Chinese Poem: "Seeking the Hermit in Vain" 尋隱者不遇 Tang Dynasty Poet Jia Dao | Learn Chinese Now

Hey guys, welcome to Learn Chinese Now, I'm your host Jared Madsen and today we will be tackling a Tang Dynasty poem by the poet Now this poem is called Xun means to look Yin means to secret, to hide Zhe is a person so Yin Zhe is like a hermit, somebody who's who you don't really see Bu, not Yu, to find to see the poem is I'm looking for a hermit, but I can't find him. One thing you'll notice with the title is that it didn't have I right, didn't have I'm looking for a hermit, it just says looking for a hermit so that's one characteristic that we're going to explore in this poem is that a lot of words seem to be missing, it's a very short poem but it actually has a lot of content in it and a lot of these words you just kind of have to fill in the gap. Let's start with the first line. Song means a pine tree and Xia means beneath. So basically beneath the pine tree. Last part of the first line, Wen means to ask Tong is a child and Zi is also a child it's, it's, put at the end of Tong to make it a word. So Tong Zi is like a boy right, so under the pine tree I ask a boy right, it doesn't say I but we can just kind of imply that that's what it's talking about. The second line is Yan means to talk and Shi means your master, your your teacher. This again where it feels like a lot is being left out, it's the boy responding, saying, talking about my master. Cai means to collect Yao is medical herbs and Qu means to go. The grammar seems a little funky, but it does kind of make sense. Now, for most Chinese you you put the Qu, to go, at the beginning right, like go to a store. But here, for the poetic and to to rhyme, he puts the Qu at the end. To go at the end. Talking of the master collecting herbs go. Let me just tell you that my master went out to collect some herbs. the third line begins with Zhi means only and Zai means here or to be at a place. Then the last part of it is Ci means this Shan means mountain and Zhong means in. Basically the boy is saying, oh, he's just, you know, he's just at the mountain here, he's just back here on the mountain. So okay great, he's he must be around somewhere. But the fourth line begins with Yun means cloud and Sheng means deep. Okay so deep in the clouds, not sounding good, Bu, not Zhi, to know Chu, the place this is the boys saying, you know, right, the third line, he's, he's just right here in the mountains, but it's deep in the clouds and I don't know where he is. Jia Dao is known for being able to use only a few words to kind of describe this big long scene, and that's what we see here. We see 20 Chinese characters, only four lines, but when you break it down, it's, it's a little bit of a short story. The first line he's asking about where the master is. So you're getting kind of this, this place, he's asking a question, and it's also just giving you this feel right, they're sitting under the pine tree, there you are. But then he says, oh, my master went out to collect some herbs. It then leads you into, oh, he's not here, I don't, I don't know where he is I can't find him, But also too it gives this it gives a little bit of this, he's out collecting herbs right, like he's a master, he's this, he's this maybe this Taoist or somebody like that, and he's out collecting herbs, so he's doing something with these herbs. Like we can kind of, start to, to think about this a little bit more, this is not your ordinary guy that he's looking for, also he called him, Shi, right, so like like a master But then, you give a little, you get the feeling of a little bit of hope in the third line. Right, third line is like, oh, but he's just, he's just here on the mountain right, like he just wanted to go like, some herbs, he's here on the mountain, and so, then, the author gets a little bit of, oh, well maybe I can, I can find him. I'm looking for this hermit, for, for your master. I want to find him. but then he's like, but you know, he's deep in the clouds somewhere, there's, I don't know where he is. Nobody's gonna be able to find him basically. and then it again, it, the, the author gets this, this, big letdown. So it goes back to the title of the poem right, I'm going and I'm looking for this hermit, but I just can't find him. If you have any other poems or anything that you'd like, uh, to go over, please leave those in the comments below. Don't forget to like and subscribe, see you next week, Zai Jian! To see traditional Chinese culture come to life on stage, I welcome you to join me at a Shen Yun performance. Shen Yun is world's Premier classical Chinese dance company, and I am the MC. Check out the link in the description below