Uh, this character described most of the

649
00:36:37,680 --> 00:36:42,200
Speaker 1: time Huangdi, and it basically what the Yellow Emperor does.

650
00:36:42,280 --> 00:36:44,840
Speaker 1: He sees this creature. It's it's powerful, it has all

651
00:36:44,880 --> 00:36:47,080
Speaker 1: this energy. So he kills it, and he makes its

652
00:36:47,120 --> 00:36:49,720
Speaker 1: skin into a drum and uses one of its bones

653
00:36:49,800 --> 00:36:52,000
Speaker 1: to beat the drum. Uh. And it is, as you

654
00:36:52,080 --> 00:36:55,440
Speaker 1: might imagine, quite loud. And so this instrument becomes crucial

655
00:36:55,480 --> 00:36:59,200
Speaker 1: in his battle against chi Yo, the legendary creator of

656
00:36:59,239 --> 00:37:03,399
Speaker 1: metal working weapons. Well, that seems very fitting because again,

657
00:37:03,400 --> 00:37:05,800
Speaker 1: as we've said, a lot of the entries in the

658
00:37:05,840 --> 00:37:09,480
Speaker 1: Shannaijing don't just tell you what a creature is and

659
00:37:09,520 --> 00:37:11,680
Speaker 1: where it is, but they often tell you, like what

660
00:37:11,680 --> 00:37:14,280
Speaker 1: what you can do with it, Like it will protect

661
00:37:14,320 --> 00:37:18,799
Speaker 1: against weapons, or it is a medicine that will prevent swelling. Yeah,

662
00:37:18,920 --> 00:37:21,160
Speaker 1: and if you happen to be a god, there are

663
00:37:21,160 --> 00:37:24,040
Speaker 1: additional things you can do with it, apparently. Um Now,

664
00:37:24,080 --> 00:37:25,880
Speaker 1: Like like most mythical creatures, there are a lot of

665
00:37:25,960 --> 00:37:30,720
Speaker 1: variations with the quay. Here in yang and and Turner's

666
00:37:30,800 --> 00:37:33,960
Speaker 1: Chinese Mythology and another book that I have here, they

667
00:37:33,960 --> 00:37:37,239
Speaker 1: point out the Confucius use the quay in order to

668
00:37:37,280 --> 00:37:40,480
Speaker 1: teach the concept of one is enough regarding the staffing

669
00:37:40,520 --> 00:37:43,560
Speaker 1: of key talented officials, because again, this is in essence

670
00:37:43,719 --> 00:37:47,600
Speaker 1: a one legged ox um. So I found that pretty interesting.

671
00:37:47,719 --> 00:37:50,000
Speaker 1: Um well, I like that. How even if in the

672
00:37:50,040 --> 00:37:54,000
Speaker 1: original text these monsters are not usually presented as something

673
00:37:54,040 --> 00:37:56,759
Speaker 1: that's supposed to have an allegorical meaning, It's just like, hey,

674
00:37:56,800 --> 00:37:58,600
Speaker 1: here's a monster, here's what it where it is what

675
00:37:58,719 --> 00:38:02,600
Speaker 1: it does? Uh that that interpreters will give it an

676
00:38:02,640 --> 00:38:05,719
Speaker 1: allegorical meaning, right, Yeah, So that's something to keep in

677
00:38:05,760 --> 00:38:07,720
Speaker 1: mind with all of these with it, as is always

678
00:38:07,719 --> 00:38:11,440
Speaker 1: the case, once a mythological creature is introduced or reintroduced

679
00:38:11,440 --> 00:38:15,200
Speaker 1: stephen um, others may may take it and change it

680
00:38:15,280 --> 00:38:18,719
Speaker 1: and adapt it and use it for other purposes. Now,

681
00:38:18,920 --> 00:38:22,600
Speaker 1: Barrell notes that regarding translations, in some ways the shan

682
00:38:22,680 --> 00:38:27,440
Speaker 1: Hajing is less challenging than other archaic text but that

683
00:38:27,600 --> 00:38:31,040
Speaker 1: the quote nature of the textual problems of the classic

684
00:38:31,360 --> 00:38:34,080
Speaker 1: resides in the great number of graphs for which the

685
00:38:34,120 --> 00:38:38,520
Speaker 1: text is the locust classicus, and for which no safe

686
00:38:38,800 --> 00:38:42,680
Speaker 1: and satisfactory glosses have yet been offered. So if you

687
00:38:42,719 --> 00:38:45,279
Speaker 1: remember back to our episode on the Chinese typewriter, you

688
00:38:45,360 --> 00:38:49,279
Speaker 1: might recall these facts about managing characters. So, first of all,

689
00:38:49,280 --> 00:38:52,680
Speaker 1: the overall Chinese lexicon numbers in the tens of thousands,

690
00:38:52,719 --> 00:38:55,440
Speaker 1: forty seven thousand, uh you'll find in one of the

691
00:38:55,480 --> 00:38:59,239
Speaker 1: key dictionaries, and it's been it's been summarized that in

692
00:38:59,360 --> 00:39:02,800
Speaker 1: order to get the basic gist of a Chinese newspaper today,

693
00:39:03,080 --> 00:39:06,279
Speaker 1: you would need to know between twelve hundred and fift

694
00:39:06,520 --> 00:39:10,799
Speaker 1: hundred characters uh to uh. To really sufficiently understand what

695
00:39:10,880 --> 00:39:13,080
Speaker 1: you're reading, you'd need to know between two thousand and

696
00:39:13,120 --> 00:39:17,120
Speaker 1: three thousand. Meanwhile, a well educated Chinese speaker in today's

697
00:39:17,120 --> 00:39:20,640
Speaker 1: world likely knows six thousand to eight thousand characters. So

698
00:39:20,680 --> 00:39:23,319
Speaker 1: that's like less than twenty percent of the of the

699
00:39:23,320 --> 00:39:27,040
Speaker 1: total vocabulary. Yeah. So, so what Barrel is saying here

700
00:39:27,080 --> 00:39:30,360
Speaker 1: regarding the shaann Haijing is that there are some characters

701
00:39:30,440 --> 00:39:32,799
Speaker 1: or graphs in it that are the best known or

702
00:39:32,840 --> 00:39:35,919
Speaker 1: the primary example of usage, you know, like you don't

703
00:39:35,960 --> 00:39:37,960
Speaker 1: find them anywhere else, or this is the main place

704
00:39:38,000 --> 00:39:40,040
Speaker 1: you find them. So it might be the name of

705
00:39:40,040 --> 00:39:42,440
Speaker 1: a place or a creature. And there's not much in

706
00:39:42,480 --> 00:39:46,279
Speaker 1: the way of additional context. Okay, so it's just like here,

707
00:39:46,360 --> 00:39:48,239
Speaker 1: here's the thing, and we don't really have any other

708
00:39:48,280 --> 00:39:52,120
Speaker 1: reference points going back any further for it. Right, so

709
00:39:52,200 --> 00:39:54,880
Speaker 1: Beryl sums up her translation choices being one that avoids

710
00:39:54,920 --> 00:39:58,759
Speaker 1: transliteration and immediately brings the classic to life, you know again,

711
00:39:58,800 --> 00:40:01,120
Speaker 1: getting that idea of like aus Struck, that will give

712
00:40:01,120 --> 00:40:04,760
Speaker 1: you some idea of what this one legged ox is doing. Um,

713
00:40:04,800 --> 00:40:07,120
Speaker 1: there are some three thousand place names, she writes, and

714
00:40:07,120 --> 00:40:10,319
Speaker 1: the text easily becomes overcrowded otherwise, and she goes into

715
00:40:10,320 --> 00:40:12,319
Speaker 1: a lot more detail about this, essentially laying out her

716
00:40:12,440 --> 00:40:16,799
Speaker 1: entire philosophy on translating this challenging text. But anyway back

717
00:40:16,800 --> 00:40:19,880
Speaker 1: to the format here. Uh. While there there is a

718
00:40:19,920 --> 00:40:23,120
Speaker 1: concise formulaic style in the first five books that can

719
00:40:23,160 --> 00:40:27,800
Speaker 1: seemingly be attributed to a potential still unknown single author

720
00:40:28,360 --> 00:40:31,560
Speaker 1: books six through eighteen or a different matter. Barrel writes

721
00:40:31,600 --> 00:40:36,360
Speaker 1: that that the text becomes disjointed, repetitive, minimalist, even like

722
00:40:36,680 --> 00:40:41,880
Speaker 1: quote hurried, even careless travel notes, and there are different

723
00:40:41,880 --> 00:40:45,359
Speaker 1: theories as to why. Some commentators have proposed that these

724
00:40:45,360 --> 00:40:48,920
Speaker 1: were collected originally on bamboo slips and they became displaced

725
00:40:48,960 --> 00:40:52,480
Speaker 1: at some point and resulting in disorder. Others have pointed

726
00:40:52,480 --> 00:40:56,200
Speaker 1: more to editorial editions and even censorship, and Barrel describes

727
00:40:56,239 --> 00:40:58,799
Speaker 1: these books as a you know, a makeshift text made

728
00:40:58,840 --> 00:41:02,000
Speaker 1: up of different reports for different travelers, put together with

729
00:41:02,080 --> 00:41:05,320
Speaker 1: no attempt at literary form. But that doesn't mean the

730
00:41:05,320 --> 00:41:08,480
Speaker 1: book six through eighteen are less interesting or anything. Barrel

731
00:41:08,560 --> 00:41:12,279
Speaker 1: rights that that quote, they contain such valuable and unrivaled

732
00:41:12,360 --> 00:41:18,560
Speaker 1: data on anthropology and ethnology, genealogy, ecology, and mythology that

733
00:41:18,640 --> 00:41:21,960
Speaker 1: their content more than makes up for the deficiencies of style.

734
00:41:22,640 --> 00:41:25,279
Speaker 1: I'll say, I can't wait to read more passages from

735
00:41:25,280 --> 00:41:27,759
Speaker 1: this book in part two. Yeah, yeah, there's there's so

736
00:41:27,840 --> 00:41:31,399
Speaker 1: much wild and wonderful stuff in there, um so. But

737
00:41:31,400 --> 00:41:33,400
Speaker 1: but it's one of these things, like I think, when

738
00:41:33,440 --> 00:41:35,680
Speaker 1: I first started looking into this, I thought, oh, here's

739
00:41:35,680 --> 00:41:37,200
Speaker 1: a here's a book from which we can just draw

740
00:41:37,239 --> 00:41:39,960
Speaker 1: some interesting creatures to highlight. And then the more I

741
00:41:39,960 --> 00:41:42,080
Speaker 1: looked at it, I realized that the book itself, like

742
00:41:42,160 --> 00:41:44,040
Speaker 1: the story of the book, on the form of the book,

743
00:41:44,640 --> 00:41:48,280
Speaker 1: was just so fascinating and ultimately makes us think about

744
00:41:48,680 --> 00:41:51,080
Speaker 1: like books in general, and books and other that comes

745
00:41:51,120 --> 00:41:54,719
Speaker 1: from other cultures. You know, ancient books, holy books. You

746
00:41:54,719 --> 00:41:57,960
Speaker 1: know how they're built and how we think about them. Right. Well,

747
00:41:57,960 --> 00:42:00,680
Speaker 1: one thing that it definitely has in common with any

748
00:42:00,840 --> 00:42:03,840
Speaker 1: other ancient works, and that that that I think is

749
00:42:03,840 --> 00:42:06,760
Speaker 1: always very interesting, is that it's the work of many hands.

750
00:42:06,840 --> 00:42:08,920
Speaker 1: You know, this is obviously there were different authors at

751
00:42:08,920 --> 00:42:13,240
Speaker 1: different times adding to this collection, and there are different

752
00:42:13,280 --> 00:42:17,240
Speaker 1: sensibilities going into the entrees within this this travel guide

753
00:42:17,360 --> 00:42:21,440
Speaker 1: or encyclopedia or mythic geography, whatever you want to call it.

754
00:42:21,760 --> 00:42:24,960
Speaker 1: But it has through much of history been ascribed to

755
00:42:24,960 --> 00:42:27,560
Speaker 1: a single author. Said, yeah, you the Great wrote this.

756
00:42:27,719 --> 00:42:31,719
Speaker 1: It was one guy, And so you're imagining a single

757
00:42:31,840 --> 00:42:35,279
Speaker 1: brain from legend that poured forth this thing that is

758
00:42:35,360 --> 00:42:39,799
Speaker 1: quite clearly in reality an amalgam. Yeah, of course, you know,

759
00:42:39,840 --> 00:42:42,200
Speaker 1: if you the Great had written it, if that were true,

760
00:42:42,200 --> 00:42:44,280
Speaker 1: that would mean the book would be like four thousand

761
00:42:44,400 --> 00:42:47,920
Speaker 1: years old. Um. But in reality, the first five books,

762
00:42:47,960 --> 00:42:51,000
Speaker 1: the Five Treasures, uh, They probably date from the third

763
00:42:51,000 --> 00:42:54,640
Speaker 1: century BC, and most modern scholars date everything in the

764
00:42:54,680 --> 00:42:58,120
Speaker 1: book from the period between the early third century BC

765
00:42:58,440 --> 00:43:02,319
Speaker 1: and the earliest centuries. Again written by a number of

766
00:43:02,360 --> 00:43:05,759
Speaker 1: authors over the course of centuries, though perhaps books one

767
00:43:05,800 --> 00:43:12,960
Speaker 1: through five were written by the same individual. Thank you,

768
00:43:13,080 --> 00:43:16,479
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you. Now we've mentioned him already because

769
00:43:16,480 --> 00:43:19,319
Speaker 1: he's the source of that great UH quote about how

770
00:43:19,360 --> 00:43:22,840
Speaker 1: it is me that makes something strange. But the the

771
00:43:22,920 --> 00:43:25,839
Speaker 1: author of this quote was was Go Poo, who lived

772
00:43:25,840 --> 00:43:28,480
Speaker 1: to seventy six to three twenty four, who was a

773
00:43:28,520 --> 00:43:33,040
Speaker 1: scholar and poet and a really important commentator on the

774
00:43:33,360 --> 00:43:36,120
Speaker 1: classic of the mountains and seas through history. A little

775
00:43:36,120 --> 00:43:39,839
Speaker 1: background on Go Poo. My main source here is an

776
00:43:39,880 --> 00:43:42,960
Speaker 1: introduction to Chinese Poetry from the Canon of Poetry to

777
00:43:43,000 --> 00:43:46,080
Speaker 1: the Lyrics of the Song Dynasty by Michael Fuller, published

778
00:43:46,080 --> 00:43:52,120
Speaker 1: by brill in So. Go Poo lived under the chaotic

779
00:43:52,320 --> 00:43:55,560
Speaker 1: end of the Western Jin dynasty, which fell apart due

780
00:43:55,600 --> 00:43:59,200
Speaker 1: to all kinds of simultaneous crises around the year three sixteen.

781
00:43:59,760 --> 00:44:02,520
Speaker 1: UH think there was some kind of succession dispute for

782
00:44:02,560 --> 00:44:06,879
Speaker 1: the leadership that turned into violent chaos, and UH all

783
00:44:06,960 --> 00:44:09,520
Speaker 1: kinds of things went wrong but then eventually power was

784
00:44:09,560 --> 00:44:12,839
Speaker 1: reconsolidated under what's known as the Eastern Jin. I think

785
00:44:12,880 --> 00:44:15,680
Speaker 1: like the year after that, and Go Pu served out

786
00:44:16,320 --> 00:44:20,399
Speaker 1: under the Eastern Gin. Now. According to Fuller, go Pu

787
00:44:20,560 --> 00:44:23,799
Speaker 1: was the pre eminent writer of the early Eastern Jin,

788
00:44:24,640 --> 00:44:27,480
Speaker 1: and this would of course include poetry. He was a poet,

789
00:44:27,640 --> 00:44:29,239
Speaker 1: and I'm going to read one of his poems in

790
00:44:29,239 --> 00:44:32,640
Speaker 1: a minute. But he was also an immensely learned scholar,

791
00:44:32,800 --> 00:44:36,120
Speaker 1: having had the benefit of access to the Imperial Library

792
00:44:36,239 --> 00:44:38,319
Speaker 1: since he was young due to the fact that his

793
00:44:38,400 --> 00:44:41,759
Speaker 1: father was also a member of the Gin Court. In

794
00:44:41,800 --> 00:44:45,040
Speaker 1: addition to writing a commentary on the on the Shanhaijing,

795
00:44:45,120 --> 00:44:47,640
Speaker 1: he also wrote commentaries on other works, such as the

796
00:44:47,719 --> 00:44:52,240
Speaker 1: Lyrics of Chew, and he annotated the earliest surviving Chinese

797
00:44:52,280 --> 00:44:57,359
Speaker 1: dictionary the area. But unfortunately, Gopu met a horrible end

798
00:44:57,760 --> 00:45:00,760
Speaker 1: due to one of his his particular skill. To quote

799
00:45:00,760 --> 00:45:04,400
Speaker 1: here from Fuller, he was also adept at divination, but

800
00:45:04,520 --> 00:45:08,120
Speaker 1: this talent led to his violent death. When the military

801
00:45:08,200 --> 00:45:11,960
Speaker 1: commander Wang Dunn was planning a rebellion, Go Pu, at

802
00:45:11,960 --> 00:45:15,200
Speaker 1: the time was serving as his adjutant. Wang sawt the

803
00:45:15,320 --> 00:45:18,640
Speaker 1: divination about whether he would succeed and Go's answer was

804
00:45:18,920 --> 00:45:23,560
Speaker 1: surely not Wang had him killed. It's a dangerous, a

805
00:45:23,680 --> 00:45:29,239
Speaker 1: dangerous business, uh, reading, reading omens and and telling the

806
00:45:29,280 --> 00:45:33,399
Speaker 1: future to military leaders, or just in general delivering bad

807
00:45:33,440 --> 00:45:36,600
Speaker 1: news to bad tempered leaders. And some guys just don't

808
00:45:36,640 --> 00:45:40,080
Speaker 1: want to hear bad news. But as for his poetry,

809
00:45:40,480 --> 00:45:42,760
Speaker 1: I got sidetracked for a bit looking at his poetry,

810
00:45:42,800 --> 00:45:45,200
Speaker 1: which I thought was interesting. Much of it apparently doesn't

811
00:45:45,239 --> 00:45:49,719
Speaker 1: survive to the present, but of what does survive? Fourteen

812
00:45:49,840 --> 00:45:52,239
Speaker 1: of the surviving poems are part of a series he

813
00:45:52,280 --> 00:45:57,000
Speaker 1: wrote called Poems on Wandering Immortals and Fuller Rights quote.

814
00:45:57,000 --> 00:46:01,400
Speaker 1: In these, Gopu develops a persona that's scorns the trappings

815
00:46:01,440 --> 00:46:05,799
Speaker 1: of success and instead yearns for the simple life of reclusion.

816
00:46:06,440 --> 00:46:09,520
Speaker 1: The language of the poems, in contrast to their themes,

817
00:46:09,800 --> 00:46:14,640
Speaker 1: shows strong traces of gin Courtly rhetorical embellishment and area edition,

818
00:46:15,120 --> 00:46:17,520
Speaker 1: which is funny because in reading about that, and in

819
00:46:17,880 --> 00:46:20,840
Speaker 1: actually reading the poems themselves, I felt some resonance with

820
00:46:20,880 --> 00:46:23,000
Speaker 1: another theme that has come up several times on the

821
00:46:23,000 --> 00:46:27,480
Speaker 1: show recently, which is pastoral poetry. But I just want

822
00:46:27,480 --> 00:46:29,759
Speaker 1: to read a bit here from the first of the

823
00:46:29,840 --> 00:46:34,759
Speaker 1: poems on Wondering Immortals by Gopu. He writes, the capital

824
00:46:34,840 --> 00:46:38,920
Speaker 1: is a layer of wandering knights. Mountain forests provide a

825
00:46:39,000 --> 00:46:43,359
Speaker 1: roost for the recluse. How is a vermilion gate worth glorifying?

826
00:46:44,040 --> 00:46:47,120
Speaker 1: It is not so good as lodging at ping Lie?

827
00:46:47,480 --> 00:46:49,920
Speaker 1: And ping Lie was one of the aisles of the

828
00:46:49,960 --> 00:46:52,719
Speaker 1: immortals in the Eastern Ocean. With the poem goes on

829
00:46:53,320 --> 00:46:56,520
Speaker 1: standing by the spring head, I decant its pure waves

830
00:46:57,000 --> 00:47:01,720
Speaker 1: on ridges and knolls. I gather cinnabar sprout at mystic ravine.

831
00:47:01,880 --> 00:47:05,480
Speaker 1: One can dwell in hiding. Why strive to ascend the

832
00:47:05,520 --> 00:47:09,600
Speaker 1: cloud ladder? And that last line there really strut me

833
00:47:09,640 --> 00:47:11,960
Speaker 1: because I was like, what is a cloud ladder? I

834
00:47:12,239 --> 00:47:15,759
Speaker 1: looked it up, and a cloud ladder was a was

835
00:47:15,880 --> 00:47:20,560
Speaker 1: a an ancient Chinese siege weapon that was like a folding,

836
00:47:20,719 --> 00:47:24,279
Speaker 1: hinged ladder that was used to breach city walls. Now

837
00:47:24,320 --> 00:47:27,160
Speaker 1: I think it's being used metaphorically here, a metaphor for

838
00:47:27,280 --> 00:47:30,040
Speaker 1: the you know, the sort of like constant struggle of

839
00:47:30,080 --> 00:47:32,839
Speaker 1: trying to ascend through the ranks of city life and

840
00:47:32,880 --> 00:47:37,480
Speaker 1: bureaucratic life in the court. Yeah, yeah, it's it seems

841
00:47:37,520 --> 00:47:39,480
Speaker 1: kind of fitting to right, this idea of that the

842
00:47:39,560 --> 00:47:41,839
Speaker 1: ladder is the thing you're ascending as part of your

843
00:47:42,040 --> 00:47:44,239
Speaker 1: your life is the rat race. But of course the

844
00:47:44,239 --> 00:47:46,640
Speaker 1: thing about us an actual siege ladder is once you

845
00:47:46,640 --> 00:47:49,239
Speaker 1: get to the top, uh, Like, that's one of the

846
00:47:49,239 --> 00:47:51,520
Speaker 1: most dangerous parts, right, because now you're up there with

847
00:47:51,560 --> 00:47:54,560
Speaker 1: the other soldiers. Um. You know, in a way it

848
00:47:54,680 --> 00:47:58,439
Speaker 1: kind of you know, it kind of forecasts his death,

849
00:47:58,560 --> 00:48:01,439
Speaker 1: you know. Uh, you know, working your way up, being

850
00:48:01,440 --> 00:48:04,320
Speaker 1: a part of the system, being close to power, um,

851
00:48:04,400 --> 00:48:06,640
Speaker 1: and then you know, you're right up there at the top,

852
00:48:06,640 --> 00:48:08,200
Speaker 1: and that's when they get you. Right, you're about to

853
00:48:08,200 --> 00:48:10,920
Speaker 1: get a halberd through the guts. But I thought it

854
00:48:10,960 --> 00:48:13,000
Speaker 1: was really interesting. I didn't plan it to come out

855
00:48:13,040 --> 00:48:16,480
Speaker 1: this way. But on a couple of episodes, Uh, recently

856
00:48:16,520 --> 00:48:20,040
Speaker 1: we've been talking about some of the ironies of pastoral poetry,

857
00:48:20,040 --> 00:48:22,400
Speaker 1: which is a tradition going back thousands of years. We

858
00:48:22,400 --> 00:48:26,120
Speaker 1: were talking about the pastoral poetry of virgil Um and

859
00:48:26,239 --> 00:48:30,000
Speaker 1: some pastoral poetry probably falsely attributed to Virgil and then

860
00:48:30,080 --> 00:48:32,960
Speaker 1: also in more recent years where what what a lot

861
00:48:32,960 --> 00:48:35,480
Speaker 1: of it seems to have in common is this irony

862
00:48:35,600 --> 00:48:40,839
Speaker 1: that it was poetry espousing the purity and the goodness,

863
00:48:40,960 --> 00:48:43,120
Speaker 1: and and how nice and easy it would be to

864
00:48:43,200 --> 00:48:45,840
Speaker 1: be like a rural shepherd instead of somebody living in

865
00:48:45,880 --> 00:48:47,879
Speaker 1: a city. But it was always written by people who

866
00:48:47,960 --> 00:48:50,840
Speaker 1: only had lived in cities, had never been a rural shepherd.

867
00:48:51,120 --> 00:48:53,680
Speaker 1: Then like it probably didn't understand what kind of work

868
00:48:53,800 --> 00:48:58,239
Speaker 1: was involved in an agricultural existence. And uh and so yeah,

869
00:48:58,760 --> 00:49:00,719
Speaker 1: and this seems like the thing. I mean not to

870
00:49:00,880 --> 00:49:03,360
Speaker 1: not to disparage Gopu, who it seems like he was

871
00:49:03,360 --> 00:49:05,520
Speaker 1: a really interesting poet, but it seems yet again like

872
00:49:05,560 --> 00:49:08,640
Speaker 1: this is somebody who his whole life had lived you know,

873
00:49:08,719 --> 00:49:12,440
Speaker 1: the courtly life, and he's idealizing the life of someone

874
00:49:12,520 --> 00:49:15,719
Speaker 1: living alone in the wilderness, which obviously would come with

875
00:49:15,760 --> 00:49:18,360
Speaker 1: its own with its own harshness and struggles. But I

876
00:49:18,360 --> 00:49:20,759
Speaker 1: guess the grass is always greener, or the cinnabar, the

877
00:49:20,800 --> 00:49:23,479
Speaker 1: cinnabar sprouts are always greener when you're trying to climb

878
00:49:23,560 --> 00:49:26,320
Speaker 1: the cloud ladder. This this also reminds me of something

879
00:49:26,360 --> 00:49:29,719
Speaker 1: that Beryl brings up, pointing out that one of the

880
00:49:29,760 --> 00:49:34,000
Speaker 1: early early admirers of the Classic was a fourth century

881
00:49:34,080 --> 00:49:38,600
Speaker 1: nature poet by the name of Tao yon Ming, who

882
00:49:38,600 --> 00:49:42,200
Speaker 1: wrote an appreciative poem titled on reading the Classic of

883
00:49:42,239 --> 00:49:44,680
Speaker 1: the Mountains of the Seas, and basically it's a poem

884
00:49:44,719 --> 00:49:47,439
Speaker 1: telling you the best way to read this book. And

885
00:49:47,719 --> 00:49:51,439
Speaker 1: it involves like setting out, going out into nature, being

886
00:49:51,440 --> 00:49:54,600
Speaker 1: in a garden that has been freshened by a rain shower,

887
00:49:54,680 --> 00:49:58,480
Speaker 1: being surrounded by good friends, having some new wine. You know,

888
00:49:58,480 --> 00:50:01,719
Speaker 1: there's a gentle breeze. And then he says, quote, if

889
00:50:01,760 --> 00:50:03,839
Speaker 1: this isn't happiness, then I don't know what it is.

890
00:50:04,040 --> 00:50:07,560
Speaker 1: But there's kind of like a pastoral longing um tied

891
00:50:07,640 --> 00:50:10,240
Speaker 1: up with appreciation of the book, which makes sense given

892
00:50:10,280 --> 00:50:14,160
Speaker 1: that those first five chapters, the Five Treasures are are

893
00:50:14,280 --> 00:50:17,920
Speaker 1: in a large part just about the beauty of the

894
00:50:18,040 --> 00:50:22,680
Speaker 1: Chinese landscape and and and the world of of of China.

895
00:50:23,120 --> 00:50:26,120
Speaker 1: So I feel like those two things go together, you know,

896
00:50:26,200 --> 00:50:29,240
Speaker 1: rather snugly. Well, let's say that's actually a very strong

897
00:50:29,320 --> 00:50:33,440
Speaker 1: tradition throughout throughout different ages of Chinese poetry. One of

898
00:50:33,440 --> 00:50:35,200
Speaker 1: the things that I think is one of the most

899
00:50:35,360 --> 00:50:40,360
Speaker 1: unifying characteristics of Chinese poetry in particular, is it's tactle

900
00:50:40,440 --> 00:50:46,799
Speaker 1: appreciation of the specific surfaces and images of nature. There

901
00:50:46,800 --> 00:50:50,200
Speaker 1: are tons of of wonderful Chinese poems just about the

902
00:50:50,320 --> 00:50:53,280
Speaker 1: you know, the feeling of the water of the stream,

903
00:50:53,480 --> 00:50:56,439
Speaker 1: and the and the and the sun shining off of

904
00:50:56,480 --> 00:50:59,399
Speaker 1: the leaves of the tree. There's a lot of very

905
00:50:59,520 --> 00:51:03,239
Speaker 1: very tech sturial pleasure of the natural world. The half

906
00:51:03,360 --> 00:51:08,080
Speaker 1: ducks coming together and flying off. So yeah. The earliest

907
00:51:08,080 --> 00:51:12,120
Speaker 1: commentary on the shan Hajjing is is that of Gopu,

908
00:51:12,520 --> 00:51:14,920
Speaker 1: and in it he shares a really cool story to

909
00:51:15,040 --> 00:51:18,800
Speaker 1: illustrate how this older text found new life, a story

910
00:51:18,800 --> 00:51:21,840
Speaker 1: that was first mentioned in the earliest preface to the

911
00:51:21,840 --> 00:51:26,000
Speaker 1: shan Haijing by Lu Sen, who lived fifty three BC,

912
00:51:26,280 --> 00:51:30,120
Speaker 1: through tree c And in this account, basically this is

913
00:51:30,160 --> 00:51:33,840
Speaker 1: what happens. It's it's fifty C and the Han Emperor

914
00:51:33,920 --> 00:51:36,200
Speaker 1: visits a cave in northwest China that has just been

915
00:51:36,239 --> 00:51:39,239
Speaker 1: opened up, and here they find the remains of a

916
00:51:39,280 --> 00:51:43,360
Speaker 1: man with his hands bound behind his back, bound with

917
00:51:43,440 --> 00:51:46,239
Speaker 1: his own long hair, and one of his feet is

918
00:51:46,280 --> 00:51:49,719
Speaker 1: in fetters. And the emperor is just fascinated by this.

919
00:51:49,800 --> 00:51:53,640
Speaker 1: He's very curious um and he asks his entourage for

920
00:51:53,760 --> 00:51:56,759
Speaker 1: an explanation, but no one has an answer except for

921
00:51:56,800 --> 00:52:01,239
Speaker 1: the librarian lou c hung Uh. He recognizes it and

922
00:52:01,320 --> 00:52:04,319
Speaker 1: explains that there is a parallel to this in in

923
00:52:04,320 --> 00:52:06,799
Speaker 1: a book that he has in the Classic of the

924
00:52:06,840 --> 00:52:10,120
Speaker 1: Mountains and Seas, and it's the myth of Perils and

925
00:52:10,200 --> 00:52:14,240
Speaker 1: twain Loads ritual execution for the murder of a lesser

926
00:52:14,320 --> 00:52:18,120
Speaker 1: god beloved by a greater god. Um. Now this would

927
00:52:18,120 --> 00:52:21,040
Speaker 1: be twain Load here or orf Wu was a god

928
00:52:21,239 --> 00:52:24,880
Speaker 1: and ultimately a corpse deity um who was indeed ritually

929
00:52:24,960 --> 00:52:28,440
Speaker 1: executed for the murder of Notch Flaw or yah Yu,

930
00:52:28,960 --> 00:52:33,360
Speaker 1: a polymorphic deity that eats humans sometimes describe more in

931
00:52:33,760 --> 00:52:36,560
Speaker 1: terms of a cannibal. And then twain Load is then

932
00:52:36,680 --> 00:52:40,360
Speaker 1: resurrected by Shamans after his death, thus his status as

933
00:52:40,400 --> 00:52:43,759
Speaker 1: a corpse deity. So anyway, the in in this little

934
00:52:43,760 --> 00:52:47,719
Speaker 1: account Barrel Rights, the Emperor was absolutely astounded by this,

935
00:52:48,280 --> 00:52:51,160
Speaker 1: and from that time on people were in competition to

936
00:52:51,200 --> 00:52:54,200
Speaker 1: study the Classic, and so you know, this begins a

937
00:52:54,239 --> 00:52:57,520
Speaker 1: long tradition of studying the text, commenting on it, and

938
00:52:57,560 --> 00:53:01,400
Speaker 1: eventually translating it into other languages. Various views of the

939
00:53:01,440 --> 00:53:04,920
Speaker 1: text or favored throughout its history, and um, yeah, it

940
00:53:05,480 --> 00:53:07,680
Speaker 1: ends up you know still to this day, you know,

941
00:53:07,719 --> 00:53:10,319
Speaker 1: people are writing books about it. New translations are coming

942
00:53:10,320 --> 00:53:13,319
Speaker 1: out about it and um uh It's and also you

943
00:53:13,360 --> 00:53:17,239
Speaker 1: see new works emerge in recent centuries as well. During

944
00:53:17,239 --> 00:53:20,560
Speaker 1: the eighteenth century, the Chinese writer Uh Leads you Chen

945
00:53:20,680 --> 00:53:24,080
Speaker 1: It Lives seventeen sixty three through eighteen thirty wrote a

946
00:53:24,080 --> 00:53:28,160
Speaker 1: satirical novel that inverted the ridicule of the book. Instead

947
00:53:28,160 --> 00:53:32,000
Speaker 1: of facing outward towards non Chinese, it faced in at

948
00:53:32,040 --> 00:53:36,719
Speaker 1: the Chinese people, subverting the mythology to point out perceived

949
00:53:36,800 --> 00:53:41,160
Speaker 1: faults in the national character Uh, which is interesting satire

950
00:53:41,200 --> 00:53:44,200
Speaker 1: of his own culture exactly. Yeah, and it's titled The

951
00:53:44,239 --> 00:53:46,400
Speaker 1: Flowers in the Mirror and I checked you can you

952
00:53:46,400 --> 00:53:48,560
Speaker 1: can actually get you can get an English translation of this.

953
00:53:49,160 --> 00:53:51,960
Speaker 1: That sounds interesting. Now, both authors here go into a

954
00:53:52,040 --> 00:53:54,279
Speaker 1: lot more detail about about all of this about It's,

955
00:53:54,640 --> 00:53:57,600
Speaker 1: It's you know, the intricate details and like major translations

956
00:53:57,600 --> 00:54:01,440
Speaker 1: and major commentators. But hopefully this brief history will suffice

957
00:54:01,440 --> 00:54:03,759
Speaker 1: for the podcast and help help provide a base from

958
00:54:03,800 --> 00:54:06,960
Speaker 1: which to enjoy the text. Uh. Yeah, we were already

959
00:54:07,000 --> 00:54:09,279
Speaker 1: going pretty long for part one, so we'll have to

960
00:54:09,320 --> 00:54:11,759
Speaker 1: call it there, I think, and come back with more

961
00:54:11,800 --> 00:54:14,719
Speaker 1: in part two. Yeah. Part two though, there's gonna be

962
00:54:15,080 --> 00:54:19,120
Speaker 1: strange creatures. Sometimes you can eat for magical powers a

963
00:54:19,200 --> 00:54:22,560
Speaker 1: creature with just butts on both sides. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

964
00:54:22,640 --> 00:54:25,600
Speaker 1: we'll talk about that critter for sure. So so yeah,

965
00:54:25,680 --> 00:54:29,480
Speaker 1: come back on Thursday and we will will dive deeper

966
00:54:29,520 --> 00:54:32,680
Speaker 1: into the Shawn Hai gene. In the meantime, you know,

967
00:54:32,760 --> 00:54:34,960
Speaker 1: we'd love to hear from everybody out there, especially if

968
00:54:35,040 --> 00:54:39,600
Speaker 1: you have expertise regarding a Mandarin or Chinese culture or

969
00:54:39,719 --> 00:54:43,120
Speaker 1: certainly this this particular book and its history. Uh, certainly

970
00:54:43,200 --> 00:54:45,319
Speaker 1: right in and let us know. Uh. If you want

971
00:54:45,360 --> 00:54:47,120
Speaker 1: to listen to other episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind,

972
00:54:47,160 --> 00:54:50,080
Speaker 1: you can find the podcast feed wherever you get your

973
00:54:50,080 --> 00:54:52,799
Speaker 1: podcasts and wherever that happens to be. If they let

974
00:54:52,840 --> 00:54:56,600
Speaker 1: you just rate, review and subscribe. Huge thanks as always

975
00:54:56,600 --> 00:54:59,640
Speaker 1: to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you

976
00:54:59,640 --> 00:55:01,520
Speaker 1: would like to get in touch with us with feedback

977
00:55:01,560 --> 00:55:03,840
Speaker 1: on this episode or any other to suggest topic for

978
00:55:03,880 --> 00:55:06,359
Speaker 1: the future, just to say hello, you can email us

979
00:55:06,360 --> 00:55:17,040
Speaker 1: at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.

980
00:55:17,040 --> 00:55:19,520
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of I Heart Radio.

981
00:55:19,880 --> 00:55:22,000
Speaker 1: For more podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the i

982
00:55:22,080 --> 00:55:24,880
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app Apple podcasts, or wherever you're listening to

983
00:55:24,920 --> 00:55:34,520
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.