Plum Blossom and Peony – Chinese National Flowers

Last time, we talked about kiku or Chrysanthemum, an Autumn beauty and the unofficial Japanese national flower. As Winter approaching, it is an opportune time to discuss a winter flower - Chinese Plum which is the national flower of Republic of China/Taiwan and unofficially, of People of Republic of China as well.

Earlier this year we visited the Staten Island Botanical Gardenof New York City and its Chinese Scholar's Garden寄興園,one of few places in north American where you can see Plum blossom in a SuZhou 蘇州 garden setting. By the way, Suzhou is a city an hour north of Shanghai that Marco Polo called “Venice of Orient” more than 800 years ago. It is famous for its sophisticated garden architecture integrating residence with water, fish, rocks, plants and flowers. Here are some photos we took that day; you can get some ideas of the celebrated plum blossoms and SuZhou garden.

How did plum blossom become so popular in China is not totally clear to me although the symbolism of it has been well-known for thousands of years. With over 2 dozens of dynasties of imperial rules, I actually can’t recall it being any royal families’ love or luxury. Rather it appears to be the favorite by the scholars, the most respect but non rich class in ancient China, thus the trend setting for the mass to follow. Some species of the trees are known to persevere and blossom in cold snowy winters that suggest fortitude and uprightness in adverse environment. It is people’s flower perhaps because of it symbolizes hope and inspiration despite tough lives through the winter.

There have been numerous poems and paintings of plum blossoms over the centuries. A representative modern one is by Mao Zedong 毛澤東 in Dec 1961 when he tried hard to encourage himself and others be positive and engaging, facing tremendous domestic and international crises during that time. Here is the poem along with Mao’s calligraphy and my English translation.

卜算子 詠梅
毛澤東

風雨送春歸，飛雪迎春到。已是懸崖百丈冰，猶有花枝俏。
俏也不爭春，只把春來報。待到山花爛漫時，她在叢中笑。

On Plum
by Mao Zedong

Storms return us the spring whose arrival is greeted with flying snows;
Energized plum blossoms over cliffs covered in ice.
Announcing solemnly the coming of spring;
They grin in pleasure as joined by others

In contrast, it has also been considered sometimes as symbol of self-righteousness and narcissism. Indeed Mao’s poem was in response to a negative and self-pity thought expressed in the poem of same style by the famous Song dynasty poet Lu You陸游 (1125-1210 AD) who wrote, as he felt he was underutilized and not appreciated and supported by his superiors:

卜算子 詠梅
陸游

驛外斷橋邊，寂寞開無主。已是黃昏獨自愁，更著風和雨。
無意苦爭春，一任群芳妒。零落成泥輾作塵，只有香如故。

On Plum
by Lu You

Plum blossoms next to the ruined post;
Met alone with storm under setting sun.
Unseduced by the coming Spring among the jealous flowers;
Fragrant remains as it dusts to the ground.

Does this give us some clues of the contradictions of the Chinese psyche? Well, not so fast! It is more complicated than that. With the plurality of Chinese culture and pragmatism, you will probably not be surprised if I tell you there is yet another unofficial national flower that is the (late) Spring peony 牡丹. New York Botanical Garden is Bronx does have a wonderful collection and display of them around May. Here are some photos that I took last season earlier this year. As you can see, they are truly stunning and symbolize, guess what, riches and honor, with its layers of large petals and majestic bowls.

Again, you would find many poems and paintings about peony in Chinese arts and literature. It is however more often than not one would find social concerns behind the glory of this flower as illustrated in the following poem by Bai Juyi 白居易 (772-846 AD) of Tang dynasty, one of the most celebrated poets in Chinese history.

秦中吟之十 買花
白居易

帝城春欲暮，喧喧車馬度。
共道牡丹時，相隨買花去。
貴賤無常價，酬直看花數。
灼灼百朵紅，戔戔五束素。
上張幄幕庇，旁織巴籬護。
水灑復泥封，移來色如故。
家家習為俗，人人迷不悟。
有一田舍翁，偶來買花處。
低頭獨長嘆，此嘆無人喻。
一叢深色花，十戶中人賦！

On Peony
by Bai Juyi

Spring is coming to an end in capital; flower market is bustling as ever.
Peony season is upon us as the riches gather to shop.
Price is arbitrary, but a function of quantity.
Hundred red beauties costs a bundle.
Protected from the sun in cover and wrapped carefully with guards,
Sprinkled in water and rooted in mud;

flowers retains their beauty while carried home.
People are accustomed to and obsessed with this luxury.
A farmer passes by the market,
And nobody noticed his long sigh.
A bundle of peony costs ten families’ tax.

On lighter side, before I go, I would like to share with you a popular Chinese song on Plum blossom. It was the theme song composed by Liu Jia-Chang 劉家昌 for his 1976 movie of the same title about movements against Japanese occupation in Taiwan during WWII. The song became so popular that it is often considered the unofficial national anthem (of Taiwan). Here is a video recording of it, performed in 1981 by none other than the late superstar Teresa Deng 鄧麗君 who was nick- named "Little Deng" (vs. then supreme leaderDeng Xiaoping of China) for her popularity.

Talk to you soon!

Barack Obama: The Nation’s Community Organizer

Republican Vice President candidate Sarah Palin (and others like Rudi Jiuliani) had mocked and belittled Barack Obama’s 3 year Community Organizer experience. In her speech at the Republican National Convention back in Sept. she said “… I guess small town mayors are sort of like community organizers except they do have actual responsibilities”. Now we all know who is not laughing.

For populist politicians like Sarah Palin who don’t seem to read much nor think deep, they should learn more about the work of Saul Alinsky (1909-1972), the father of modern community organizing. Community organizers, current and past including Barack Obama, have been influenced greatly by Alinsky’s teachings. John Maki’s July 28^th 2008 article on The Windy Citizen shed some lights into this very topic.

Whether you agree with his theory and approach, Alinsky did point a way to effect changes in a democratic society from bottom-up by educating and empowering people and communities to act and take power for themselves. For Alinsky, “organizing is the process of highlighting what is wrong and convincing people they can actually do something about it. The two are linked. If people feel they don’t have the power to change a bad situation, they stop thinking about it.” That is what has happened on Nov 4, 2008; enough number of people realized what was wrong, were convinced that they need to do something about it, and voted for Barack Obama to lead.

The path of community organizer is not easy. Obama went to South side of Chicago in 1985 when he graduated from Columbia University and worked with Gerald Kellman, Alinksy’s disciple, with a starting probational salary of $13,000 a year. Interestingly, 17 years earlier in 1968, Hilary Clinton did her senior thesis on Alinksy when graduating from Wellesley but declined his offer to join him. Later she went on to Yale Law School and ended up a different path to effect changes, working from within the system of power and establishment. Peter Slevin’s March 2007 Washington Post article For Clinton and Obama, a Common Ideological Touchstone explored the links.

In sum, Obama has learned and adapted the core ideas of Alinsky’s teachings with positive tactics and forces to the national level. His tens of thousands of voluntary ground army of persuasion, trained with methods of community organizing and lived and breathed with the average citizens across the states for the last 2 years, have rewritten the book of election campaigns. They demonstrated once and for all that one can build coalitions and effect changes without first becoming an elite and dominant power of the democratic system. At the dawn of a new era of American democracy, with careful navigation and competent implementations, we can hope to see a different and better society one day without an external community organizer – the ultimate success criterion for a successful community organizer.

Talk to you!

Kiku菊

New York Botanic Garden in Bronx, New York City, is a wonderful place to visit if you happen to like flowers, plants, trees and casual encounters with small animals and birds in a park setting. Every season, the Garden puts up nice flower shows to highlight the beauty of particular time of the year. In autumn, the obvious choice is Chrysanthemum and this year, it showcases again Kiku, the Japanese art of cultivating and shaping of Chrysanthemum. Considering Chrysanthemum is the Japanese Imperial Emblem and regarded as the national flower of Japan, you can imagine the exhibit would be impressive and indeed it was.

Kiku 菊, or Chrysanthemum was brought to Japan from China in 8th century. The royal family fell in love with it in the subsequent decades and centuries. The cultivation and enjoyment of kiku reached its height in the Edo period (1603-1867) when many varieties and displays were introduced. Four imperial styles of Kiku displays were shown at the Conservatory courtyards of the Garden. The new addition is the shino-tsukuri (“driving rain”) whereby two single stem plants were grown and trained into a shape of driving rain in a pot. Exactly 27 buds of a particular specie per pot is resulted in a 1,2,4,5,6,5,4 pattern from front to back.

Another style is called kengai (“cascade”) that literally means “hanging cliff”. Hundreds of small flowers from one single stem were grown and trained onto a boat shape frame over a 10-month period to depict the scene of chrysanthemums over a steep cliff.

Then there is the style ogiku (“single-stem”). It is the ultimate display of the overpowering individual beauty of Chrysanthemum in unison. 108 six feet tall chrysanthemums stand in an array, each supporting one giant ball of perfect blossom in diameter of over 6 inches.

The majestic one is the most difficult and elaborate style called ozukuri (“thousand bloom”) originally from the Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden in Tokyo, formerly the imperial garden. 229 large blossoms in a mount shape were grown from one single stem in a giant pot spanning almost 8x8 ft. It is simply awesome.

In the courtyard, two rock gardens with chrysanthemums round off the kiku display huts. You also can’t miss many varieties of beautiful Japanese maples in vibrant fall colors, shapes and sizes. The visit makes a perfect fall outing as one sits on the bench under the soft autumn sun and is surrounded by these exotic plants and ponds filled with water-lilies in reflections.
Strolling further down the paths of the garden, we caught glimpses of several Henry Moore’s massive sculptures in their final days of display on the garden ground. Moore’s work “Draped Reclining Mother and Baby” of 1983 when he was 85 years old touched our nerves in particular; the disproportionally large, yet almost-hollowed frame of the mother shelters the baby from the world in her arm as she gives it all and lies confidently against the setting sun. Further down the road, we ran into a man who is feeding birds off his palm. A beautiful medium size red-bellied woodpecker hung around nearby and wait for her term.

As we walked back to the car and drove down to Manhattan, I can’t rid of the bright images of those chrysanthemums from my head. Every fall, markets and roadside stands of our area display and sell them in pots. Hundreds of small flowers of similar size silently cramped in a small hemisphere in uniformity for people’s attention. In few weeks of time, as the temperature drops, they lost their glory and faded away quietly. Why are Japanese so attracted to a sad flower like Chrysanthemum as winter is around the corner to pronounce its inevitable death?

Over 60 years ago, Ruth Benedict, a famous anthropologist, wrote an influential bookThe Chrysanthemum and the Sword 菊與刀 as a part of U.S. government’s WWII effort to understand the Japanese culture and psyche. While she never had the chance to be in Japan for her research and there were some criticisms of her book, this seminal work did offer unusual insights into Japanese society and remains relevant as one of the most important references in study of Japanese culture including Japanese themselves.

One key observation and theory proposed by Ruth Benedict was that Japanese is a shame-based culture (as opposed to a guilt-based) whereby it “rely on external sanctions for good behavior, not, as true guilt cultures do, on internalized conviction of sin. Shame is a reaction to other people’s criticisms...” The implication is that it is possible to look to others for acceptable social norms without strong internal examinations. As a result, it is easier to be swayed to engage in acts when people feel the mutual supports for a common cause be it good or bad. It is also easier for the society as a whole, as demonstrated post WWII, to switch to a completely different path and erases its own memory. In fact, until this date, most Asians are convinced that Japan has not truly apologized for its atrocities in WWII nor expressed sufficient remorse. Even when measured in words, Japanese government has used mild expression such as Hansei 反省 (relective remorse) instead of stronger words like Kaikon 悔恨 (active remorse, regret), or Shazai 謝罪 (apology). Indeed, some leading Japanese politicians continue to visit the Shinto shrine to pay tributes to renounced war criminals and its Ministry of Education has been rewriting its textbooks in attempts to play down its war crimes and aggressions.

The choice of the title of Benedict’s book and the symbolism of the coexistence of Chrysanthemum and Sword cannot be mistaken. The contrast of the elegance and fragile beauty with steel power and death is stunning. I will probably never truly comprehend the complex psyche of Japanese culture that is full of contradictions with delicate balances striving for perfection and order, but that is a beauty in itself perhaps. Shall we visit other national flowers and learn more aspects of various cultures sometime?

Talk to you soon!