The Chinese Mid-Autmun day comes on the fifteenth of July in Lunar Calendar. On this day in 1076 A.D., one of the greatest

poet, artist, writer, calligrapher and statesmen in Chinese history, Su Shi(Yeah I know it sounds like sushi) wrote the following poem.

At this moment, his cousin just left him after a visit for his government job. Su had been exiled from the center of politics and he was drinking and...

Su Shi was exiled because he wrote poems that contained words that were ruled out to be provocative. The question to the appearance of

bright moon reflected that he anticipated a just bureaucracy and hoped the supernatural power would direct the system towards justice. This

stereotypical passion towards a political status is the result of the thousand year old tradition of feudalistic Chinese society: if you have talent,

then you should go and become a politician.

Su Shi was involved in confronting bureaucracies who ruled in favor of government monopoly in the salt business. And confined by the old thinking

that a political career is more deserving than all other careers, Su Shi came into a complicated situation where his door into politics is closed

because of his own political stance. Therefore with the effect of alcohol, he fantasized dancing in a world without constraint.

Red chambers, curtained door, the sleepless, if you can feel it, are rhymes, and they describe the motion of the moonlight. He then blamed the moon

for being round at this moment when he and his cousin could not gather together. Some historians concluded that he had the capacity for being

arrogant, and this sentence in this poem might give a hint on his unjust feeling over his hardship.

The metaphor of moon’s waxing and waning is a very good illustration of his artistic beauty. In the end of this poem, he relieved himself by admitting

that sometimes things just don’t work out for himself. And his wishes at the end might refer to him and his cousin, but also could be extended to

a broader sense of self-relief to his hardship, thus showing his optimism at the very end.