Li Bai and His Reincarnation李白再世

Li Bai， the self-taught medieval genius， remains China’s abiding titan of classical poetry.

李白，这位自学成才的中世纪天才，至今仍是中国古典诗歌界不朽的巨匠。

Born in 701， Li Bai famously began composing verse at age 10， trained as a master swordsman in his teens， and spent much of his Byronic life wandering the Chinese countryside seeking， with indifferent success， employment in various royal courts. Inspired drunkenness became so vital to his literary method that he was inducted into a sodden group of Tang Dynasty scholars called the Eight Immortals of the Wine Cup1. About a thousand of Li Bai’s poems survive still. Hundreds of millions of Chinese schoolchildren memorize Li Bai’s stanzas unto this day. According to legend， the great bard perished， drowned at age 62， while tipsily trying to touch the moon’s reflection in the Yangtze River.

李白生于公元701年，据说他10岁开始作诗，少年时练成一代剑客。他将自己拜伦式生活的大半时间用于游历中国乡间，辗转于不同的朝廷谋求官位，却始终未能得志。醉酒状态成为他创作的重要灵感来源，以至于他位列“醉八仙”（嗜酒如命的八位唐朝文人）。李白的诗作约有1000首流传至今。现在，数亿中国学童仍要背诵李白的诗篇。据传，这位伟大的诗人在62岁那年，于醉意朦胧之中试图手捞长江中的月影，最终溺水而亡。

Li Hongbin， a stocky and sad-faced former accountant， knows all these Li Bai factoids. Not because he is merely another super-fan of China’s poetic idol. But because—to Li Hongbin—it’s more or less autobiography. Li Hongbin believes he is likely the living reincarnation of Li Bai.

李洪斌身材矮壮、面容悲戚，曾是一名会计。他通晓所有关于李白的轶事传说。这并非因为他也是诗仙李白的一介“铁粉”，而是因为对他来说，李白的故事大致就是他的自传。李洪斌相信自己很可能就是李白的“转世”。

“I’m confident of this，” said Li Hongbin， hunched in a derelict souvenir kiosk that he’s restored as a hermit’s hut at the Li Bai Cultural Center， in Qing-lian， the great poet’s childhood town in China’s western Sichuan province. “After 1，300 years， I’m the only poet living in Li Bai’s hometown who is still composing poetry. I even sign my work Li Bai.”

“对此我很确信。”李洪斌说。他挤在一座被他翻修成隐居之所的废弃纪念品亭子里。这座亭子坐落在中国西部四川省青莲镇的李白故居景区，伟大诗人李白正是在青莲镇度过了童年。“经过1300年，李白的故乡只有我这个诗人仍在作诗。我甚至在自己的作品上署名‘李百’。”

He’d exchanged home， family， friends， and job to pursue his muse in a seven-foot-by-seven-foot2 booth next to a concrete parking lot in a town of strangers. He eked out3 his groceries by selling “maybe not so perfect” samples of calligraphy to tourist guesthouses. The guesthouse owners indulged him， with a grin， as “our own Li Bai.”

李洪斌放弃了房子、家庭、朋友和工作，追随李白来到陌生的小镇，搬进混凝土停车场旁不到五平方米的小亭子里。他靠向家庭旅馆贩卖“也许不那么完美”的书法作品维持生计。旅馆老板们也顺从迁就他，笑着称他为“我们自己的李白”。

I’m walking across the world. Traversing continents afoot， it’s impossible not to cartwheel into poetry everywhere.

我正在环游世界。徒步穿越各大洲的路上，很难不与各地的诗歌邂逅。

You can hear it in the songs of the Afar4 camel-men in desert Ethiopia. You see it in the quick finger clasps of lovers strolling blue-tiled Samarkand5 along Uzbekistan’s old Silk Road. Some countries， such as Georgia， are blessed in building more statues to their poets than to kings or warriors. In Kyrgyzstan， apprentice bards spend years committing a half-million-line national poem， the Epic of Manas6， to memory. Yet nowhere have I found poesy more embroidered into public life than in China.

在埃塞俄比亚的无垠沙漠中，你能从阿法尔骆驼牧人的歌声里听到诗。在乌兹别克斯坦古丝绸之路上，情侣们漫步于贴着蓝瓷砖的撒马尔罕，你能从他们轻轻相扣的手指间感受到诗。有些国家（如格鲁吉亚）享有福气，他们为诗人修建的雕像比为国王或战士修的还要多。在吉尔吉斯斯坦，吟游诗人学徒花费多年时间背诵50万行的民族史诗《玛纳斯》。然而，我发现没有哪个地方比中国更能将诗歌融入公共生活。

In China births， marriages， and deaths are occasions for families to compose verse. Children learn ancient rhymes in their core curriculums. The doorways of city and village homes are flanked by good-luck couplets stenciled on red paper. Still， an actual， full-time， working poet is a rare discovery anywhere.

在中国，诗歌创作融入了家庭中的各种场合，比如出生、结婚和死亡。儿童在基础课程中学习古老的韵律。无论乡村还是城市，家家户户的门廊两侧都贴着红纸印制、寓意吉祥的对联。尽管如此，一位名副其实全职创作的诗人无论在哪都是稀罕物。

“Maybe I’m a very small poet right now， but I’m still a poet，” admitted Li Hongbin.

“也许现在我是个小诗人，但我仍然是诗人。”李洪斌坦承道。

Raised in present-day Sichuan， the eighth-century grand poet had ricocheted7 through rebellion， civil war， and a declining Tang Empire. Emperor Xuanzong expelled Li Bai from the imperial court. Later arrested for treason， the proto-beatnik8 was condemned to—though later recalled from—exile. Wandering the Yangtze Valley into rootless late middle age， one of Li Bai’s most famous poems drips weary melancholy：

八世纪的大诗人李白成长于蜀地（今天的四川），经历了叛乱、内战和唐朝的衰落。他曾被唐玄宗逐出宫廷，后来又因叛逆罪被捕。这位可视作“垮掉青年”原型的诗人虽被判流放，但最终得以赦免。沿长江流域漂泊至中年晚期的李白无所寄托，他最出名的一首诗流露出心中的疲惫和忧伤：

Before my bed the moonlight glitters，

床前明月光，

Like frost upon the ground.

疑是地上霜。

I look up to the mountain moon，

举头望明月，

Look down and think of home.

低头思故乡。

Li Hongbin too had roamed China.  Along the way， he began boring into9 Li Bai’s compositions. He felt those 13-century-old meters humming in his own bones and eventually washed up at his hero-poet’s youthful stomping grounds at Qinglian in 2006. Shortly after he’d occupied his kiosk， which was built to peddle Li Bai gewgaws at the town’s sleepy Li Bai cultural park， his wife had served the divorce papers. He stays in contact with his two grown children via text messages on an antique dumb phone.