Of Bamboo and the Seven Sages Of Bamboo Grove

I am often asked why my e-mail address is bamboogrove and most likely from now on why the name of my blog is Tales From The Bamboo Grove. When I first fell in love with Asia in the mid 80’s bamboo became my favourite plant. I enjoy being near bamboos, listening to the voice the leaves make when wind blows through them and seeing paintings and photos of them. Then in 1998 my twin daughters were born and  in true Thai style got nicknames “Bam” and “Boo.” These two things have been very significant in my life and when I and my wife opened our own restaurant in Hua Hin, Thailand in 2002, I decided to call it Bamboo Grove. The word grove is dedicated to my maternal grandmother whose surname at birth was “Lehtonen”, “lehto” meaning a grove. Only after that I found out about the Seven Sages Of Bamboo Grove but they have also become something that I have learnt to admire in my life. Here is something about bamboo in Chinese culture and of those sages who enjoyed their lives in the bamboo grove just as much as I, as well.

Roots of Bamboo Culture

So widely used in Chinese society, the bamboo has been an important motif in music, poetry, calligraphy and painting. Many traditional musical instruments are made of bamboo. In ancient China, bamboo was synonymous with music, so instrument artists were called “bamboo people.” 

More than 2500 years ago, when the Egyptians were using papyrus, the Chinese began to write on bamboo strips. This was the way, for example, to record the thoughts of Confucius and other ancient philosophers, as well as much historical data. This kind of “book” was used before the Chinese invented paper. However, the demand for bamboo didn’t decline in later times, as it was the raw material for papermaking and still is the key component of brush pens. 

Bamboo is the symbol of  Chinese civilization. Its characteristics embody virtues long admired in the Middle Kingdom. The leaves droop slightly, representing modesty; it stands straight, showing strength. Comparing a man to the bamboo, amounts to the highest praise of his character. For thousands of years, numerous myths, poems, calligraphic works and paintings were themed on bamboo.  The great writer, Su Shi (1037-1101), took delight in painting it, but his friends found it strange that it took so much more time for him to observe the plants than to paint them. “I paint the bamboos in my mind and then commit them to paper,” he explained. The anecdote later became an expression for a well-thought-out plan. 

You can go without meat for dinner, but cannot live without bamboo, a poem of Su’s cautions. He believed that a shortage of meat would merely leave people thinner, whereas an absence of bamboo around your house would make you vulgar. The quartet of bamboo, plum blossom, orchid and chrysanthemum, are called “the Four Gentlemen.” For their resistance to severe weather conditions, the bamboo, pine tree and plum blossom are called “the Three Friends of Winter.” 

Besides all this, you can eat bamboo shoots, you can use bamboo as a pole to carry things, making furniture, in textiles, angling, it’s strong enough to be used as scaffolding on construction sites, even building skyscrapers, you can store water in them, it’s used in traditional Chinese medicine. So how many other plans do you know which would be as versatile as bamboo?

The Seven Sages Of Bamboo Grove

竹林七仙

During the Wei and Jin Dynasties, there were seven famous scholars who would get together in the bamboo grove for drinking wine, playing musical instruments, chanting poems and chatting. They were Ji Kang, Ruan Ji, Ruan Xian, Shan Tao, Xiang Xiu, Wang Rong and Liu Ling, whom people called “the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove“. These seven noted scholars were all advocates of Taoist theories and fond of music, wine and chatting. They were representative figures of Chinese metaphysics at that time. Many of their literary works were aimed at exposing and satirizing the imperial court.  There seems to be no surviving contemporary evidence of them considering themselves as a group, but later lore has them gathering in the nearby countryside. 

After the decline of the Han Dynasty the northern part of China was under the control of Cao Cao, the Imperial Chancellor to the last Han emperor. He called the area that he ruled Wei. At that time, the southern part of China was already divided into two areas: the Kingdom of Shu and Kingdom of Wu. Finally Wei conquered Wu and then Shu in 263. Shortly afterwards, in 265, the Wei dynasty was overthrown by its last Imperial Chancellor, Sima Yan, who then founded the Jin Dynasty.

As traditionally depicted, the Seven Sages Of Bamboo Grove wished to escape the intrigues, corruption and stifling atmosphere of court life. They gathered in a bamboo grove near the country house of Xi Kang, where they enjoyed, and praised in their works, the simple, rustic life. The poems and essays of the Seven Sages and other contemporary poets frequently alluded to the impossibility of palace life for the scholar, and to the pleasures and hardships of country life. The Seven Sages emphasized the enjoyment of ale, personal freedom, spontaneity and a celebration of nature, in contrast to the corruption and politics of court life.

Among them, Ji Kang, Ruan Ji and Xiang Xiu were noted writers and thinkers, all of whom were opposed to the Sima clan that was in power at the time. Ji Kang was multi-talented. He was not only excellent in poetry and literature, but also an accomplished musician. The two Ruans were known for drinking wine from a large bowl, which they would occasionally share with the neighbors' pigs. Liu Ling is said to have traveled in the company of a servant who always carried a bottle of wine and a spade so that he could instantly supply his master with drink or bury him without delay, if worst came to worst. 

The Seven Sages became a symbolic influence on Chinese poetry, music, art, and culture. Their independent behavior contested the long-held Confucian ideal of virtue earned through public service, and suggested, instead, that self-perfection came through the cultivation of individuality. The Seven Sages became a symbolic influence on Chinese poetry, music, art, and culture. Their independent behavior contested the long-held Confucian ideal of virtue earned through public service, and suggested, instead, that self-perfection came through the cultivation of individuality. In Japan this theme was popular among members of the governing samurai class who also gathered in villas and teahouses to cultivate their personal interests in poetry, music, painting, and the tea ceremony.

The Seven Sages’ life of retirement in the countryside became a common theme in Chinese art and a model for later Chinese intellectuals who lived during times of political upheaval. The Seven Sages have been remarked to be influential in Chinese poetry, music, art, and overall culture.

A lot of this information came from Wikipedia