The Other China

最羨雲彩自由

 

We marked Good Friday 2025 with a somber meditation — A static hiss in the algorithm’s perfect hum. In accord with the very different mood of Easter Monday, we join Lao Shu to celebrate the spring (autumn where we are in the southern hemisphere).

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Lao Shu 老樹 is the nom de plume of Liu Shuyong (劉樹勇, 1962-), a Beijing-based artist, writer, critic and professor in communications. His artistic voice is unique and personal, its tenor, whimsy and profundity evoke what for decades we have called The Other China — a cultural noosphere that is as undeniably local as it is universal.

— Geremie R. Barmé
Editor, China Heritage
21 April 2025
Easter Monday

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I envy clouds their freedom,
scudding hither and yon.
Tired, bored, or annoyed —
they simply rain on the plain.

— Lao Shu, spring, Year of the Snake

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Early to bed, I was early to rise,
then lusciously chowed down:
Two meat-filled dumplings later
I was heading off to work.

— as recorded by Lao Shu

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Fields full of  greened-up wheat,
blossoms budding on the trees
as geese return from distant travels:
the poems write themselves.

— recorded by Lao Shu in late spring, Year of the Snake

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There’s been a Great Wind
blowing over the nation for days.
Though the streets are empty,
the Old City is full of petals.

— Lao Shu, spring, Year of the Snake

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Days of relentless, wild gusts
of a kind unseen for a decade.
The blossoms wildly blown inside
are proof that spring is truly over.

— recorded by Lao Shu in late spring, Year of the Snake

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母親去世許多年，
一身埋在青山下。
清明時節多傷悲，
很想跟她說說話。

My mother, dead these long years,
is buried at the foot of azure hills.
Qingming Festival is always hard:
I just wish we could chat again.

(Published on 2 April 2025.)

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Source:

• 老樹畫畫微博

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