新西兰《乡音》1197期2022年9月23日星期五

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Farewell to Queen Elizabeth II

New Zealanders share sorrow and tender memories

BRITAIN held a state funeral for Queen Elizabeth II, the country’s longest-reigning monarch, at West minster Abbey on Sept 19, with deep grief and emotion.

Queen Elizabeth II died on Sept. 8, aged 96, at Balmoral in Scotland after a 70-year reign. Her eldest son, Charles, succeeded the throne.

The Queen ’s final farewell

The State Funeral - the first since the death of wartime UK Prime Minister Winston Churchill - is also under global spotlight as world leaders, dignitaries and roy al family members, among about 2,000 attendees, gathered at West minster Abbey to honor the late monarch.“Here, where Queen Eliza beth was married and crowned, we gather from across the nation, from the Commonwealth, and from the nations of the world, to mourn our loss, to remember her long life of selfless service ...” said David Hoyle, dean of the Westminster Abbey, who led the funeral service broadcast live.

A two-minute national silence was observed in remembrance of the late Queen at the end of the state funeral. Following the ser vice at Westminster Abbey, the Queen’s coffin will be taken to Windsor Castle where she will be buried together with her husband Prince Philip, who died last year at 99.

New Zealanders’ mourning for the Queen with love

As the Queen’s funeral are finalised in London. Prime Minis ter Jacinda Ardern who attended the state funeral says the sheer scale of the Queen’s funeral was extraordinary.She said the sound of the choir and trumpets echoing through the church gave it a real sense of ceremony.

Ardern said such moments reminded her that at the end of the day the Queen was a mother, a grandmother and a great-grand mother. Ardern also said earlier that the best advice the late Queen Elizabeth gave her on becoming a leader and a mother was “you just get on with it”.

New Zealanders made their own farewells. Up and down the country, royalists watched or lis tened to the funeral from 10pm NZ time on Sept 19.

Staunch royalist Angela Thompson and her husband Bill own what is believed to be New Zealand’s largest collection of royal memorabilia, which famous ly adorned their cafe.

Thompson grew up in Eng land, and while she has lived in Te Aroha for some years, the Queen’s death has made her feel very far from home. “It’s been awful, to be perfectly honest,” she said, her voice shaking. She was among those watching the Queen’s funer al from home with television spe cials starting this evening ahead of the service. “I need to see it. I need to say my farewells,” she said. “I can’t be there but I can be there in spirit.”In Christchurch, Lisbeth Clement has been a royal fan since she was a young girl and has collected memorabilia all her life. “Well, I’ve got the teaspoons, the thimbles, the cups, the plates,

American writer salutes Chinese poetry with whiskey

DURING the recent Mid-Autumn Festival, 79-year-old Bill Porter grabbed a glass of whiskey while enjoying the full moon, and recited an ancient Chinese poem outside his house in the United States.

“How rare the moon, so round and clear! With cup in hand, I ask of the blue sky,” Porter read the lines from “Prelude to Water Melody,” an ancient Chinese poem written by Su Shi, a famous poet of the Song Dynasty (960-1279).

With a profound love for Chi nese poetry, Porter has translated some 2,000 Chinese poems into English and published a series of books related to Chinese poetry and philosophy in the past decades.

“To me, the beauty about ancient Chinese poems is that the lines of poetry are usually short, with five or seven Chinese char

acters,” he said. “Because they are short, they are ambiguous. You have to read it many times before you can discover its meaning. It’s like anPorteradventure.”hasalso forged a close bond with the ancient Chinese poets.Among Porter’s favorite poets were Su Shi, reputed for his optimism and open-mindedness in

the face of life’s setbacks, and Tao Yuanming, an Eastern Jin Dynas ty (317-420) poet famous for his pursuit of free spirit and an idyllic lifestyle.Seeing the Chinese poets as his dear friends, Porter once traveled across China to visit their former residences, birthplaces and graves. He brought bottles of bour

books.”“I sit and watch it the whole way through because I just thought she was just such a won derful person, and I feel that well, I can’t be over there, I just need to be watching it and be involved.”

Further south in Dunedin, 90-year-old Betty Rawlings watched too. Sixty-nine years ago, as a young member of the Wom en’s Auxiliary Air Force, she saw the young Queen in person when she presented her colours to the Royal New Zealand Air Force.

“What struck me was her beautiful complexion,” Rawlings said,“I wear black and sitting on my own watching the television, in my small way being a part of XINHUA/NZHERALD/RNZit.”

SATIKEN never expected that among the many short videos he has shared on the internet about Kazak culture, a traditional pup pet dance known as “Orteke” would capture so much attention, causing many netizens to comment that “the culture of China’s minority groups is truly eye opening.”

Orteke (lit: dark-red goat) is an ancient Kazak performance art that sees a puppeteer make handmade wooden goat puppets dance to the plucked musical instrument known as the dombra. In his short video that has received around 100,000 likes on Douyin, the Chinese regional version of TikTok, the multi-talented Satiken plays the dombra as he controls the movement of five goat puppets by pulling thin silk strings twisted around this fingers, making them dance up and down to the music. “These goat puppets can eat grass, grind their horns and even use their horns to butt people. The secret lies in controlling how strongly you pull the strings according to the tempo of the music,” said Satiken.

In order to get more people from different cultural back grounds on the internet interested in this ingenious ethnic art, Satiken made some tweaks to traditional Orteke. Compared to the original version, Satiken’s Douyin Orteke has added a stage so his tiny performers can dance better. “I see a lot of people on the internet embracing the cultures of Xinjiang. I guess this shows that the region’s diverse ethnic cultures are all celebrated as gems of Chinese culture,” Satiken remarked.

“Please send this show to the Spring Festival Gala!” one netizen commented on Satiken’s short video. Held every year, the Spring Festival Gala is the biggest televised performance in China and traditionally exhibits the country’s diverse culture to viewers in China and around the world.

bon and rye whiskey with him, for he knew that many of the poets were Porterdrinkers.recalled that when he was seeking the grave of Tang Dynasty (618-907) poet Du Mu in Xi’an, northwest China’s Shaanxi Province, a farmer took him to the grave, and then he was joined by the locals.“About seven or eight farmers were standing around me when I was pouring whiskey and then reading Du’s poems,” Porter said. “The farmers also knew the poems and joined me chanting them.” Porter said people in his country are becoming more in terested in the Chinese language and culture, and he will continue working to introduce the beauty of the traditional Chinese culture to Westerners.

A gold “funeral mask” dating back to more than 3,000 years ago was excavated from the tomb of an ancient noble in Zhengzhou, capital of Central China’s Henan Province, officials with China’s National Cultural Heritage Administration announced at a recent press

Differentconference.from gold masks discovered at sites from the an cient Shu civilization in Southwest China’s Sichuan Province, the mask representing the culture of China’s Central Plains was large enough to cover a person’s entire face. This mask and other relics found in the Shang Dynasty (c.1600BC-1046BC) tomb have shed light on the burial rituals and gold culture of the Shang people.

The tomb yielded more than 200 burial objects.

The ancient city ruins and three other archeological discov eries revealed at the press conference number among the latest achievements of excavation and research into early city sites along the middle reaches of the Yellow River. All these sites date back to the early stages of Chinese civilization.

Bill Porter grabbed a glass of whiskey while enjoying the full moon. (Xinhua)

Young vlogger in Xinjiang region ethnic

Archaeological provide insight into Yellow River origins of Chinese civilization

CulturalChinesestorycorner Ahl. Sa and his TIMES

▲The coffin of Queen Elizabeth II is placed near the altar at the State Funeral held at Westminster Abbey, London, the UK, on Sept 19, 2022.(CFP)

▲The cortege with the hearse carrying the coffin travels on a road near the Buckingham Palace in London, Britain, Sept 19, 2022.(Xinhua)

▲ Jacinda Ardern arrives on the day of the state funeral and burial of Queen Elizabeth II at Westminster Abbey in London, Britain, on Sept 19, 2022.(CFP)

▲ The gold mask excavated from the ancient noble tomb. (Xinhua)