WEBVTT

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So tonight to the
Academy of American Poets

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who have graciously co-sponsored
Bei Dao's visit to Arizona,

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because of their
participation in the Reading

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Series we're able to send
him on a bit of a tour

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throughout Arizona.

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So he's able to meet
audiences, poets, and writers

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in both Tempe through a
visit at ASU on Monday night,

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and then tomorrow up
at Prescott College.

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So we continue to be
grateful to the Academy

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for their sponsorship.

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Tonight's reading
will be bilingual

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with Bei Dao reading the
poems in the original Chinese

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and Dennis Evans reading
the English translations.

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Many of you know Dennis Evans
in his role as associate Dean

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for external affairs in
the College of Humanities.

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In that capacity he's been
a great ally and supporter

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of the Center's community
programs, but many of you

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will not know that this evening
has special significance

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to him, because he spent 1986
in Beijing on a Fulbright

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lectureship in American
literature in Beijing.

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And in 1982, he
and his wife Nancy

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taught at the Foreign
Languages Institute in Dalian.

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Dennis has been an
admirer of Bei Dao's work

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ever since he picked up
a collection of stories

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by a young Chinese
writer he had not yet

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heard of in a bookstore
in Hong Kong in 1985.

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It turned out to be the
first Chinese University

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Press of Hong Kong edition of
Bei Dao's fiction work, Waves.

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Before introducing
Bei Dao, I'd like

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to invite another member of the
University of Arizona community

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to offer a few words of welcome.

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As many of you know,
Professor Fang Lizhi

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is now an internationally
renowned professor

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in our Department of
Physics, specializing

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in the structure and formation
of the universe and cosmology.

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Many of you may not realize
that before coming to the United

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States, he was one of the
most important and influential

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voices promoting democracy,
educational reform,

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and human rights in China.

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To give you an idea
of his influence

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let me ask you the
last occasion you

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can recall when
scores of students

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slept outside a
lecture hall overnight

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in the middle of winter, even
a Tucson winter, much less

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a Beijing winter, so that
they could be assured entrance

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to hear the next day speaker.

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We're rapidly approaching
the 10th anniversary

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of the democracy spring,
and June 4th massacre

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at Tiananmen Square.

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Events that focused world
attention on China and changed

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profoundly the lives
of many, many people,

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including Bei Dao
and Fang Lizhi.

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Professor Fang and
his wife were forced

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to take refuge in the US embassy
in Beijing for more than a

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year before being permitted
to leave the country.

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Yet even as we mark
the losses brought

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to mind by this
upcoming anniversary,

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the vitality of the ongoing
work of Bei Dao and Fang Lizhi

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and many others like them should
be a source of inspiration

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and renewed resolve for
us all in the rewards

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of nurturing the
freedom of mind that

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is at the heart of democracy.

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May I please present to
you Professor Fang Lizhi.

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Thank you.

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Good evening.

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It is my great honor to
have this opportunity

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to say a few words
about Bei Dao.

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You know, Bei Dao and
me there are many gaps.

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We have professional gap.

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He is a poet, I'm a physicist.

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Quite different at work.

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I think I have probably
the only physics up

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beside my wife in the room.

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We have age gap.

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I'm probably older than him,
at least half generation.

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So why do we have so many
gaps, but become friends?

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Really friends.

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You know, yesterday
he arrived here.

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He first called me and asked
me to take him to see around

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the site that were here.

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I first time I heard
his name, Bei Dao

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is early 1980s,
about 1980-something.

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At that time,
China to just open.

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And before 1980s
they are a movement

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so-called Beijing Spring.

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That happened in 1978, 1979.

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At that time many young
people, younger than me,

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is very active for promote
the democracy and the freedom.

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Among them, the most
famous poet is Bei Dao.

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So I heard the name Oh, Bei Dao.

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And become more
deep because once

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I met my classmate
in high school.

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One of my classmate
at high school

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is the head or the principal of
the high school at that time.

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That high school told me, Bei
Dao is from this high school.

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OK.

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Same as me.

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You have same high school.

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OK.

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Same background.

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Now I go more detail.

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OK.

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Then I never met him
personally for about 10 years

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until in 1989 the
events happened.

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In the very beginning
of that year

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I wrote a letter to
authorities trying

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to appeal there
to take a Amnesty,

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general Amnesty to release
all political prisoners.

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That a prisoner signed
the letter, I saw it.

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Then one day later, almost
10 years ago this time,

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Bei Dao and the other two
young men went to my home.

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They say the support of my
letter, and they want to make--

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organize other letters.

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And that this first
time I met him.

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Then this letter, we made
the letter with my computer.

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At that time China
computers were very few.

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I have a computer there.

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Type Chinese characters
come with my version.

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So I typed it, my wife and I
typed it the letter for him.

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He wanted to
distribute that letter.

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That is the day, very beginning
the events in that year.

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Then his letter is signed
by many famous writers,

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at that-- more 33 writers.

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That very influenced
that letter.

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And there is a big snowball--
become bigger and a bigger.

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Many letters and then finally,
Chinese student to go straight.

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So that is-- in terms of
Chinese wall, a physical wall.

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Bei Dao to me do the
initial condition

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to push that [INAUDIBLE].

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So we can really become friend.

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And then just like I said, we
both cannot stay in our home

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countries.

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We left.

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And since then we met--

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I remember in 1990 Bei Dao and
my wife and we met in Denmark.

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And then when we
moved to Princeton,

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he also went away our
home in Princeton.

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Then we met in New York.

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Now today we met in Tuscon.

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Very sad we cannot be
in China right now.

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So there's a history.

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We both, two person
the history is

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something we show you the
history of China history.

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Race in the last 20
years almost [INAUDIBLE]..

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So I think of Bei
Dao, the poet were

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making more of course more
deep describe that pure old

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and he's the fading.

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And the poet is just a tool
maybe not really related

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to today's events.

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Let me say a few words
about today's events.

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You know, today is the
[INAUDIBLE] reading.

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Today is the March 3.

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March 3 to me is
if I was a child,

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it's a very important date.

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Not only me.

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I think most of
the my generation

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as a child knows this date.

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This date is March 3.

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In ancient China, it's
a tradition, you know,

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day to take and party.

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And the point of party?

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I don't know, I think that the
my generation always knows,

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even when I was child.

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I was to be asked
to read, to remember

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a very famous the
poem even by the Tang

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dynasties in the Du Fu.

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I remember as a child be
asked, read that, reading that,

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remember that.

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三月三日天氣新，長安水邊多麗人

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Like that.

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You know, as a child who is
reading the poem realize that.

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Easy to remember, you
know, easy to remember.

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That's a very famous
poem, I remember.

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And also, I remember that
who we studied the catagraph.

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Also the very famous
Chinese poem the catagraph,

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the 王羲之.

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The very famous, you
know, his catagraph,

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the 蘭亭序 is
also about March 3.

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Also March 3.

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March 3 is day at that time
to get together, take a party,

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to go is to expel the evils
and the ghosts of that year.

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OK?

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Every year.

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So take a party besides the
waters or lake or river.

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The participants should
be at [INAUDIBLE] points.

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And the [INAUDIBLE]
and beauties.

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Today we have poems.

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Also, we have a lot
of beauties here.

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Only thing we are no river.

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But we have River
Road very close.

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So, I believe today
is the raining.

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We also gave us, we expelled.

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All evils and ghosts will
not touch you this year.

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Thank you.

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Thank you so much,
Professor Fang.

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Bei Dao's work in
English appears

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in seven volumes from
New Directions Press,

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including The August
Sleepwalker, 1990, Waves, 1990,

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Old Snow, 1991,
Forms of Distance,

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1994, and Landscape
Over Zero, 1996.

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His work has been translated
into 25 languages, including

00:13:14.070 --> 00:13:19.260 align:middle line:84%
Danish Dutch, French,
German, Japanese and Swedish.

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After serving as
visiting scholar

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at several universities in
Europe, Holland, Norway,

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and Germany, he came
to the United States

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in 1993 under the sponsorship
of poet, Clayton Eshelman, who

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invited him to be the
Mccandless chair in Humanities

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at Eastern Michigan University.

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From 1995 to 97, he
was visiting professor

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in Chinese and Japanese at
the University of California

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in Davis where he
continues to live.

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He's no longer
teaching but working

00:13:50.310 --> 00:13:51.735 align:middle line:90%
now as a freelance writer.

00:13:51.735 --> 00:13:54.330 align:middle line:90%


00:13:54.330 --> 00:13:57.870 align:middle line:84%
Garcia Lorca once
said, that the police

00:13:57.870 --> 00:14:02.220 align:middle line:90%
are the mother of metaphor.

00:14:02.220 --> 00:14:06.630 align:middle line:84%
Such is the marvel and
power of Bei Dao's poetry,

00:14:06.630 --> 00:14:10.170 align:middle line:84%
dwelling in the
privacy of subjectivity

00:14:10.170 --> 00:14:16.050 align:middle line:84%
while reaching metaphorically
out into the political domain.

00:14:16.050 --> 00:14:18.570 align:middle line:84%
His translator,
David Hinton, has

00:14:18.570 --> 00:14:24.090 align:middle line:84%
written, the more private and
introspective his work became,

00:14:24.090 --> 00:14:27.870 align:middle line:84%
the more subversive
political it was.

00:14:27.870 --> 00:14:32.520 align:middle line:84%
Individuality is
the mysterious space

00:14:32.520 --> 00:14:36.840 align:middle line:84%
where political freedom and
self-determination become

00:14:36.840 --> 00:14:38.820 align:middle line:90%
conceivable.

00:14:38.820 --> 00:14:43.590 align:middle line:84%
It was perhaps this
space itself more

00:14:43.590 --> 00:14:46.560 align:middle line:84%
than the political
revolution it makes possible

00:14:46.560 --> 00:14:51.660 align:middle line:84%
that the protesters were
demanding at Tiananmen Square.

00:14:51.660 --> 00:14:54.120 align:middle line:90%
End of Hinton quote.

00:14:54.120 --> 00:14:58.800 align:middle line:84%
Bei Dao's poems give us a
voice, startling and new.

00:14:58.800 --> 00:15:01.620 align:middle line:84%
The clarity of
images and economy

00:15:01.620 --> 00:15:05.220 align:middle line:84%
of form of China's
ancient masters.

00:15:05.220 --> 00:15:09.720 align:middle line:84%
The weird and thrilling
leaps of surrealism.

00:15:09.720 --> 00:15:12.900 align:middle line:84%
The passion born of
political necessity.

00:15:12.900 --> 00:15:16.800 align:middle line:84%
And metaphors so
unexpected and right,

00:15:16.800 --> 00:15:20.520 align:middle line:84%
one feels awakened
again and again

00:15:20.520 --> 00:15:23.790 align:middle line:90%
to a world of possibilities.

00:15:23.790 --> 00:15:26.505 align:middle line:84%
It is an honor to
introduce to you, Bei Dao.

00:15:26.505 --> 00:15:30.734 align:middle line:90%
[AUDIENCE CLAPPING]

00:15:30.734 --> 00:15:38.630 align:middle line:90%


00:15:38.630 --> 00:15:39.470 align:middle line:90%
Thank you.

00:15:39.470 --> 00:15:42.635 align:middle line:84%
I say a few words
about this event.

00:15:42.635 --> 00:15:45.150 align:middle line:90%


00:15:45.150 --> 00:15:49.610 align:middle line:84%
It's a great honor to meet
Professor Fang [INAUDIBLE]

00:15:49.610 --> 00:15:55.460 align:middle line:84%
again, yeah, since we've been
exiled for over ten years.

00:15:55.460 --> 00:16:01.790 align:middle line:84%
I still remember after we signed
this opening letter, one day I

00:16:01.790 --> 00:16:05.420 align:middle line:90%
heard she has been in danger.

00:16:05.420 --> 00:16:12.920 align:middle line:84%
She had been in danger because
the government and authorities

00:16:12.920 --> 00:16:15.140 align:middle line:90%
want to put him into prison.

00:16:15.140 --> 00:16:20.300 align:middle line:84%
So I still remember that
day I went to his home,

00:16:20.300 --> 00:16:27.390 align:middle line:84%
we make conversation by
writing on the paper.

00:16:27.390 --> 00:16:29.450 align:middle line:90%
So I said, you are in danger.

00:16:29.450 --> 00:16:31.670 align:middle line:90%
You had to be careful.

00:16:31.670 --> 00:16:33.460 align:middle line:90%
Then, it's--

00:16:33.460 --> 00:16:35.618 align:middle line:90%
[SIDE CONVERSATION]

00:16:35.618 --> 00:16:39.110 align:middle line:90%


00:16:39.110 --> 00:16:43.100 align:middle line:84%
But in China, you know, that
time we couldn't talk freely.

00:16:43.100 --> 00:16:47.870 align:middle line:84%
So even we couldn't talk,
make really conversation.

00:16:47.870 --> 00:16:51.810 align:middle line:84%
But finally, yeah,
we've been forced--

00:16:51.810 --> 00:16:57.320 align:middle line:90%
we were forced to live in exile.

00:16:57.320 --> 00:17:03.200 align:middle line:84%
But I think, anyway,
China still has hope.

00:17:03.200 --> 00:17:11.790 align:middle line:84%
And I think China has been
changed since last ten years.

00:17:11.790 --> 00:17:14.970 align:middle line:84%
As a poet, I think
Professor Fang mentioned

00:17:14.970 --> 00:17:18.960 align:middle line:84%
that we have this such
thing different but at least

00:17:18.960 --> 00:17:23.880 align:middle line:90%
we are former schoolmates.

00:17:23.880 --> 00:17:28.830 align:middle line:84%
And we were involved in the
same human rights activities.

00:17:28.830 --> 00:17:34.560 align:middle line:84%
And sometimes, I
envy of him because I

00:17:34.560 --> 00:17:40.080 align:middle line:84%
think he's dealing
with the future,

00:17:40.080 --> 00:17:42.450 align:middle line:90%
I'm dealing with this moment.

00:17:42.450 --> 00:17:49.440 align:middle line:84%
He's watching sky,
I'm the digging hole.

00:17:49.440 --> 00:17:54.180 align:middle line:84%
So, and it makes me sometimes
very nervous, hard to get

00:17:54.180 --> 00:17:54.810 align:middle line:90%
sleep.

00:17:54.810 --> 00:17:58.695 align:middle line:84%
And he said he can sleep
anywhere at any moment.

00:17:58.695 --> 00:18:01.410 align:middle line:90%


00:18:01.410 --> 00:18:03.510 align:middle line:90%
So, that is lucky.

00:18:03.510 --> 00:18:05.310 align:middle line:90%
Yeah.

00:18:05.310 --> 00:18:06.000 align:middle line:90%
OK.

00:18:06.000 --> 00:18:11.660 align:middle line:84%
I'm going to read,
poems with Dennis.

00:18:11.660 --> 00:18:14.300 align:middle line:90%
So, we are going to read.

00:18:14.300 --> 00:18:18.680 align:middle line:84%
And then Dennis will
read English first.

00:18:18.680 --> 00:18:23.140 align:middle line:84%
So, then I'm going to
read Chinese second.

00:18:23.140 --> 00:18:24.000 align:middle line:90%