The Story of China's Greatest Poet - Li Bai 李白

[@johnbotsford6897]

I became acquainted with Li Bai's poetry in 1963 as a freshmen in college. A graduate student told be about the greatness of China and I didn't believe him. He lent me a book of Li Bai's poetry. I was hooked. I finally moved to China in 2022 (my 16th visit).

[@WashingmachineFlat]

Good to hear that! What city did you moved to?

[@johnbotsford6897]

@ Nanning

[@scottmoseley5122]

You sir are an inspiration. A lifetime learner. I would like to learn more of your story!

[@jenniethepoet]

I am so impressed that you memorized Li Bai’s poems and recite the story so well. Your accent is impeccable!

[@despinne]

I watched the series, Ming Dynasty, with subtitles. After I figured out who was who and what was going on, I went thru it again and looked up everything that was mentioned, including Liu Bai. There is so much history and legend woven into the story, I like your version of the poet. What I first found included the iconic poem, but you make the man real.

[@tantangpenn5496]

Ming poetry? Yu Qian? Kao Qi?

[@syncmaster915n]

Ming dynasty and Tang Dynasty are separated by 700 years, and Liu is different from Li. Are you sure you're talking about the same man as in this video?

[@tufsoft1]

花間一壺酒。 獨酌無相親。 舉杯邀明月。 對影成三人。 月既不解飲。 影徒隨我身。 暫伴月將影。 行樂須及春。 我歌月徘徊。 我舞影零亂。 醒時同交歡。 醉後各分散。 永結無情遊。 相期邈雲漢。 With no companion all alone I drink beneath the flowering trees Raising my cup, I call the moon She, with my shadow, makes us three But the moon can't stoop to drink And the shadow meekly copies me With the moon's light and the shadow's ink I seize the springtime and make free I sing my songs and moonbeams prance My shadow shatters in the dance We got on fine when the night was young But now I'm drunk the teamwork's gone Let's spin out these crazy days And meet at last in the Milky Way.

[@huelu982]

I mean seriously everyone in the ancient times were drunk, because they have nothing do

[@santiom5631]

​@@huelu982Of course life is not simple as in modern times, to make a fire one has to chop wood from trees etc, to make clothes women has to make cloth and seam, embroider etc. People drink because of the hardships of life !!

[@eb94499]

​@@santiom5631Li Bai came from a wealthy family from what I understand so the drinking was definitely a pleasurable past time for him

[@Zerpentsa6598]

Good translation.

[@tottidai6965]

​@@huelu982 If so, where do those colorful cultures come from? By drinking, or, sitting around?

[@Mar-enfrance]

Thank you for a very interesting video! Your chinese accent is excellent. ❤

[@anjelitamalik9763]

No wonder the Tang dinasty dramas have a lot of poetry in them. What an era!

[@tufsoft1]

床前明月光，疑是地上霜。 举头望明月，低头思故乡。 Before my bed a patch of light That seems like frost upon the ground I look up and the moon is bright Look down and think of my hometown.

[@Tyrhonius]

Actually 床 here means fence or railing and not his bed. The poet is gazing out at his yard or courtyard from his window.

[@lorettatang9643]

乖啦，仲記得如何唸🎉🎉

[@XuanDuanLe126]

I remember the first time I saw about Li Bai when you make this video 10 years ago 😊 Respect the great man Li Bai ❤❤❤

[@syzygy6769]

The reason the first recited poem about moonlight is so popular is because the words are simple and easy and the sentiment very relatable. The poem is short and of the simplest structure. It's therefore often the first poem for a child to memorize and recite. Li's poem are not flowery or full of difficult show-off words. He used simple easy words to exquisitely express a very high mental state and attitude towards life. The spirits are unmatched and inimitable which makes him the greatest poet in many people's mind. His contemporary Du Fu OTOH is appreciated for his pragmatism and compassion for the common people.

[@ahmedalarishi3913]

I extremely love your channel man, a very good place for someone who is new to Chinese culture to learn and explore the awesome history. Also, I love how this video connects to your other ones about the four beauties of China and about the poem thinking in a quiet night. Keep going please

[@jen720]

Your Chinese does not sound out of place. How nice !

[@diane2731]

This was wonderful. I didn't know how great the Tang dynasty was, nor Li Bai's poetry. I'm going to the library to see what they have.

[@jimmytaycs]

Great story. Well narrated.

[@okwatever3582]

《将进酒》is another one of his poem that solidified his alcoholic poet status 将进酒，杯莫停 “Bring in the wine, do not stop the cups from flowing.” 五花马，千金裘 “My fine steed and my luxurious fur coat worth a thousand gold coins,” 呼儿将出换美酒 “ trade them for fine wine,” 与尔同消万古愁 “Let us drink together and forget all the centuries old sorrows.” This reflects the idea of enjoying life kinda like carpe diem and letting go of material concerns.

[@zephyr84]

i LOL-ed at that AI image of Li Bai holding up a western wine glass to the moon instead of a wine vessel/bowl which would have been the norm then

[@litesp]

I love your story telling.

[@shadowphoenix8962]

That was one of your. Best,I tried to memorize. That first poem years ago from this channel.

[@learnchinesenow]

Right, that was a really popular video back in the day, I remember Wong Fu productions even linked to it from one of their vlogs

[@ChongLim-m3t]

It’s a great story. You described Li Bai’s death exactly as I remembered it. Can’t recall when or where or from whom I learnt it from though.

[@Ausijoeblow]

It’s from a 1980s HK series ?

[@minluo5617]

最喜欢他的《将进酒》，很小时候学了这首诗，性格为人都深受这首诗影响

[@gabrieleesposito7342]

Great content!!! Keep it up!!!

[@Marie-Hélène-p3f]

Great presentation.

[@ChingmayAnais]

Well done. Great narration! I loved it. I am a big fan of Li Bai.

[@Trieu-n3e]

Excellent !!! Thanks from Geneva

[@11syd]

Really enjoyed this video and that you spoke the poem to show how it would have been said. Thanks

[@fansizhe9997]

It a Great story!!!👍👏🏻👏🏻😍😍😍💖💝💝💝 I would Love to hear more….more Please!!!🙏🙏🙏🙏😍😍😍😍

[@richardong7742]

One should check out the Chinese animation movie ' ChangAn ' which covers his life. Brilliant animation to boot.

[@barestov4266]

Just found your channel and subscribed. What a fun way to learn about Chinese culture :)

[@andynightsky]

Wow! Love this content

[@ericaw709]

Wonderful presented . Thanks

[@mickkev]

Very well done!

[@lewispeh208]

it is very entertaining! keep it up!

[@jeraldbaxter3532]

Thank you!😊

[@volanabell8750]

I throughly enjoyed this story. I am on my way to China and hope to hear some of his poetry.

[@johnw817]

If you can find it, buy the book "Three Hundred poems of Tang" which has his work and many others' mentioned or not in this video.

[@yumiyumi7355]

Anyone who’s interested in Libai who hasn’t watched the movie 长安三万里 yet? 🫵

[@learnchinesenow]

I’ll check it out, thanks

[@Lillilone]

Your Chinese is great ❤

[@elizabethboyd4601]

Brilliant🥰

[@CyraNoavek]

Interesting and well done.

[@xiaodu87]

One of my favourites from him is 独坐敬亭傻。 众鸟高飞尽 孤云独去闲 相看两不厌 只有敬亭山

[@rhizobium]

I love these videos! Please could you consider doing a video on XuFu who was sent by the Qin emperor to search for the elixir of immortality and supposedly ended up in Japan?

[@lilianap7245]

I’m very grateful for your explanation ! Is simple, clear, everyone can understand the big picture and covers cultural differences. ❤ I wonder where I could find an antique store who can have classical Chinese literature , books affordable to everyone? Unfortunately I don’t speak Chinese yet , but I’m working on it.That means books must be in English , but some could be in Chinese, if are like that ones for children ( very simple language) …I could try to read them in one , two years . Thank you for your hard work! ❤

[@learnchinesenow]

Chinese Through Poetry by Archie Barnes is a great book to start with for a beginner. It is basically Tang poems starting 0 chinese ability

[@nwong6410]

君不见黄河之水天上来，奔流到海不复回。 君不见高堂明镜悲白发，朝如青丝暮成雪。 人生得意须尽欢，莫使金樽空对月。 天生我材必有用，千金散尽还复来。 烹羊宰牛且为乐，会须一饮三百杯。 岑夫子，丹丘生，将进酒，杯莫停。 与君歌一曲，请君为我倾耳听。 钟鼓馔玉不足贵，但愿长醉不愿醒。 古来圣贤皆寂寞，惟有饮者留其名。 陈王昔时宴平乐，斗酒十千恣欢谑。 主人何为言少钱，径须沽取对君酌。 五花马、千金裘，呼儿将出换美酒，与尔同销万古愁。

[@xingw9358]

A must watch movie - 长安三万里

[@Alan-megan]

LoL... I remember learning this poem but in Cantonese when I was 11yrs old!! I was thinking how it sounds in mandarin just a few weeks ago!! Famous in any Dialect I presume! 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 People who drink a lot yet productive have some form of mental disorders of some sort. Alcohol and other substances are often used to numb that roar in their head. Slight gut feeling tells me that Li Bai probably had manic disorder of some sort, adhd even. The meeting of Li Bai and Do Fu and the exchanges of ideas and knowledge has an uncanny resemblance to the relationship between Vincent Van Goh and Paul Gauguin! Van Goh himself was a bit nutty in the head and manic apparently. His hospital stays provides strong evidence of this. Another manic artistic painter is a Korean artist named Chi-hwa-seon! Another drunk apparently! Maybe I should start drinking more perhaps to see how well I can paint! 🤣🤣🤣🤣I strongly believe that he did die the way described! Many many drunks do actually die from drowning. Too drunk to swim to save their own lives, as the saying goes.

[@scsay7606]

Awesome

[@scipioafricanus4875]

I liked the humor in the story. Drinking and bragging about things he probably didn't do

[@johnsamu]

Most men become Superman when they're drunk 😉😉

[@PalmuserSavage]

Thank you for the brilliant presentation. I enjoy so much cuz it’s presented in English though I could understand Chinese as English is my stronger language.

[@parabolae]

If true, that story would be a most fitting death. Loved hearing his story.

[@bernardlim8442]

Following the recent popularity of sun wukong, pls talk about the Chinese deities, sun wukong, er lang shen, etc etc.

[@sopi713]

Can you tell us something about ancient weapons in China?

[@jsychu]

Thanks. I’m relearning Chinese especially Mandarin. Tang Dynasty 300 Poetry Book which contained Li Bao poems was from my primary school days. Strange to hear the poems in Mandarin 😂! Yes we were told he fell into the water trying to catch the moon!

[@zhangruyi3153]

Li Bai 李白 was called a jiu'xian 酒仙 a word now use to describe people who are addicted to drinking alcohol.

[@syzygy6769]

酒仙 is a very exalting term, an immortal who is a wine aficionado. An ordinary drunk is a jiugui 酒鬼，a drunken ghost. (Ghost does not always mean a spirit, but a derogatory term）

[@paulinewqi]

Think I can listen to you reciting LiBai's poems daily... Thanks so much for this video, will file away for reference ..👍👏.❤🌟🌸🪷

[@Shanlung9]

I had known of Li Bai via my wonderful tutors when I was in Taipei and had from them a flavour Guy could never have gotten or even known about. One of them got me to like this from Li Bai very much Japan & ME //Chuáng qián míng yuè guāng // Li Bai the GGLB extract from above Li Bai had another poem which is my personal favourite. With my own translation and intepretation which I hope will not make his bones roll over wherever they lay. 靜夜思 Jìng yè sī 床前明月光， Chuáng qián míng yuè guāng, 疑是地上霜。 Yí shì dì shàng shuāng. 舉頭望明月， Jǔ tóu wàng míng yuè, 低頭思故鄉。 Dī tóu sī gùxiāng. Reflections on a quiet night. In front of the bed the full moon shone bright, scattering on the floor like autumn hoarfrost with her light. Lifting my head I gazed at the full moon, Lowering my head, nostalgic thoughts flowed of family and times of my ancestral village. Since that was written for birdie friends and with little boys and girls, I refrained from adding what was told to me by another different tutor. She told me Li Bai loved fornicating as much as he loved wine and sword fighting. Li Bai would fuck about anything and everything, and his poems had double meanings such as the one above. He was on a bed with this beautiful lady and in the moonlight, her body was fair and white like autumn frost on the ground. He raised his head and eyes on her breasts, full and round like the moon. He lowered his head and eyes on her yoni , the ancestral place where man came from. I love this poem even more with the revelations from my wonderful tutor ( a bit more matured than the earlier one) Then we got distracted and lessons went to other directions.

[@ronnieastle1284]

Is your supervisor a AV supervisor? Destroying the Three Realms😂😂🤣🤣

[@jarethozb07]

What's the song @1:00 ? It's like an er hu instrumental, that's the generic "this is authentic Chinese" song.

[@chamorvenigo]

At 05:07, I was left hanging. Then, I realized why you didn't mention the other half. For those who don't know, it's a poem from a drinking man, so the expressions get progressively wilder until it climaxes (pun intended). 🤣

[@kevinlaw6191]

The dude is also an aggressive swordsman

[@albertoguerra6051]

Do one on 李賀

[@Tyrhonius]

The title of this video is unfortunately incorrect. Li Bai (i.e., the "Immortal Poet") and Du Fu (i.e., the "Sage Poet") are essentially considered equals in the Chinese tradition. That said, if you google "China's greatest poet" in Chinese (中國最偉大的詩人), Du Fu's is more likely to show up more often than Li Bai's. I think is because Chinese people can relate to Du Fu's poetry on a more fundamental level due to the pragmatic-oriented spirit of Chinese culture generally speaking. In sum, both are China's top tier poets, and whether you appreciate one more than the other completely depends on your own aesthetic tastes rather than the talent of the poets. Personally speaking, my favorite is Meng Haoran (孟浩然) whose poems are imbued with a distinct combination of purity and elegance that goes beyond the twin categories of romanticism and realism. Li Bai in fact highly revered Meng, opening even one poem with the sentence "I love Master Meng!" Du Fu and Wang Wei (whose name is often mention in unison with Meng) also eulogized Meng (was the eldest of the four) with touching poetry. FYI: In regards to the poem about Yang Guifei's beauty, the character 裳 was pronounced incorrectly as "chang" instead of "shang."

[@learnchinesenow]

Title is my opinion. I think Li Bai is the greatest

[@FreeSpeech181]

I wish you had Vietnamese subtitles too because translating Chinese into Vietnamese is 100% more correct than English, if not poetic.

[@WeAretheWorld89]

Very surprised to know he was from Central Asia Kyrgyzstan,

[@chuher4319]

Please do a story of Chiyou.

[@wilfordpadio1896]

Isnt he also called. The Liquor Sword Immortal?

[@JenHope118]

The Tang dynasty was a affluent country.

[@zhyi281008963]

当时世界第一

[@calebworden2993]

Could you do a video on Cotton Palm martial art

[@WayneGolding]

How about The Journey to the West?

[@umi-utena]

❤❤❤❤❤❤

[@bearpolo3618]

李白出身陇西李氏，出生于安西四镇之一的碎叶。

[@martinainscough9226]

Gazing At The Cascade On Lu Mountain Where crowns a purple haze Ashimmer in sunlight rays The hill called Incense-Burner Peak, from far To see, hung o'er the torrent's wall, That waterfall Vault sheer three thousand feet, you'd say The Milky Way Was tumbling from the high heavens, star on star Cheers.

[@SpeakingTheTruthsAndPeaceOut_V]

Who is really the better poet, Du Fu or Li Bai?

[@csking6377]

Both are great. Du Fu's poems are more thought provoking on political and social matters. Li Bai's are more romantic and sentimental. They were opposites in every way and rivals in poetry art. Yet they treasured each other very much. When Li Bai died, Du Fu mourned deeply for him and wrote poems to reflect his sorrow. Nowadays, we might categorise such a friendship as "bromance". Haha.

[@erfanyu902]

Du Fu's poetic art can be imitated and learned, but Li Bai's poetic art is natural and traceless.

[@enghockchua8230]

many modern days guys also become 万事通 once they drink, their knowledge suddenly increase when drunk and whoever talks the loudest wins.. LOL

[@sethmiller2864]

NB: The Simpsons clip predates the rise of "thirsty Thursday", a phenomenon indicative of the decline of American culture (that also ruins the joke). In the future, only expert American Dynasty Television scholars will be able to parse this.

[@leponpon6935]

🇹🇼 And China's greatest Rock musician? Wu Bai🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉~ & China Blue~

[@PomegranateChocolate]

My high school teacher said Du Fu was greater poet than Li Bai.

[@learnchinesenow]

I don’t agree

[@wooble73]

Tang poetry better recited in Cantonese

[@learnchinesenow]

係啊

[@PravdaSeed.96]

MagnificenT 🏳️Thanks 🏳️ 🤍☸ ☯ ☸🤍 & MarXisM & Merit☯cracy 💌🐉🇨🇳🐉💌 Wish 🧞i Was Chinese. 💌

[@marlonlo9661]

Oh my God! Protrait of a drunkard as a poet? I wonder how many of Shakespeare's plays had been created under the influence of Alcohol?

[@hauyitsai]

Omg,是低頭吃便當！！！

[@kingcrab750]

What's the connection between learning Chinese and earning credit card points and miles? Hmm.

[@learnchinesenow]

The points will get you to China…

[@leponpon6935]

Li Bai is also said to have blond hair and blue eyes and light skin. He's also mixed. He's not purely East Asian, though his father may be of Chinese paternity. Blonder hair than you, yes you Mr Narrator.

[@yamhweeyeo3089]

There is no such thing as the greatest this or that. Please. The best, is as always, yet to be. Your clip sucks because you discuss Li Bai though flawed a m e r i k a a n lenses.

[@princesendo8309]

Cover Tang Yin 唐寅

[@princesendo8309]

Cover Yue Fei

[@learnchinesenow]

Here you go kzbin.info/www/bejne/laiQqXmZjbaHnbMsi=0Vf8Nn2YlzKn3UJQ