After Covid-19 outbreak hit China in January 2020, Japan and the Republic of Korea sent medical supplies in time to China. The ancient poems written in Chinese and quoted on the packaging of these valuable medical supplies caused a sensation among Chinese. The Chinese media online and offline extensively covered this event. These poetic quotations reminded Chinese people of the fact that once upon a time poets in China, Japan and Korea wrote poems in Chinese and of the fact that the cultural ties and relations among the three neighboring countries go back to a long ago and are much closer and deeper that they seem at first sight.

As China has successfully brought the outbreak under control and the outbreak has hit ROK and Japan outrageously, China has sent medical supplies to our two neighbors across the sea. This time, we Chinese people have quoted poems with the medical supplies to express our support and sincere sympathies.

One quotation reads “We cross the river in the same boat”, a line from a poem written by Meng Haoran (689-740) during his visit to Zhejiang. The 28-word poem describes a voyage on the river: travelers wait out a storm and board a boat to start their journey toward their destination; traveling in the same boat they watch out and wonder how fast they will see green mountains that signal the journey is over. Traveling in the same boat is a Chinese idiom appropriate to describe concerted efforts made jointly by people of China, ROK and Japan to combat the Covid-19 outbreak.

Another quotation comes from a long poem written by a Korean politician and writer named Heo Gyun (1569-1618). The quotation reads to the effect that “We are like brothers trusting each other and devoted to each other.” Back then the Ming Dynasty and the Korean Joseon Dynasty had close ties and diplomats from the two dynasties saw each other frequently. Heo Gyun wrote this poem in honor of a Chinese diplomat named Wu Ziyu who was about to go back to China after accomplishing his diplomatic mission in the Joseon Dynasty.

The third quotation to be discussed here is from a poem written by a Chinese monk named Juzan (1908-1984). Born as Pan Chutong, this young Buddhist who spoke English and German converted to Buddhism and became a monk at Lingyin Temple in Hangzhou after graduation from a university in Shanghai. He changed his name to Juzan, a monk’s name that doesn’t include a surname or a given name. Over years, he became a very important figure in religious circles in China. The quotation that appeared on the packaging of medical supplies sent to Japan comes from a poem Juzan wrote to a Japanese Buddhist monk surnamed Makoto who was abbot of a pure land Buddhist temple. Many Japanese Buddhist sects came from Mount Tiantian, a Buddhism sanctuary in Zhejiang, and pure land Buddhism is one of them. The first 14 words of the 28-word poem point out that Tiantai ties China and Japan and that the shared faith is like a blooming tree sending a special aroma to the peoples of the two countries.