Obsession with gadgets blinds us to the wonder of nature
- By Wan Lixin
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E-mail Shanghai Daily, May 27, 2015
Commending the classical work "Shijing" (The Book of Songs), Confucius observed that the ancient book was vital to "familiarize a learner with the names of birds, animals, grass and trees."
According to research by a scholar in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) the book contains references to 37 species of grass, 17 varieties of herbal medicine, 43 kinds of trees, 24 sorts of grains and 38 types of vegetables.
Many songs in the book reflect a time when human life was slower, more deliberate and mindful; when existence was spent in intimacy with the world's flora and fauna.
At the beginning of another Chinese literary masterpiece "The Dream of Red Mansions" the story starts with another kind of plant which, having imbibed "the essences of heaven and earth and the nourishment of rain and dew ... cast off its plant nature and took human form, albeit only that of a girl" (in Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang's translation).
Synthetic landscapes
Later, one of the most poignant scenes in the novel is the burial of fallen flowers by the heroin Lin Daiyu.
I can't imagine what a new generation of home-bound children would think of such scenes. Indeed, last weekend when I mentioned books in the presence of some children gathered at my home, I felt as if I had made a serious faux pas.
Nature has a lot to teach us.
For those with the imagination to see it, all of the mysteries of life and fertility can be seen in a single blade of grass. There are so many lessons to learn from watching how, by gradual accretions, a sapling grows into a giant tree that could outlive us all.
Alas, in modern times, a towering tree appears so insignificant amid a jungle of skyscrapers. And rather than marveling, as the poet William Blake did centuries ago, at the "immortal hand or eye" that frames the fearful symmetry of a tiger in the forests of night, we admire the chains and the cage which confine toothless beasts in our zoos.
Nature is no longer something to marvel at, but something to be tidied, managed, trimmed, pruned and purged. We take great pride in our ability to discipline trees and shrubs, and our ability to trim them into pleasing shapes and patterns. We love lawns more than big trees, for a manicured lawn depends on us for irrigation, fertilization and pest control.
City folks no longer have the patience for a tree to grow up or a flower to bloom. At a small price we can simply have them transplanted long distance from elsewhere for our amusement. In a sense, what we refer to as nature is a nature of synthetic landscapes, carefully managed and engineered the way one would arrange a window-display.
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