CHINA: Mischievous Moon

The paper marionettes of the Red Cape Players jerked the White Snake Lady through a series of strange and supernatural adventures. But Chinese Ambassador Dr. Hu Shih, guest of honor at a Columbia University China War Relief meeting in Manhattan, was not paying attention. He had come prepared to say that China will fight on, “with or without a Burma Road”; and now he was hurriedly translating into English, by request, a love poem he had written 20 years before. It was a favorite in China. But Dr. Hu feared, as he heard it sung a few minutes later, that his hurried translation might be faulty. It was not:

ALSO, THIS IS A TINY CLOUD

Again the thin clouds,

Again the brilliant moonlight after the

clouds, But no more the travel companion of

last year,

And no more the youthful feelings of

that time.

Not willing to be reminded of love lost,

I dared not go outdoors to look at the

moon,

But the mischievous moon came in by

the open window

And made me sleepless the whole night.