In this essay (which this post is derived from), I tried to interpret the painting named \u201cFish and Fish Hawk<\/i>\u201d by Zhu Da (\u6731\u8037) (1626-1705). I was elated when my essay was one of the work picked up by Professor Peter Bol<\/a>, the lead academic for this MOOC for the final discussion of this course!<\/p>\n I have chosen Zhu Da\u2019s \u201cFish and Fish Hawk\u201d or more simplicisticaly translated as \u201cBird and Fish\u201d painting. A image of the painting (shown below) can be found here: http:\/\/www.chinaonlinemuseum.com\/painting-zhu-da-fish-hawk.php<\/p>\n At first glance, this painting seems to show a hawk, which is interpreted as fish hawk by some, as a predator eyeing a fish swimming away from it (to the bottom left of the painting). The fish, with its eyes focussing upwards, seems to be aware of the imminent danger but it is pretending not to notice the fish hawk and thus making its escape as unnoticeable as possible but to no avail. The sense of helplessness on the part of the fish is evident. The fish hawk in fact has spotted the fish long ago and could pounce on the fish as and when it wishes! The predatory hawk is perching on a tree devoid of leaves, reminiscent of the \u201cCold Grove\u201d style which in this case showing that the season could be late autumn or early winter. Thus it seems odd that, firstly a fish would swim to the surface in cold weather and secondly, it is also unusual to see fish hawk seeking prey, not in warmer weather but in the cold, desolate landscape.<\/p>\n I think \u201cFish and Fish Hawk\u201d is an important Zhu Da\u2019s work as its hidden meaning could depict the life story. Zhu Da, as a direct descendant of the royal family of the former Ming dynasty living under the shadow of the Qing rulers has to tread very carefully in order to survive and not present himself as a threat to the new rulers. In fact, his bouts of seemingly insanity and his seeking of a monastic life for 40 years are his ploys to present himself as a harmless, eccentric or even mad and thus \u201cworthless\u201d descendant of the former royal family and hence he poses no threat to the Qing rulers at all. All along, like the fish in his painting, Zhu Da knows that he will be under the watchful eyes of the officials of the Qing rules as depicted by the fish hawk. After around 40 years of such \u201cplay-acting\u201d, and perceiving that the Qing government\u2019s lack of interest in him, Zhu Da only dared to leave the monastery to live a life as an artist. Zhu Da\u2019s use of \u516b\u5927\u5c71\u4eba(ba da shan ren) or \u201cmountain man of the eight greats\u201d gives two interpretations, both serve to cement his personality and political predicament. Firstly, as pointed out by some commentator<\/a>s, if one views Zhu Da\u2019s signature of \u516b\u5927\u5c71\u4eba written vertically on his paintings, the words laughter (\u7b11\uff09 and cry \uff08\u54ed\uff09 can easily be depicted. Secondly, by using the term \u5c71\u4eba (mountain man), he is telling those monitoring his actions that he is resigned to a rustic life, a life in the mountain, literally speaking and thus poses no threat to the Qing government at all!<\/p>\n In this painting, it is obvious that the predator, fish hawk represents the power-that-be or one of its functionaries which is watching over the scene tightly, even during the winter months!. I think Zhu Da depicts himself as the prey, the fish which is trying its best to get away quietly from the predator, but fully aware of the fact that he is not out of danger as yet. The fish hawk could strike at any moment!<\/p>\n As traditionally, fish hawks have been used by fishermen to help them to catch fishes. The presence of the fish hawk could also depict that the predator is under the \u201cemploy\u201d of the Qing ruler, it is han jian \uff08\u6c49\u5978\uff09, a traitor among the people!<\/p>\n This painting is relevant to life today as many people, inclusive of people living in seemingly democratic nations are feeling just like Zhu Da did\u2026 where \u201cbig brother\u201d is always watching. In our case, the surveillance for perceived threat to the power that be is extended now to social media realm and virtually all electronic communication too. We also feel like the fish, wanting to escape but not able to do so quick enough, knowing that if we make the wrong move we could be in serious trouble! The desolate scene depicted by Zhu Da also signifies the economic hardship felt by the poor denizen of the world, with a high unemployment or underemployment, income that has not really rise up for ages and real inflation eating daily into the living standard of the people.<\/p>\n Obviously I am not an expert in classical Chinese painting but merely a very junior learner. I shared my work with these intentions:<\/p>\n After this MOOC, I will now look at Chinese paintings, or more like “reading” these with a different mindset!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This piece was extracted from one of the final assignments of a Massive Open Online Course, China Humanities: The Individuals in Chinese Culture from Harvard University that I have just completed successfully. In this essay (which this post is derived from), I tried to interpret the painting named \u201cFish and Fish Hawk\u201d by Zhu Da (\u6731\u8037) (1626-1705). I was elated when my essay was one of the work picked up by Professor Peter Bol, the lead academic for this MOOC for the final discussion of this course!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1868,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[27,67,70,160,193,293,552],"class_list":["post-2196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-learning","category-others","tag-bird-and-fish","tag-chinese-humanities","tag-chinese-painting","tag-fish-and-hawk","tag-harvard-university","tag-mooc","tag-zhu-da"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/slc4u.org\/wp-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/slc4u.org\/wp-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/slc4u.org\/wp-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slc4u.org\/wp-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slc4u.org\/wp-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/slc4u.org\/wp-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2196\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slc4u.org\/wp-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/slc4u.org\/wp-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slc4u.org\/wp-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slc4u.org\/wp-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Dr.](\"https:\/\/theplantcloner.files.wordpress.com\/2018\/01\/dr-20chow20yns20work20was20picked20up20by20prof20bol20in20his20final20discussion.png\" "\\"ChowYN")
<\/p>\nThe interpretation of Zhu Da\u2019s \u201cFish and Fish Hawk<\/i>\u201d<\/b><\/h4>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/theplantcloner.files.wordpress.com\/2018\/01\/null.jpeg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/h5>\nWhat\u2019s depicted<\/b><\/h5>\n
How I \u201cread\u201d this painting<\/h5>\n
Relevance to present day<\/h5>\n
Final thoughts<\/h5>\n
\n