Molly-Shanghai
Professional Teacher
Outside the Mountain (my new novel)- forword In China, there is an old saying that originated from an ancient Chinese Poem: You cannot know the shape of a mountain when you are inside it. When I first read this poem, it was in my fourth grade Chinese language textbook. The poem was just a poem, the mountain just a mountain. They didn’t mean anything else to me at the time. After graduating from college, I left my hometown and came to Shanghai. Like anyone who makes such a move, I would often recall things that happened to me back home. Before long, I realized that from a distance, I could know my hometown and the people who live there much better than when I was living there. One day, that poem returned to me again, and then I knew how a mountain could mean something other than a mountain. Soon after I became a teacher of Mandarin to foreigners, I began to feel how much this job allowed me to stand outside of China, by observing it through others’ eyes. It’s a privilege, really – one that I will never need to relinquish. I can always understand China and Chinese better than I ever could before, with this wonderfully wide and varied viewpoint. It’s also occurred to me that the image of a mountain in that old poem can be understood as so many other things: a hometown, a country, a person, a disaster, a dilemma – but no matter what the mountain stands for, the wisdom is same: when your are enveloped inside some kind of challenging situation, you cannot know that situation very well, compared with the way you can know it from a distance, that is, with perspective. You may feel sometimes there is no solution for your hardship, but if you can push yourself to a place outside the situation, you might be surprised how differently, and clearly, you begin to see it. After a few such experiences, you learn that there are always many possible solutions for your current difficulties. This literal explanation of the poetic image is so dry, so flat – it’s kind of depressing. One could easily neglect to notice that the application of this simple principle can be unlimited, profound, infinite. But in the end, the poetic version doesn’t suffer. You’d recognize the truth in that statement, if only I could share with you the subtle nature of the Chinese characters used to express the poem! For those who haven’t learned to read Chinese yet, maybe you could try playing some wistful-sounding traditional Chinese music while you read this post again.:-) Seriously, that’s what novels are for.
Apr 2, 2014 9:08 AM
Corrections · 1

Outside the Mountain (my new novel)- foreword

In China, there is an old saying that originated from an ancient Chinese Poem: You cannot know the shape of a mountain when you are inside it. <em>(a bit like the frog at the bottom of the well?)</em>
When I first read this poem, it was in my fourth grade Chinese language textbook. The poem was just a poem, the mountain just a mountain. They didn’t mean anything else to me at the time.
After graduating from college, I left my hometown and came to Shanghai. Like anyone who makes such a move, I would often recall things that had happened to me back home. Before long, I realized that from a distance, I could know my hometown and the people who live there much better than when I was living there. One day, that poem returned to me again, and then I knew how a mountain could mean something other than a mountain.
Soon after I became a teacher of Mandarin to foreigners, I began to feel how much this job allowed me to stand outside of China, by observing it through others’ eyes. It’s a privilege, really – one that I will never need to relinquish. I can always understand China and Chinese better than I ever could before, with this wonderfully wide and varied viewpoint.
It’s has also occurred to me that the image of a mountain in that old poem can be understood as a metaphor for so many other things: a hometown, a country, a person, a disaster, a dilemma – but no matter what the mountain stands for, the wisdom is same: when your you are enveloped inside some kind of challenging situation, you cannot know that situation very well, compared with the way how you can know/understand it from a distance, that is, with perspective. You may feel sometimes there is no solution for your hardship, but if you can push yourself to a place outside the situation, you might be surprised how differently, and how clearly, you begin to see it. After a few such experiences, you learn that there are always many possible solutions for your current difficulties.
This literal explanation of the poetic image is so dry, so flat – it’s it is <em>(use the contracted apostrophised form in speech but preferably not in writing - my suggestion)</em> kind of depressing. One could easily neglect to notice that the application of this simple principle can be unlimited, profound, infinite. But/Yet in the end, the poetic version doesn’t suffer. You’d recognize the truth in that statement, if only I could share with you the subtle nature of the Chinese characters used to express the poem! For those who haven’t learned to read Chinese yet, maybe you could try playing some wistful-sounding traditional Chinese music while you read this post again.:-) Seriously, that’s what novels are for.

April 26, 2015
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