주말에 마시는 한 잔의 시~~ “MASS FOR NANKING’S 1937” by Wing Chi Chan

                                                                         ( Wing Chi Chan)

 

MASS FOR NANKING’S 1937

Stanza I

The butcher–

hands on bone flipping,

boned through like combs,

every single park bloodied by gun,

knifed to cave after cave of wounding,

a Messiah’s frame, mad overturned thunder,

12-13-1937 for Japan in years of our memorization,

irrelevant pen it mini-civilized, year off civilization,

of an Emperor’s name, a flag turned blunder,

life under wave over wave of pounding,

below a darkened and wrinkle sun,

stone flown to bits by bombs,

a land in blood weeping–

The rupture.

Seven weeks,

thousands of hundreds,

even many minor, females,

a page of devil lines recalled–

Raped under chilled katana by a gang of killers.

The female-homed samurais’

Male deformed in volunteer.

Being shaped shielded agenda bang for healers,

stage for de civil signs scored–

junior/senior, not only males,

thousands of millions,

seventy years.

Weep,

with peers,

underground passion of rings,

pain never make past saddened alone,

moon’s cold long badly atoned a country,

emotion of the rape harked by map wrapping,

year 2007 torched against sin under global integrity.

Hear heaven’s vocal sincerity torching with dignity,

a nation to shape among marks of gap lapping,

wound’s old song sadly toned each entry,

an ever main pick for a heartened tone,

extra-sound of lotion on strings,

with no fears–

A rip.

Dears, thou unrested–

Let hearing renew: Tone to heal, stone peeled, thy tear sealed.

Dears, be rested.

Stanza II

Japan in years of memorization for nineteen thirty-seven,

pounding wave over wave of bombs/stones on life.

In name of Emperor, under the flag,

sun turned to wrinkle and dark.

Bone, after butcher’s hand,

flipping.

Weeping

blood upon ruptured land,

gun overturned each single park,

framed as Messiah, thunder of mad.

Wounding cave after cave, combed bones by knife,

pen it a year off civilization, mini-civilized be irrelevant.

Recalling lines of devil page:

Hundreds with thousands,

females, even de minors,

weeks for seven,

gang raped–

under de killers’ chilled katana.

Samurai homed from female,

volunteer deformed as male.

New healers’ shielded agenda:

Bang shaped–

Years for seventy,

females/males/seniors,

over millions of thousands,

scoring signs for a civil stage.

Global integrity torched against sin in two thousand seven.

By emotion, wrap up such map being harked of rape,

weep with peers for rings of passion underground.

A country atoned bad long by de cold moon,

saddened past never make de pain

alone.

Tone,

heartened pick thou an ever-main,

toned each entry of sad song off old wound.

Rip, with no fears, strings in lotion of extra-sound.

Of a nation, lapping over gap marked among shape,

vocal sincerity with torch accompanied a dignity up heaven.

Unrested thou dears–

We do hear: May our tone, peel the stone, seal thy tear.

Be rested, dears.
Note: Heading toward the 70th Anniversary of Nanking Massacre Memorial Concert, we, the American team, arrived in Nanjing on December 11 at 1 AM after a bus trip of five hours from Shanghai Airport. I got the score on the same day at 12 noon. Our twelve American singer teammates listened to the local orchestra (comprised of additional players from Korea, Russia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Macao and Taipei) and choir’s second rehearsal at 1 PM under MuHai Tang’s baton the same day on Dec 11. I waited until 4 PM to coach the first rehearsal for our American singer team — from reciting the romanized Chinese song text to running through the score and practicing by parts; I was completely relieved by 5:30 PM when we finished our first but only rehearsal. By that time, I knew we would be ready! Suddenly the accompanist student from Beijing pointed to our tenor teammate and said, “I got your DVD.” At this moment, I then realized that Thomas Young, a faculty of Sarah Lawrence College, came to sing with the local choir for this memorial concert without telling his soloist status as one of America’s three best known tenors. The first concert was doing fine on the 12th. By December 13, everybody voiced out fully moving on the stage. Together with Tang on the podium, I, as the choir conductor, thanked in tears under the audience’s repeated standing ovation. Returning to  hotel, I was not able to sleep while my ears were in echo of the first song that I learned from my father (who worked for The Flying Tiger in 1942)—“Defend The Yellow River”; I drafted a poem and continuously revised it that eventually expanded into a two-stanza “Mass”.

[December 13, 2007; revised in 2010]

(Chinese Version)

<金陵祭>

天涯咫尺祭金陵  簫管壓弦傾輓情

起板招魂冤不息  落紅離岸覓淒聲

그의 약력을 보면 그는 다재다능을 넘어선 21세기 예술의 극치를 다 방면에서 보여주고 있음을 본다.

Chan Wing-chi 陳詠智, a Washingtonian poet cum musician, is also an arts practitioner for global communities.

 

During his tenure as Development Director for the Washington, DC Youth Symphony Orchestra, he raised multi–millions to operate the Orchestra’s international tours to Europe and Asia. His artistic/cultural advisory spectrum has been crossing over the ocean, including serving as consultants for US National Endowment for the Arts, New Jersey and South Carolina Arts Commissions, D.C. Mayor’s Office, Jiangsu Provincial Performing Arts Group and China National Symphony; D.C. Commissioner for National & Communities Services; Project Director for Meet The Composer New Residencies Program; Vice President for Washington Symphony Orchestra’s Board; commentator for Canada Fairchild Radio and Voice of America; organizer for Asia Pacific Life Insurance Underwriters Association Conference, Aetna Sales Congress, Hong Kong New Youth Forum’s US Election observation tours, and Macao Youth Symphony Orchestra’s 2013 concert tour to the United States; adjunct professor of music at Green Mountain College in Vermont and Shenyang Conservatory of Music in China, as well as external examiner for Master’s thesis at New York University.

For his over twenty-five-year experiences being a professionally qualified interpreter for litigation of civil/criminal/domestic/immigration/patent/finance/traffic cases at the U.S. Department of Justice and federal/state courts, Chan has been admitted as expert witness for language and cultural analysis by the D.C. Superior, Michigan and Virginia Circuit Courts.

Chan presented academic papers on music and culture to various higher education institutions: Columbia University, Kingston Polytechnic University in London, Tenri University in Japan, Hong Kong University, Pennsylvania State University, University of District of Columbia, US Library of Congress, to name a few.  Chan’s Chinese poems and articles have been published under Hong Kong University Asian Study Center, Hong Kong Literature, Hong Kong Economic Journal, Mingpao Monthly, Master-Insight.com and various Chinese media.

In 2007, Chan, as choral conductor, took a team of twelve American vocalists to participate in a Memorial Concert for the 70th Anniversary of Nanking Massacre, which included Thomas Young, who has been praised as one of the best three American tenors today.

Chan had been honored of Supervisor Service Award by Mayor Marion Barry of Washington, D.C. in 1987, and for “Highly Recommended” at 2009 Tom Howard Poetry Contest; Chan’s name has been listed under Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in the World and Who’s Who in Finance and Business respectively since 1995.

Grateful to Wing-Chi Chan’s Confrontation For The 1937 Rape of Nanking

The 1937 rape of Nanking by the Japanese Imperial army is one of those historical events which defy linguistic modifiers; “tragedy” or “atrocity” do not approach the sadistic nihilism, the scale and scope, the wanton intensity of the horror. The cold anonymity of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki might be the flip side of such inhumation, but there is something so massively perverse, so hands-on about the Nanking horror that makes us wonder what kind of species we are part of.

Wing-Chi Chan’s poetic eulogy, Mass For Nanking’s 1937, is a courageous attempt to bring our senses to the charnel sensuality of the event. He applies his musician’s ear to the words his eye calls forth. Any such protracted monstrous event could only be imagined with a certain surreal dissonance, and that is what Wing-Chi has drafted for us. The poem moves from a calm and rational conception to an appropriately grotesque wildness. By the end of the first section to the poem’s end, his words join together in a logic only those dark places in our subconscious that we seldom peek into can parse. It asks, how does one face what one cannot bear to see?  But face these things we must if we are to excise them from human behavior. I am grateful to Wing-Chi Chan for the confrontation.

A. B. Spellman, Poet & Witness to Jazz.

Former Deputy Chairman, U.S. National Endowment for the Arts

 

*** 이 시를 읽으면서 내내 지난 78년전의 중국 난찡에서 있었던 일본 제국 주의 군대의 천인공노할 만행을 마치 생생하게 보는 느낌이 들었다. 여인들을 무참히 강간후 살해하고, 남자들은 그들의 여인들이 무참히 강간을 당하고, 사간을 당하는 장면들을 보면서도 아무것도 할 수 없었던 시간에 치를 떨다가 목이 잘려 나가는 형상, 그 수치와 굴욕의 영혼들이 떠 돌아 다니는 장면들이 보였다. 이 시는 시어의 배열의 비쥬얼화를 통한 시각적인 이미지를 청각적으로 유도하는 기능도 보여준다. 즉 파도가 일렁이는 것을 보면서 파도소리를 통해 지난 시간으로의 회귀성, 즉 타임머신을 타는 듯한 느낌을 준다. 두 개의 스탠자로 구성되어 있는 시로,

첫번째 스탠자에서는 일장기 아래서 쓰러져간 중국의 혼, 중국인들, 어른도 아이도 여자도 남자도 구분이 없이 죽임을 당해야 했던 암흑의 시간들을 보여주며, 두번째 스탠자에서는 지난 시간을 회상하는 70년전의 (2007년 기준 1937년 12월 13일) 그 날, 7주간 동안 행해졌던 일제의 극악무도한 만행들을 회상하면서, 그들의 영혼을 달래주는 치유의 시간들을 가져야 할 것을 권고하고 있다. 우리 모두 한 목소리로 인간의 존엄성을 향한 양심의 횟불을 높게 들어 천국에 있는 원혼들을 달래 주자는 시인의 목소리는 강하고, 맑고 깨끗하다. 지난 시절의 얼룩진 역사를 다시 세우는 일, 인간의 존엄성 회복을 위해 함께 하자는 그의 목소리가 깊게 배인 상처를 다독이고 있다.

이 시를 해석하고 분석하는 일을 하면서, 시가  품고 있는 뜻과 의도를 희석시킬까 우려되어 간단히 언급했다. 이 시를 포함해서 24편의 시가 담긴 시집이 곧 출간될 예정이다. 우리 모두, 중국, 한국, 베트남, 버어마, 필리핀, 그리고 네델란드, 싱가폴등 동남아의 모든 제 2차대전 일본제국의 희생국들은 한 목소리로 일본의 극악무도한 잔학행위에 대한 진정한 사과와 함께 그에 합당한 피해국과 패해자들을 향한 배상이 있어야 한다. 이 시에 대한 시평에 A. B. Spellman 전 미 예술 기금의 총 사무국장은 “챈씨의 용감한 시도, 가장 힘들었던 암울한 시대를 시적인 언어로 구상화 하므로서 인간으로서 차마 볼 수 없었던 잔혹함을 초 현실주의적 미적 언어로 승화시키므로서 비인간적인 굴욕의 삶을 인간애로 회귀,  극복하려는 의도로 이해한다.” 고 말했다.

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