How did Chinese look at Mount Fuji in Edo Japan?

Only very few Chinese had chance to see Mount Fuji during the Edo period. Yinyuan was one of them. Another less known Chinese also saw Mount Fuji and even painted a picture. His name is Fang Ji 方濟, zi Xiyuan 西園. He was the associate shipmaster of the Chinese ship Yuanshun 元順 from Nanjing. The ship was drifted to Chikura千倉町 (in Chiba) in 1780 and Fang Ji saw Mount Fuji when he was escorted back to Nagasaki . It turned out that Fang was a well educated painter. This is perhaps the only Mount Fuji painting done by a Chinese. I included it in my book Leaving for the Rising Sun, p. 161.

Bill Porter's (Red Pine) Translation of Yinyuan's Poems

Bill Porter at University of Arizona Poetry Center, Sept. 23, 2013. Photo taken by Jiang Wu

 

Yinyuan is a very prolific poet. He wrote more than 5,000 poems in his life time. In my book, I translated a few. But translating poems is the least I want to do as a scholar because I lack the sensitivity of a good poem and my use of English vocabulary is clumsy. I asked my friend Bill Porter (比尔波特) to look at my translations. Bill has been translating Chan poems for decades under the name Red Pine. He re-translated all poems. Eventually, I adopted all his translations in my book. Here are the differences in one of Yinyuan's poems on Mount Fuji.

Bill Porter translation

Us both with white hair and me old besides

facing each other we think the same thought

I would say something deep but have nothing to say

I’m relying on you to keep this going forever

My translation

White head and an old man with white head,

Two of us face each other with the same thought.

I want to talk philosophy but have nothing to say,

Relying on you, my teaching propagates forever. (IGZS 8: 3746) 

Chinese original 

其二

白頭以及白頭翁，兩兩相看心事同。

我欲玄談無可說，借君一脈永流通。

Yinyuan and Mount Fuji

I have been exchanging emails with Prof. Yang Kuei-hsiang about Yinyuan and his love of Mount Fuji. I have a whole section in my book Leaving for the Rising Sun (page 159-162) to discuss this interesting connection. Yinyuan even built a miniature Mount Fuji in his court yard to enjoy the imagined landscape in his later years. 

I will write more about this. He wrote quite a few poems about Mount Fuji and here is one of them which I selected to put in my book, which he likened himself to the "white hair" Mount Fuji. I append the Chinese version below as well. 

Us both with white hair and me old besides

facing each other we think the same thought

I would say something deep but have nothing to say

I’m relying on you to keep this going forever

(IGZS 8: 3746) 

其二

白頭以及白頭翁，兩兩相看心事同。

我欲玄談無可說，借君一脈永流通。

錄自《隱元全集》第八卷第3746頁

Viewing Mount Fuji from my hotel in Shonan 湘南, 2011, Feb. 28-March 5

This hotel is 49.93 miles (80.36 km) from Mount Fuji according to Google Map. I left Japan four days before the great earthquake and tsunami.