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Zeynep
Oral's Books:

I was alone with picture-like Chinese writing, whether in dream
or reality. All of a sudden I fell into the situation of a person
who does not know how to read or write.
"Not to be able to read," at first makes person uncomfortable.
But then…
Then, a museum, a temple, a mountain, a hill, a river, a brook,
an architectural magnificence, another temple, a song, some music,
a poem; just then, you see that all these are heading towards an
art of living, a wholeness.
The key word of this wholeness is harmony.
And the three trivets of this harmony are humans, nature and art.
The harmony is the Chinese people's interpretation of Confucianism,
Taoism and Buddhism, which is unique to them…
Confucianism determines the place of a person in society…
Taoism ensures the harmony of the person in nature and the universe
through a Yin and Yang balance…
Buddhism adds infinity to these.
Harmony is the balance of the opposite energy currents, that is
to say Yin and Yang that exists inside humans, nature and everything.
It is in the balance of negative energy, inside the positive energy
and in the positive energy inside negative energy…
The harmony is in nature and human relations, in a person's watching
nature, thinking about flowers, trees, and branches, in a person's
fishing, in traveling the rivers with bamboo rafts or giant barges…
The harmony is in the body and soul wellness gymnastics I witnessed
every morning before dawn in whichever city, town or village I visited.
It is in the Thai Chi, that's to say, shadow boxing, young or old,
everyone does in the streets, parks or open spaces; in the Jigong,
which is a breath control, or Luu-Shu that is fighting art exercises,
in the dances they perform with the music, woman-to-woman, man-to-man,
or men to woman in pairs…
The harmony is the completion of the words with writing, writing
with drawings, drawings with poems, and poems with words…In this
trip I went after the harmony; I had no choice but to look at the
Chinese writing that I admire but don't understand, as a piece of
art.
The 56 ethnic groups' languages in China are all different. The
dialects of the same language are different. One region's people
does understand another region's language, either very little or
none at all. But even though the dialects are different, the writing
is the same because this writing consists of pictograms and charts,
not letters.
Looking at the "flying bird" or "the water drop on
the lotus leaf" chart, even though they say it differently,
a Szechuan, a Cantonese or Pekingese, when they see it written,
they understand that it says "flying bird" or "the
water drop on the lotus leaf!
These charts are symbols. Charts are used as decorations, descriptions
or only as a spot, as well as communications. The seals are perfect
examples of this.
This calligraphy art is growing with Chinese poetry, one inside
the other. The poets think, as carefully as an artist, about how
they are going to write the poem, where on the paper they are going
to place it.
In China perfection means harmony.
I can go back to my dreams again.
I am
counting Yins and Yangs as to go to sleep, instead of counting sheep.
As the right side of the body is Yin and the left side of the body
is Yang, I am placing Yins in my right eye and Yangs in my left.
It
is as follows:
| YANG
|
YIN |
| Male |
Female |
| Sun |
Moon |
| Fire |
Water |
| Light |
Dark |
| Full |
Empty |
| Change |
Continuity |
| Conscious |
Subconscious |
| Analytic |
Instinctive |
| Heaven |
Earth |
| Spring,
summer |
Autumn,
winter |
| Merit |
Sin |
| Thought |
Feeling |
| Wealth |
Poverty |
| Order |
Disorder |
| Superficiality |
Profundity |
| Bitter |
Sweet |
| Energy |
Matter |
| Ascending |
Descending |
| Joy |
Sorrow |
| Red,
orange, yellow |
Blue,
green, purple |
| Animals,
grain |
Fruits,
vegetables |
| Extroverted |
Introverted |
This
list may continue on, kilometers long, but my eyes are closing…
I was
in China in my dream last night. I was flying and flying and flying
on the back of my dragon.
While
flying, what I saw was Wu Daozi sitting on a cloud next to me! I
got extremely excited, because I have a question to ask to Wu Daozi.
Wu
Daozi is a very famous Chinese artist… He lived in the VIIIth century.
His
story passed from one language to another. And I fell in love with
that story.
The
story is as follows:
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