section_path: Themes/Nostalgia
section_name: Nostalgia
paragraph_text: Nostalgia
  
  Literary critic James J.Y. Liu notes "Chinese poets seem to be perpetually bewailing their exile and longing to return home. This may seem sentimental to Western readers, but one should remember the vastness of China, the difficulties of communication... the sharp contrast between the highly cultured life in the main cities and the harsh conditions in the remoter regions of the country, and the importance of family..." It is hardly surprising, he concludes, that nostalgia should have become a "constant, and hence conventional, theme in Chinese poetry."
  
  Liu gives as a prime example Li's poem " A Quiet Night Thought " (also translated as "Contemplating Moonlight"), which is often learned by schoolchildren in China. In a mere 20 words, the poem uses the vivid moonlight and frost imagery to convey the feeling of homesickness. This translation is by Yang Xianyi and Dai Naidie:
  
  Thoughts in the Silent Night (Jìngyè Sī 静夜思) 床前明月光， Beside my bed a pool of light— 疑是地上霜， Is it hoarfrost on the ground? 舉頭望明月， I lift my eyes and see the moon, 低頭思故鄉。 I lower my face and think of home.