冰心的「紙船」(Bing Xin's "Paper Boat")

紙船--寄母親 我從不肯妄棄了一張紙， 總是留著--留著， 疊成一只一只很小的船兒， 從舟上拋下在海裏。 有的被天風吹卷到舟中的窗裏， 有的被海浪打濕，沾在船頭上。 我仍是不灰心的每天的疊著， 總希望有一只能流到我要它到的地方去。 母親，倘若你夢中看見一只很小的白船兒， 不要驚訝它無端入夢。 這是你至愛的女兒含著淚疊的， 萬水千山，求它載著她的愛和悲哀歸去。 冰心

Paper Boat---To Mom I’d never throw away a scrap of paper without thought  I’d always hoard it away-- hoard it away And fold them into a tiny boat, another tiny boat And throw them into the sea from a ship Some would be swirled through the ship’s window by winds from the sky   Some would be drenched by ocean waves, hugging the ship’s bow I’d never give up and would keep folding Ever hoping that at least one would drift to whither I would Mom, if you were to see a tiny white boat in your dream Don’t be surprised at its senseless presence It’s folded with tears by your dearest daughter With pleas to carry back her love and sorrow, through a thousand hills and ten thousand seas Bing Xin   tr. El Zorro

It's 8th of March today, a day to celebrate the role of women in this world. Not all women deserve to be honoured however. But I'm sure that the mother of Bing Xin (冰心) (1900-1999) could never be amongst them. Otherwise, Bing Xin wouldn't have written the poem above, which was once included in our high school Chinese language textbook. Bing Xin, a native of Fujian, left for America in the ocean liner "ss Jackson" on 17th August, 1923 and stayed 3 years at Wellesley College for an MA in literature. Wellesley is a famous women's college, where Madam Chiang Kai Shek or Soong Mei Ling and Hilary Clinton also studied. On the ship's journey, she felt homesick, had a fever, dreamt of her mother sitting by her bedside, touching her forehead with one  hand, holding in her other a glass of orange juice with some pills which she begged her to swallow without delay . After she woke up, she wrote the poem. Before she left for America, she already got a BA at Yanjing University from which she graduated in 1923 and after her 3 year stint in America, she returned to teach there until 1936, got married in 1929 to Wu Wenzao, an anthropologist she met in America. For a short while, she taught in Japan, started what has been called "Bingxin Style" as a new literary style and wrote many books for children. She also translated and introduced the poetic works of another famous poet from India,to Chinese readers, Rabindranath Tagore. She writes in a very simple and direct style, but always with sensitivity, a bit like the poetry of Emily Dickinson, .