A Guqin Dedication to a Beloved Scholar on a Distinguished Milestone

It was five years ago when Professor Ye returned to Vancouver and visited my humble abode. It was a pleasant gathering along with famous Taiwanese poets Ya Hong, the Luo Fu couple, sinologist Wang Jian and his wife Professor Li Ying, Chinese Writers’ Association chair Chen Haoquan, Nankai University professor Zhang Jing and several of her students.

It was in the presence of those distinguished predecessors and those who share the same interests that I had the honor of entertaining the guests with guqin music.

It was a glamour filled meeting hall at Nankai University on September 10, 2019, where the joint event of the international Symposium on Chinese Poetry Teaching and the commemoration of the 40^th anniversary of the repatriation and teaching of Professor Ye Jiaying at Nankai University was held. This special event was attended by more than 170 scholars from the United States, Canada, Singapore, Japan, Mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong. To commemorate the 40^th anniversary of Professor Ye’s repatriation to China to teach at Nankai University, I had the honor of playing guqin to the distinguished guests.

The next day I visited Professor Ye. Despite her age, her strength of character continues to shine through. Poet Tao Yuanming once said “Life follows the Dao of nature; activities which sustain life naturally take priority.” Professor Ye’s interpretation of this famous saying goes like this: “Our ultimate goal is to achieve Dao, the highest of ideals. The same goes for the guqin for me.”

Confucius advocated using poetry as a means of teaching gentleness and kindness. In fact, literature preceding Confucius and tracing back to ancient King Shun already outlined how to raise the young using poetry and songs – how to be righteous but moderate, accommodative but solemn, fortitudinous but not harsh,  humble and not arrogant – through the praising of such desirable human character traits in poems, and by accentuating the poems through music and songs.

To my eyes, Professor Ye takes the teaching methods of these ancient sages to heart and uses them as guiding principles in her decades long, tireless teaching of poetry. At our Stringless House we also strive to achieve the same goal of character development.

The self-proclaimed Zen induced music habit of mine, is like an innate desire that is difficult to suppress. Though just thoughts and concepts, it inexplicably pushes me along in digging deeper into the vastness of literature and guqin, day and night, like cresting waves between the shores of the running river of time and space. It is in my study library where the desk lamp, classic literature, guqin, poetry – and I –  engage in cycles of congregating and bidding farewell. These perpetual cycles routinely yield their rewards – fruits for the picking, sweet and content. At the same time, it is also the invisible wealth of small fragments of experience collected through time and space that is so tangible and real. To me, whether it is the change of seasons, the rhythms of joy and sorrow, or a fleeting moment of happiness, the experiences of those here-and-now’s will forever be etched into the words and musical notes of one’s life.

I will forever cherish the moments with the 95 years-old professor.