The Interview Into Understanding

            On a Sunday evening, where it's warm, breezy and calm outside, I sit across from my dad at the kitchen table. Getting ready for the interview, while my dad reads the poem, and I finalize my questions, I feel the breeze through the kitchen window, listen to the birds sing, and watch the sun slowly depart from sight, reaching the horizon. I look at my dad sitting at the kitchen table with my questions in hand and my iPhone in the other for recording. The lighting is a clear, cream white from the lights above our heads. A distant yellow emits from the lowering sun, and the room around us gives a slight brownish red glow from the sunlight on the cherry wood of the kitchen. The air of the room is pleasant, not too hot nor cold to bring attention, but a nice comfortable temperature, with no particular smells. My mom goes upstairs so my dad and I can have a private and quiet interview, just the two of us. We are both wearing short sleeved shirts and shorts, with no shoes on. We have the poems in front of us on our computers, to read and analyze as we go. My dog walks around to greet us, lying on the floor shortly afterwards, and sometimes he prances to his water bowl for a drink. Everything about the setting is casual, peaceful, and relatively quiet, besides the shaking of the leaves from the breeze, the singing of birds off and on, my dog moving and drinking, and the sound of me and my dad's voices. There is no reason to have asked for a better setting for the interview, nor could there have been. I am somewhat tired from over-sleeping and staying up late during the weekend, but am also awake enough to comprehend the analysis that will be discussed during our interview. I ask my dad when he'll be ready, in which he says, "Now". I take a drink of water, look outside one last time, and click 'record' on my iPhone−and so the interview starts.

            I start with the general questions, one to get his feedback and potentially some analysis without mine as well. I ask my dad, who had never read the poem before, first and simply, "What was your reaction to the poem?" He quickly says, "It reminds me of Robert Frost's poem The Road Not Taken, where he talks about the idea of the fork in the road, and the journey of life and the paths you choose to take. I have read a lot of poems with similar themes!" Already I have learned a reference to the poem, in which delights me to keep the interview process going. He says he likes the poem, and that he thinks it is very good. He finds a few elements of the poem "mystifying" in his words, but understands many of the same elements that I myself analyzed. The part of the poem that stood out most to him were the lines: "But I suddenly dream of riding a boat, sailing for the sun.../ Journeying is hard,/ Journeying is hard" (Bai 10-12). Not only are they his favorite lines of the poem, but he thinks they are a big part to ending the frustration he is in throughout most of the poem, until the end. When I ask him what confused him throughout the poem, he said the one part that was confusing was the mention of a dagger. He also says the first four lines are awkward compared to the rest of the poem, but he realizes after reading it through again that they are just setting the scene. He notes that it may be setting the scene of where Li Bai is during the poem literally, or that the lines are to mention the things in life one needs and finds pleasure from, such as money (in this case riches), food, and drink. After hearing this and about to move on to my questions, I tell him about Bai's life. How he's a Taoist, his love for wine and wandering−which he finds passion in both− and important things and events in his life that inspired him to write the poetry that he did. I then proceed into my analytic questions, in which takes up most of the interview.

            I begin by asking, "Do you notice his suffering in the beginning, and how do you notice this?" My dad hesitates, knowing the answer but trying to find a specific example. He then replies "Yes, and it shows in the line 'I fling aside my chop-sticks and cup, I cannot eat nor drink...', because now the simple pleasures of life give him no happiness" I agree with him, and would have said that if he had not thought of it as well. I know that most of the interview will not be debate, but rather discussion with much agreement. But then he adds the line with the dagger, and that's when we are both curious. It's clear it's something of suffering, but not what it means. I ask, "Do you think it is a thought of suicide from his suffering, or do you think it is to attract attention by showing off his swordsmanship?" Again my dad hesitates to answer, because now he sees it in a different way from my question. I tell my dad that I thought he could be showing off his swordsmanship because in other translations of the poem, it is a sword rather than a dagger, and Bai was a great swordsman. He tells me that the symbol of a sword and dagger is completely different, a sword being used in an honorable fight, and a dagger for suicide or murder. I tell him that I agree, but the word 'vain' used to describe how the character looks in each direction, has two definitions: either being egotistical or of uselessness/hopelessness. He tells me in context it definitely means he's in frustration or is hopeless, in which now I only see the line in one way. My dad originally doesn't think of the line as a thought of suicide, but just a symbol to regard his depression, but when I ask him if it could be related to suicide, he agrees. Now we both only see it in one way. Whether it's a direct thought of giving up on life, or just showing his depression, the expressed sadness is unmistakable in the line. Then we move on to a few other questions, where we both are in total agreement, not confused or questioning any element or line that we're analyzing. "Do you think his inability to journey to the Yellow River and Tai-hang Mountains is literal, metaphorical, or both?" He says, "Both." I ask him if he thought Bai used the words of suffering 'chokes' and 'blind' when describing nature's obstacles because it is the direct metaphor to the "choking and blinding" of himself and his heart, in which he says yes and totally agrees. So we move on to the lines "I would sit and poise a fishing-pole, lazy by a brook −/But I suddenly dream of riding a boat, sailing for the sun..." (Bai 9-10). Again we come back to our favorite line, the image of sailing for the sun, but it is also important to contrasting the fishing scene. We talk about what this means for a few minutes, and we agree that it could be, again, literal and metaphorical, but the purpose of the writing is to be metaphorical. Bai is saying that he could live the relaxing life, and be lazy, living a lifestyle he knows is good, thus the lazy fisherman sitting by a brook. But he is not that kind of person, he cannot sit still, only experiencing one part of the world, he has to wander and try to experience as much of life as he can endure, and take his journey. His dream could say that he wants to sail at sea, following the sun at day, to be lost at sea, taking a literal journey of wandering. But what he is trying to get across is he has to take his life journey, by possibly journeying, and experiencing it all. My dad states, "He does not want to live the easy life and take the 'Easy Road' but he wants to take the 'Hard Road' instead, hence the name of the poem." I had not thought of this before surprisingly, until he said this, which I then understood the title's simplicity and meaning.

            The line that mentions the 'fork in the road' or the multiple paths to follow in one's journey is: "There are many turnings −" (Bai 13). My dad and I talk about this and its importance, but we both agree that it is Bai stating the many paths one can follow in the journey of life. Whether it's the path of no suffering, only suffering, or a balance between both, the right path he must take is the one of balance. We also agree that after he questions which path to follow, or which 'turning', that he becomes optimistic and sees the beautiful mystery of life waiting for him, and that he must choose how to find it. I then ask him about the meaning of the last two lines. Knowing Bai's Taoist background, finding peace with nature and being with the world, I ask my dad if he thinks the last two lines show his aspirations of being with nature again, wandering, and facing the challenges life has to throw at him, in which my dad agrees once again. He says it all ties in with him saying that "Journeying is hard" but he would rather face the world and truly see it rather than only live a part of what the world has to offer. We also both say that after he realizes the life waiting for him in the world is worth the journey basically, that he comes out of his abyss during the rest of the poem before the end. Still debating if he was thinking of suicide or just in a vain depression, he clearly is in his abyss during the poem, not finding pleasure in anything, only thinking of what is preventing him to do the things he wants, and questioning life indirectly. But becoming optimistic and full of hope and desire again shows that he was in an abyss during most of the poem, and he comes out of it at the end. After we talk about the abyss, we refer back to the circle of Sansara in Siddhartha, where one's life has many rebirths, multiple lives and deaths in one cycle until enlightenment. My dad says with confidence that this poem tells about him being reborn. I agreed, understanding it in a new way that I hadn't thought about so much as then. Then I mention the line "And set my cloudy sail straight..." (Bai 16). I ask if the word choice of 'cloudy' refers to the expression of the 'clouded mind', and Bai has to set his sail, or what would be his mind, heart and soul, straight again. My dad couldn't have agreed more, and says the scene Bai writes could be a literal future for Bai, but the word choices of a "cloudy sail" or "mount a long wind" suggest the metaphor more so than a literal possibility. Finally, I ask, "Do you think the last phrase 'and bridge the deep, deep sea' represents overcoming and facing all of life such as: the world, nature, society, Self, etc?" From this, my dad gives me a ten minute explanation, agreeing with me, but also elaborating to such a point where I can't even begin to quote something he said that would cover everything he covered. He tells me about all the water imagery in the poem, from the drinking of wine, to the ice covered river, to the snow, to the brook, riding a boat, and the heavy waves and the "deep, deep sea". This out of everything he analyzed with me stood out to me the most, because this was the one thing I had not thought about. I was always paying attention to Bai's journey, his feelings, settings, metaphor, and every other element of the poem, but I never took into consideration the amount of water imagery in the poem, and its importance. In a way, with everything water symbolizes, it is the underlying theme of the poem. My dad notices that the water represents the intensity of each scene that it's used in. Wine, being of water, is like a 'drugged water' and is water that needs to have alcohol for Bai to enjoy, yet he doesn't even enjoy that at the time. The water is in a way poisoned, as is his heart. Then the choking ice and the blinding snow are violent forms of water, preventing his journey and affecting nature. Then the brook, the calmest, most peaceful form of water, is represented in the scene where he describes a lazy fisherman, at peace. Then sailing the waves at sea is a rough water to be on, but is still full of life, and this represents balance, and the path he must take. At the end of the interview, he then told me another interpretation of his on the poem. He considered my thoughts on Bai thinking of suicide, and he saw the poem in a darker way. He told me sailing for the sun could also be a depiction of his boat 'sailing' to heaven, to the sun in the sky. Also, that Bai saying "Journeying is hard" could be him stating that he finally gets how hard it is, and that dying would be an option of less suffering. He goes on with other analysis on his other way of looking at it, but thanks to my dad, I now have two ways of seeing the poem, both very deep. This was the biggest reason why I was glad interviewing my dad, because I feel like I learned more from him than he did from me. What I learned from him about the poem helps me better understand the poem in its entirety. I now have much more knowledge on the poem, symbolically and allegorically, and have much more to further analyze and awe, as I will read The Hard Road many more times.