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(Du Fu and Li Bai are the two most famous poets of the Tang dynasty as well as of Chinese culture in general)
Was just reading Chinese poetry again - not sure why people think Li Bai's such hot stuff since half his poems are about being drunk out of his mind and telling people to sell their life savings (or their fancy clothes and horses) to buy more wine...
Mostly kidding, even though my Chinese kinda sucks and I can still appreciate the quality and the flow of his poetry. Li Bai was a huge fan of being drunk though, and was pretty depressed. Some gems from his famous 將進酒 (bring in the wine) are:
- we must drink at least 300 cups at once (granted, the cups they drink with are pretty tiny, but hey. that's still wine, not beer that they're drinking 300 cups of)
- drums, delicacies, all of these are not valuable enough; I would rather be drunk and never to awaken again (yeah, pretty depressed)
- from history sages have been lonely, only drinkers can leave their mark (ie. drinking is better than being smart)
- why does the host say he doesn't have enough money? You must buy some and I'll drink with you. The beautiful horse, this fancy fur coat - tell the boy to sell them for fine wine, so we can drink away our eternal sorrows. (if that isn't depression/alcoholism...)
Some of his other poems talk about drinking alone (月下獨酌) or well, with his shadow and the moon. His most famous is probably the 20 word long 靜夜思 which people translate to "quiet night thoughts" which is the literal translation but would sound much better as "thoughts on a quiet night" imo. There are a bunch more too, that I haven't learned about, but my general impression of Li Bai is that he's a poetic genius, a wild drunk party-goer, but a pretty depressed and lonely guy.
Du Fu is not much better - as in he wasn't drunk all the time but he was quite broke for a while. In one of his poems, a storm blows off the thatch on his roof and rain is pouring on him and his family (since he doesn't have enough money to fix his house/ have a nicer house to begin with), so he ends up fantasizing about a mansion for all the world's scholars/poets. Drinking also featured heavily in his poetry too, but he was more about being broke and stuff. Was apparently a pretty nice guy though. Du Fu and Li Bai were also apparently BFFs or something, at least to Du Fu. Li Bai was kinda more meh about it since he was already in the cool crowd at the palace, but Du Fu's seems to think Li Bai was the bee's knees.
And they're basically the most famous Chinese poets - literally every Chinese student learns their poetry at some point in their academic careers - so... promoting alcoholism to children of all ages ftw! Granted, it wasn't just them - drinking gets mentioned in a bunch of other famous poems too. Probably the most common words in Chinese poetry are "moon", "wine", "mountain", "sorrow". I'm pretty sure 95% of all Chinese poetry has at least 1 of those words in them, if not more.
Also, apparently the ancient Chinese had drunken poetry parties! Literally a bunch of poets would get together and write poetry while drinking, sometimes in a more contest format and otherwise just challenging each other to write some lines. Best parties ever.
tl;dr: Congratulations, you did not waste 5 minutes of your life! (Chinese poetry = drinking, being broke, depression and the moon. Attend a drunken poetry party ASAP)
*all the translations of the poetry are mine. Therefore don't trust them.
Was just reading Chinese poetry again - not sure why people think Li Bai's such hot stuff since half his poems are about being drunk out of his mind and telling people to sell their life savings (or their fancy clothes and horses) to buy more wine...
Mostly kidding, even though my Chinese kinda sucks and I can still appreciate the quality and the flow of his poetry. Li Bai was a huge fan of being drunk though, and was pretty depressed. Some gems from his famous 將進酒 (bring in the wine) are:
- we must drink at least 300 cups at once (granted, the cups they drink with are pretty tiny, but hey. that's still wine, not beer that they're drinking 300 cups of)
- drums, delicacies, all of these are not valuable enough; I would rather be drunk and never to awaken again (yeah, pretty depressed)
- from history sages have been lonely, only drinkers can leave their mark (ie. drinking is better than being smart)
- why does the host say he doesn't have enough money? You must buy some and I'll drink with you. The beautiful horse, this fancy fur coat - tell the boy to sell them for fine wine, so we can drink away our eternal sorrows. (if that isn't depression/alcoholism...)
Some of his other poems talk about drinking alone (月下獨酌) or well, with his shadow and the moon. His most famous is probably the 20 word long 靜夜思 which people translate to "quiet night thoughts" which is the literal translation but would sound much better as "thoughts on a quiet night" imo. There are a bunch more too, that I haven't learned about, but my general impression of Li Bai is that he's a poetic genius, a wild drunk party-goer, but a pretty depressed and lonely guy.
Du Fu is not much better - as in he wasn't drunk all the time but he was quite broke for a while. In one of his poems, a storm blows off the thatch on his roof and rain is pouring on him and his family (since he doesn't have enough money to fix his house/ have a nicer house to begin with), so he ends up fantasizing about a mansion for all the world's scholars/poets. Drinking also featured heavily in his poetry too, but he was more about being broke and stuff. Was apparently a pretty nice guy though. Du Fu and Li Bai were also apparently BFFs or something, at least to Du Fu. Li Bai was kinda more meh about it since he was already in the cool crowd at the palace, but Du Fu's seems to think Li Bai was the bee's knees.
And they're basically the most famous Chinese poets - literally every Chinese student learns their poetry at some point in their academic careers - so... promoting alcoholism to children of all ages ftw! Granted, it wasn't just them - drinking gets mentioned in a bunch of other famous poems too. Probably the most common words in Chinese poetry are "moon", "wine", "mountain", "sorrow". I'm pretty sure 95% of all Chinese poetry has at least 1 of those words in them, if not more.
Also, apparently the ancient Chinese had drunken poetry parties! Literally a bunch of poets would get together and write poetry while drinking, sometimes in a more contest format and otherwise just challenging each other to write some lines. Best parties ever.
tl;dr: Congratulations, you did not waste 5 minutes of your life! (Chinese poetry = drinking, being broke, depression and the moon. Attend a drunken poetry party ASAP)
*all the translations of the poetry are mine. Therefore don't trust them.
