Culture
12:15, 25-Mar-2019
Water calligraphy in Montreal draws attention to ancient Chinese poem
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A senior Chinese man was recently caught on video writing poetry with a yogurt pail full of water and a large paintbrush at Montreal's Lionel-Groulx metro station platform.
The man was writing water calligraphy, which is generally done on the ground.
The stanza he was spotted writing reads, "The moon sets, crows cry in the frosty air. Under maple trees by the river, a fisherman's light disturbs my sleep."
It is the beginning of a poem titled "Night Mooring at Maple Bridge." Its author was Zhang Ji, who lived some time between 730 and 780 A.D. during the Tang Dynasty (618–907).
The poem is one of the best-loved Chinese poems. It captures the moment when the poet woke up from a troubled sleep. He was in a boat, moored on a canal in Suzhou City, by a small bridge named Maple Bridge.
Because of the poem, the bridge is among the favorite tourist destinations in Suzhou, eastern China's Jiangsu Province.
The video and photos went viral on local social networks after MTL Blog reported the story and asked its readers to help translate the poem into English. Many versions of the translation of the poem have since been posted online.
Source(s): Xinhua News Agency