Ode to the Chrysanthemum

Text by Ma Xiaoqing Translation by Madeline Weng Photo by VCG

Ode to the Chrysanthemum

Text by Ma Xiaoqing Translation by Madeline Weng Photo by VCG

Gently, I placed a bunch of chrysanthemums upon my father's tomb. It's the fi rst thing I do every time I go back home. They are the most common chrysanthemums: autumn chrysanthemums,dancing swans, Yaotai Jade phoenix, white peony… all of them have poetic names.

My father liked growing chrysanthemums. Apart from teaching Chinese at a middle school, he taught art as well. He loved drawing chrysanthemums and copying Going Home, a poem written by poet Tao Yuanming in East Jin Dynasty (317-420 AD), who also had a special attachment to chrysanthemums.

My father suffered from Parkinson's disease,which made it diffi cult for him to get about. In my memory, the only time he took me out was to see a chrysanthemum exhibition. I remember seeing the fl owers placed on the shelves of a glass room in the former Mantetsu Welfare Hall. Learning from my father, now I am able to appreciate how the centre of the fl ower gradually turns to jade-like from pea green, and get to know that the black chrysanthemums have the most serene kind of redness, while some other kinds have hollow infl orescences that are long and curly.

quot;While I picked chrysanthemums under the eastern fence, I saw the South Mountain leisurely appearing in front of my eyes.quot; The beauty of this line from poet Tao Yuanming's poem lies in the word quot;leisurelyquot;. The poet's seclusion into nature was not a sullen escape,but a clear refusal to the offi cial career. Seclusion was a choice from which Tao gained his freedom. Just like a chrysanthemum blossoming in the wild, he was not bothered to please the higher-ups in society, neither did he care to fi ght for a name.

Ma Xiaoqing

A respected columnist among Chinese press,has deep study of Chinese history,calligraphy,

traditional painting.

馬曉晴

活躍在中國報刊的文藝專欄作家，深研精通中國歷史、書法、書畫創作。

The chrysanthemums that Tao Yuanming used to grow could turn up in his drinks or even his meals. At the beginning of Han Dynasty, it became fashionable to wear cornels, eat lotus seeds,and drink chrysanthemum wine on the Double Ninth Festival, which later became a custom. In ancient Chinese math, nine had the meaning ofquot;utmostquot;. Therefore, the Double Ninth Festival is also equivalent to the festival for elderly people,and chrysanthemums have thus become fl owers standing for longevity.

If indeed, chrysanthemums went eastward with Chinese Buddhist monk Jianzhen to Japan, then this fl ower must have been being reproduced for hundreds of years. Sometimes, fl owers are not merely fl owers. The cultural connotation they carry when they are in Japan has become distinctly different from

what they were in their hometown. Chrysanthemums are heavily admired in Japan. When China was in its Liao and Song Dynasties (907-1279 AD), Japan had a talented Mikado (the emperor of Japan)called Go-Toba. He was good at writing waka (a style of Japanese poetry) and making katana (a samurai sword). He liked carving a sixteen-petal chrysanthemum on his katana. This decorative fl ower was later named quot;kikumonquot;, and was used as the heraldry of Japanese imperial household.

It is hard to say what kind of relationship we have with the chrysanthemums. Huang Chao Upspring (878-884 AD) led to the end of Tang Dynasty (618-907AD). Huang Chao, the leader of the insurrection, wrote a powerful poem saying:quot;When the autumn comes, after September 8th,chrysanthemums then blossom while the other fl owers die.quot; In his context, chrysanthemums were not the hermits, but exterminators.