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now streaming, only on Hulu. Hi

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everyone, guess who? Yeah me

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again, Laszlo Montgomery here with another

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pretty halfway decent Chengyu. And I'd

0:36

like to extend my thanks to

0:38

Charlie and Singapura for recommending this

0:40

one. Today we're

0:42

going to look at Jian Bu Duan

0:44

Li Hai Luan. Six characters,

0:47

two more than usual, but look

0:49

at it this way, you're getting 50% more syllables for

0:52

the price of four. Jian

0:54

Bu Duan Li Hai

0:56

Luan. Let's do the usual.

0:59

Jian is a scissors or is a verb

1:01

it means to cut. Bu

1:03

means no and Duan

1:05

means to cut off or break off.

1:09

Li among its myriad of definitions

1:11

means to straighten a matter out.

1:14

Hai means still or yet and

1:17

Luan means chaos or a

1:19

mess. But not cut

1:21

off, straighten up, still a mess. I

1:24

guess if you're a fluent Chinese speaker you'd be

1:26

able to figure this out, but this

1:28

Chengyu, Jian Bu Duan

1:30

Li Hai Luan, has a

1:32

story attached to it that offers us

1:35

all a nice little history lesson. Starring

1:38

in this Chengyu is Li Yu, not

1:41

someone who comes to mind instantly. He lived

1:43

from 937 to 978. The

1:47

Tang Dynasty ended in 907, so

1:49

Li Yu lived during the

1:52

historical period That

1:54

is sandwiched in between the Tang

1:56

and Song Dynasty. This is the

1:58

Five Dynasties, Ten. Kingdoms period that

2:01

lasted nine, oh two to nine,

2:03

Seventy nine. Before. I get

2:05

to the Chong, you know me first.

2:07

Dare Shanley you and why he was

2:09

one of them are memorable characters from

2:11

this chaotic time and Chinese history when

2:13

the country was. All. Divided

2:15

and as the Romance of the

2:17

Three Kingdoms foretold at the very

2:19

beginning. The. Nation long

2:22

divided, must unite. And.

2:24

Long united, Must divide.

2:26

Although this famous opening line sentence

2:28

refers to the chaos China suffered

2:30

after the collapse of the Han

2:32

Dynasty and the to hundreds a

2:35

d. They to just as

2:37

well have been applied seven centuries later

2:39

to the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms

2:41

era. The. Five

2:43

Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms are so

2:45

named because of the succession of

2:47

small nation states that proliferated across

2:49

the former imperial territories of the

2:52

tongue. None. Of them lasting

2:54

for more than a human

2:56

lifespan. And many of these

2:58

kingdoms name themselves after former

3:00

imperial dynasties. Thus you had

3:02

the Later Joe Southern Town,

3:04

the Later Tong, etc all

3:06

desperate to all desperate to

3:08

gain even a modicum of

3:10

legitimacy by taking the name.

3:13

Of. A former central power have

3:15

a Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms

3:17

era started coming to a close

3:20

and nine sixty a d when

3:22

the Song Dynasty found Chow Kwan

3:25

Yin founded the Song Dynasty. And.

3:27

After he sees the throne of one of

3:29

the ten kingdoms, He began

3:32

a sixteen year campaign of reuniting.

3:34

All. The breakaway states under a

3:36

single imperial banner. And. This.

3:39

Long. And violent military undertaking

3:41

would only conclude three years

3:43

after Joke Kwan Yin past

3:46

and nine seventy six a

3:48

day. We remember him as

3:50

song titles. finally

3:52

and nine seventy nine a d

3:54

v period of division was over

3:56

china was once again united under

3:58

the song which would reigned

4:00

for the next three hundred years until

4:02

the Mongols blew into town with all

4:04

their shock and awe tactics. So

4:07

Li Yu was born

4:09

into the royal family of the

4:11

Southern Tang Kingdom, which lasted

4:13

from 937 to 976. As

4:18

far as the Five Dynasties and Ten

4:20

Kingdoms period went, the Southern Tang was

4:23

a relatively stable and prosperous

4:25

state, and as its name

4:27

suggests, it was one of

4:29

the Southern Kingdoms further away from the

4:32

chaos in the Central Plains regions. Its

4:35

capital was in today's Nanjing,

4:37

and since their kingdom was not

4:39

a military hotspot, the Southern Tang

4:41

nobility regularly hosted

4:43

banquets, parties, and allotted

4:46

ample time to the pursuit of the arts.

4:49

The Southern Tang produced some

4:52

of the most accomplished painters of ancient

4:54

China, and copies of their paintings still

4:57

survive today. And

4:59

it was from this genteel, Epicurean

5:01

milieu that we get Li Yu.

5:05

Li Yu was the sixth son of

5:07

the king of Southern Tang, and like

5:09

many younger princes in Chinese history, he

5:11

never gave ascending to the throne a

5:14

second thought, partly out of genuine interest

5:16

and partly to show that he was

5:18

no threat to his more ambitious older

5:20

brothers. Li Yu devoted

5:22

his time to writing poetry. He became

5:24

well versed in the most popular poetic

5:27

form of the time, the tsu, or

5:29

lyric poetry form, where a poet writes

5:31

a set of lyrics to an already

5:34

extant tune for a courtesan to sing

5:36

at a banquet. Li

5:39

Yu was a poet, not a

5:41

politician. He had a reputation for

5:43

being weak, airheaded, and too

5:46

gentle to rule. He lacked all

5:48

the necessary qualities required of a

5:50

leader, so when a series

5:52

of accidents and early deaths dispatched everyone

5:54

in the line of succession, Li Yu

5:57

ended up becoming king. Southern

6:00

Tang had already lost a series of

6:02

battles with neighboring kingdoms, and by the

6:04

time Li Yu ascended the throne in

6:06

961 AD, it was

6:08

very much a weakened vassal state,

6:10

no longer a kingdom in its own

6:12

right. But as one

6:14

of those less-threatening southern kingdoms, it

6:16

was allowed to exist until quite

6:19

late in the Song Dynasty's campaign

6:21

of unification, 976 AD to be

6:23

exact. And

6:26

when this final blow came, one

6:28

of the conditions of surrender that

6:30

the Song imposed upon the southern

6:32

Tang was that its king,

6:34

Li Yu, be taken to

6:36

the Song capital of Kaifeng in the

6:38

north and be placed under house arrest,

6:41

so Li Yu was condemned to live

6:43

out the short remainder of his life

6:46

far away from his homeland and

6:48

his people. In China

6:50

today, Li Yu is remembered as a

6:52

very mediocre ruler, but

6:54

a very great poet. Some

6:57

have even suggested he was the

6:59

greatest artistic talent of all the

7:01

Chinese rulers, including even

7:03

Huizong and Qianlong. The

7:05

pathos of his life story, his

7:08

unwillingness to take the throne, his

7:10

eventual death and exile in the

7:12

Song capital, contributes not

7:14

insignificantly to Li Yu's

7:17

reputation. One of the

7:19

most hotly debated topics surrounding him is

7:21

which of his poems were written before

7:23

his defeat and exile, and which were

7:26

written after. Since many

7:28

of Li Yu's poems cannot be

7:30

conclusively dated, scholars are still debating

7:32

whether each had been written post-exile

7:35

or before. This

7:37

particular poem, that is the source of this

7:39

Cheng Yu, is one of the undated ones,

7:42

which means that purely from historical

7:44

evidence, we can't conclusively say if

7:46

Li Yu wrote it before or

7:49

after he was placed under house arrest in

7:51

Kaifeng. You'll have to judge for yourself. It's

7:55

titled Xiangjian Huang, The Happiness

7:57

of Meeting. Quite an

7:59

optimistic time. for such a poem containing

8:01

such a desolate tone. These these

8:04

or lyric poems weren't

8:06

given titles of their own. They were

8:08

just named for whatever the

8:10

tune was that the poem was set to. So

8:13

did Li Yu intentionally choose the

8:15

tune? The happiness of meeting for

8:17

the tragic irony of the

8:19

mismatch between poem and title or did

8:21

he simply think these lyrics happened to

8:24

sound best to that tune? Now

8:26

whatever the context, Li Yu has

8:29

provided one of the most famous

8:31

lines in Chinese literature. Very quotable

8:33

whenever you want to describe any

8:36

painful emotion but particularly the grief

8:38

and pain of parting from a

8:41

loved one. This might be akin

8:43

to the immortal line from

8:45

act two scene two of the

8:47

Shakespeare play Romeo and Juliet when

8:50

she bids Romeo farewell, parting is

8:52

such sweet sorrow. Well

8:54

I guess you could say Jian Bu Duan,

8:56

Li Hai Luan is a Chinese version of

8:58

that oft used verse

9:01

from Shakespeare. Let

9:03

me read the poem and follow it

9:05

up with a Stephen Owen translation from

9:07

the anthology of Chinese literature. Li

9:22

Hai Luan, Shi Li Cho,

9:24

Bi Shi

9:26

I Ban, Si Wei, Cai

9:28

Xing To. Without

9:31

a word I climbed the western

9:33

tower. The moon was like a

9:35

hook. The silent yards

9:37

stretched deep through chestnut trees

9:40

and closing autumn cool

9:42

and clear. You can cut it

9:45

but never cut it through. Get

9:47

it set then it's a mess

9:49

again. That's the sadness

9:51

of being apart. It has a flavor

9:53

all its own. Jian

9:55

Bu Duan, Li Hai Luan, you can

9:58

cut it but never cut it. cut

10:00

it through. Get it set, and

10:02

then it's a mess again. That's a

10:04

six-word Chinese saying to describe the sorrow

10:07

of parting. And the key to understanding

10:09

the meaning behind this chengyu is

10:12

the poem by Li Yu of the Southern

10:14

Tang. Jian Bu Duan,

10:16

Li Hailuan everybody. A whole round

10:18

of applause goes out to Emma,

10:20

keeping things running at optimum levels

10:22

all the time over at the

10:24

Cheng Yu Yan Zhio Zhongxin. She

10:27

really pulled through for this episode.

10:29

Nice Emma. And thanks again for Charlie

10:31

and Singapore. Looking forward to seeing you

10:33

again for another brunch

10:36

at the Catella Deli next time you're in

10:38

town. I'll get Tsang to join us. Okay,

10:41

that's it. This is Laszlo Montgomery signing

10:43

off from Los Angeles, California, inviting you

10:45

to join me next time for

10:48

another exciting episode of

10:50

the Chinese Sayings Podcast.