This is the first sentence of the preface to the book The Appreciation of the Poems in Tang Dynasty. I didn't fully understand this statement until I read that book carefully for the second time and started writing traditional-styled Chinese poems myself. Before that, to me and to many others in my generation, traditional-styled Chinese poems were just some historical legacy that we are obliged to love and cherish.

    The Tang poems have in some extent shaped the Chinese language ever since then, and  some pellucid prose have been the reading material for generations of Chinese children when they learn the language. I'm pretty sure that most of us have the experience of being asked to recite Tang poems when we were young, both to entertain the guests and to "earn face" for our parents. Then we go to the schools, and we meet the traditional-styled poems in the Chinese textbook every term for almost a decade. I believe most of us love them, because they are short and melodious and thus easy to memorize, and compared to the dull and politics-oriented texts in modern language, they are really beautiful. Our need for a big repertoire of traditional-styled poems reaches the climax before the College Entrance Exam, in which there is always one multiple choice testing our understanding of a not well-known poem. Actually, I bought the book The Appreciation of the Poems in Tang Dynasty in my senior year of high school. The book was recommended by the teacher, and I found in some "simulative exams" the correct answer was the original text from that book. Once the exam is over, we could well throw all the books away and call it mission accomplished.

    But to the Chinese people ancient as two thousands years ago until as recent as in the early 20th century, poetry meant a lot more than that. The ancient Chinese scholars didn't study science or foreign languages. They basically spent all their school time learning poem writing, rhetoric and calligraphy. Poem writing distinguished the intellects from the plebeians.  Poem writing was an important means of socialization--  it was the best way to express one's feelings in weddings, birthdays, funerals and farewells; it could also be advertisements, as restaurants were honored to have a social elite write a poem on the wall; and it was entertainment too, because most Chinese poems were actually lyrics and could fit into a certain melody, especially those with lines of different lengths. Above all, it was the fundamental skill to become and stay as a gerent. I've always wondered about the validity of the official selection system in ancient China. Unlike the officials nowadays most of whom hold diploma in law, social sciences, or business administration and have working experience in various fields, the ancient Chinese officials were poets coming directly from the studies. After passing an imperial exam on writing skills and on the understanding of the Confucian classics, they were assigned to be regional governors. They were in charge of all kinds of affairs including law enforcement, finance, taxation, public works, and sometimes even military operations. Many of the great poets also had great political ambitions although they may not have been able to realize them, and most of the high-ranked officials were great poets at the same time although we often ignore that today. So there must be a reason that these two identities were intertwined and inseparable.

    I once watched the TV interview of a Chinese musician and scholar. He is multi-lingual. He said when he couldn't think out a solution, he would switch to another language to think about it and it might bring a breakthrough. This made me wonder about the relationship between thinking and language. All the thinking are conducted in a certain language. This is so obvious that we may have underestimated the importance of it.  The process of mastering a language is also the process of developing one's mental sophistication. Poetry is considered to be the most advanced literature form, and because of the regulations on rhyme and intonations and on format, the traditional-styled Chinese poems require intensive study and profound understanding of the language. So poem writing became an easy standard to test a person's intelligence; at the same time, it reflected the writer's personality and life philosophy as the Chinese poetry tradition goes. On the other hand, poems do not just settle to be the carriers of thinking, and due to the constraints of length they have to create and evoke new thinking. Like the last line in Tao Yuanming's (365-427 AD) poem Drinking said, "I knew it was there, but words eluded me"-- the thinking, the truth and the essence of beauty were there, but I cannot express it in words. Yet these words are words themselves, and with all the words in the preceding lines they have not only expressed his thinking, but also gone beyond the words.

    When I was packing to go to study abroad two years ago, the first book I put in my suitcase was The Appreciation of the Poems in Tang Dynasty. If I could take only  one book with me, that would have been it, because the Tang poems are the prime of Chinese language based on thousands of years of accumulation and it still shines after another one thousand years of elutriation. I read those poems on the other side of the earth in a world so different from the time they were composed, yet the beauty of those words was still striking my heart. The thinking, the truth and the essence of beauty haven't changed for a thousand years, while the difference is we are now unable to express it in an exquisite way like that. After the painful experience dealing with the imperialistic countries in the late 19th century and the early 20th century, the Chinese fell into self-skepticism and self-denial: traditions were depreciated, and the Chinese language was modernized hastily. And after the later civil chaos and the Culture Revolution, the old time social elites who truly understood the tradition and could write traditional-styled poems were virtually wiped out off mainland China. Some of them survived, but they are dying out. So, as one of the 1980's generation, I used to think that the traditional-styled poems belong to the past only.

    Now I realize that the traditional-styled poems are still alive, and it is our responsibility to keep them alive. News of the destruction of historic relics and the tear-down of old houses is flooding in the media today. My heart wrenches, but there is not much I can do. What I can do is to start over and learn, and to try to contribute to the language and the culture I have been benefited from for twenty years. In a time everybody strives forward, I'd like to go one step backward and seek power from the past. In a time everybody rushes to the outside world, I'd like to go inside of my heart and let it tell me what I should do. The poems included on this website are really a beginner's doodling. They cannot shoulder any of the grand missions mentioned above, but I wish they will inspire more people to do something they can. Thousands of years have passed, and the truth is getting more and more elusive. It needs us, every one of us, to try our best to grasp the last elusive words.

* 晋  陶渊明 《饮酒》 之五

  结庐在人境，而无车马喧。

  问君何能尔？心远地自偏。

  采菊东篱下，悠然见南山；

  山气日夕佳，飞鸟相与还。

  此中有真意，欲辨已忘言。