At the inception of the year of the wood monkey, January 22 2004, I was married to a Chinese lady, Ms. Kuang Danhua. The poem below commemorates the event.

I worked with a Chinese scholar (Kang Laoshi, aka Travis Conley) to cast this poem in a traditional Chinese structure. A Song Dynasty rhyming dictionary was used to get the classical Chinese rhymes.

One of the neat things about Chinese is that each word can have many meanings. This special translation of the poem conveys one of its meanings as a new year gift for my internet friends. Cinnabar was a crucial ingredient in the alchemical mixtures the Daoist adepts used in their quest for an elixir of immortality. The heavenly stems and earthly branches are elements of the traditional Chinese 60 year calendrical cycle. The 12 earthly branches correspond to the 12 animals of the Chinese horoscope.

        The cinnabar treasure lies silently, hidden in the midst of the mountains,
        It’s magnificence softly enters the wanderer’s dreams.
        Wealth and honor are to me like drifting clouds,
        This treasure, like the heavenly trunk and its earthly branches, will never be exhausted.

In the pinyin Romanization system it reads:

        Dan1 zhen1 mo4 ran2 cang2 shan1 zhong1
        Hua2 mei3 qiao3 ru4 you2 zi3 meng4
        Li4 ming2 yu2 wo3 ru2 fu2 yun2
        Si1 bao3 gan1 zhi1 jie1 wu2 qiong2

This is a poem in a classical Chinese style.  Such poems are notoriously hard to translate for reasons that will become clear in a minute. 

My Spouse's name is Dan1 Hua2.  My Chinese name is Li4 Si1.  These form the initial words of each line.  In the 2nd line, Hua2 is one of the many names of China, while Mei3 is the first character in America.  The first, second, and fourth lines rhyme in Song Dynasty Chinese.

Classical Chinese poetry does away with much of the grammar of the spoken language, and the resulting string of concepts is like a string of gemstones that can be appreciated from many different angles.  Since each word has multiple possible meanings a translation into English often forces the translator to choose one of many possible interpretations.  The whole string of concepts looks like this.

Dan1[cinnabar/scarlet]

zhen1(precious thing(s)/treasure(s)/gem(s))

mo4 ran2[silently/tacitly/secretly]

cang2[hide/store]

shan1[mountain(s)]

zhong1[midst/in]

Hua2 mei3[gorgeous(ness)/magnificence]

qiao3[softly/stealthily/quietly]

ru4[enter]

you2 zi3[wanderer/lit “traveling son”]

meng4[dream(s)]

Li4[profit/wealth]

ming2[reputation/honor/fame]

yu2[to/concerning/with regard to]

wo3[I/me]

ru2[to be like]

fu2[float(ing)/drift(ing)]

yun2[cloud(s)]

Si1[this/that]

bao3[gem(s)/jewel(s)/treasure(s)]

gan1 zhi1[heavenly stems and earthly branches]

jie1[all/alike/equally]

wu2[not/to lack]

qiong2[exhaust/run out/wear out]