Mary Jo Kelly Wilhelm's
Storyfest Review of Travel & Pilgrimage Books - # 9
Silent Traveller in Dublin
Chinese Calligraphy; An Introduction to Its Aesthetic and Technique
Silent Traveller in San Francisco
by Chiang Yee
“I am but a silent traveller,” Chiang Yee said. “In my books, I record my impressions and experiences, in words and in paint, preserving so far as my powers permit, the mood and feeling of the occasion. This is the Ching-hua-shui-jueh, reflecting the flower in the mirror or the moon on the water. Flowers fade, the moon wanes, but the reflections were real while they lasted. It is experiences no more substantial than this that I seek to describe.”
And so the Silent Traveller had moved silently through London, Oxford, Edinburgh, New York, and the Yorkshire Dales, making sketches in words and in pictures. Silence is good advice for all of us travellers, reminding us to move quietly through the world, observing what is. Chiang observed; he did not act. He compared; he did not judge. In his book, he quoted poetry, sang songs, remembered ancient Chinese saying, recited stories from the old Irish legends.
This particular book concerned his record of his time in Dublin. He was a lively, if quiet, guest of the Earl and Countess of Longford. For the most part he stayed at their city home in Dublin but on occasion he traveled to Castlepollard in Westmeath, where Pakenham Hall, the Longfords’ country house lay. “But most of the time I spent in the city by myself.”
Mr. Yee went often to Trinity Library but could not find the Book of Kells. When he did, he was disappointed for he could not understand the one page displayed. He asked a friend at the Bodleian Library in Oxford for help. The English librarian sent a book on The Book of Kells by Sir Edward Sullivan, Bart. Then, after reading, Yee compared this highly developed Irish illuminative art of great antiquity to Chinese calligraphy. Chinese calligraphy was a subject he was familiar with for he had, he modestly told us, “Written-The-Book-On-It.” (Chinese Calligraphy; An Introduction to Its Aesthetic and Technique)
Yee concluded that Irish businessmen should use the designs on Irish products. “Customers would be delighted,” he opined. In this he was prophetic, for now the number of tourist items with these Celtic designs is legion.
He wrote, “What fascinated and intrigued me most of all was the inimitable yet profuse patterns of the smaller illuminated initials.” And there, at the bottom of Chapter Three, I saw a design. The caption read simply “My name.” I looked more closely. There, he had written his name, Chiang, in a Celtic design with little dots around the “C” of his name, and Celtic knots in profusion.
The Irish maid of the Countess stopped him and asked, “Do you remember me? I was here when you last visited.” She then, of course, told him the tragic tale of her life since last they met. It was the Irish maid who told him how to find the bird market. “Must be near Bride Street,” she said.
So he set off. Dubliners give him clues and he moved through the Dublin streets to a place “without Georgian Doorways,” which is to say, a seedier side of town. In the corridor of a house, he finds the bird market, which seemed to him more a show, than a market. The birds displayed were chaffinches and goldfinches, birds known for their colorful feathers.
But he found the people staring at him, not the birds, and it occurred to him that he, with his Chinese features, was a rare bird. And he began to laugh and then all joined in. It was a delightful moment. Indeed, it is a delight to share humor, even at one’s own expense, among foreigners.
He compared the bird market to the ones he remembered in China. In Dublin, the birds with pretty plummage were displayed in cages on the wall. In China, he and his grandfather would walk a mile to the woods with their cage-birds. There they met their friends who also had cage-birds. They would hang the cages from trees, and all the birds would sing.
Then he reflected on the nature of birds and compared them to humans. He admonished us to be modest, lest our beauty or our song cause us to be placed in a cage. The Chines proverb is “Showiness invites trouble; modesty has advantages.” His pen and ink sketch of the bird market on Bride Street itself is modest, yet bring to life a time and place probably long gone.
When bothered by people who want to chat, (which probably happened a lot in Dublin) Mr. Yee felt inclined to tell them tartly, “I am the silent traveller.” He is clear about his identity. He is quiet, observant, artistic.
One day he was accosted in the park by a man who wanted to sell him a nude picture. Mr. Yee went to great lengths to avoid him. Finally he went to the National Gallery of Art. There, he philosophized on Confucianism and its moral principles. Nudity had never been a subject for Chinese art. And having this conversation with himself about morality, he found himself unable to concentrate on the portraits before him. And when he returned home on the bus, there was the “Artist of Nudes” to greet him again. The Silent Traveller rushed away, guarding his peace.
The Silent Traveller knew what his subjects were. “Landscapes, birds and flowers were my favourite subjects for painting.” He rendered these in his sensitive watercolors which are silent treasures on sixteen separate plates of the book. The water colors set a mood, an imposition of Chinese sensibility upon the Celtic scene.
The pen and ink sketches captured real people: chatting on a doorstep, snoozing on a bench, going to the theatre. He captured children playing marbles, women shopping in open markets, men in black suits hurrying home in the night. One showed the priest in his soutane and beretta passing boys playing marbles outside the Old Wall and in the distance are the caravans of the Travelling People.
This is such a pleasing book. Beauty abounds. Images are so artistically articulated that my memory of Dublin is altered.
Mr. Yee went to see Playboy of the Western World for the first time in 1938 at the Abbey Theater in Dublin. The play by John Millington Synge confused and upset him for the hero claimed to have killed his father. Filial piety is the central principle of Confucianism.
The second time he saw the play was in London during the war and the play was received by that audience as a farce. He realized that contemporary ideology distorted feelings, just as his Confucian upbringing had done in 1938.
And so, he went for a third time, this time in 1948, to the Abbey Theater. In the theater’s foyer, he “made slight bows before the portraits of the great figures of the Irish drama who had created the Abbey Theatre tradition. The foyer felt rather like a shrine. I wanted to put my mind in a state of receptiveness and humility for the drama I wished to understand.”
What a model of the state of receptiveness and humility when we need to confront peculiarities in other cultures! May we bow before the portraits of the artists of other lands in whatever their guises.
Finally, Mr. Yee had read in a book called Irish Tales of the Fairies and the Ghost World by Jeremiah Curtain that a plant grew in Ireland which possessed the power to ward off evil enchantments and prevent one from being a fool And he wanted this magic plant. So he went to the Botanical Gardens at Glasnavina and found many plants of Chinese origin. However, he never did find the four leaf clover which he had sought. He said, “I emerged in as much danger of being a freak or a fool, or both, as when I went in.” Rather, in his humility and humor, he emerges from the pages of this book as neither freak nor fool, but as a very wise and playful companion
Mike Robartes owns the independent bookstore, Four Seasons, in Shepardstown, WV. Our book reading group meets here monthly. As we discuss our book, my eye meanders along the shelves of second-hand books, looking for gems. And so my eye fell on this book. So beautiful, I could not resist. When I paid for the book, Mike said that the books by Chiang Yee were very popular for a period of time. Though they are no longer in print, there are many copies of his books in circulation. They always move quickly from second hand bookshelves. I recommend them if you find them.
Two of Chiang Yee's books are available: Chinese Calligraphy; An Introduction to Its Aesthetic and Technique and Silent Traveller in San Francisco. Having lived in San Francisco for many years, I am eager to read this book myself.
The Silent Traveller in Dublin. Chiang Yee. The John Day Co. NY1953
Copyright©2000 Mary Jo Kelly Wilhelm
ORDER INFORMATION
Order Yee's Chinese Calligraphy Today!
Order Yee's Silent Traveller in San Francisco Today!
The Silent Traveller in Dublin is out of print, but can be special ordered from my favorite bookstore, "
" owned by Michael & Ruth Raubertas and located in historic Shepherdstown, West Virginia.
Index to Mary Jo Kelly Wilhelm's Reviews of Travel & Pilgrimage Books
Kelly with her nephews Emmett and Brendan
Kelly Wilhelm Welcomes Your Comments on this Review of The Silent Traveller in Dublin. Please send an e-mail from here.
Come Back Next Month for Kelly's Next Review
Storyfest Review of Travel & Pilgrimage Books - # 9
Chinese Calligraphy; An Introduction to Its Aesthetic and Technique
Silent Traveller in San Francisco
by Chiang Yee
“I am but a silent traveller,” Chiang Yee said. “In my books, I record my impressions and experiences, in words and in paint, preserving so far as my powers permit, the mood and feeling of the occasion. This is the Ching-hua-shui-jueh, reflecting the flower in the mirror or the moon on the water. Flowers fade, the moon wanes, but the reflections were real while they lasted. It is experiences no more substantial than this that I seek to describe.”
And so the Silent Traveller had moved silently through London, Oxford, Edinburgh, New York, and the Yorkshire Dales, making sketches in words and in pictures. Silence is good advice for all of us travellers, reminding us to move quietly through the world, observing what is. Chiang observed; he did not act. He compared; he did not judge. In his book, he quoted poetry, sang songs, remembered ancient Chinese saying, recited stories from the old Irish legends.
This particular book concerned his record of his time in Dublin. He was a lively, if quiet, guest of the Earl and Countess of Longford. For the most part he stayed at their city home in Dublin but on occasion he traveled to Castlepollard in Westmeath, where Pakenham Hall, the Longfords’ country house lay. “But most of the time I spent in the city by myself.”
Mr. Yee went often to Trinity Library but could not find the Book of Kells. When he did, he was disappointed for he could not understand the one page displayed. He asked a friend at the Bodleian Library in Oxford for help. The English librarian sent a book on The Book of Kells by Sir Edward Sullivan, Bart. Then, after reading, Yee compared this highly developed Irish illuminative art of great antiquity to Chinese calligraphy. Chinese calligraphy was a subject he was familiar with for he had, he modestly told us, “Written-The-Book-On-It.” (Chinese Calligraphy; An Introduction to Its Aesthetic and Technique)
Yee concluded that Irish businessmen should use the designs on Irish products. “Customers would be delighted,” he opined. In this he was prophetic, for now the number of tourist items with these Celtic designs is legion.
He wrote, “What fascinated and intrigued me most of all was the inimitable yet profuse patterns of the smaller illuminated initials.” And there, at the bottom of Chapter Three, I saw a design. The caption read simply “My name.” I looked more closely. There, he had written his name, Chiang, in a Celtic design with little dots around the “C” of his name, and Celtic knots in profusion.
The Irish maid of the Countess stopped him and asked, “Do you remember me? I was here when you last visited.” She then, of course, told him the tragic tale of her life since last they met. It was the Irish maid who told him how to find the bird market. “Must be near Bride Street,” she said.
So he set off. Dubliners give him clues and he moved through the Dublin streets to a place “without Georgian Doorways,” which is to say, a seedier side of town. In the corridor of a house, he finds the bird market, which seemed to him more a show, than a market. The birds displayed were chaffinches and goldfinches, birds known for their colorful feathers.
But he found the people staring at him, not the birds, and it occurred to him that he, with his Chinese features, was a rare bird. And he began to laugh and then all joined in. It was a delightful moment. Indeed, it is a delight to share humor, even at one’s own expense, among foreigners.
He compared the bird market to the ones he remembered in China. In Dublin, the birds with pretty plummage were displayed in cages on the wall. In China, he and his grandfather would walk a mile to the woods with their cage-birds. There they met their friends who also had cage-birds. They would hang the cages from trees, and all the birds would sing.
Then he reflected on the nature of birds and compared them to humans. He admonished us to be modest, lest our beauty or our song cause us to be placed in a cage. The Chines proverb is “Showiness invites trouble; modesty has advantages.” His pen and ink sketch of the bird market on Bride Street itself is modest, yet bring to life a time and place probably long gone.
When bothered by people who want to chat, (which probably happened a lot in Dublin) Mr. Yee felt inclined to tell them tartly, “I am the silent traveller.” He is clear about his identity. He is quiet, observant, artistic.
One day he was accosted in the park by a man who wanted to sell him a nude picture. Mr. Yee went to great lengths to avoid him. Finally he went to the National Gallery of Art. There, he philosophized on Confucianism and its moral principles. Nudity had never been a subject for Chinese art. And having this conversation with himself about morality, he found himself unable to concentrate on the portraits before him. And when he returned home on the bus, there was the “Artist of Nudes” to greet him again. The Silent Traveller rushed away, guarding his peace.
The Silent Traveller knew what his subjects were. “Landscapes, birds and flowers were my favourite subjects for painting.” He rendered these in his sensitive watercolors which are silent treasures on sixteen separate plates of the book. The water colors set a mood, an imposition of Chinese sensibility upon the Celtic scene.
The pen and ink sketches captured real people: chatting on a doorstep, snoozing on a bench, going to the theatre. He captured children playing marbles, women shopping in open markets, men in black suits hurrying home in the night. One showed the priest in his soutane and beretta passing boys playing marbles outside the Old Wall and in the distance are the caravans of the Travelling People.
This is such a pleasing book. Beauty abounds. Images are so artistically articulated that my memory of Dublin is altered.
Mr. Yee went to see Playboy of the Western World for the first time in 1938 at the Abbey Theater in Dublin. The play by John Millington Synge confused and upset him for the hero claimed to have killed his father. Filial piety is the central principle of Confucianism.
The second time he saw the play was in London during the war and the play was received by that audience as a farce. He realized that contemporary ideology distorted feelings, just as his Confucian upbringing had done in 1938.
And so, he went for a third time, this time in 1948, to the Abbey Theater. In the theater’s foyer, he “made slight bows before the portraits of the great figures of the Irish drama who had created the Abbey Theatre tradition. The foyer felt rather like a shrine. I wanted to put my mind in a state of receptiveness and humility for the drama I wished to understand.”
What a model of the state of receptiveness and humility when we need to confront peculiarities in other cultures! May we bow before the portraits of the artists of other lands in whatever their guises.
Finally, Mr. Yee had read in a book called Irish Tales of the Fairies and the Ghost World by Jeremiah Curtain that a plant grew in Ireland which possessed the power to ward off evil enchantments and prevent one from being a fool And he wanted this magic plant. So he went to the Botanical Gardens at Glasnavina and found many plants of Chinese origin. However, he never did find the four leaf clover which he had sought. He said, “I emerged in as much danger of being a freak or a fool, or both, as when I went in.” Rather, in his humility and humor, he emerges from the pages of this book as neither freak nor fool, but as a very wise and playful companion
Mike Robartes owns the independent bookstore, Four Seasons, in Shepardstown, WV. Our book reading group meets here monthly. As we discuss our book, my eye meanders along the shelves of second-hand books, looking for gems. And so my eye fell on this book. So beautiful, I could not resist. When I paid for the book, Mike said that the books by Chiang Yee were very popular for a period of time. Though they are no longer in print, there are many copies of his books in circulation. They always move quickly from second hand bookshelves. I recommend them if you find them.
Two of Chiang Yee's books are available: Chinese Calligraphy; An Introduction to Its Aesthetic and Technique and Silent Traveller in San Francisco. Having lived in San Francisco for many years, I am eager to read this book myself.
The Silent Traveller in Dublin. Chiang Yee. The John Day Co. NY1953
Copyright©2000 Mary Jo Kelly Wilhelm
ORDER INFORMATION
Order Yee's Chinese Calligraphy Today!
Order Yee's Silent Traveller in San Francisco Today!
The Silent Traveller in Dublin is out of print, but can be special ordered from my favorite bookstore, "
" owned by Michael & Ruth Raubertas and located in historic Shepherdstown, West Virginia.
Index to Mary Jo Kelly Wilhelm's Reviews of Travel & Pilgrimage Books
Kelly with her nephews Emmett and Brendan
Kelly Wilhelm Welcomes Your Comments on this Review of The Silent Traveller in Dublin. Please send an e-mail from here.
Come Back Next Month for Kelly's Next Review