Happy Chinese New Year
Tomorrow, February 7, 2008, will be the Chinese New Year. The year of the Pig ends and the year of the Rat begins.
恭喜发财! 过年好!
Seeing that my past postings have risen to the top of the results page for the "happy chinese new year" search phrase on Google.cn, topping even the Wikipedia page on the same topic, I'm encouraged to keep the tradition going, even though I'm battling a bad cold right now.
I'll try something different this year. I will attempt an English translation of one of the classical Chinese stories.
Peach Blossom Village—Tao Yuanming (365-427)
In the reign of Taiyuan of the Jin dynasty (376-396), a man from Wuling made his living as a fisherman. One day he was following a stream and forgot how far he had gone. He came upon a grove of peach trees along the banks for hundreds of paces. There wasn't a different kind tree among them. The grass was fragrant and fresh and beautiful. The fallen peach blossom pedals were everywhere and colorful. The fisherman thought this strange and rowed his boat more to get to the end of the peach grove.
The end of the grove was the source of the stream. And there was a hill. The hill had a small passage way and lights were coming out of it. He got off his boat and entered the passage way. The beginning of the passage way was very narrow, enough just for one man. He walked a few tens of paces, the passage way suddenly widened. A flat land was in front of him with neatly situated houses, rich fields, beautiful ponds, mulberry trees, bamboo bushes and the like. The south-north and east-west trails in the fields connected together. The sounds of chickens and dogs could be heard. People worked in the fields. Men and women were dressed just like the people outside. The elderly and the children were among them. They were happy and without a care. When they saw the fisherman, they were very surprised. They asked him where he was coming from, and the fisherman answered their questions one by one. They invited him to their houses, brought out liquor and slaughtered chicken for dinner to treat the fisherman. The villagers heard of this, they all came to ask questions. They said their ancestors came to this place with their wifes, children and villagers to flee the wars of the Qin dynasty (221 BC-206 BC). They never went out, hence they were isolated from outside people. They asked the fisherman what dynasty this was. They did not know about Han (206BC-220AD), let alone Wei (220-265) Jin (265-420). The fisherman told them all the details of the outside. They all were amazed and sighed. The rest people each invited him to their home and treated him with liquor and food. He stayed for several days. Then he bid goodbye. The villagers told him: "Don't bother telling the outside people about us."
He came out, got his boat, and went back along the way he came, leaving markers everywhere. He went to the jun (a jun has several counties) seat and told his story to the Tai-Shou (head of a jun). The Tai-Shou sent people to find this place with him. They followed his markers but eventually got lost and could not find the way.
Nanyang's Liu Ziji was a noble person. When he heard of this, he was happy and wanted to visit this place. But he couldn't make the trip. He died shortly after. After that no one else ever tried to find the place.