From: lix@thames.bu.edu (Xiaowen Li)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.china,soc.culture.taiwan,soc.culture.hongkong
Subject: Resend- FWD for Mr. H. Anonymous: Learn from Geshu (6)
Date: 9 Nov 92 14:45:36 GMT
Followup-To: soc.culture.china
Organization: Boston University

Due to some network problem, many netters failed to get Mr. H. Anonymous'
series #5 and #6. This is a reposting of (6). Sorry if your site has
got it already.

=============================================================
  Re: Learn from Geshu (VI)


>            .....   It seems to me, "To Geshu" is a forgery while
>"Return to Wang the 12th" is authentic.  At least that is what Go Moro
>thought.
>
>    By the way, I have no wish to reconsider my interpretation of the phrase
>"Jun Bu Neng ..."  Lucky to me, Li Bai wrote two "Jun Bu Neng."  So what you
>say about the other "Jun Bu Neng"?  Are you going to tell us that Li Bai "was
>lamenting someone's having been born a bit too late for achieving the fame"
>many Chang'an hooligans had already got by pandering rooster fighting?  :-).


First, it is only reasonable to assume every "decent" person, however 
"amateurish", should have some doubts about whatever our A*s-kisser  
Number One (and a self-acknowledged son of Joe Stalin) Guo Moruo might 
have said about Li or Du, especially after "enjoying" and "appreciating" 
Guo's "famous" book _Li Bai and Du Fu_.  Why is it that our usually 
anti-CCP Sanyee has decided otherwise?  Are we really ready to learn one 
more time about how Du Fu's drinking habit was that of the "landlord 
class and [bad] taste" whereas Li Bai's alcoholic problem should be 
classified as perhaps "progressive romanticism"?

Okay, maybe that question is too "academic".  But why then are you 
unwilling to state, ON RECORD, that the Classical Chinese phrase "Bu 
Neng" is in the "imperative" mood so you can have that "You cannot..." 
line you want so badly?  Meaning "Thou Shall Not..." as in the Ten 
Commandments?  Or like the "Three Dos and Three Don'ts (San1Yao4 
SanBuYao)" Chairman Mao Ta1Lao3Ren2Jia1  had once instructed us?  And 
you don't seem to see, much less appreciate, the "benefit of the doubt" 
I gave you regarding this laughable translation of yours, let alone the 
ample room, or shall we say Tai2Jie1(steps), for further maneuvers I 
have not yet taken away from you.

At any rate, please don't get ridiculous on the second sentence.  As I 
pointed out, "Jun Bu Neng" is just "You are/were not able ...", because 
of the OBVIOUS reasons which Li Bai (or whoever its author might have 
been) did not have to state.  

You still don't get it?  Now let's be more specific.  You seem to take 
such great delight (or grasp, dare I say, the last straw, or Dao4Cao3 
as one would say during the Cultural Revolution) in seeing, "[l]ucky 
[for] me", the "two 'Jun Bu Neng'", with Geshu and "hooligans" 
"juxtaposed" in the poem, and jump to the conclusion that Li Bai must 
have regarded the two as one and the same.  Ever heard of the 
term "contrast" in all artistic and literary works, never mind all 
those Chinese "couplets" over the millennia?  

Still not get it?  I'll give you another hint. Just take a look at the 
popular saying:

  Gao1 Bu4 Cheng2, Di1 Bu4 Jiu4.

See how exactly the same notion was "euphemistically" yet so elegantly 
expressed by the first two verses of that "Wang the 12th" poem,  no 
matter who the real author might have been?  I'd bet that by now you 
will also have recognized the fundamental fallacy in your interpretation 
of the "Wang the 12th" poem.  Unless, that is, you'd claim that, 
because "Gao" and "Di" are "juxtaposed" in that popular saying, therefore 
we must have Gao = Di !  Still couldn't (admit to) get it?  Sign on with 
TuYa for a couple of trial lessons on poetry, who may be able (Huo4 
Neng2, Ha!) to put an end to your hopelessly stubborn egotistic and 
egocentric eclecticism regarding this particular poem.

(To be continued)
-- 
Newsgroups: soc.culture.china