The Other China

吾貓臥遊

Eaten my fill, drank to the lees,
now nothing for it but sleep.
Why bother with all the rest
when things are this ridiculous?

吃飽喝足之後，
主要就是睡覺。
還能做點什麼？
現實這般可笑。

— Lao Shu 老樹

***

The cat is a recurring presence in the work of Lao Shu 老樹 (aka Liu Shuyong, 劉樹勇, 1962-), a Beijing-based artist, writer, critic and professor in communications. In this chapter of The Other China, we join the artist to dream cat dreams with his muse. Here Lao Shu’s art itself takes flight in novel and unexpected ways.

A list Lao Shu’s work featured in China Heritage can be found by scrolling down to the end of his chapter. For Lao Shu’s latest art work (and merch), see Lao Shu Paintings 老樹畫畫 at NetEase 網易.

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The title of this chapter in The Other China — ‘When Cats Sleep, Perchance to Dream’ — is a reference to a famous line in Shakespeare’s Hamlet: ‘To die, to sleep – to sleep, perchance to dream – ay, there’s the rub, for in this sleep of death what dreams may come.’ The Chinese rubric of the chapter — 吾貓臥遊 wú māo wò yóu — contains a double reference: 吾貓 wú māo, ‘my cat/ I am a cat’, refers to I Am a Cat 吾輩は猫である by Natsume Sōseki 夏目漱石, a novel narrated by a rather haughty feline. 臥遊 wò yóu, ‘recumbent travel’, is an ancient term used by artists and readers when talking about the mind-scapes evoked by poetry, art and music that also open a door to various out-of-body fantasies.

Lao Shu’s autumnal meditations bring to mind a passage from Lin Yutang’s My Country and My People (1935):

I like spring, but it is too young. I like summer, but it is too proud. So I like best of all autumn, because its leaves are a little yellow, its tone mellower, its colours richer, and it is tinged a little with sorrow and a premonition of death. Its golden richness speaks not of the innocence of spring, nor of the power of summer, but of the mellowness and kindly wisdom of approaching age. It knows the limitations of life and is content. From a knowledge of those limitations and its richness of experience emerges a symphony of colours, richer than all, its green speaking of life and strength, its orange speaking of golden content and its purple of resignation and death.

[Note: See also Visiting Tao Yuanming in the Autumn.]

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My thanks to Callum Smith, the webmaster of China Heritage, for transferring Lao Shu’s animated art works to our pages.

— Geremie R. Barmé
Editor, China Heritage
28 October 2025

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More on Tea:

Tea 茶, China Heritage Quarterly, no.29 (March 2012)
Duncan Campbell, The Obsessions of Zhang Dai
David Rennie, When the Guest Departs, the Tea Goes Cold

Dreamscapes

詩韻貓趣·伴您茶歇

Simple rhymes and cat curiosities —
ideal company for the leisurely savouring of tea

秋深多寒意，
何愁無人陪。
相對茶一盞，
滿山黃葉飛。

The invasive autumn cold is upon us,
but fear not your solitary state —
let a pot of tea be your companion
as the hills brim with golden leaves.

***

一夜都是美夢，
我在空中遊蕩。
花兒風中亂開，
潛艇壞在河上。

A night filled with wistful dreams
and carefree floating through the sky.
Flowers blossom, windblown,
then, a submarine runs aground.

***

近來秋雨連綿，
獨自再入深山。
兄弟杳無蹤跡，
惟余白雲流泉。

Amidst relentless autumn rains
I take off deep into the hills.
No sign of fellow travellers, I’m
alone with the clouds and streams.

***

兄弟曾離去，
似在公元前。
今日回故里，
不知是何年。

You left so long ago, brother,
it seems like an age has passed
Now visiting my native place,
I have no sense of time at all.

***

我駕黑鳥尋隱者，
十萬大山都找遍。
不見高人坐岩際，
但聞流水響空山。

Piloting a dark bird in search of a hermit,
I scour a myriad of mountains in my quest.
No sight of some Master seated by a crag,
though there echoes of mountain streams.

***