Drums of War Started at YuYang

It's national holiday for the whole week. My plan was simple: sleep. I have crossed pacific too many times this year. I need to get to know my bed better. For the 1st two day, it worked. I will doze off few times during the day. I can feel the sleep deficit being paid back. I really needed this holiday.

When a friend called for a day-trip to the Qing tombs, I was just about to get bored. I jumped on it immediately and was quite glad that I did. Qing's emperors chose to have their tombs about 150 kilometers east of Beijing. (Ming's emperors picked a site north of Beijing along the route to a famous Great Wall spot.) The trip organizer decided to visit a buddasm temple, DuLe temple (独乐寺) on our way. It was a great choice. DuLe temple is a thousand-year old historical site and an active temple. We studied the architecture and marvelled at the artifacts.
The temple is at Ji county in TianJin City (天津市，蓟县： There is no mistake here. TianJin city has a Province level status.) As we walked around the town, we realized that Ji county used to be called YuYang (渔阳) few hundred years ago.
Waves of memory swept over me and I was thrown back to teenage years. This is the city I dreamt about so many times. Cool, cool, cool!

About 1300 years ago, Tang (唐) dynasty ruled the middle kingdom. It was glorious time. But warlord AnLuShan (安禄山: 703~757) wanted more. He started his coup right here from this city of YuYang. When he was stationed here, he read a line from Confucius that the happiness of many is better than one and named the temple accordingly. The literal interpretation would be “The Temple of Solitary Happiness.” The general interpretation is that he would rather not share.

Few decades later, poet BAI JuYi (白居易) wrote a long poem about a beautiful girl, the emperor, and Mr. AnLuShan. Every generation re-read the poem and all got enchanted by the sadness and the intensity of the story.

Time warped to 1930s, musician HUANG Zi (黄自) captured the story and turned it into a master-piece choir. My high-school class, in my junior year, picked it to enter a choir competition. We practiced hard, won at school level, entered a tournament, and won again. That was many months of intense practice, focus, camaraderie, and hardwork. It was one of the best times of my life.