"Ascending Stork Tower" Classical Chinese Poem | Learn Chinese Now

hi everyone and welcome to learn Chinese now brought to you by ice hockey calm today we're going to look at another famous classical Chinese poem ascending stork tower this is a Tong dynasty poem written by the poet one-to-one in the early 8th century in the regulated versed style that is the type of poetry that was popular in the Tong dynasty where every line has the same number of characters most commonly 5 the poems are written in couplets and the length is set to 4 8 or unlimited lines if it goes beyond 8 there were also some poems of 6 but less common the arrangement of the characters with certain tones is also regulated to a specific pattern although a lot of this has been lost when the poems are read in modern Mandarin Chinese since the tones have changed since the Tong dynasty Cantonese pronunciation is closer to the original but not exactly the same so first let's read the poem the Guanche ear law by Asians in one huh oh hi no huge young chimney moo goo shun low so let's take a look at the first line by a shunt in so the first line reads by you the white son II to rest on shan mountain chin to reach the end of or to be used up so this can be thought of as the white Sun reaches its end resting on the mountains the Sun sets resting on the mountains the character Jin is used a lot in classical Chinese and takes some getting used to in this context since it is related to the Sun it means the Sun sets one hood oh hi leo Huang her means the Yellow River one of the two major rivers in China together with the Yangtze River the Yellow River got its name because of the yellow sediment that gives it its color Rou means to enter hi is the sea and Leo means to flow so we can translate this as the Yellow River flows into the see so the first two lines are kind of describing what the author can see the last two lines are more connected together in order to achieve this I will do that huge young-shin D mu u means to desire Chung is another character that is similar to the gym in this context it means to go to the limits off chimney is one thousand Li a Chinese unit of measurement equal to about half a kilometer in modern terms although its length has changed throughout history and in the Tong dynasty is equal to maybe a bit over 300 meters Moop means I or eyes so the whole line reads to go to the limits of 1,000 eyes this line doesn't translate so well into English but you can think of it as the poet desires to see as far as you can so boom Chung eats hung low good means further pretty much the same meaning as in modern Chinese Shump to ascend to go up is one fun means level or story low is prodota so I ascend one more level of the pagoda and that pagoda is stork tower that is in the title ascending stalk Talon stork tower is a pagoda built in Shaanxi province in the northern and southern dynasties period by a northern Jo dynasty general called UN who it served as a lookout post for the military and because of storks nesting in the structure it ended up being called stork tower the tower overlooked the Yellow River and was three stories high the original tower was destroyed by a fire during a battle in the UN Dynasty and because the Yellow River changed its course in the Ming Dynasty the original position of the tower is hard to determine but in Shaanxi province they have now built a new store tower as a tourist attraction the building was opened in 2002 I hope you guys enjoyed that classical Chinese pun would you like more of these let us know in the comments below this episode was brought to you by I talk accom check out their site for online Chinese lessons as low as $10 an hour I really recommend their service check out the link or paste it into your browser to find out more and access the buy one get one free deal thanks see you guys decide yep I can be punched in the stomach haha you'll remember it after that right so put this in a little sentence to say you a hundred you can say