王维《九月九日忆山东兄弟》 Wong Wei: On the Ninth Day of the Ninth Lunar Month Thinking of my Brothers in Shandong

昨天（阳历十月二十六日）是农历九月九日。每年这一天，全世界的华人都在庆祝传统的重阳节。在这个节日，人们喜欢登高，所以重阳节又叫登高节。

很久很久以前，王维 (701-761) 就在这一天写了一首诗《九月九日忆山东兄弟》，立刻成为经典之作而传播全中国。

王维被认为是唐朝三大诗人之一，与杜甫及李白同列。虽然他没有杜甫的人工精致，也没有李白般的天才，可是他有丰富的想象力。他的诗歌常常包含奇妙的玄学意味，显示他对佛学的长期经营。

在唐代，重阳节登高是一种流行的风俗。对许多人来说，这是冬季来临前最后的一次户外活动。这个风俗演变到目前的形式，人们把登高当着是一种运动，和欣赏秋天美景。

对王维而言，登高远眺，是希望能够看到住在远方的兄弟与亲友。但是，他看不到他们，所以兴叹：

独在异乡为异客，

每逢佳节倍思亲。

遥知兄弟登高处，

遍插茱萸少一人。

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Yesterday (26 Oct 09) was the 9th day of the 9th lunar month. Every year, Chinese all over the world celebrate the traditional Chongyang Festival on this day. People like to climb mountains on this festival, so Chongyang Festival is also called “Mountain-climbing Festival”.

It was also on this day a long, long time ago, Wang Wei (701-761) wrote a poem ‘On the Ninth Day of the Ninth Lunar Month Thinking of my Brothers in Shandong’ which became an instant classic and spread all over China.

Wang Wei is sometimes classed as one of the three greatest poets of the Tang dynasty, along with Du Fu and Li Bai. While he was neither as brilliant a craftsman as Du Fu nor as exuberant a genius as Li Bai, he excelled in imagery, and his poems often hold a subtle metaphysical flavour testifying to his long study of Buddhism.

Mountain climbing was a popular custom on Chongyang Festival during the Tang Dynasty. For many, it was the last outing of the year before the onset of winter. The custom evolved into its present form, when people go climbing to get some exercise as well as enjoy the autumn scenery.

For Wang Wei, it was his hope that by climbing to the mountain top and looking far into the distance, he could see his brothers and other relatives who lived far away. But he could not, therefore he sighed:

All alone as a stranger in a strange land,

I am twice as homesick on this day.

When brothers carry dogwood up the mountain,

Each of them a branch, and mine missing.

华人书法：线条的艺术？ Chinese Calligraphy: The Art of Lines?

华人书法就是书写华文字。既然中文字是有意味的符号，所以华人书法可以说就是有意味的符号的艺术。

华人书法还有另一面。书法的基本工具是毛笔。就是这个由动物毫毛（包括羊毛、狼毫、兔毫、鸡毛，等等）制成的特别的圆锥体与灵活的书写工具。中国书法家也研发了独特的方法来应用毛笔（即‘书写法则’，‘用笔’、‘行笔’与‘执笔’等技巧）。

毛笔是简单的书写工具。它须配合以宣纸或丝绸，与展示阴影的墨计。这些工具都很简单，可是能够把这三样东西融合，适当地应用就能产生丰富与难以置信的艺术表现力。

除了视觉造型的规则之外， 以经实证方法所产生的美丽线条是展示书法的最重要途径。这就是为什么被称为‘线条艺术’。

传统上，书法家研发笔法的目的就是为了服务书写有意味的符号 —— 中文为唯一的目的。

可是，一些现代书法家对此提出了挑战：他们的激进看法把中国书法看成是纯粹以毛笔书学线条，而完全没有想到要写中文字。

就是说，现代书法问了一个令人想都不曾想的问题：书法应写中文吗？

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Chinese calligraphy is about writing the Chinese characters. Since Chinese characters are basically significant form of symbols, it is therefore said that Chinese Calligraphy is a fine art of significant form of symbols.

There is another aspect of Chinese calligraphy. The primary tool in Chinese calligraphy is the writing brush. It is this unique cone and flexible writing tool which made of animal hair (including sheep hair, wolf hair, rabbit hair, chicken hair, etc.). Chinese calligraphers also developed unique ways to use the brush (that is, ‘writing rules’ or the techniques of ‘using the writing brush’, ‘moving the writing brush’, ‘holding the writing brush’ etc).

The brush as a writing tool is very simple. It is used together with the writing rice paper (mainly is Xuan paper) or silk, the black ink which showed shades. The tools are simple, but the ability to integrate the three into one and use them appropriately will produce rich and unbelievable art expressive force.

In addition to the rules of visual modelling, the most important way to display Chinese calligraphy art is the beauty of lines generated by proven techniques. This is why Chinese called the Chinese calligraphy as ‘line art’.

Traditionally, Chinese calligraphers’ purpose of developing brush techniques is to serve the sole objective of writing meaning symbols – the Chinese characters.

However, this has been challenged by some modern calligraphers who have taken a radical view that treats Chinese calligraphy as purely an art of using brush techniques to draw lines without having in mind the need to write Chinese words.

In other words, the Modern Chinese calligraphers have asked an unthinkable question: Should the Chinese calligraphy be the art of writing Chinese characters?

中文：有意味的形式 Chinese Characters: The Significant Form

中文具有意、音、形三美。基于象形，中文以形状结合了声音与意思，形成了方块字来代表意念。

作为一种最早的文字之一，中文很明显的在发展中华文明方面扮演了重要角色。原本，也有古代苏米人与埃及人的符号，可是只有中国文字保留至今。

有一个著名的‘仓颉造字’的神话。根据这个神话，仓颉这个五千年前黄帝的史官，受到了动物形迹的启发，领会到不同形迹可用来作为分辨各种物体的标记，所以他就发明了许多符号来代表不同物体与事物，这就成为了最早的中国文字。

这些文字经过了长时期的严格的简化、概念化与具体化的过程，才成为代表物体与思维的目前的形式。

中文字目前的形式由点与线组成，这些点与线组成字的最主要构成部位，而这些部位结合成为完整的字。自古以来，发展与演变出了许多的结字原理与规则。我们只能在掌握了这些结字的原理与规则后，才能把字写对。世世代代以来，许多书法家终其一生研究与了解这些原理与规则，以便能够写出漂亮的书法来。

中国文字是一组有美感的美丽的符号，因为它的结构真实地代表了万物的有意味的形式。

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The Chinese characters are said to possess beauty in sense, sound and form. Based on pictographs, they combine shapes with sounds and connotations to form unique, block-shaped characters that carry meaning.

As one kind of the most ancient characters, it is obvious that Chinese characters have also played a significant role in the development of Chinese culture. Originally, ancient Sumerian and ancient Egyptian symbols existed, but only Chinese characters remain today.

There is a very popular myth named "Invention of Characters by Cang Jie". According to this myth, Cang Jie, a historical chronicler of the Yellow Emperor over 5,000 years ago, was inspired by the footprints of animals and understood that different prints could be treated as marks to discriminate different objects, so he invented a lot of symbols to represent different objects and affairs, and they were the oldest Chinese characters.

These characters have gone through a vigorous process of simplification, conceptualisation and crystallisation over a long period of time, before they finally become the current form that represents things and ideas.

The current form of Chinese characters are composed of a group of lines and points, which may form a single key component in a character; various components then combine together to form a character. Many rules and principles of structure have been developed and evolved since ancient times. It is only after one knows the principles of the structure of Chinese characters one can know how to write them correctly. Generation after generation, many calligraphers have spent their lifetime to study and understand these principles and rules so that they can find the best way to write them beautifully.

The Chinese characters are a set of aesthetically beautiful symbols because their structure truly represents the significant form of myriad things.

二元对立与对立互补 Binary Opposites and Complementary Opposites

西方人很难想象黑与白可以互相包含，因为他们一向以黑白对立为喻以构思议题与分析问题。这种思想形态一般称为‘二元对立’，与华人的‘对立互补’相对比。

西方‘二元对立’的概念是说人们以对立来思考。所有的物态都可以以他们之非所属来验明（天空阴暗而不是光亮）。世上有无限的二元对立，如始终、高矮、男性女性、显蔽、言文。除了两极之外，二元也有等级之分。我们的想法中，开始比终结好、显现比遮蔽好、灵魂精神比躯体好，语言比书写更重要。

对于华人来说，阴与阳虽然是相反的，可是一个不能独立于其它而生存。意思是自然中所有一切都应该和谐共存，就是说，相反的东西其实互补，因为一种东西显示另一种东西的存在与意义。有光就有暗，有上就有下，有冬天就有夏天。华文词汇如‘上下、左右、冷热’等等很自然地表达了这种思想。对立的平衡为和谐与平静制造最好的形势。

阴阳不是一种敌对或对立的关系，对这点地了解很重要。‘对立互补’不是如‘二元论’那样把世界所有的东西分为两种分开与敌对的，如‘真与假’，‘善与恶’。在中国，阴与阳一直被看成是和谐平衡的并存，就如俗语所谓，‘阳中有阴，阴中有阳’。

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It is hard for Westerners to imagine a compromise between the black and the white which they often use metaphorically to frame issues and analyze problems. Such thought patterns are typically called binary opposites as opposed to the Chinese concept of yin-yang complementary opposites.

The western concept of binary opposites says that people think in terms of opposites. All things are identified in part by what they are not (the sky is dark but not bright). There are countless binary opposites, such as beginning/end, tall/short, masculine/feminine, presence/absence, and speech/writing. In addition to being dichotomies, these pairs are also hierarchies. We think of a beginning as more important than an end, presence as better than absence, soul/mind as more important than body, speech as more important than writing.

For the Chinese, while Yin and Yang are opposites, both of which could not exist without the other. The idea is that everywhere in nature opposites must coexist harmoniously, that is, the opposites complement each other, because each gives existence and meaning to the other. Wherever there is light there will be dark, where there is up there must be down, where there is winter, so shall be summer. This is naturally reflected in the Chinese language such phrases as ‘up and down, left and right, hot and cold’, etc. A balance of opposites creates the best situation for harmony and calm.

It is essential to understand that the nature of such forces in yin-yang thought is not an antagonistic or opposite relationship. It is also not a ‘dualism’, an assertion that the world is comprised of forces that are intrinsically separate and hostile, like ‘truth and falsehood’, or ‘good and evil’. In ancient China, yin and yang were always understood as existing in harmonious balance, this is reflected in the saying, ‘yang is contained in yin and yin is contained in yang.’