Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research, volume 356 2nd International Conference on Contemporary Education, Social Sciences and Ecological Studies (CESSES 2019) Study of Bashu Folk Culture Based on Tang Poems and Their English Versions Ya'an in Li Bai's To the Moon over Mount Emei Mei Dong English Department Sichuan Agricultural University Ya'an, China 625014 Abstract—As a typical representative of Chinese literary which agree more with their thoughts and interests and they canons, Tang Poem is a good carrier of Chinese folk culture. want other just to follow them; the popular part is usually For so many famous Tang poets are either born in Bashu widely spread among the mass, which agree more with regions or delegated to work or live here, they have left quite a ordinary people's life but they are seldom publicized for they lot of works reflecting Bashu folk culture as literary legacy for are not regarded so important by the controllers who have human beings. It's not easy to find systematically collected and more chance to get involved in cross-cultural analyzed materials for folk culture even though there are great communications. developments in all fields nowadays, however, tracing trails of folk culture in literary canons, gathering and analyzing them It's no doubt that both the natural environment and the together would be quite a good way to get information about humanized conditions will influence the formation and folk culture organized and stored for further studies, in which development of a culture. To get a general understanding of Tang Poem stands out, especially when Bashu culture is a culture, it's certain that going to the official bureaus and concerned. Translation is always helping the readers to getting the publicized materials could satisfy the demand. understand the original text better. Therefore, studying Bashu But a real understanding of the culture can only be fulfilled culture in Tang Poem with the help of their translated versions after getting in deep touch with those ordinary people and would be an excellent choice. their ordinary life where popular culture originates. Popular culture really agrees more with real life and offers more Keywords—Bashu folk culture; Tang poems; translated reliable and profound information. version; literary canon Not to say people from different countries, people in I. INTRODUCTION different groups in the same country also have their unique popular culture. These groups can be classified according to Communications become more and more important in different standards, but for the ones in such a multi-ethnic the society. In fact, an effective and profound country as China, different ethnic groups can hold all people communication comes from a good understanding of each in. Thus, popular culture of each ethnic group can be other's culture. No one can define what "culture" exactly is, established relatively independently. As what Lin Yaohua but it is accepted that "culture" contains information says: "what the ethnics are concerned with is the covering anything one can imagine. Raymond Williams says interactional relationship between human beings' social that "culture can be used to refer to a general process of cultural groups and the biological environment". [3](P55) intellectual, spiritual and aesthetic development". [1](P1) All Lin agrees with Stalin's definition for "the ethnics": A nation experiences, histories and stories will form certain rules, and (the ethnics) is a stable community of people, formed on the they can be quite formal ones written down like the laws, basis of a common language, territory, history, ethnicity, or they can also be informal ones kept in spoken words or just psychological make-up manifested in a commonculture. [4] in one's mind, all of which make up the culture that was In China, the ethnic groups are usually defined so. The latter formed in the past, that can be changed now and that will factors can only be got after close learning, but the first two have special effect in the future. can be easily recognized for even though people can't judge According to how the culture is accepted, culture can be what the language is, they know whether it is new and generally divided to the official part and the popular part, different; it's also easy to judge where the culture comes whose differences can be clearly reflected in a group, for from because only when people make the decision on which culture is surely formed by groups of people and not by any part of culture they would study could they know what they single individual. Kevin V. Mulcaby says that "an official should focus on. culture is a body of artistic correctness by the state or the The popular culture closely related with a certain ethnic ruling party." [2](P70) Just as what the names indicate, the group is actually an essential part of folk culture. Folk official part is usually selected by the minority in controlling, culture is certainly a part of popular culture for it is closely Copyright © 2019, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). 613 Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research, volume 356 related with civil life and ordinary people, especially, a are born, growing up or just living in (no matter for a long group of people with a relatively long history. In such a time or just for a few days) Bashu areas have written down a country as China together with various ethnic cultures, folk lot about it, from which the information and clue of Bashu culture also contains much. The more reasonable and easier culture can be got. way to study the folk culture is to narrow it down as much as possible. As what has been mentioned above, since those So many great literary workers have kept in touch with subjective factors as history and psychology can't be exactly Bashu culture in this way or that. Su Shi, Su Zhe and Su Xun, defined, it's a shortcut to about folk culture concerned with these famous litterateurs coming from the same family of people speaking the similar language or confined in a certain Song Dynasty; great poets led by Li Bai, Du Fu; modern region. If analysis for folk culture in a country could work writers like Guo Moruo, Ba Jin and so on… all these writers well, it will pave an excellent way for future analysis of the now and then locate their great works in Bashu regions and whole culture. Thus, the problem goes to how to confirm the talk about people and life here. As far as Bashu folk culture limits of the culture, especially, folk culture. Taking all in written works is concerned, Tang Poems could never be factors that are available into consideration, Bashu folk neglected. As a typical representative of Chinese culture, culture can be chosen as the suitable case. Tang Poem stands out from Chinese literary canons and displays a vivid and accurate life taking place everywhere in the Tang Dynasty. As part of Chinese literary canons, Tang II. BASHU FOLK CULTURE IN TANG POEMS Poem agrees with all the requirements and features of the Compared with popular culture, folk culture contains less. canons. Harold Bloom's describes that "The Canon...has The biggest difference between them would be that those become a choice among texts struggling with one another for temporary cultural phenomena called "fashions" belong to survival." [5](P19) As part of the canons, Tang Poems are popular culture while folk culture is only about the rules, prevailing in the Tang Dynasty, tested by generations customs and conceptions that have been examined by certain followed and still widely appreciated nowadays. Thus group of people for a long time. Folk culture must be cultural phenomena in the Tang Poems are the ones having together with a strong historic sense. Therefore, Bashu folk experienced the practice of ordinary people, selection of the culture is a quite appropriate representative. Long before the poets and acceptance of the readers and going along the unification of China by the First Emperor of the Qin Dynasty, history for a long time, which are just what the reliable there's Bashu culture. Initially, there's a distinct separation materials researchers on folk culture need. The only problem between the Ba culture which centers on current Chongqing for collecting information about folk culture in these poems and the Shu culture which centers on current Sichuan, but would be that people should trace the trails in them and get later on, they are combined together. In the prime time of the the information after careful study and analysis, because the appearance and development of researches on Bashu culture, information of folk culture is hardly gathered together they are still regarded as a whole. Bashu folk culture systematically. But as long as the work is done, the data represents well the Chinese folk culture, both having been would be quite reliable and accurate. Since so many great accumulated for a history as long as about five thousand Tang poets have been in the Bashu areas, they know clearly years. In China, Han people's culture at first focused on the about Bashu culture and they record all these in their works central China; while Bashu culture centered on Southwest of both directly and indirectly. Studying Bashu folk culture in China where different ethnics nowadays originated from and Tang Poems is surely to be a highly effective and excellent now most ethnic minority groups can still be found.