Let’s Build the Bridge
By Yang Wang
September 30, 2020
Month: September 2020
EAWLC Poetry Series: Decoding ‘Second Farewell to Cambridge’
Near the River Cam in Cambridge, King’s College set up a memorial garden for
Xu Zhimo, a pioneer of modern Chinese poetry who studied at King’s College in 1921-22. At the entrance to the garden, stands a white granite stone carved with the beginning and last lines of Xu’s most famous poem ‘Second Farewell to Cambridge’. Xu wrote the poem in 1928 after re-visiting the university. Three years later he died in an airplane crash at the age of 35. Xu was one of the prominent intellectuals who pushed forward the New Culture Movement in China around 1920’s. He wrote and promoted free verse poems and essays in vernacular Chinese, and was the first to introduce poetry works of western romantics to China. His marriages and love affairs with three renowned women controversially illustrates his life time goal of pursuing love, freedom and beauty. Under all this glamour, Xu is a learned scholar deeply influenced by both eastern and western cultures. Before he went to study at the University of Cambridge, he learned Laws at Peking University, graduated with a Bachelor’s degree from Clark University, Massachusetts, majoring in Political and Social Sciences with a minor in History, and did graduate studies in Economics and Politics at Columbia University. In 1925, Xu travelled to Moscow to observe the newly
established Soviet Union. He left with vivid accounts of his observations
and insightful reflections, many of his forecasts only to be Proven later by
the history. [1]-[3] Continue reading “EAWLC Poetry Series: Decoding ‘Second Farewell to Cambridge’”
EAWLC Poetry Series: The Introduction and Appreciation of Shih-Ching, the Classic of Poetry
About the Lecturer
George Liang loves literature, history, and philosophy. He reads and travels a lot, and enjoys writing traditional Chinese poems. He has given series of lectures on the Shih-Ching in his spare time. His profession is in the financial sector. A CPA and CGA since 2006, George has worked as an investment representative at RBC, a senior financial analyst at CIBC, the CFO at Bombay/Bowring, and currently a financial advisor at Edward Jones.