In the original Chinese, and also translated especially for openDemocracy by Ho Chee Lick, a poem by one of China’s finest women poets, Lew Poo Chan.
About the author
Lew Poo Chan is better known by her pen name, Dan Ying, under which she has published poetry to great acclaim since 1966, when her first collection, Farewell, A Long Farewell, was published in Taiwan. She has won numerous literary prizes, including the National Book Development Council of Singapore (NBDCS) Book Award for Poems of Taiji, and for Time Passing Through My Hair. Her work has also appeared in many anthologies, and she is currently lecturer at the National University of Singapore.
How I feel about dyeing hair and watching sunsets
both have to do with how I feel about time passing
The former is particularly intricate
The sun has no choice
must go down on time
Hair can be dyed, or not dyed
To fight against time, dye it
Or don’t dye it – just accept fate
Last radiance, the setting sun sprays
beautiful blood with all its might
over floating clouds in the sky
My heart, filled with pity and grief
My shining black hair, suddenly
covered with light frost and snow
How should I feel?
Frightened, then
Fearful? then
Sad – hastily discarded, left far behind
by youth?
So in middle age, unless I
shaved my head of all worldly worry
Dare I let my mottled appearance
greet your bright piercing eyes?
Affectionate and loving though you remain
Could I face in my mirror my sorrow and fear
every morning, every night?
Ponder and delay, delay and ponder
I decide at last to wake
and dye my greying age
into a soaring youthful colour
to deceive all the mirrors in this world…
The sun, setting or not
will concern me no more
It is said that once hair is dyed, its quality changes and there are other side-effects as well. Therefore, for a long time I dared not risk dyeing my hair. Nonetheless most of my friends at my age had beautifully dyed black hair and I envied them very much. After considerable hesitation, I finally decided to have my hair dyed – in exchange for temporary youth.
Translated by Ho Chee Lick, and with thanks to Tom McGrenery for writing up the Chinese
Harmony by Lin Jing Jing
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is deputy editor of openDemocracy.
He has written textbooks on human rights and terrorism, and was a contributor to Town and Country (Jonathan Cape, 1998). His work has been published in PN Review,
the Irish Times, El Pais, the Iran Times International, the Canberra Times, the Scotsman, the New Statesman and The Absolute Game.
