The central stanza in the poem is framed by a couplet before and
one after it. The interaction of these two framing couplets with the
central stanza offers a touch of irony and pathos and compels us to
think beyond the physical setting described in the central stanza. The
crux of the poem hinges on the reversal of expectation brought about
in the last two lines. The poem seems to develop the voice of a return-
ing speaker addressing his (presumably a male) feelings toward his
lover. The final couplet, however, reveals that the speaker is just a
passerby, not the one who is returning. This reversal of expectation is
thrust upon the one presumed to be waiting, an erroneous belief that
is encapsulated in perhaps the most famous oxymoron in modern
Chinese poetry: “a lovely error” meili de cuowu. The error has been
concretized in both image and sound not by describing the reaction of
the person waiting, but by projecting it outward into the objective cor-
relative of what she sees and hears: “the clickety-clack of my horse’s
hooves” wo dada de mati. Why would this error be lovely? There are
two reasons for this, one literal and one allegorical: first, the case of
mistaken identity was based on a yearning for the one who is absent
and is thus an indication of the separation of two lovers; second, the
error therefore is also emblematic of the fracture of Chinese society, of
the diaspora in which the author finds himself, away from home and
unable to return, even though his thoughts for home endure. This per-
sistence is articulated through the allegory of a man returning home
from war or from traveling business, the sort of image one finds, for
example, in the “Nineteen Ancient Poems” W 十Y首. The notion of
alienation or exile is also manifested in the use of the verb “da” 打in
the first line—我打南—meaning “from.” The disconcerting
element here is that “da” is a colloquialism usually used in northern
China, yet here it pertains to a place in the south—an instance of
regional catachresis. That there is an abrupt shift in subject between
the two framing couplets and the central stanza, the subject in the
framing couplets being first person while in the central stanza it is
second person, accentuates the disorienting feeling of mistaken iden-
tity and the sense of deracination. The perplexing image of the “lovely
error” conjures notions of the political disjuncture of China after the
Communist Liberation as well as of the cultural discontinuity between
traditional Chinese literature and modern, notably with respect to
poetry. The articulation of this discontinuity in an innovative style of
verse signifies a new age of poetry in the Chinese language, a new
mode of expression even as the content of this expression spells exile.
Zheng Chouyu’s poetry is often described as being lyrical. But what
does it mean to be “lyrical”? Lyrical, from the word lyre, denotes
32 Christopher Lupke