Qu Mai,a Witness to Sina-Japanese Cultural Exchanges
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NHK came to Shanghai and interviewed qu Mei in 2002 for a very good reason, for the year 2000 marked the 30th anniversary of the normalization of the Sino-Japanese relations and Qu mai took an active part in helping the normalization come true back in the early 1970s although he was not a decision maker in normalizing the relations. The documentary described Qu Mei as a witness to the normal diplomatic relations between China and Japan.
Witness
If China and USA began to resume its diplomatic relations in the 1970s first through Ping-Pong activities, the relation between China and Japan thawed thanks to Japanese and Chinese ballet dancers.
In the 1950s and 1960s the Matsuyama Ballet of Tokyo visited China many times. In July 1972, Shanghai Ballet visited Japan. Matsuyama Ballet and Shanghai Ballet served as harbingers for the normalization of relations between the two neighboring countries.
Qu Mai went with Shanghai Ballet to visit Japan as secretary of the visiting Ballet and interpreter. Shanghai Ballet was headed by Sun Pinghua, a veteran Chinese hand in Japanese affairs with a lot of Japanese friends. During the visit, Sun met with a lot of Japanese politicians and business tycoons. Qu Mei made arrangements and coordinated all the meetings and acted as interpreter. The diplomatic activities paid off. Tanaka Kakuei, who had just assumed the position of prime minister, agreed to visit China and talk about the normalization of diplomatic relations. Prime Minister Tanaka Kakuei and Foreign Minister Masayoshi Ohira visited China. As the result of their visits, China and Japan issued a joint declaration and normalized the sina-japanese relations. When Premier Zhou Enlai accompanied Prime Minister Tanaka Kakuei to visit Shanghai, Qu Mei acted as interpreter for the two leaders.
Qu Mei interpreted for other Chinese leaders such as Zhu De, Liao Chengzhi and Guo Moruo when they met Japanese visitors. After Shanghai twinned with Osaka and Yokohama as sister cities, many Japanese groups came to visit Shanghai and Qu Mei interpreted for them.
Prolific Translator
In the 1980s, Japanese films and television dramas were very popular in China. With a proficiency in the Japanese language and profound knowledge of Chinese culture, Qu translated more than 20 Japanese films and a few television plays. Qu Mei also translated some best Chinese dramas into Japanese. Since he has been long involved in cultural exchanges between China and Japan, he has made friends with many influential Japanese.
Poet
Qu Mei spent his youth in Taiwan. He liked Chinese poetry and became proficient in haiku, a Japanese poetic form. Chinese poetry was introduced to Japan in ancient times and spawned Waka and Renga and Haiku in the neighboring country. In the course of history, haiku came back to China and gave birth to Chinese haiku. Qu is a Chinese haiku poet.
In the 1990s, Qu worked as a guest professor respectively at Waseda University, Kobe Gakuin University, Nishogakusha University, and Gifu University of Economics where he lectured on Chinese literature and particularly Tang poetry and Song Ci-poetry. During his stay in Japan, Qu took part in extensive exchange activities with Japanese poets on Chinese haiku and Japanese haiku. He served as an advisor to the Japanese Traditional Haiku Association.
In April 1992, Qu Mai came as the vice director with a Japanese delegation of over 40 poets from Japanese Traditional Haiku Association to tour China. The Japanese poets later met their Chinese counterparts at a haiku gathering in Shanghai, attended by dozens of Chinese literary celebrities. The Chinese and Japanese masters selected the best haikus, which were later anthologized and published. It was the first Sino-Japanese exchange on haiku in modern times.
Qu Mai has also worked as a haiku advisor at Shanghai Children’s Palace. Translated by Qu Mai, the haikus by Chinese youngsters have been presented to a biannual international haiku competition for young haiku poets sponsored by JAL. The haiku competition has been held 10 times and collections have been published.
Qu once lectured at a haiku study forum organized by Shanghai Translators Association on the subject of haiku and Chinese haiku. In December 2007, a Sino-Japanese poetry exhibition was held in Shanghai in celebration of the 35th anniversary of the normalization of Sino-Japanese diplomatic relations. The exhibition displayed haikus by Chinese poets, many of whom once studied with Qu Mai.
Family Roots in Taiwan
Born into a family of intellectuals, Qu acquired Chinese culture during his early years in Taiwan. Although he fell in love with Chinese poetry in his formative years, he studied Japanese as required because Taiwan was ruled by Japan. As a college student, he was quite active in extracurricular activities. The experiences enabled him to participate in promoting Sino-Japanese cultural exchanges.
He came to the mainland in 1949 and could not visit Taiwan for political reasons for a long while. It was not until 1980s while he was working in Japan that he had an opportunity to revisit his parents and siblings, friends in Taiwan. In 2005, Xiao Wanchang (Vincent Siew, now a regional leader of Taiwan) and his wife came to Shanghai and visited Qu Mai, for Xiao’s wife is a cousin of Qu.