Well, 2014 was a pretty exciting year for this blog: my little post on a Chinese lianhuanhua version of Star Wars went viral (and is still garnering a pretty astonishing number of page views for a not frequently updated, kind of boring blog. It’s far surpassed even my best post at Kotaku!). I was also selected as one of Danwei’s 2014 Model Workers, which made me feel pretty good – I’m in excellent company. Similarly, I was put on the “China Twitterati 100” list of Jon Sullivan, a fellow China scholar at the University of Nottingham (admittedly, 2013 was the year with all the big guns, but considering my Twitter feed is often full of dog photos, random photos of Montana, and not much else, I was pleased nonetheless). I often feel a bit disconnected from my field, but I do try and take advantage of the Twitter ecosystem, which has proven a pretty good way to build connections with people I’d otherwise not get to interact with a whole lot (or at all).

The new year brought another amazing digital thing, though this one had nothing to do with stroking my ego: The Freer & Sackler (where the Asian art collection of the Smithsonian is housed) released their collection digitally. I was practically beside myself with excitement – the F&S was one of my favorite places to pop in for a visit when I still lived in northern VA, and it’s so nice to be able to look at their collection (all of it, not just pieces on display) “up close” and in high resolution. It’s not quite the same as seeing these things in the flesh, but I’m really delighted that even in the wilds of the frozen north, I can have some access to a wonderful collection.

I use a lot of images in my teaching, so I’m excited to have a treasure trove of painting, sculpture, ceramics, etc. to draw from (again, in high resolution!). I was also thrilled to have expanded, pretty unfettered access to one of my favorite themes (equine art!), so I finally upgraded my site theme to take advantage of multiple, randomized headers so I could have all the pretty ponies on my site, not just one at a time. Unfortunately, I’m still working some kinks out in the transition, but everything is here & I think the headers are just beautiful (I may be a touch biased here). Spending the first day of the new year poring over images both new to me and very familiar was actually pretty wonderful & inspiring. As frustrated as I sometimes get with life as a Chinese historian (what was I thinking! Couldn’t I have picked some easier field?!), it’s good to be reminded that I do love a lot of stuff outside my narrow little window of scholarship, and do enjoy teaching & writing about it.

As I clicked around and perused image after image, I was reminded of one of my favorite poems, “The Gathering at Orchid Pavilion” (a reference to depictions of the poetry gathering immortalized by Wang Xizhi 王羲之) by Shin Yu Pai. This doesn’t replace the physical – I still long to press my nose up against glass when taking in a beautiful object or painting – but it is something. A starting point. A wonderful & generous gift from the museum that houses some of my favorite pieces of Asian art (like the totally charming “Sheep & Goat” by Zhao Mengfu 赵孟頫, several gorgeous Japanese Lotus Sutras, and the spectacular “Tartars Playing Polo” by Kano Jinnojo): thank you, F&S!

Entering a darkened room
to pass between sixteen pillars
of equal height and depth,
ten feet high and one foot square,

I place my hand against the grain
hold my ear to a pillar
listening for something
like the sound of trees.

Across the room
six folded screens
colored ink and gold on silk

the specks of turquoise in those mountains
glimmering points of light
from a distance
the shine of moss

in memory like the lights
of houses in the hillsides
lanterns in the sea
of winter nights.

Mist erases crags and peaks.

Bearded scholars on blankets
read to one another
calligraphing poems
under shade of bamboo and plum

as servants fill cups
with rice wine
floated downstream
on lotus pads.

My breath clouds the casing
as I think of humidity
and the desire to touch things.

The door of the gallery opens.
A father and his daughter

I think we’ve seen this one before, the girl says.
They look for the place where the story begins.
The girl kisses the glass.

Where does the story begin?
Father insists gently.

In the mountains, the girl cries.

Traces of handprints left on the glass.

It starts here, she says
Here.

From Equivalence (2003)

On a silly note, doing these headers has been by turns interesting and really amusing. Here are my two favorites. One is a “formerly attributed to Han Gan 韩干 ” (my favorite Chinese painter of horses, though few of his works survive in the original – I was lucky enough to see Herding Horses 牧馬圖, my very favorite piece of art, at Taipei’s National Palace Museum) with the most charming inquisitive look (“Why, a blog? You don’t say!”), the other a woodblock from the Edo period – proving that wacky JRPG hairstyles are not, in fact, some crazy invention of the contemporary age (everything old is new again?). It’s been fun to see tiny details!