Literature mirrors changes of the Yangtze River
The Yangtze finless porpoise began facing extinction in recent years. Thanks to the fishing ban and other environmental measures, several groups of Yangtze finless porpoises have been spotted in the Yangtze River in 2020. Photo: XINHUA
The Yangtze River is referred to as a "mother river" by the Chinese people. With its spectacular natural scenes, strategic importance, and increasing cultural legacy, the river has remained Chinese literati's muse through history.
Literati such as Laozi, Zhuangzi (c. 369–286 BCE), and Qu Yuan (c. 340–278 BCE) of the pre-Qin period, Li Bai (701–762), Su Dongpo (1037–1101) of the Tang and Song dynasties, and modern and contemporary writers such as Shen Congwen (1902–1988), Fei Ming (1901–1967), Wang Zengqi (1920–1997), and Wang Anyi, have all portrayed the Yangtze River in their works. From these diverse perspectives, the Yangtze River is meritorious. It is often associated with homesickness, or attachment to a person, and a certain nostalgia or sadness which follows the passing of time. These literary works mirror how scenes along the Yangtze River change and how the Chinese culture develops.
Ancient literature
There were many concerns with ecological ethics in ancient China. Confucius (551–479 BCE) once said "The wise find pleasure in water; the virtuous find pleasure in hills," as recorded in the Analects. Mencius (c. 372–289 BCE) said that "He [junzi, the superior man] is lovingly disposed to people generally, and kind to creatures." Another important Confucian thinker, Xunzi (c. 313–238 BCE), put forward: "Nature is the true law." These thoughts reflect that the Chinese people's exploration of man-nature relationship started very early.
The Yangtze River frequently appears in literary works. In ancient myths, it was viewed as a deity who was feared and respected. It had a presence that inspired people's imaginations and cultivated their aesthetic awareness. The ancient Chinese, whose lives were heavily reliant upon the Yangtze River, still held reverence for it. Their feelings about the river can be found in the ancient myths, most of which were on themes of flood control, romance, or a helpless lament of worldly affairs. For example, it is said that the goddess of the Wu Mountain helped Yu the Great, a legendary king in ancient China, control floods. The legend also goes that Ehuang and Nyuying, wives of the legendary emperor Shun, mourned the death of their beloved husband. They wept by the Xiang River, a tributary of the Yangtze River, for days; their copious tears fell upon the bamboos by the river, staining them permanently with spots that evoke teardrops.
Numerous literati expressed their feelings and emotions through vivid depictions of the Yangtze River. These works range from Shijing (Book of Songs), the first anthology of Chinese poetry, to the poetry of the later dynasties. The sounds uttered by apes held popular poetic imagery as poets wrote about the Yangtze River. A household poem written by Li Bai depicts the sights and sounds witnessed when sailing down the Yangtze River: "The echoes of the apes keep reverberating in the mountains; while the light boat we are in has passed range upon range of mountains." The beauty and wonder of nature portrayed in these ancient poems indicates how humans and the other creatures lived in harmony along the Yangtze River. The Tang poet, Wen Tingyun (c. 812–866), transcribed his experience setting sail across the Jialing River, another tributary of the Yangtze River: "Among tufts of sandgrasses gulls disperse;/ Over riverside fields an egret flies."
A poem from Shijing recounts the story of a man who failed to chase his beloved because he couldn't cross the Yangtze River. He sighs, "The breadth of the Han/ Cannot be dived across;/ The length of the Jiang/ Cannot be navigated with a raft" (trans. James Legge). The Han River is a tributary of the Yangtze River, and the Jiang is another name for the Yangtze River. A poem by Li Zhiyi (1048–1117) depicts a woman missing her lover who lives on the other side of the Yangtze River in a stark and vivid way: "I live at the head of the long Yangtze./ He lives in its furthest reaches./ I think of him, each day, but we never meet./ The drink we share is the Yangtze water" (trans. Julian Farmer). The Yangtze River was not only a romantic inspiration but also a natural barrier to those lovers. That is why the woman sighs in the poem: "When will these waters come to rest,/ or my regrets finally end?"
Environmental influences
As science and technology advance in modern times, more and more people are under the delusion that they can conquer nature. The development of shipping brings great convenience to the people on both sides of the Yangtze River, but it is also accompanied by irreversible side effects. The Yangtze River and its surrounding environment have been severely damaged due to wanton sewage disposal. "Along the meandering lanes of South Bank there are hardly any sewers or garbage-collecting facilities, so the accumulated filth spills out into roadside ditches and runs down the hills. The ground is invariably littered with refuse, to be carried into the Yangtze by the next rainfall" (trans. Howard Coldblatt). This is a quotation from Ji'e de Nyuer (Daughter of the River), an autobiography by the female writer Hong Ying. In his novel Nanfang de Duoluo (The Decadence of the South), the Chinese writer Su Tong also portrays the Yangtze River as littered with trash and grease waste. "1950s wash rice and vegetable, 1960s wash clothes and irrigation, 1970s water turned bad, 1980s fish and shrimp vanished, and 1990s harmed humans"—this folk song reflects water pollution's history vividly.
The deterioration of the environment also causes great danger to the other species along the river. The Yangtze finless porpoise, which is known as the "living fossil" of the Yangtze ecosphere, is dying off at an alarming rate. It is estimated that there are only a little more than 1,000 finless porpoises remaining. Huang Chunhua, a Chinese children's literature writer, wrote a book named Shengming Zhiqiu (A Ball of Life). It tells a story of one finless porpoise's attempt to help itself when facing extinction. It is also a warning to humans: the earth is the only home for mankind. If the environment continues to be damaged, animals will be on the verge of extinction, and humans will not survive either. Through their works, writers hope to guide children to establish environmental awareness from an early age.
The deterioration of the environment has not only brought about the destruction of beauty and culture, but also the decline of ideological progress. Some writers have begun to call for the public to develop an ecological conscience. In his book Wenhua Kulyu (A Bittersweet Journey Through Culture), the famous writer Yu Qiuyu views the Yangtze River as the cultural bond between the former cultural glory and modernization. He calls the river as "our father." He witnessed the beautiful ecology and civilization of the Yangtze River gradually shrinking with the changes of time, and conveyed the conflict between cultural inheritance and social development with the unique sensitivity of a scholar.
New life
As the country pays more attention to the construction of an ecological civilization, the Yangtze River has begun to take on a new look, and there are more literary works about the harmonious coexistence of humans and the Yangtze River. In a report about the Three Gorges Dam, the journalist Li Zhanhong recalled the past and present of the Three Gorges Dam and the tremendous changes that the dam brought to the entire Three Gorges area. Another report tells a cheerful change in the Yangtze ecosphere: snow cranes, which are rated as critically endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List, were spotted playing around Poyang Lake, the largest freshwater lake in China which connects to the Yangtze through a channel. Behind the reappearance of snow cranes are people’s unremitting efforts to restore the ecology of the Yangtze River.
Some overseas Chinese writers still long for the Yangtze River, even though many years have passed since they left their homeland. In the works of Hualing Nieh Engle, a Chinese writer living in the United States, the Yangtze River and the Three Gorges have always been extremely important cultural images.
Furthermore, the Yangtze river inspires a cultural collective unconscious. The Chinese writer Liu Xinglong wrote in his book Shangshang Changjiang (Upstream Yangtze River Cruise) that the Yangtze River will become our mother river only when we have an independent soul. These writers believe that the Yangtze River has been sublimated from a natural Yangtze to a humanistic Yangtze, and it is now the habitat of the Chinese soul. This belief is closely associated with the current changes in ecological consciousness, and it injects a powerful catalyst into current environmental protection initiatives.
This article was translated and edited from Guangming Daily. Ai You is an associate professor from the School of Literature at Capital Normal University.
Edited by REN GUANHONG
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