A Song of War Chariots

“A song of war chariots” is a poem written by Du Fu, one of the greatest Chinese poets. Du Fu lived in the 8th century, which is about one thousand and three hundred years ago. At that time, China was engaged in several wars. Du Fu witnessed sorrow, suffering and tragedies the wars had inflicted upon people and soldiers. He was concerned about fate of the country and held great compassion for common people. This poem described sad and horrific scenes of the wars, and it also reflected Du Fu's anti-war attitude and his humanitarian value.

The second slide shows a Chinese version of the poem.

The third slide is a painting based on the poem.

The forth slide is another paining. I personally think the latter reflects more closely to what the poem described.

What I am going to read is an English translation of the poem. It was translated by Witter Bynner, an American poet. Here is the poem,

A Song of War-Chariots

The war-chariots rattle,
The war-horses whinny.
Each man of you has a bow and a quiver at his belt.
Father, mother, son, wife, stare at you going,
Till dust shall have buried the bridge beyond Changan.
They run with you, crying, they tug at your sleeves,
And the sound of their sorrow goes up to the clouds;
And every time a bystander asks you a question,
You can only say to him that you have to go.

...We remember others at fifteen sent north to guard the river
And at forty sent west to cultivate the campfarms.
The mayor wound their turbans for them when they started out.
With their turbaned hair white now, they are still at the border,
At the border where the blood of men spills like the sea --
And still the heart of Emperor Wu is beating for war.

...Do you know that, east of China's mountains, in two hundred districts
And in thousands of villages, nothing grows but weeds,
And though strong women have bent to the ploughing,
East and west the furrows all are broken down?

...Men of China are able to face the stiffest battle,
But their officers drive them like chickens and dogs.
Whatever is asked of them,
Dare they complain?
For example, this winter
Held west of the gate,
Challenged for taxes,
How could they pay?

...We have learned that to have a son is bad luck-
It is very much better to have a daughter
Who can marry and live in the house of a neighbor,
While under the sod we bury our boys.

...Go to the Blue Sea, look along the shore
At all the old white bones forsaken --
New ghosts are wailing there now with the old,
Loudest in the dark sky of a stormy day.




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Above is one of my Toastmasters speeches.

Two-minute speech at Toastmasters District 83 Executive Committee Meeting on May 7th, 2011

District Leaders and Fellow Toastmasters,

According to the World Health Organization, there are three aspects of health. They are physical health, mental health and social health. A person’s social health can only be achieved by connecting and interacting with others.

I love Toastmasters not only because it provides a wonderful environment for me to improve my English and develop my public speaking skills but also because Toastmasters is actually a bridge for me to connect myself with others and with the society.

The feeling of being a part of a community or a part of the society is important for a person’s health. In Toastmasters, every member has the opportunity to maintain and promote his social health by interacting with his fellow members and by his personal growth. And improving the social health of individuals actually also improve the social health of societies. In this respect, I believe, Toastmasters benefits not only its members, but also the society.

Microscope

In history of the earth, there have lived at least two million different species of life. But no other species like human beings have so much impact on the earth, on the environments, and on other lives. It is because of making and using of tools that make us so powerful and distinguish us from animals.

Tools extend our biological capabilities. For example, cars extend our capability of walking, telephones enable us to hear people from thousands of miles away, and telescopes make it possible for us to see far away in the space.

A microscope is a tool or an instrument that helps us to see objects that are too small to be seen with the naked eyes. Here shows a picture of a microscope. The main parts of a microscope are eyepiece lens and objective lens. And both eyepiece and objective lens are magnifying glasses.

It is recorded that as early as 2000 years ago, people already knew that some glasses or crystals with thicker in the center and thinner at the edge could make things look larger. And that was why they were called magnifying glasses. But magnifying glasses were not used much until invention of spectacles in the end of the 13th century.

In about 1590, two Dutch spectacle makers, while experimenting with several lenses in a tube, discovered that objects appeared greatly enlarged. That tube containing several lenses in it was the forerunner of both microscopes and telescopes.

Two remarkable contributions were made with microscopes in science: discovery of cells and discovery of microorganisms such as bacteria and virus. Discoveries of cells and microorganisms were milestones in development of science and had great influence in development of biology and medicine.

There are many different kinds of microscopes. But basically they belong to two kinds: optical microscopes and electron microscopes. Optical microscopes use visible light to image objects, and electron microscopes use electron beams to image objects. The magnification of an optical microscope is usually 500 to 1000 times. The maximum is 2000 times. An electron microscope can reach magnification of 2,000,000 times, under which virus and large molecules can be seen.

Here are images of pollens under microscopes. Pollens are male cells of plants. They are reason or culprits for allergy many people suffer in the spring. The left is an image of pollens under a optical microscope and the right is an image of pollens under an electronic microscope.

Microscopes are indispensable tools in fields like cell biology, microbiology, pathology including plant pathology, animal pathology and human pathology, nanoscience that deals with materials at micro level and forensic science that deals with criminal investigation etc.

Human beings have actually found another world with microscopes.

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The above is one of my Toastmasters speeches. The speech is based on a project titled "Technical Briefing".

Yu Harnesses the Yellow River

Yellow River is the mother river of China. She is the second longest river in China and the sixth in the world. It is believed that Chinese civilization originated from an area called Yellow River basin.

Yellow River was both China’s pride and China’s sorrow. Yellow River was a blessing because it provided water and fertile soil for agriculture and made it possible to build cities along the river. Yellow River was a pain to Chinese people because it was prone to flooding. Historical documents recorded that in last 3000 years, Yellow River has flooded for more than one thousand and five hundred times, a flood every two years！Millions of people had been killed and hundreds of cities had been ruined by Yellow River floods.

In about 2100 BC, that is more than 4000 years ago, Yellow River flooded greatly and frequently. At that time, in the area of present China lived numerous tribes and they allied together. The floods caused great suffering to people.

Gun, chief of a tribe, was initially selected to lead people of all tribes to manage the river. Gun led people fighting floods for nine years but didn't succeed. Gun's method was building dams and levees to block the floods. The dams and levees were built higher and higher, but flooding water was also getting higher and higher; eventually water overflowed the dams and destroyed them.

Gun was dismissed after his failure. Yu, Gun’s son, was then assigned as chief to continue leading people to fight floods. Yu got the lessons from his father. He first made a thorough survey on the geographic features along the entire river and the flooding courses. Then he assembled people dredging rivers making water flow faster and building new rivers based on the natural flooding courses and led the flooding water into the sea.

It is said Yu assembled and put 270,000 people into action; and they worked hard for 13 years. Finally the floods were subdued.

Yu was a dedicated leader. He was just married when he was appointed as the chief. In 13 years, he never entered his home even though he passed his home for three times.

By harnessing Yellow River, Yu not only subdued the floods, but also united people. Later, he founded the first dynasty of China, Xia.

Yu was arguably the first king of China. People respectfully call him DaYu , which means Yu, the great.

Today, I tell the story about Yu. It is not because he was the founder of first dynasty of China, nor because he had a great influence in the development of Chinese civilization, but because of his method of fighting floods.

Facing rampant flooding water, Yu's method was not to block it but channel it. This is something worth remembering and thinking.

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This is one of my Toastmasters' Speeches; and this speech is based on a project titled "Bringing History to Life".