UNIVERSITY OF SANTO TOMAS

Junior High School

2018-2019

2nd Quarter

Literary Compilation
Afro-Asian

Grade 8

The Crane. THE WONDERFUL PEAR TREE. Analects of Confucius

NAME: ______________________________________ SECTION: _________________

HAIKU
Understanding Author’s Profile
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Matsuo Basho, Japan’s greatest haiku poet, believed that real poetry was leading a beautiful life with nature. He also
believed that to live poetry was better than to write it.
Once, Basho was with one of his pupils named Kikaku. Kikaku spied a beautiful red dragonfly, and he thought that the
lovely creature were it not for its wings, would look very much like a red cayenne pepper pod. So, he made up a verse on
the spot and said:
Pluck off the wings
From a bright red dragonfly and see!
There a pepper pod will be!
Basho reined in his horse at once.
“That is not poetry!” he cried. Instead of what you have just said, you should word your verse like this:
Add but wings
To a bright red pepper pod, and see
There a dragonfly will be!

Some of the works of Matsuo Basho

1. Summer grasses grow
On brave warriors’ splendid dreams
The afterglow comes.
2. An old silent pond…
A frog jumps into the pond,
Splash! Silence again.
3. Detestable crow!
Today alone you please me
Black against the snow.
SHARING INSIGHTS
1. What could possibly be the dreams of the warriors?
2. What is meant by grass growing in one’s dreams?
3. What could be the cause of the afterglow?
4. Why is the crow detestable?
5. What made the crow a pleasance sight at the time the writer saw
it?
6. What makes some unpleasant things acceptable? Give examples
7. What contrast is mentioned in the second haiku? What effect is
achieved by the contrast?

LEARNING ABOUT JAPANESE POETRY

Read the three poems again. Notice that although each poem consist of only three lines, the message is clearly delivered.
Note also that the first and third lines of each poem consist of five syllables, while the second line has seven syllables.
Sometimes, in the English translation, some syllables are dropped and the result is a poem of less than seventeen syllables,
as in the following haikus:

How cold it is Rubbing my hands together, I’ll try not to… but
To eat supper by the light I ask for a small corner I can’t help thinking
Of the next room. Of the mosquito net. Of my old home.

 Haiku is a Japanese verse form that has gained popularity throughout the world because of its brevity, pithiness,
and symbolism.
 Tanka consists of thirty-one syllables, spread out in five lines thus; 5,5,7,7,7 syllables

EXERCISE
Directions: Study the following examples. What is the message in each? What symbols express the message?

1. Turning from watching

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 The moon, my comfortable old
Shadow led me home.
-Shiki

2. That duck, bobbing up

From the green depth of a pond
Has seen something strange.
-Jaso

3. I wonder in what fields today

He chases dragonflies in play
My little boy-who ran away.
-Chiyo, tr. by Curtis Hidden Page

4. All around the rope a morning glory clings;

How can I break its beauty’s dainty spell?
I beg fir water from my neighbour’s well.
-Chiyo, tr. by Clara M. Wals.

The Crane
Hwang Sun-Won tr. By Kim Se-young

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Understanding the Literary Background
Formerly under the rule of United Kingdom, Korea was divided in 1945, along the 38th parallel of latitude, into two
separate occupation zones. This is the 38th parallel referred to in the story. To the north was the Soviet-occupied zone
which later became in 1948, the communist-controlled Democratic Republic of Korea, also known as North Korea. To the
south was the zone occupied by the United States forces which became the U.S.-supported Republic of Korea, also known
as South Korea. Both republics seek unification through the political overthrow of the other.

The northern village at the border of the 38th parallel was ever so snug under the bright high autumn sky. In the
space between the two main rooms of an empty farmhouse a white empty gourd was lying against another empty white
gourd. The village elders occasionally passing turned their long pipes behind their backs at the sight of Song-sam. The
children, too, cleared the road. Their faces were all ridden with fear. The village as a whole showed few traces of
destruction from the recent Korean War. But to Song-sam it didn’t seem like the same village he had known as a little
boy.
At the foot of a chestnut grove on the back hill, Song-sam stopped. He climbed up a chestnut tree. Somewhere in
his mind, he heard “the Grandpa with a Wen” shout, “You naughty boy, why do you climb up my chestnut tree?”
“The Grandpa with a Wen” must have passed away, too. Among the few village elders he had encountered, he
was not there. Holding the trunk of the chestnut tree, Song-sam looked up at the blue sky for a while. Though nobody
shook them, a few chestnuts fell on the ground as the dry clusters, still hanging on the branches, opened their own record.
In front of the farmhouse which was temporarily used as the peace police office, a young man was standing all
tied up. As the man seemed to be a stranger, Song-sam went near and looked into his face. He was taken aback. It was
none other than his boyhood friend, his playmate, Tok-chae.
He asked the police volunteer he had come with from Chontae what the case was. They guy had been second in
commence of the Farmer’s Communist League and had just been arrested hiding in his own house, he was told.
Tok-chae was to be escorted to Changdan. One of the police volunteers was going to take him there.
Song-sam sat down in th courtyard.
“I’ll take the guy with me,” he said.
Tok-chae, his face averted, refused to look at Song-sam. They left the village.
Song-sam kept on smoking one cigarette after another, but they had no taste. He just kept drawing the smoke deep
into the chest and blew it away. Then suddenly he thought this guy Tok-chae must want a drag too. He thought of the day
when they used to share the gourd leaves, smoking behind the walls hidden from the grown-ups. But today, he could not
offer a cigarette to a man like this.
Once they were small boys he went with Tok-chae to steal some chestnuts from the “Grandpa with a Wen.” It was
Song-sam’s turn to go up the tree. Suddenly, there came shouts from the old man. He slipped on a branch and fell to the
ground. Song-sam got sharp chestnut needles all over his bottom. But he kept on running. It was when they reached a
place where the old man could not get them that he turned his bottom toward Tok-chae to see. It hurt more plucking out
those needles. He couldn’t keep the tears from coming out from his eyes. Tok-chae suddenly took out a fistful of nuts
from his pocket and put them into Song-sam’s pocket.
Song-sam threw away the cigarette he had just lit. Then he made up his mind that he would not smoke another
cigarette as long as he was escorting Tok-chae.

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 They reached the hilly road. This was the hill where he and Tok-chae used to come all the time to cut the green
feed for the cows until Song-sam had to move to Chontae to the southern border of the 38th parallel a couple of years
before the Liberation.
Song-sam felt a sudden anger emerging from inside. He shouted, “So how many men have you killed, you dirty
guy?”
For the first time, Tok-chae threw a quick glance at him. The glare grew sharper, his mouth, now with a grown-
up’s beard, twitching. “You sound like you’ve killed many, have you?”
“How can he dare…?” Song-sam thought. But he felt in his heart becoming clear from within. As if something
was finally removed that had been blocking his heart.
“If you were the second man in the Communist League, why didn’t you run away? You must have been hiding
with some secret mission,” Son-sam said.
Tok-chae did not answer.
“Speak-up! What was your secret mission?”
Tok-chae kept walking without a word. The guy does have something, he thought. He wanted to take a good look
at the guy’s face, Tok-chae would not turn his averted face.
Touching the revolver at his side, Song-sam went on. “No excuse is necessary. You are sure to be shot anyway.
Why don’t you speak up frankly no, here?”
Tok-chae answered, his face is still turned away.
“I’m not going to make any excuses. They made me the second man in the League because I was form the poorest
farmhouse and I was a hard working farmer. If that was deathly crime, I’ll have to accept the penalty. I am still the same
guy I used to be. The only think I’m good at is digging the land.
And after a short pause, he added, “My old man is lying at my house. He’s been ill nearly half a year.” His father
was a widower, an old man, a hard working farmer who had lived only for his son. Seven years ago his back had already
become stooped, his face covered with black “death” spots.
“You married?”
After a while came the answer, “Yes.”
“Who with?”
“Shorty.”
“O, shorty? How interesting. She was so mall and plump as if forgetting the high sky and only minding the wide
earth. That was some girl, acting so modest.”
He and Tok-chae used to tease her a lot for being so shy, and it made her cry. And Tok-chae had married that
Shorty.
“How many children have you got?”
“The first one’s arriving this fall, I guess.”
Song-sam had difficulty swallowing the laughter, He asked himself how many kids he had, but he couldn’t help
bursting out into laughter upon the news of Shorty’s first baby coming in the fall. She must be a sight with a large
stomach and her small stature. But he realized this was not the occasion to laugh or joke over such a thing.
“Anyway, it’s fishy you’re hiding in the house and not running away.”
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 “I meant to run off. Men between seventeen to forty were all taken to the north anyway. They said once the south
attacks, no man would be left alive. I was going to evacuate too, even if I had to carry my father on my back. But father
said no. He said famers don’t leave the land just as the crops are ready to be harvested. He had only me all of his life. He
got old working on that farm. I wanted to be with him in his last days so I could close his eyes with my own hands. And
besides, where can a farmer like me go? The only thing we know is to live off the land…”
Song-sam had to take refuge last June. At night he had quietly told his father of the evacuation. Where can a
farmer go leaving all the farm work done, his father had said.
Roaming about the strange towns and villages in the south Song-sam had been haunted with the thought of his old
parents, the young wife and small children, left with all that farm work undone. Fortunately, his family was safe now.
They passed the top of the hill. This time, Song-sam walked with his face averted. The autumn sun was hot on the
forehead. This was an ideal day for the harvest, he thought.
When they had almost reached the foot of the hill, Song-sam stopped. Over in the middle of the field were a group
of cranes that looked exactly like men; in white clothes, stooping. This is used to be the neutralized zone along the 38 th
parallel. The cranes were still living here as before even though people were not allowed.
Long ago, when Song-sam and Tok-chae were about 12 years old, they had set up a trap here hidden from the
grown-ups. They had caught a Tanjong crane. With a rope, they had tied the crane, even to its wings. They had paid him
daily visits, giving him a pat on the neck, riding on his back.
Then one day they heard the village people talking quietly. Someone had come from Seoul to shoot cranes. They
were going to make specimens of cranes or something. They had even obtained a license from the government to shoot
them. The two boys dashed off to the field. They were no longer afraid of being found out by the grown-ups. All they
worried about was that their crane might be killed.
Without a moment’s delay, still breathing hard from running, they untied the crane’s feet and wings. But the crane
could not even walk properly. It must have been tied down too long.
The two boys held it up in the air. Then all of a sudden there was a shot. The crane fluttered its wings a couple of
times and came down again.
It got shot, they had thought. But the next instant, as another crane from the next bush fluttered its wings, the
boys’ crane stretched its long neck with a cry, flew off into the sky, making circles above their heads once or twice, and
went far away.
The two boys did not move their eyes from the blue sky where their crane had gone.
“Hey, why don’t we stop here for a crane hunting?”
Song-sam spoke up suddenly.
Tok-chae seemed puzzled, not knowing what he meant.
“I’ll make a trap with this. Why don’t you chase a crane over here.”

THE WONDERFUL PEAR TREE

Translated by Herbert Giles 1920
THE WONDERFUL PEAR TREE

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 Once upon a time a countryman came into the town on market-day, and brought a load of very special pears with
him to sell. He set up his barrow in a good corner, and soon had a great crowd round him; for everyone knew he always
sold extra fine pears, though he did also ask an extra high price. Now, while he was crying up his fruit, a poor, old,
ragged, hungry-looking priest stopped just in front of the barrow, and very humbly begged him to give him one of the
pears. But the countryman, who was very mean and very nasty-tempered, wouldn't hear of giving him any, and as the
priest didn't seem inclined to move on, he began calling him all the bad names he could think of. "Good sir," said the
priest, "you have got hundreds of pears on your barrow. I only ask you for one. You would never even know you had lost
one. Really, you needn't get angry."
"Give him a pear that is going bad; that will make him happy," said one of the crowd. "The old man is quite right;
you'd never miss it."
"I've said I won't, and I won't!" cried the countryman: and all the people close by began shouting, first one thing,
and then another, until the constable of the market, hearing the hubbub, hurried up; and when he had made out what was
the matter, pulled some cash out of his purse, bought a pear, and gave it to the priest. For he was afraid that the noise
would come to the ears of the mandarin who was just being carried down the street.
The old priest took the pear with a low bow, and held it up in front of the crowd, saying, "You all know that I
have no home, no parents, no children, no clothes of my own, no food, because I gave everything up when I became a
priest. So it puzzles me how anyone can be so selfish and so stingy as to refuse to give me one single pear. Now I am
quite a different sort of man from this countryman. I have got here some perfectly exquisite pears, and I shall feel most
deeply honoured if you will accept them from me." "Why on earth didn't you eat them yourself, instead of begging for
one?" asked a man in the crowd. "Ah," answered the priest, "I must grow them first." So he ate up the pear, only leaving a
single pip. Then he took a pick which was fastened across his back, dug a deep hole in the ground at his feet, and planted
the pip, which he covered all over with earth. "Will some one fetch me some hot water to water this?" he asked. The
people, who were crowding round, thought he was only joking, but one of them ran and fetched a kettle of boiling water
and gave it to the priest, who very carefully poured it over the place where he had sowed the pip. Then, almost while he
was pouring, they saw, first a tiny green sprout, and then another, come pushing their heads above the ground; then one
leaf uncurled, and then another, while the shoots kept growing taller and taller; then there stood before them a young tree
with a few branches with a few leaves; then more leaves; then flowers; and last of all clusters of huge, ripe, sweet-
smelling pears weighing the branches down to the ground! Now the priest's face shone with pleasure, and the crowd
roared with delight when he picked the pears one by one until they were all gone, handing them round with a bow to each
man present. Then the old man took the pick again, hacked at the tree until it fell with a crash, when he shouldered it,
leaves and all, and with a final bow, walked away.
All the time this had been going on, the countryman, quite forgetting his barrow and pears, had been in the midst
of the crowd, standing on the tips of his toes, and straining his eyes to try to make out what was happening. But when the
old priest had gone, and the crowd was getting thin, he turned round to his barrow, and saw with horror that it was quite
empty. Every single pear had gone! In a moment he understood what had happened. The pears the old priest had been so
generous in giving away were not his own; they were the countryman's! What was more, one of the handles of his barrow
was missing, and there was no doubt that he had started from home with two! He was in a towering rage, and rushed as
hard as he could after the priest; but just as he turned the corner he saw, lying close to the wall, the barrow-handle itself,
which without any doubt was the very pear-tree which the priest had cut down. All the people in the market were simply
splitting their sides with laughter; but as for the priest, no one saw him any more.

Directions: answer the question below using 6-8 complete sentences

1. What social issue in our society today can you relate this story to? Provide means and ways to resolve it.

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The analects of Confucius
Tr. By Herbert A. Giles

Proverbs or quotations from sages (men of profound wisdom, experience and foresight) give us pointers on how to live
virtuous lives, paving the way for peaceful, orderly, and harmonious world.

The master said –

 A plausible tongue and fascinating expression are seldom associated with true virtues.
 Let loyalty and truth be paramount with you. If you have faults, shrink not from correcting them.
 Learning without thought is labour lost. Thought without learning is intellectual death.
 In mourning, it is better to be sincere than to be punctilious.
 The faults of men are characteristic of themselves. By observing a man’s fault you may infer what his virtues are.
 The commander-in-chief of an army can be carried captive, but the convictions of even the meanest man cannot
be taken from him.
 A youth should be filial at home, respectful abroad. He should be earnest and truthful. He should overflow with
love to all, but cultivate the friendship of the good. Then, whatsoever of energy may be left to him, he should
devote to the improvement of his mind.

(a disciple having asked for a definition of charity, the master said:) LOVE ONE ANOTHER!
(a disciple been further asked for a definition of knowledge, the Master said:) KNOW ONE ANOTHER!

RETURN GOOD FOR GOOD FOR EVIL, JUSTICE

WHAT YOU WOULD NOT OTHERS DO UNTO YOU, DO NOT DO UNTO THEM.

SHARING INSIGHTS
1. Do you agree that judgement or opinion based on lack of understanding of facts has no weight or is
without merit? Explain.
2. Do you agree that love is an important element of charity? Explain.
3. What is meant by returning “good for good, for evil, justice?” Do you agree with this? Explain.

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