Hangzhou's four letter words

May 26th (continued)

Leifeng Tǎ south of Xi Hu (seen from the middle of the lake)

From the Silk Museum I caught a No. 12 bus down Yuhangshan Lu to the "Orioles Singing in the Willows" (柳浪聞鶯) where I'd so much enjoyed myself the previous day. This park was named according to the ancient Chinese tradition of giving meaningful places beautiful, four-character names. All around the West Lake are similar place names: "Autumn Moon on Calm Lake" (平湖秋月), "Plum Viewing at Xixi," "Fish Leaping at Jade Spring", "Breeze-ruffled Lotus at Winding Garden," and so on. It must be hard to find adequately poetic, pithy translations into English for the benefit of visitors like me when there are so many of these pleasure spots in the Hangzhou region. "Viewing Fish at Flowery Pond" (花港觀魚) sounds rather too prosaic, and "Fish Ponds with Autumn Cottonroses Hibiscuses" has obviously lost something in translation, but I liked the sound of "Twin Peaks Piercing the Clouds" (雙峰插雲) and the name "Woodman Song Echoed in Lingshi Hill" which evokes the same kind of atmosphere as we experienced near Beijing when we went hiking in the Fragrant Hills and heard people singing in the forest. "Returning Cranes in Plum Woods" sounded appealing as well. Artists liked to embroider images of cranes on silk, so I had just discovered. There was a hermit who lived in the plum woods during the Song Dynasty, a fellow called Lin Bu. Not needing human company, he had plum blossom for a wife and cranes for children, so people said.

A pleasure boat returning its passengers to the city

I learned this by taking a boat from the shore where the orioles sing in the willows to an island in Xi Hu that contains its own lakes and has been known since the 12th century as "Three Pools Mirroring the Moon (三潭印月). It is featured on a ¥1 banknote (see below). There was a little exhibition in one of the pavilions there, explaining the poetic names. The boat itself looked like a floating pavilion and had bamboo blinds over its windows in case the passengers need shade. It was cool enough for me, with a breeze blowing over the water. On the island I sat in a quiet spot behind a stall that sells silks and fans, eating the sandwiches I'd made for myself. Bullfrogs croaked in the pond, birds sang, weeping willows rustled their branches, and a history prof from Pittsburg came up and asked me what I was doing in China.

Three Pools Mirroring the Moon, decorating the ¥1 note