Nostalgia[edit]

The critic James J.Y. Liu notes “Chinese poets seem to be perpetually bewailing their exile
and longing to return home. This may seem sentimental to Western readers, but one
should remember the vastness of China, the difficulties of communication... the sharp
contrast between the highly cultured life in the main cities and the harsh conditions in the
remoter regions of the country, and the importance of family....” It is hardly surprising, he
concludes, that nostalgia should have become a "constant, and hence conventional, theme
in Chinese poetry."[39]
Liu gives as a prime example Li's poem "A Quiet Night Thought" (also translated as
"Contemplating Moonlight"), which is often learned by schoolchildren in China. In a mere 20
words, the poem uses the vivid moonlight and frost imagery to convey the feeling
of homesickness. There are several editions of the poem. This is translated[by whom?] from a
17th-century Kangxi edition moonlight poem:
A Quiet Night Thought

Moonlight before my bed

Perhaps frost on the ground.
Lift my head and see the moon
Lower my head and pine for home.
The following version has been translated by Jarek Zawadzki from the Gujin Tushu
Jicheng edition:
Night Thoughts (靜夜思)

床前明月光， Bright shines the Moon before my bed;

疑是地上霜， Methinks ’tis frost upon the earth.
舉頭望明月， I watch the Moon, then bend my head
低頭思故鄉。 And miss the hamlet of my birth.

There is a song for that poem (Chinese version) published in a music sheet book.