qiu jin — VII
Our modern view of Qiu Jin is … curious, at best. Several Hong Kong produced movies have made it to the States (if you look hard enough); one was filmed in 1953 with the actress Li Lihua and again in 1983 staring Li Xiuming. There is a ballet about her and a teleplay in China that appeared in the 1990s. Apparently (though I am not very knowledgable here) there is at least one aria based on her poems that has appeared in a Peking opera and recorded by Zhang Junqiu.
But nothing deals with her writings, her inner life, her art. The film Peking Opera Blues (1986) claims to be "loosely" based on Qiu, a claim usually made by Westerns who only know (if they've even heard of her) that she wore men's clothing and carried a big sword and was the poster child for Mao's revolution.
I think it reflects on our own culture where a woman's literary accomplishments, her writings and philosophies, her passions, can be ignored and only outward appearances, such as Qiu dressing in Western male attire, gets all the attention. In this poem Qiu is certainly passionate about her desire to save her country. Ayscough, however, translates the title literally as, "On Board a Ship in the Yellow Sea to So Chu, a Man From Sun's Root Land (looking at a map showing battlefields in the Russo-Japanese struggle)" (153). No wonder people get confused with poetry! The "Sun's Root Land" is Japan. Qiu is shown a map of all the territory lost in the struggle against foreign invaders. Her response is this poem.
黄海舟中日人索句并见日俄战争地图
万里乘云去复来，只身东海挟春雷。
忍看图画移颜色，肯使江山付劫灰。
浊酒不销忧国泪，救时应仗出群才。
拼将十万头颅血，须把乾坤力挽回。Off I went, sailing over ten
thousand leagues only to return
again; on the Eastern Sea I am
forlorn; the spring thunder
disheartens me. Do you think
I can even bear to look at
all the lost territories on the face
of your map? Do you think I can
stand that our rivers have been
ravished? Our hills turned to ash?
This muddy wine does not extinguish
these tears for my country; no,
only war spears will bring
our liberation; so from the ranks
of the wise I will set out. Is it
a serious crime to spill foreign
blood or take a hundred thousand
enemy skulls? I must remember
the strength of Heaven and Earth.
Works Cited
Ayscough, Florence. Chinese Women: yesterday & to-day. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. (1937)