Smell China

Xu Zhenqing (1477-1511), another name Changgu, was live in Wu County (now Shuzhou City). He is an litterateur in Ming Dynasty. He is called the Four Gifted Scholars of Southern China with Tang Yan, Wen Zhenming and Zhu Zhishan. He is famous for his poems.

Xu was born in talent. When he was 16 years old, he wrote a chapbook himself called Xinqianji and soon known by all the people in Wu County. However, he was fail in Imperial examinations for many times, and then he wrote another chapbook called Tantanji which means the collection of signs. He wrote Jiangxingji (traveling along with Changjiang River) in 1501 and Taihuxinlu in 1503. In 1505, he finally became Chinshih (the third-class in the Imperial examinations).

Xu has a special place in poetic circles in Ming Dynasty. He wrote many poems and was called eminent writer by people at that time. But for the shortness, he is look down upon the literally of Ming Dynasty, all the poems he wrote are just talking about Hang Dynasty and Wei Dynasty, he is never talks about Ming Dynasty.

At Xu’s late time, he became Taoist Beliefs, and focusing on nursing of life. He was died in Beijing at the age of 33 in 1511. Digongji, Yiling and Tangyilu are also his famous poem collections and have passed on now for nearly 500 years.

Zhu Zhishan, original named Yunming, was born on Ming Dynasty of 1460 in Changzhou( now Wu County). Because he has 6 fingers on his left hand when he was born, he called himself Zhishan which means with one more fingers.

When Zhu was young, he shows his genius in arts and literature. He can write at the age of five and write poetry at nine. He is specializing in handwriting. The words and the article he writes are famous and well known the local people. He passes the provincial civil service examination under the old Chinese examination system when he is 32, howecer, because of his hate of being in official circles, he go back to his hometown and make lots of friends.

Zhu is one of the Four Gifted Scholars of Southern China. Though he is 16 years older than Tang Yin who is also one of the Four Gifted Scholars of Southern China, they are best friends. They are funny, brilliant, free and easy, and they like sightseeing tours and help people. With Zhu’s good handwriting and Tang’s beautiful picture, people use Zhu and Tang instead for handwriting and picture.

Zhu died in 1526 at the age of 67. After he died, he is berried in suburbs of Zhuzhou City. However, as the time passes, the grave can not be seen any more.

Wen Zhengming, with another name Hengshan Lay, is one of the four gifted scholar of southern China in ancient. He pass the highest level exam at the age of 54, so someone calls him “Wen Shizhao”.

Wen Zhengming comes from a scholarly family. His grandfather and father are writers. However, Wen Zhengming is not intelligent in his childhood. His learn drawing with Shenzhou when he is a little old.

He was talented in painting human figures and flowers.He is good at landscapes paintings and green-blue painting, which made him the leader of “Wu Men School literati” and honored with Shen Zhou,Tang Yin and Qiu Ying as the Four Great Masters in the Ming Dynasty.

Tang Yin, 1470-1523, has another name Tang Bohu, was born in a businessmen’s family. He is very clever when he was young. But some misfortunes come to his family at his 20’s, his parents, wife and sister die one after another, his family environment becomes bad to worse. Then, under the help of his good friend Zhu Zhishan, he started to study hard. At the age of 29, he took an examination of the local government and got the title of No.1 called “Xieuan”. At the age of 30, Tang went to the capital and took part in the central government’s examination. However, he was involved in a cheating case. From then on, he began his life selling his pictures.

Although Tang was in talent, having dreams, ambitions and a talent penman in history, his character of highly critical of society makes him hard to live. His path through life was hard, and finally die a dog’s death when he was 54. Just before his death, he wrote a poem shows that he is both envy and be reluctant to leave the world.

All in his life, he is good at drawing scenes, people, flowers and birds and achieve some success in both handwriting and literature. And he is being considered of the head of “The Four Gifted Scholar of Southern China”.

Huang Jiaju, June 10th 1962 to June 30th 1993, was born in Taishan of Guangdong Province. He is the singer and guitarist of the Hong Kong famous rock band—BEYOND.

When Huang was in middle school, he began to love western pop music, at the age of 17, Huang had been wedded to guitar because of his neighbor leaved one when they move. Beyond band form at 1983 and Huang became the singer of this band. He has created most of the songs of the band. After they had held a concert called ( Waiting for Ever ) and bring out their song ( Sees You Again, Dreams), he was drawn the attention of his manager and then started his music life.

Since 1983, when the BEYOND band formed, countless of classic music was created and was known to every household. What’s more, their music also has influenced many musicians. There has a saying goes: There is no rock music but BEYOND in Hong Kong. Obviously, people in Hong Kong considered BEYOND as the name of Hong Kong rock music.
But it’s a pity that in June 24th 1993, when the band was recording a video for a game program in Japan, an accident happened. Huang was fall from the stage which is about 3 meters high and passed away at the age of 31. His body was buried in a graveyard of Hong Kong and until now there is still his fans go there and pay their respects.

Liang Yusheng (March 22 ^nd, 1924 to January 22^nd, 2009), originally named Wentong Chen, was born on March 22 ^nd, 1924, die at the age of 85 in Sydney on January 22^nd, 2009 because of illness. He is originally in Mengshan, Guangxi Province. He was born in a literary family in Mengshan, and had a good education, so he could write poems himself when he was young. After the victory of the War of Resistance of Japan, Liang went to Lingnan University in Guangzhou for further education for World Economic major. And he was lived in Hong Kong after 1949, and then he move to Sydney, Australia. He is a member of Chinese Writer Association.

Liang was so favorites in reading Kong Fu fiction novels that he always neglecting his meal and sleep when he was young. And when he grew up, he was still enjoying reading Kong Fu fiction novels. He likes to make many comments on Kong Fu fiction novels with others. His literary skills, rich historic knowledge, the love of reading Kong Fu fiction novels and the rich reading experience are the basics for his writing new style of Kong Fu fiction novels in the future. Yu Bai( originally named Zhuxin Gong) is Liang’s favorite novelist, it is said that the name Yusheng Liang is comes from the name Huiru Liang and Yu Bai. Liang is known as the initiating of the new style of Kong Fu fiction novel.

Xiong Yaohua(1937 – September 21, 1985), who wrote under the pen name Gu Long, was a Taiwanese writer of wuxia novels. He was born in Hong Kong and moved to Taiwan in 1950. Several of his novels were adapted to film or television, most notably The Eleventh Son which was adapted several times, including a 1978 film adaptation as the Shaw Brothers’ Swordsman and Enchantress. He began his own movie studio, Bao Sian, to further the adaptation of his novels.

It is not known when and where Xiong Yaohua was exactly born. Some say he was born in 1936 in Hong Kong, while other claimed that he was born in 1937 in Jiangxi, China.[2] In 1952, he moved to Taiwan with his parents who later divorced in 1956. After that, his life lost stability. With much help from his friends and also money earned from part-time work, he graduated from the Foreign Language Department of Tamkang University in Taiwan. He later found a job in the United States Army Advisory in Taipei.

It was a well-known fact that he was an alcoholic. In the early days of his career, he would buy several bottles of good alcohol and a big stack of new books whenever he received payment for a manuscript.

His major works:《The Vault of Heaven and the Sword of Divinity》、《Chu Liuxiang Series》、《Lu Xiaofeng Series》

Louis Cha, better known by his pen name Jin Yong, is one of the most influential modern Chinese-language novelists. Co-founder of the Hong Kong daily Ming Pao, which he started in 1959, he was the paper’s first editor-in-chief.

Cha’s fiction, which are of the Wuxia (”martial arts and chivalry”) genre, has a widespread following in Chinese-speaking areas, including Mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Southeast Asia, and the United States. His fifteen works written between 1955 and 1972 earned him a reputation as one of the finest Wuxia writers ever. He is currently the best-selling Chinese author alive; over 100 million copies of his works have been sold worldwide(not including unknown number of bootleg copies)

Cha’s works have been translated into Korean, English, Japanese, French, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Burmese and Thai. He has many fans abroad as well, owing to the numerous adaptations of his works into films, television series, manhua (comic books), and video games.

His major works:《The Deer and the Cauldron》、《Tian Long Ba Bu》

Li Qingzhao(1084–c. 1151) was a Chinese writer and poet of the Song Dynasty, regarded by many as the premier woman poet in the Chinese language.

She was born in Licheng to a family of officials and scholars; her father was a friend of Su Shi, another famouse poet in China.

Before she got married, her poetry was already well known with elite circles. In 1101 she married Zhao Mingcheng, with whom she shared interests in art collection and epigraphy. They lived in the province Shandong. After he started his official career, her husband was often absent. This inspired some of the love poems that she wrote. Both she and her husband collected many books. Her husband and she shared a love of poetry and often wrote poems for each other. They also wrote about bronze artifacts of the Shang and Zhou dynasties.

The northern Song capital of Kaifeng fell in 1126 to the Jurchens. Fighting took place in Shandong and their house was burned. The couple brought many of their possessions when they fled to Nanjing, where they lived for a year. Zhao died in 1129. The death of her husband was a cruel stroke from which she never recovered. It was then up to Li to keep safe what was left of their collection. Li described her married life and the turmoil of her flight in Hou hsu. Her earlier poetry portrays her carefree days as a woman of high society, and is marked by its elegance. Li subsequently settled in Hangzhou, where the Song government was now established. She continued writing poetry and published her husband’s work, Jin shi lu.

Only around a hundred of her poems are known to survive, mostly in the ci form and tracing her varying fortunes in life. Also a few poems in the shi form have survived, the hou hsu and a study of the ci form of poetry. She was regarded as a master of wanyue pai “the delicate restraint”.

Su Shi (January 8, 1037 – August 24, 1101) was one of the major poets of the Song era. He is often referred to as Su Dongpo. Besides his renowned poetry, his other existent writings are of great value in the understanding of 11th century Chinese travel literature as well as details of the 11th century Chinese iron industry.

Su Shi had several children, the eldest being Su Mai, who would also become a government official by 1084. After Su Shi’s wife had died, he wrote this poem in her memory, entitled “Jiang zhenzi”

Ten years living and dead have drawn apart
I do nothing to remember
But I cannot forget
Your lonely grave a thousand miles away …
Nowhere can I talk of my sorrow –
Even if we met, how would you know me
My face full of dust
My hair like snow?
In the dark of night, a dream: suddenly, I am home
You by the window
Doing your hair
I look at you and cannot speak
Your face is streaked by endless tears
Year after year must they break my heart
These moonlit nights?
That low pine grave?