A Poem in Reply to Mr. Liu Yazi1
(April 29, 1949)
I cannot forget drinking tea with you in beautiful Guangzhou,2
Nor our exchange of poems in Chongqing, as leaves turned yellow.3
Now I’ve returned to the old capital after thirty-one years,4
And read your brilliant poem as flowers begin to fall.
Too much complaining harms one’s health;
It is much better to be far-sighted and tolerant.
Although Kunming Lake5 is rather shallow,
It is better watching fish here than in Fuchun River, where Yan Guang
lived.6
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Notes

Our source for this text is Mao Zedong shici xuan (Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe,
1986), pp. 70–73.
1.  Mao Zedong wrote this poem in reply to a poem that Liu Yazi wrote to Mao on
March 28, 1949. Liu Yazi (1887–1958) was a poet and proponent of democracy, and also
a member of the China Democratic League. At the time of this poem, he was a Standing
Committee member and secretary general of the Guomindang Revolutionary Committee.
2.  Liu Yazi first met Mao Zedong in May 1926 when they went to Guangzhou for the
Second Plenum of the Second Central Committee of the Guomindang. At the plenum, Chiang
Kaishek called for expelling the Chinese Communist Party. Liu Yazi sided with Mao in opposing Chiang. The reference to “drinking tea” generally refers to their dealings with each other
at the time.
3.  This line refers to when Mao Zedong took part in peace talks with the Guomindang
in Chongqing from August to October 1945.
4.  Mao Zedong had last been in Beiping from 1918 to 1919, with a gap of thirty-one
years before he returned for Beiping’s liberation in 1949.
5.  At that time, Liu Yazi lived near Kunming Lake, which was located inside the
grounds of the Summer Palace in Beijing’s western suburbs.
6.  The recluse Yan Guang (39 bc–41 ad, born in Yuyao Kuaiji [present-day Zhejiang])
of the Eastern Han period liked to fish in the Fuchun River, located in Zhejiang Province,
but the fishing platform was much higher above the water and therefore less enjoyable for
fishing than at Kunming Lake. This refers to a line in Liu Yazi’s poem.
DOI:  10.4324/9781315719436-263