Calligraphy

Memory strikes when we least expect. I’m forced to remember events I would rather leave behind. They come out of nowhere and trip me up, usually as a commentary on my attempts to achieve something. Happily, they are brief and rarely span a complete period in my life.

Therefore I was surprised when the following sequence began to uncoil in front of me. Should I contemplate it? I am no Montaigne, elucidating the complexities of human character, much less my own. I clutch at wisps of past sensation as they whirl around me, trying to spot the details before darkness closes in.

Before I tell you them I must confess that, long before they took place, I had been troubled by calligraphy, specifically the Chinese sort. Friends had given me scrolls bought in Friendship Stores during their visits to China. I would hang such products and scrutinise them. The script must have meant something but it was denied me. I didn’t speak Chinese nor read nor write it. Worse, I knew what I gazed at was meant to be a work of art in its own right but couldn’t see it. The script sat on its scroll in a perfection that escaped me.

At that time I was working with a friend who spoke Chinese fluently and could read and write both the simplified Chinese taught in China as well as the traditional Chinese of classical texts and the diaspora, which hadn’t been affected by the “reforms” of the Chinese government. Married to a brilliant linguist from Shanghai, he had a sharp insight into the Chinese psyche and was a blessing in our dealings with their government officials. He could give a more penetrating analysis than any offered by our hosts’ interpreters.

I attempted to discuss my problem with calligraphy with him but he couldn’t help. He told me he couldn’t read calligraphy, only Chinese characters on the printed page. The artistry of the brush strokes was an impediment to his understanding.

We were working on a policy exchange project with the Chinese government. The Australian government had tinkered for some years with “community development programs” because communities across our country had found themselves on the brink of collapse and disintegration—often as a result of government decisions, such as the withdrawal of vital services—and had taken their own steps to resist encroaching disaster. At first slow to recognise their efforts, our government had begun to offer support through a “needs-based” funding program. The community groups were fiercely independent and wanted little financial help, sometimes no more than the money to buy a tea urn or a pie-warmer to help their bonding. As so often happens, the public service body set up to manage this largesse quickly took on a life of its own, drafting policies and procedures, conducting research and writing papers for social policy magazines.

The Chinese government also faced “social cohesion” problems, no doubt caused by its own policies as well as its chaotic recent history. There may have been an element of altruism in its keen interest in community development but I believe it was seeking ways to control more tightly its unruly urban masses. The body responsible for developing social policy, the National Development and Reconstruction Commission (NDRC) had sent a delegation to Australia and visited many community groups. Our countries had held a community development workshop in Brisbane, attended by our respective ministers. We had published a bilingual account of our different approaches to the topic. Finally, in July 2004, it was Australia’s turn to send a delegation to study the Chinese experiment.

We would have a preliminary meeting in Beijing with the NDRC then visit cities where the Chinese government was trialling its new policies: Nantong, on the Yangtse river north of Shanghai, and Xi’An out in western China. After that we would return to Beijing for a “wrap-up” meeting. I knew little of Nantong and wondered why it had been chosen. It seems it was the birthplace of the NDRC minister responsible for the new policies and he was keen to see his home town setting the pace.

Our meeting in Beijing was chaired by Mme Hou Yan, a determined NDRC official I had known for several years. We worked closely on many occasions and had begun to trust one another. In a country where the notion of “good friends” is bandied about fairly easily and signifies little, I nevertheless formed the view that Hou Yan and I really were good friends, insofar as our roles and duties would allow. She frequently gave me advice in my dealings with her colleagues, warning me not to exchange toasts with them at official banquets.

Mme Hou conferred a minder on us, her second-in-command Ren Wei, an up-and-coming official who would ease our way through the different stages of our tour. Ren Wei didn’t speak English but my friend knew him well and they got on famously during the trip.

Our delegation was led by two social policy boffins who I will call Richard and Sid. My friend and I schooled them before each new meeting in the protocols of our hosts. A complicating factor was the Chinese insistence on sharing aspects of their culture everywhere we went. In previous visits this was difficult to reconcile with the insistence of the Australian Public Service that “we were there solely to work”. Richard and Sid were more relaxed than others we coached.

A major difficulty was the mandatory distribution of gifts to show gratitude to our hosts at every stage of the trip. Such gift-giving is considered a courtesy in China, where “a gift is an obligation”. We had learned to stock up before we went with trinkets and souvenirs of Australia, even sets of gaudy postage stamps for the lesser officials we would meet.

Even so, sometimes we didn’t pack enough gifts before we set out for the day and would be caught short when it was time to say goodbye. On such occasions, say after visiting a traditional flower painting workshop in Nantong, we might be farewelled by the leader of the group and his retinue and suddenly discover we didn’t have enough gifts to distribute. In such circumstances, the potential loss of face was avoided by following a simple, golden rule: only the Communist Party official must get a gift. Everyone else in the group would understand.

At that time I was besotted with the glories of the Tang Dynasty (618–907 AD), of which Xi’An (once called Chang’an) had been the capital. On a visit there the year before we had been taken to the avenue of giant carved figures that leads to the tomb of Empress Wu. We had also visited the nearby tomb of Princess Yongtai and admired its beautiful wall paintings. I was looking forward to returning to Xi’An.

As well as the art and ceramics of that era, I had recently come upon the poetry of Wang Wei in translation and some excellent commentaries that explained his poems, filling in the gaps his translators couldn’t manage.

Wang Wei’s poetry epitomises many of the challenges of Chinese poetry. His famous poem “Deer Park”, set in the mountains south of Xi’An, conveys the feeling of something momentous happening at the heart of nature. We sense its presence but it is out of sight. The Chinese characters lay out some of the elements of what is taking place but the reader must intuit what is missing and add a context that the poet barely hints at. It is mysterious and moving. I imagine a Chinese reader, sensitive to the resonances of each of the characters and blessed with sound imagination, would have the impression of being in the presence of pure poetry that conveys so much yet barely exists.

Wang Wei was also a master of Chinese painting and is considered to have set the standard for centuries to come. Unfortunately, none of his paintings have survived. We can only guess at their qualities when we contemplate copies made by lesser artists, centuries after the Tang empire.

When we arrived in Xi’An the pace of our activities changed. Our visit to Nantong had been similar to that paid by the NDRC to Australia. We would be taken to a variety of community activities where people gathered to play ping-pong or teach each other traditional arts and crafts. We would observe politely and ask a few innocuous questions, distribute gifts and say our farewells. None of that happened in Xi’An.

The Xi’An bureau of the NDRC was building a community meeting centre and made a point of taking us to see the work in progress. I remembered having seen it the previous year and work hadn’t advanced noticeably. Why were they insisting we see it again, if not to instil in us a sense of ownership? An idea began to form in our slow Western minds that they intended just that. They were hoping we would fund its construction.

The bureau did everything it could to make a favourable impression. In Xi’An you can’t escape its history. The city may no longer be great but greatness had happened there. Our hosts pulled out every stop to convince us we were part of a continuing historical narrative.

Inevitably, they offered a visit to the Terracotta Warriors and were disconcerted when half our delegation—my friend and I—explained we had visited them on four previous occasions. Ren Wei told us not to worry, Richard and Sid could go and he would arrange something more interesting for us. As a representative of the most powerful ministry in China he could pull a string or two. He would take us to the Shaanxi museum to see the rarely displayed antiquities in its basement. The museum official with whom he negotiated must have played the Jobsworth card, effectively but politely telling Ren Wei to get stuffed.

A deputy mayor of Xi’An hosted a dinner at one of the city’s famous dumpling restaurants. As a warm-up gift he gave each of us a set of ancient coins, supposedly excavated from the ruins there­abouts. I have them still and occasionally wonder about their authenticity. The bureau also took us to a folkloric restaurant at the foot of the Zhongnan Mountains south of Xi’An, the very mountains Wang Wei had celebrated. On our way there we passed the Temple of Gathering Fragrance, birthplace of the Pure Land sect of Buddhism. It looked as if it hadn’t been repaired since the Tang Dynasty.

On another occasion, they took us to Tang Dynasty ruins where there was a photo exhibition of more recent historical events, such as the Xi’An Incident of 1936 when Chiang Kai-Shek had been forced to stop fighting the communists and make war against the invading Japanese. Among the photos we came across one of Ho Chi Minh. Our guide asked my friend and I whether we thought Ho was a great man. Yes, we said in unison, most definitely. “Aha! So you are communists!” No, not at all, but we couldn’t dismiss Ho’s achievements. His place in history was guaranteed. Our guide looked baffled. There was something lurking in us he hadn’t grasped.

Finally, one evening, in the shadow of the city walls we were presented with the keys to the city of Xi’An. It was a ceremony attended by dozens of other visitors, who also had the same honour conferred on them.

Somewhere in all these activities, the bureau announced it would take us to see a typical community development event, the sort of thing that happened all the time in that city. It was, they explained, a gathering of amateurs devoted to the fine arts who got together to show each other what they were doing and practise their humble skills. It would take place in a community hall near the Forest of Stele.

The room was already crowded with artists when we entered. They had set up their equipment and were all hard at work. In the far left-hand corner someone was turning out a remarkable ink drawing of a rooster, apparently from memory. So much activity and such talent!

A short, thick-set man laid out a long white sheet of paper on a table to my right. As I turned to watch he picked up a large, fat brush and dipped its tip in a container of ink. Moving from right to left, the brush zipped up and down, gliding across the page.

In a blend of speed and graceful movement, four Chinese characters suddenly emerged on the surface of the paper.  Watching them form, it was as if part of me had suddenly joined the moment that was taking place. I was bonded with the four characters and couldn’t tear myself from contemplating them as the ink dried.

The artist had put down his large brush, picked up a smaller one and was writing an inscription underneath. In the happy, golden buzz that had formed around me I asked our guide what the artist had written. “If your mind is in harmony the words will flow easily.” That was it, as far as I was concerned. I hadn’t written anything for months and it was as if the calligraphy had reached out and embraced my condition. The guide also translated the inscription underneath but I didn’t retain what he said.

In the next instant the guide was making an important announcement. The assembled amateur artists appreciated our visit very much and wished to thank us for the honour we had paid them. If there was anything they had produced that took our fancy we should keep it as a souvenir of our visit. Quite dazed, I reached towards the work beside me. The artist folded it carefully and gave it to me. He had also produced another, smaller work that my friend accepted. I have no idea what Richard and Sid took away with them. Nor do I remember whether we distributed gifts as we thanked the artists and said goodbye. Roles had been reversed.

Mme Hou flew in to Xi’An for our last meeting with the bureau. I confided in her my unease about its potential outcome. There was no way my public service department could fund the Xi’An community centre. It wasn’t an arm of AusAID and we were in no position to offer funding. She smiled and said not to worry, all would be well. And so it was, up to a point.

She must have briefed the bureau because the meeting was quite tense although polite and, like so many meetings, unproductive. When the time came for the final photo, there were only relatively junior officials present. The senior people with whom we had become accustomed were too busy to attend. The bureau was unhappy with us and was letting us know. In the photo—the official record of our visit—there is only our little group and some secondary officials to be seen.

We flew back to Beijing for an uneventful wrap-up. The next phase of our project would be critical for both parties: the NDRC would invite our minister to visit China, a major event. It would do everything in its power to bind our two ministries together. Mme Hou and her troops even planned to shut down Beijing traffic so our minister’s motorcade could whisk about the city undisturbed. It never came to pass. Our minister was an anxious person who never enjoyed her international duties. At the last minute she panicked and cancelled her trip, causing an international incident of which the Australian side remains oblivious to this day. But that is another story.

Richard and Sid flew back to Australia. My friend and I had business in Shanghai and we stayed another day in Beijing to brief the Australian embassy about our visit. Mme Hou took us to lunch with some of her staff. She banned alcohol from the meal because, she told her colleagues, she wanted to protect her guests, who weren’t up to exchanging toasts in the Chinese way. She gave us each a tie as a parting gift. They were part of a series that had been launched that summer: each tie bore a distinctive sample of calligraphy from one of China’s great epochs. My friend’s tie was blue with an inscription from the Qing Dynasty (1644–1912). Mine was red and displayed writing from a Tang Dynasty text.

For me it was a beautiful red tie and I was happy to wear it. However, other Chinese recognised the antiquity of the script and respected it, even if few could understand it. A senior official from the Shanghai Labour and Social Security Bureau told me he could tell from the tie I wore that I understood and appreciated Chinese culture; he had done his best to find a gift worthy of my appreciation, a copy of a beautiful Song Dynasty painting.

In Shanghai my friend’s mother-in-law also met us at our hotel and took away the pieces of calligraphy we had acquired. She had each one mounted on a scroll, so they could be hung and appreciated as they deserved. A few months later, my friend collected the scrolls and showed them to his wife.

I imagine her response when she first saw them, a Shanghainese version of “Hang on a second …” A cultivated woman, she had no difficulty reading both the traditional characters of the calligraphy and the inscriptions underneath. The artist was a famous calligrapher, recognised throughout China. It would seem the bureau in Xi’An, organising its “gathering of amateurs”, had rounded up the very best traditional artists in the city. I hope it paid them well for the gifts we took.

When I heard that, I became determined to understand the calligraphy as best I could. I had already hung the scroll so I took a photo and showed it to my friend’s wife when I next saw them, asking her to translate it for me.

She was more than equal to the task. Each of the four characters had its own layers of meaning and resonance that interacted with each other. They were difficult to translate in a way that conveyed their true depth but, working her way through each character in turn, she was able to transmit some of it to me.

Many years have passed since she explained them and I fear I won’t do justice to what she said. Her words affected me, I took them in and often thought about them. I’m sorry if what I’m about to write is a superficial summary but so often things turn out that way with the passage of time.

Here are the four characters in their proper sequence, going from right to left across the page (it is so strange to write them out in English, from left to right): “Spirit”, “harmoniously integrated”, “brush” and “without impediment”. The English-speaking reader must have extra detail to understand the characters. I choose to see them translated as: “If the Spirit is harmoniously integrated, the brush will flow without impediment.”

I can see why our guide in Xi’An translated “brush” as “words”, because that is what a calligrapher’s brush produces. Indeed, the artist may have been writing about his own art, stressing the need for the Spirit to be harmoniously integrated in him so he could bring his work to fruition.

Why would he emphasise the need for the Spirit to be in harmony? Traditionally, the Chinese believe that, to achieve great art, the character of the artist must be impeccable. In other words, poets, painters or calligraphers must be worthy of the gifts they deploy. This seems a wholly reasonable view to me, although it runs contrary to what is believed and practised by most Western writers and artists.

I was grateful to my friend’s wife for the trouble she took, concentrating on the four characters and giving me a confident understanding of them. I forgot to ask her to translate the artist’s inscription underneath, which would have given me his name. I left the public service shortly afterwards and lost contact with my friend and his family.

I had to wait several years before I found someone who would translate it. She was a young Chinese woman who had lived in Japan and had translated for me a piece of cursive Japanese script on a wall hanging. I showed her the inscription under the calligraphy and asked if she could read it. She could. I write it out (from left to right), adding some punctuation: “Mid-summer 2004, Chang’an, Qín Chuán Yù”. At last, I had the artist’s name. I felt as if he had been reunited with his work after a long absence.

Mindful of the previous time the scroll had been translated, when I hadn’t kept the work and its inscription together, I asked her what she thought of the calligraphy above the inscription. She apologised and said that, although it was plainly a beautiful piece of calligraphy, the words were traditional Chinese characters. She had been educated in simplified Chinese and was unable to understand them.

That is the story of the only piece of calligraphy I possess and how I came to obtain it. I will be forever grateful to the artist Qín Chuán Yù because he enriched my life. Ever since that incident in Xi’An, I have felt able to appreciate traditional Chinese calligraphy to some small extent, having seen it come into being.

However, despite that brief but sustaining coup de foudre, I am only able to enjoy the appearance of calligraphy. I still can’t read the characters with their underlying ideas that the calligrapher transforms so exquisitely. In other words, most of the artistic experience of calligraphy will be lost to me forever.

Now it is time to wrap up I make one final admission. I’m writing in longhand with pen and paper. That is how I always write. I find that, until I have written out a text in my ordinary cursive script I’m unable to see it clearly and realise fully what I intend to say. Once it is written out, I will be able to edit and key it into my computer.

While I’m writing this, perhaps in homage to Qín Chuán Yù I hold my pen as vertically as I can, as a calligrapher would hold his brush. It is a Uniball Eye pen, made by the Mitsubishi Pencil Co, and flows across the page without impediment. I’m not sure that the Spirit has achieved harmony with me but my hand, wrist and arm are very sore.

Leon Trainor is a poet who lives in Canberra.