The cherries are red and the bananas are green.

From "A Cut of Plum Blossoms: Boat Crossing the Wujiang River" written by Jiang Jie, a poet of the Southern Song Dynasty

A piece of spring sorrow awaits the pouring of wine. The boats on the river are rocking, and the curtains on the upper floors are moving. Qiuniangdu and Tainiang Bridge, the wind is blowing and the rain is rustling.

When will you return home to wash guest robes? The word "Yin" means Sheng tune, and the word "Xin" means "Xiangshao". The flowing light easily throws people away, turning cherries red and bananas green.

Appreciation

This is a heart-song written on the chaotic and bumpy journey of exile. The bright spring light and the sad soul are in strong contrast. Spring is as deep as the sea, and sorrow is as deep as the sea. As time goes by, the "spring sorrow" cannot be dismissed. So from the seemingly bright voice, we heard the whimpering in the heart mixed with the sound of wind and rain.

The poem was roughly written when Jiang Jie drifted to the shore of Taihu Lake in Suzhou after the death of the Southern Song Dynasty. This was originally a beautiful place in the south of the Yangtze River with soft mountains and soft water. How can a wanderer who is looking around uncertainly, with a bleak future, and no time to return to his home, not feeling melancholy and inexplicable when he is in this situation? At first glance, the first part of the poem is just about the incomprehensible spring sorrow and drinking to drown it. With a little closer inspection, you can see that there are big ups and downs, and the emotions are agitated and turbulent in the ups and downs. The poet's "spring sorrow" and desire to drink wine are instantly satisfied in the drifting of "the boat on the river". "Upstairs Curtain" is a small hotel in Jiangcun. The green cloth curtain with the words "Taibai Yizui" probably tells the poet that he can come to Zuixiang for a rest. Between this "shake" and "move", the mood changes from sadness to a slight relief. But when the boat on the river continued to carry the drunken man, and the scenery of "Qiuniang Ferry and Tainiang Bridge" appeared before his eyes in a daze, the wind blew him awake, the raindrops fell on his heart, and he felt the wind penetrated his bones and the rain chilled his heart. In turn, "Autumn Sorrow" rose again, and it rose higher and higher. The ups and downs of emotions are so turbulent. "Qiuniang Ferry" and "Tainiang Bridge" refer to the place names in Wujiang area. Jiang Jie's poem "Xingxiangzi·Zhousujian Bay" contains the sentence "Crossing Yaoniang Embankment, Qiuniang Ferry, and Tainiang Bridge". The poet here uses "Qiuniang Ferry" and "Tainiang Bridge" to refer to the beauty of the scenery in Wujiang, Suzhou - the beauty that is graceful, charming and pleasing to the eye. It is this beautiful scenery that triggers his melancholy more and more, and he misses his wife at home, who is "red with laughter" and "in front of the soft-spoken lamp".

The sentence pattern of "The wind is blowing and the rain is rustling" is a kind of suggestive sentence pattern, which is a method of expressing a certain mentality with the help of imagery. It allows people to experience the auditory sound of wind and rain, the visual continuous and fluttering waves, the tactile sensation of coldness, dampness, and moisture, and finally the psychological perception: sourness, bitterness... This technique also appears in the next film: "The flowing light is easy to throw people away, the cherries are red, and the bananas are green." One "red" and one "green" fully express the process of the gradual disappearance of spring light in the coming of early summer. This is a hint of timing. But if you look closely at the taste, banana leaves are green, cherries are red, flowers fall and bloom, and turn yellow to green. Everything in nature can be like this year after year, declining and flourishing, flourishing and declining, but what about humans? Green, fat, red and thin means to people that they are no longer young and that prosperity is rare. Pushing it a step further, what about our country? Once it is ruined, can it be seen again? The whole process of "streaming light easily throws people away" and how it is thrown is extremely abstract. Now it is expressed clearly as "cherries turn red and bananas turn green". Therefore, if it is said that suggesting that the specific time sequence changes from spring to summer, it is the expression of "real", then revealing the abstract stream of light is the concretization of "virtual". These eight words are really wonderful. As for the natural splendor of the colors, the accuracy of the language is self-evident.

Understanding this, the question "When will I return home to wash my guest robes" seems to be more than just an ordinary wanderer's family sentiment. Judging from the context of the word, this sentence is implicitly connected to the touching scene intensified by the sound of wind and rain in the previous film, which makes the increasingly rising "spring sorrow" in the heart emerge from the bottom of the heart, become concrete, and appear outwardly. But from the perspective of inner feelings, this "washing of guest robes" means ending the unstable life of wandering and reliving a peaceful and joyful life in the company of beautiful women, playing the sheng with bare hands, and burning the heart-shaped fragrance - is it possible? "When will I return home?" is the sigh of despair! Not to mention it is difficult to return home. Even if you do return home, can your "guest robe" be washed? The country has been destroyed and the family is in trouble! For a loyal person, it will be an endless life of exile from now on, and the warm and elegant things in the past are gone forever in the question "when". It is certain that such a lost state of mind will end such a relationship, so in the "when" period, he has actually answered his own question. From this reading, it is as clear as the previous analysis that "flowing light can easily throw people away", and it is clear at a glance what kind of tight heart is wrapped in these seemingly clear words.

We intentionally talk about the sentences in the second part in reverse order, and put "When will I return home to wash the guest robes" at the connection point of the upper and lower parts to understand it, because we want to understand it from the specific sentence structure and emotion. It shows that this short poem appears to be bright in appearance, but in fact is bitter. It has the characteristics of "flowing" but actually "staying" in art. The emotional charm flows in circles, forming a whirlpool. This artistic method can best express the sentiment of "continuous cutting, and chaos remains". "Liu" means flowing smoothly with less pauses, while "liu" means hesitation, hesitation, and ups and downs. It is true that some of Jiang Jie's poems are a bit "flowy", but this piece "One Cut Plum" does not belong to this type of work and should not be browsed in a hurry without discerning the taste carefully.

The characteristic of the lyrics of "Yijianmei" is that the rhythmic alternation of slow (seven-character sentences) and rapid (four-character refrains) shows a moving musicality. Since the time of Zhou Bangyan, there have been many famous sayings, such as Li Qingzhao's "Only when he lowered his brows, but then moved his heart" and so on.

Later, through the creation of Xin Qiji, the four-character refrain was completely integrated from the scattered parts, forming a regular arrangement of overlapping sentences, and the musicality became stronger. And they often highlight the overlapping of images or the overlapping of moods. In the hands of Jiang Jie, especially the "Crossing the Wujiang River" which has been handed down from generation to generation, the expressive techniques of "One Cut Plum" are more abundant. The four groups of overlapping four-character sentences are often written in a smart and fluent way, and there are more famous poems.