270 chapter seven
education, a theme that recurs in Yu Jian’s poetry, by citing some of
the most hackneyed words a teacher can write down when marking
papers. There is no first-person singular in the poem, but since the
speaker’s perspective frequently overlaps with that of the host receiv-
ing the visitors we may speak of the protagonists’ self-portrayal in the
eyes of the host: as one of ordinary people, not heroes, in a type of self-
mockery that is indulgent rather than judgmental.
The passage that starts with normally three to seven ears will climb one
mouth combines a ludicrous instance of Yu’s imaginative attention to
objects with a vision of conversation as a wet, physical element whose
association with moist air or saliva bursting forth through the teeth
is obvious. From the conversation we return to the rain, through the
echo of the theme still lacks profundity in the next line: the rain is still fall-
ing. As the rain continues to fall, ominously, something starts to seep
through, and the only way to keep this something out is to start all
over again and talk about something else. Here, conversation becomes
human behavior intended to neutralize frightening manifestations of
the natural world. We encounter another instance of the realignment
of divergent experiential domains and the repetition of one word in a
variety of contexts: dry furniture dry marriages and so on. While the dry
things listed in this line and the next differ in experiential status—from
the institutionalization of human relationships to consumer items—
they are all plausible topics of informal conversation. Soon afterwards,
the poem ends:
it’s eleven sharp this is a normal time for parting the rules say we must all get
some sleep
the rain is secondary even if it rained any harder they’d still have to go home gone
now
the acquaintance and so-and-so open their umbrellas to produce a small dry spot
inside the rain
the rain keeps falling engaged in a different type of conversation with the earth
the earth responds sounds fall into the mud
disappear amid the roots of all thingsJust like the conversation, the guests’ arrival and their departure are
determined by conventional patterns: after dinner and at eleven pm,
respectively. This vision of social intercourse as entirely mechanical is
reinforced by the avuncular cliché that we must all get some sleep. In its
final few lines, after a vintage Yu Jian description of the function of