Forest of Stone Steles - Retranslation & Rewriting of Tang Poetry

an installation designed in new york, usa, produced in wenda gu's stone carving studio in xi'an city, china 1993 - 2005
forest of stone steles - retranslation & rewriting tang poetry consists of 50 hand carved stone steles, each measuring 110cm x 190cm x 20cm (75 " long x 43.5" wide x 8 " thick ) and weighin 1.3 tonnes each.

historical reference of stone steles 1:
there are many stone steles in china's history. the most splendid examples are the forest of stone steles (碑林 bei lin), located in sanxue street in xi'an city, which is a magnificant museum abundant with historical facts and epic stories of chinese civilization. it concentrates on history, culture, art and technology as a whole, and is famous as a treasure house of calligraphic art.

when han jian built chang'an city, he moved the kai cheng stone scripture there. a northern song dynasty high official, yu ce, removed the tang dynasty and other stone steles of kai cheng stone scripture to the location where the current forest of stone steles museum stands. from the han dynasty to early in the last century, yu ce constructed large-scale buildings and extended the stele collection during the middle of the ming dynasty into more than 1000 pieces of ancient stone steles. these not only functioned as tombstones, but also were highly regarded as one of the most developed artistic forms in chinese art history. there remain many precious stone steles which have recorded the calligraphy of huang xizhi, yan zhengqing, liu gongquan and yu youren etc.... as well as recorded important political and cultural moments in china's various ancient periods.

historical reference of stone steles 2:
since xi'an city was the capital of six ancient dynasties, the forest of stone tablets is a concentrated recording of the most authentic historical calligraphy, including examples of all the script styles such as: seal, running, official and standard scripts. after the yuan dynasty, when chinese rice paper was invented, the chinese people created the technique of producing numerous copies of the caligraphy by making ink rubbings from the stone engravings. the ink rubbings on rice paper, made from the engraved stones, were mounted as scroll paintings and bound as books. consequently, through dynasties and generations, the chinese have used these ink rubbings as books to learn about their history and culture. although the most ancient and original calligraphic hand scripts have been lost, these fine engraved stones are still in existence. therefore, they are extremely valuable to archaeologists, historians, artists, etc. who study and seek to reveal the truths of china's history and culture. even though some original calligraphy and hand scripts are in museums today, there are few samples and they do not represent the full extent of the masters' work as seen in the steles. even though modern printing techniques reproduce good copies, only the ink rubbings are able to portray the original sense of the art, and therefore remain a valuable and collectable art form.

historical reference of stone tablets 3:
not only was stone engraving popular in ancient times, but it is also popular today. one tombstone in particular, stands out from china's most famous engraved stones; it is called the wordless tablet. this blank tombstone of the tang dynasty's empress, wu zetian, the most powerful woman in china's history, was done several hundred years b.c. and demonstrates her endless ambition and will. wu's tombstone is a unique and an outstanding conceptual piece as well as a statement of her power; it remains a vanguard in the world of art even today! the wordless stone tablet became a popular solution for the feudal bureaucrats in the ming and qing dynasties who, simply because of the difficulties and conflicts of their times, were at a loss to come up with inscriptions which would represent their lifetime achievements.

the establishment of a contemporary forest of stone steles:
i had the idea to create a contemporary forest of stone steles six years after i immigrated to america. beginning in this particular period of time, the world's different cultures, especially the predominant multi-cultural societies, experienced an unpresidented "identity crisis" and attempted to "re-identify themselves" in america. from americanism to the asian century, along with the changing political and economical world, we have been undergoing a transformation and re-establishment of cultural centralism and cultural marginalism. it is a turbulent era. my forest of stone steles project was created at the turning point of the 20th century to the 21st century under the presence of different political and social and scientific exchanges and clashes between cultures. my forest of stone steles inherited the chinese classical stone stele format, but it is not an exact continuation of the tradition. my contemporary forest of stone steles reflects the changing world of cultural import and export, cultural asimilation and alienation from each other, and consumation of one culture by another. it is an representation of modern day historical facts and epic stories.

i would like to mention, in particular, that the execution of this art project is of an enormous scale and complicity. it is in its 12th year since i originally thought about the project conception, initiating the materialization of its production in 1993. on one hand, the translation concept and the calligraphy style of the text of the 50 stone steles have gradually been developing as its production continued - a process in search of perfection. on the other hand, like another one of my ongoing art projects, the united nations, which also began in 1993, ongoing becomes a concept in itself and a method of forming an open structure to observe, absorb, and deliberate the changing world. it is not a project created in a fixed moment in time, but continually adjusting with time, reflecting on the related changes that accompany it.

why call it "retranslation & rewriting of tang poetry"?
#1, there have been so many kinds of annotations and interpretations of tang dynasty poetry through the centuries. we can recognize that all these annotations and interpretations shared the weal and woe of the times and locations when and where the interpretors lived. however none of the historical annotations and interpretations pertain to the issues of cultural import and export. different than the annotations and interpretations of tang poems throughout history, my retranslation and rewriting of tang poetry regard tang poetry as the cultural, historic and social symbols of the interaction between east and west, as filtered through different languages (linguistic and cultural translation is a convenient filter to eliminate the things we do not want from others). the fundamental concept of my forest of stone steles - retranslation & rewriting tang poetry is how our society, especially after post-modernism and post-colonialism, is beyond any traditional interpretation and study possible within a single culture.

#2, the texts of my 50 stone steles are a symbolic examination of our contemporary culture's influence through intercultural missunderstandings. i am aiming to show the possibility of the formation of a new and unique culture as a result of the journey through recognition and misunderstanding, exchange and clash - a reality of cultural import - export, alienation - dissimilation - assimilation of each other and consumation of each other.

#3, by reading the retranslation and rewriting texts on the stone steles, we experience the satire, absurdity and confusion almost to a predicament in a process of shaping a new culture. the texts also promulgate that public fanaticism and blindness can transmute misunderstanding and misinterpretation into an icon in our society. this phenomenon has generated the power of pop culture. for example, the fortune cookie, which was invented in america, became a popular symbol of chinese culture, but only recently has this chinese symbol appeared in china. what we have learned from this is how chinese culture was consumed and reinvented in a foreign land. china didn't originally have a fortune cookie culture until china imported this chinese cultural icon; it was originally non - chinese. post tang poems are the main texts of my forest of stone steles. they become contemporary poems after they are phonetically retranslated back to chinese from the english version of tang poems from the book the jade mountain. i will introduce the translation of the stone steles in the following paragraphs:

the text of "forest of stone steles - retranslation & rewriting of tang poetry":
"inacuracy" or "can't be acurate" is the nature of translation among the cultures. a culture can not be translated if we believe that it has to be precisely translated to the other culture. the text of "forest of stone steles - retranslation & rewriting of tang poetry" project does not only try to convey that, but more importantly, it expresses the kind of "inacurate" phenomenon that results from an attempt to translate other cultures. based upon my theory, mankind's knowledge is the sum of a continuous stream of misunderstandings of the material world, and human knowledge in general is nothing but an artistic interpretation.

sensory sound and meaning are 2 basic structures of our languages. language heard through the sound of poetry is much more important than the sound of daily life's language.; the rhythm is an integral part of it. according to more traditional esthetics, a poem simply cannot be translated to other language. we can see it from the english version of tang poetry: the layers of richness in the contents, the wonderful artistic expression and style become mere sentences. the traditional translation of poetry cannot convey the original feeling of the poem such as poetic rhythm and lyrics, but only its literal meaning. this predicament inspired me to envision a wonderful idea: to translate phonically from the english version of the tang poem back to chinese, by selecting chinese words which mimic the english prononciation as a vehicle to reconstruct the new poems in chinese. it completes the special perfection of the translation of tang poetry. the following is an example of the process of my invention complex chinese-english translation :

1, original tang poem in chinese - (translated through literal meaning) - becomes an english version of the tang poem. 2, english version of tang poem - (translated phoenically) - becomes a post tang poem in chinese 3, post tang poem in chinese - (translated through literal meaning) - becomes a post tang poem in english

once the tang dynasty poem is processed through these series of translations and retranslations, it becomes a totally different poem. i have named it the post tang poem.

now that I have explained the aim of this project, i want to explain that misunderstanding is not just a phenomenon of the translation among cultures, and not only inevitable, but a necessity. only through the misunderstanding can we create the new!

furthermore, according to the techniques of poetry writing, my post tang poems are not formed by the traditional method of writing poetry - through imagination and fantasy. they are created through a unique process which i call the complex chinese-english translation, which creates a world beyond the typical human imagination and fantasy. imagine how the historical tang poem can be reinvented, both in english and chinese, by alternating the literal and phoenetic re-translations hundreds of times until you have a totally new surreal novel!

the phoenetic translation of "forest of stone steles":
other examples of simple phoenetic translation without involving the meaning from chinese to english are: 荔枝 (prononce li zhi, meaning the name of a fruit) - lychee; 炒麵 (pronounced chao mian, meaning fried noodles) - chow mein. from english to chinese there are: Kentucky Fried Chicken "肯德基" sounds like ken de ji; MacDonalds "麥當勞" sounds like mai dang lao; Disney "迪斯尼" sounds di si ni; Microsoft: "微軟" sounds like wei ruan ... we quite often read commercial advertisements as a phoenetic translations from english to chinese (mimicking the sound ) but the message is also intended to portray the image of their marketing strategy. examples of this, from english to chinese are: Coca Cola - "可口可樂" (ke ko ke le: meaning to be tasty and be happy); Marborogh - "萬寶路" (wan bao lu, which means 10 thousand treasure road). however, when focusing on sounds, the speaker's pronunciation also influences the translation into the other languages, altering the original meaning. it does not remain a simple phoenetic translation, but a merge of conceptual translation and popular culture. when popularity turns it into an industrial icon of cultural import and export, it is culturalizes the commercial marketplace. this is another concept of the forest of stone steles: the link which had formed between the traditional scholarly esthetics, philosophy and pop art.

examples of "complex chinese-english translation" in forest of stone steles:
the entire forest of stone steles project consists of fifty stone steles: one tang poem for each stone stele. thus fifty of the most popular tang dynasty poems are selected for the project. i selected the english version of the fifty poems from a book written by a well-known american journalist, mr. witter bynner, called the jade mountain, popularly used for studying eastern literature in the american academic circle.

the phoenetic translation back to chinese from the english version of tang poems is a very complicated and tiring process. the following are four steps describing the sound translation process:

the literal translation of a chinese phrase "月光" - "moon ligh"; the sound translation of moon light - moon = 虻, ligh = 癩, t = 忒. "虻癩忒" the chinese pronunciation is mang lai te, meaning horsefly leprosy error.

"晨露" translated to english is morning dew, now this english phrase morning dew retranslated back to chinese through sound similarity therefore it becomes "mo = 摸, er = 耳, ning = 寧, dew = 肚". the new chinese phrase becomes "摸耳寧肚", which means touching ear quieting stomach.

the chinese phrase "風竹林" translated to english means bamboo forest in wind. when bamboo forest in wind is pheonetically retranslated back into chinese, it becomes "bam = 辦, boo = 不, fo = 法, re = 蚋, s = 死, te = 特, in = 淫, win = 吻, d =蒂", "辦不法蚋死特淫吻蒂" which means making illegal gnat death, especially excessively kiss the base of fruit.

The fallowings are complete translation of Three different tang Poems:

the artistic design of the text for the forest of stone steles:
i have created a special chinese character structure system for the main text of the forest of stone steles. it has been gradually perfected in its 12-year period of production. the readers can see the development of my chinese character structure system from the introduction in the early stone steles to later ones. traditionally, many chinese characters are composed of separate parts; left and right, and top to bottom components. however, the main aspect of my regular script (正楷 zheng kai) for the main text is to simplify the characters by eliminating the left and right parts of the characters. instead, all characters only have the top and bottom parts. i call this method of unity because it untifies the character structure into one solid form. also, traditionally the individual parts of chinese characters have been simplified into modern, revised characters. for instance, the run part of a chinese character's meaning, which relates to the action of running, is expressed by the simplified or revised character of run. the second important aspect of my regular script (正楷 zheng kai) is to change back all of the simplified, or revised parts, to their original character format. i call this method back to origin.

my regular script calligraphy style (正楷 zheng kai) used in the main texts of the stone steles incorporates elements from diverse calligraphic sources. however, it is mostly influenced by the delicate, elegant and hearty flavor of the fang song style (仿宋體 fang song ti) resembling the song dynasty printing style with its characteristic bold, vigorous, and mellow seal script (石鼓文 shi gu wen), which was carved on stone drums in the ancient times.

i personally wrote on rice paper, with the ink brush, every character of the main text for the forest of stone steles. each character was then scaned into the computer and reserved as a special font. the entire text layout was also designed on the computer and was later used as a template by the stone carvers. the text design for each stone stele contains four versions of each tang poem: #1, the original tang poem in chinese; #2, an english version of the tang poem; #3, the post tang poem (main text), and #4, the english version of the post tang poem .

the production of the forest of stone steles:
after many years of research, the concept and details of the forest of stone steles project have gradually developed to its current complexity. under the direction of the art historian of xi'an fine arts academy mr. cheng zheng, and with the research of mr. yang zhizhong of the xi'an museum of forest of stone steles we have turned my concept into a finished work of art. we sorted through many stone sources, in different regions, to select the best quality slate, and to find the most skillful professional stone carvers to hand engrave them.

about the stone:
forest of stone steles - retranslation & rewriting of tang poetry consists of fifty black stone steles (75 inches long x 43.5 inches wide x 8 inches thick, or 190cm long x 110cm wide x 20cm thick each). traditionally, this stone is called ink jade king, 墨玉王. this particular stone is fine and smooth and hard, and is much denser than most of the stones of slate family. its color is almost black. the place which produces this stone is located near the site of the tang dynasty emperor li wenzong's (li ang) tomb (a.d.840) in shanxi province, not far from the museum of the forest of stone tablets in xi'an city. this same source, once upon a time, supplied the stone for the ancient stone tablets found in the museum. each of the fifty ink jade king, 墨玉王 stones were hand mined, using, by today's standard, very primitive equipment. through the efforts of mr. cheng zheng, and mr. yang zhizhong, we found first class stone carvers. my stone carving studio is located in the changan destrict of xi'an city which is about 20 kilometers away from the xi'an forest of stone steles museum. mr. liu yanhong has been the manager throughout the entire process and production development. i have to say that from the beginning to the end of this 12-year period, their excellent professional performance allowed the dream of china's ancient treasure to reappear in our modern art and culture to become a reality.