Apple Orchard and Back

 

I knew I would enjoy it and I did.  Yesterday I read the first half and today I finished this only recently published volume of the Cambridge History of China: “Volume 2. The Six Dynasties, 220-589.”  Yesterday traced the complex political narrative, as the ‘age of division’ unfolds during the romantic Three Kingdoms period.  It is impossible to read about Liu Bei and Zhugeliang and not think of the old (1994) CCTV soap opera serial we had the kids watch fifteen years ago.  The one where Guanyu’s beard looks like it will fall off if he strokes just once more. Cao Cao, and his off spring aren’t archvillains but rather sagacious, forward thinking men of letters.  And eventually it is the Wei that triumph but not for long enough to hold off the Sima clan and the founding of the Western Jin.  And I told myself that I was not allowed to through around the term “Six Dynasties” unless) could actually name them. (They are the six successive dynastic efforts that had their capitals in Jiankang, modern day Nanjing: Wu, Eastern Jin, Liu-Song, Southern Qi, Liang and Chen). 

 

I’ve taught this age of division, before.  Can’t wait to do this anew.  All that I’d yet to learn.  The northern refugees who wouldn’t marry with the southerners.  The Xianbei and the Xiongnu steeping, sino-sizing themselves over time, as is evidenced by what the Yungang Buddhist carvings appeared when the early capital was up in Datong and what the Longmen Grottos looked like later, after the capital had moved down to Luoyang.  The battle for the Fei River.  The Liang emperor XuanZe who amasses a massive collection of scrolls and then burns them all as it become clear he will lose control.

 

This morning I read about the prose and the music and the artwork, the waning influence of Confucianism, the growing importance of both Daoism and Buddhism as well as the enigmatic alchemy of xuanxue “dark learning.”  And while it is helpful to map parallels from the period after the Han Dynasty to the fall of Rome, the Six Dynasties was politically tumultuous but intellectually anything but a ‘dark age.’   I took to writing down the name of the author of every one of the disparate chapters into Amazon and tagging books by the authors.  When a text or a poet or a figure of note was mentioned I threw them into Amazon as well and mostly was faced with Chinese language versions of the texts.  How can I read the “Orchid Pavilion Collection” or Bao Zhao or Xie Tiao.  How do I get to read more of Cao Zhi?  And after a while I became overwhelmed by all that there still was to learn.    

It’s Sunday and there is a big storm falling just now.  Lots of big flakes falling heavily out y window.  It’s cold.  There isn’t any chance of this melting today and so when I go out to ski. I’ll need to dress warmly, certainly but also be attentive to my fingers which will become numb, quickly.  I want to go up to the apple orchard and back, as fast as I can and feel my heartbeat and then come back inside and take a hot shower.  Perhaps then I can start to get ready for all the work ahead this week. 

 

 

 

Sunday, 02/07/21