thanatography and the poetic voice 127to mother remain unclear. An alternative reading proceeds from the
image of mother holding the tiger the way one holds a child, and car-
rying it rather than riding it across the ocean. The homophony of the
poet’s name and ᄽᄤ ‘child’^51 may then lead to identification of the
poet-speaker with the white tiger, portraying the poet—both the his-
torical figure of Haizi and the abstraction of poethood—as a species
that is dangerous and rare. The form of «Clasps a White Tiger» makes
it a remarkable, catchy text. It sticks in the reader’s memory, because
it combines these qualities with stubbornly repeated riddles that spur
the imagination.
«Moved» (ࡼᛳ)—as in ‘experiencing profound emotion’—was also
written in 1986. It is in free verse, and closer to Haizi’s usual style than
«Clasps a White Tiger».^52
«Moved»
Morning is a dappled deer
that tramples my forehead
what a wonderful world
wild flowers in the mountain cave
go along my body
burn all the way to the light of day
burn all the way out of the cave
what a wonderful world
But night, the deer’s
master, entered long ago
into the depths of the soil, leaning on tree roots
to redirect some kind of
happiness you cannot possibly see(^51) In Mandarin, three differently intoned pronunciations of ⍋ᄤ are possible:
third + neutral tone, as in the dialect expression meaning ‘lake’; second (through
tone sandhi) + full third tone; and second (through tone sandhi) + neutral tone. The
latter two would be personal names. Depending on its position in the sentence,
Haizi’s name is commonly if not invariably pronounced in the second + neutral
tone, just like ᄽᄤ ‘child.’ Xi Chuan (1994a: 92) recalls a fellow student at PKU
ridiculing Haizi when handing him a series of newly arrived letters, and switching
from identifying the addressee as “Haizi/child.... Haizi/child.... Haizi/child....”
(háizi, which Xi Chuan writes as ⍋ᄤ but interprets as ᄽᄤ) to calling him “grand-
child.... grandchild.... grandchild....” (ᄭᄤ ‘grandson’). Its literal meaning aside, ᄭ
ᄤ is a term of abuse.
(^52) Haizi 1997: 129.