Hai Zi

Hai Zi
Native name	Tra hải sinh
Born	Zha Haisheng March 24, 1964 Huaining County,Anhui,China
Died	March 26, 1989(1989-03-26)(aged 25) Shanhaiguan District,Qinhuangdao,Hebei,China
Pen name	Hải tử (Hai Zi)
Occupation	Poet, editor
Language	Mandarin Chinese
Citizenship	China
Education	Law
Alma mater	Peking University
Period	Contemporary(20th century)
Genre	Pastoral poetry
Subjects	Village life nature motherland love death
Literary movement	Misty Poets
Years active	1979–1986
Employer	China University of Political Science and Law
Notable works	Facing the Sea, with Spring Blossoms (《 diện triều đại hải, xuân noãn hoa khai 》),other
Notable awards	ShiyueMagazine Prize (1988)

In thisChinese name,thefamily nameisZha.

Hai Zi(Chinese:Hải tử;March 24, 1964 – March 26, 1989) is the pen name of the Chinese poetZha Haisheng(Tra hải sinh). He was one of the most famous poets in Mainland China after theCultural Revolution.He died by suicide,lying in front of a traininShanhaiguanat the age of 25.

Biography

Zha Haisheng was born in an agricultural family of a small village inAnhui Province.He spent his childhood in traditional Chinese rural areas when the whole country was involved in theCultural Revolution.In 1979, he was enrolled inPeking Universityat the age of 15.He began to write poems as a student in early 1980s. After graduation, he worked inChina University of Political Science and Law.He kept sending his own poems written in an extremely dull environment of life to different newspapers and publishers but was hardly accepted. He remained unknown to common readers until his death.

Hai Zi was fascinated withTibetan cultureandQigongin his last years. Heended his life by lying in front of a trainnot far fromShanhaiguannear his 25th birthday.A bag with aBible,a book of selected stories byJoseph Conrad,Waldenby Henry David Thoreau, andThe Kon-Tiki ExpeditionbyThor Heyerdahlwas found beside his body. His death is now regarded as an important event in modern Chinese literature with some suggesting it symbolizes "the sacrifice of the agricultural civilization".Not long after his death, most of his works were published by major publishers of China and were spread rapidly over the country.

Legacy

Hai Zi has become one of the most quoted poets after theNew Culture Movement.His mystical life and death remain an important topic of Chinese literature and society. A cult of Hai Zi involves young people from all over China since the 1990s, though he is still not entirely accepted by older experts.

Hai Zi's poems have a strong influence on the popular culture in Mainland China. Some of his poems have been set to songs.

Hai Zi's poemFacing the Sea, with Spring Blossomsis inferred and mentioned several times in the Hong Kong movieMcDull, Prince de la Bun.

Many coastal places of China are regarded as the one described in the poemFacing the Sea, with Spring Blossoms.But according to some research about the life of the poet, the beach ofXichonginShenzhenis the most probable place.

Works

Hai Zi wrote several long poems, "choral operas" and countless short poems in his brief life. His style is generally described as "anachronism". Many of his short poems contain symbolic images likeLand,SeaandWheat fieldand recall the ideals of the ancient ChinesepastoralpoetTao Yuanming.

The theme of nostalgia for the village life of his childhood, love for nature makes Hai Zi related to the Russian well-known poetSergei Yesenin.Hai Zi himself wrote a cycle of poems "Poet Yesenin",in which he directly calls himself" Chinese Yesenin "as the reincarnation-like, which has become a popular cliché in works devoted to the personality of the poet.

Hai Zi was also obviously influenced by Western philosophy and arts, especiallyNietzscheandVan Gogh.And the strong sense ofmysticismin all of his works is probably one of the most important characteristics which turned him into a unique figure of Chinese literature.

Some of his poems have been translated into English. A bilingual book of his poemsOver Autumn Rooftops,translated by Dan Murphy, was published in 2010 by Host Publications.A new bilingual book,Ripened Wheat: Selected Poems of Hai Zi,translated by Ye Chun, was out from the Bitter Oleander Press in 2015.In Italy, Del Vecchio Editore celebrated the 30th anniversary of Haizi’s death publishing, for the first time in Italian, a selection of 80 poems ( “Un uomo felice “, 2019) translated by Francesco De Luca.

Short poems

Hai Zi's short poems are his most popular works. Some of them are now classics of 20th-century Chinese literature and are quoted frequently.

• Asian Copper (《 á châu đồng 》)
• The Sun of Arles (《 a nhĩ đích thái dương 》)
• The Four Sisters (《 tứ tỷ muội 》)
• To the Night (《 hắc dạ đích hiến thi 》)
• Facing the Sea, with Spring Blossoms (《 diện triều đại hải, xuân noãn hoa khai 》)
• Motherland, or Dream as a Horse (《 tổ quốc, hoặc dĩ mộng vi mã 》)
• Spring, Ten Hai Zis (《 xuân thiên, thập cá hải tử 》)

Long poems and other works

• Legend (《 truyện thuyết 》)
• The River (《 hà lưu 》)
• But Water, Water (《 đãn thị thủy, thủy 》)
• Messiah (《 di tái á 》)
• Six Mysterious Stories (《 thần bí cố sự lục thiên 》)

Selected Poems in translation

• "Mute Back"tr. Ye Chun
• "Dunhuang"
• "Poetry Book"
• "Song: Light Strikes the Ground"
• "Wind Cup: A Bouquet of Love Poems"
• "Thinking of a Past Life"

Further reading

• ''Six poems,by Hai Zi (trans. by Ye Chun)
• Chinese Writers on Writingfeaturing Hai Zi. Ed.Arthur Sze.(Trinity University Press,2010)
• Over Autumn Rooftops(A bilingual edition of Hai Zi's poetry published by Host Publications)
• Ripened Wheat: Selected Poems of Hai Zitranslated by Ye Chun (The Bitter Oleander Press, 2015)
• Un uomo felicetranslated by Francesco De Luca (Del Vecchio Editore,2019) Italian-Chinese edition
• Yang, Xiaoli.A Dialogue between Haizi’s Poetry and theGospel of Luke:Chinese Homecoming and the Relationship with Jesus Christ.Brill, 2018.

See also

• Chinese poetry
• Misty Poets