Tran Ba Hieu, a 30-year-old Vietnamese PhD student majoring in traditional Chinese medicine and pharmacology in Shanghai, has developed a deep interest in Chinese poems.

He learned about them from Chinese wuxia(martial hero) and costume dramas when he was little. Works set in ancient times, such as Dream of the Red Chamber, a TV drama based on one of the Four Great Classical Novels in Chinese literature and My Fair Princess, a 1998-1999 costume drama, intrigued him.

Although he had not yet studied Chinese, Tran said he gleaned enough of the meaning from the works for them to leave a lasting impression on him.

"The poems seemed to express deep feelings," he said.

After Tran came to China and began to learn Chinese language and culture, he found that the poems were not only rich in terms of content but also in expression.

Tran is one of a growing number of foreigners who are reading Chinese poetry for their strong emotive quality, rhyme scheme and depth of meaning. Their interest is not limited to personal study either as some foreigners are testing their skill and understanding in local competitions. A recent airing of the second season of China Central Television's Chinese Poetry Conference, a competition of poetry recitation, comprehension and appreciation, also boasted foreign entrants.

Tang poetry

Tang Dynasty (618-907) poems are Tran's favorite. He sees them as the essence of Chinese poetry.

"Tang poems allow me a peek into all walks of life and various types of emotions in few words, with formal regularity, prosodic harmony, and syllabic distinctiveness," he said.

He said the poems not only give him insight into life in ancient times but also the poet's thoughts.

According to Tran, a Tang poem pops into his head whenever he sees beautiful scenery or is in a particular emotional state.

Once when he climbed a mountain, he thought of the line "in order to take in a boundless view, ascend another floor" from Deng Guanque Lou (Ascending Guanque Tower) by Wang Zhihuan. Tang Dynasty poets like Wang Zhihuan, Cen Shen, and Li Bai seem to be etched into Tran's memory, ready to help him put words to the beautiful sceneries he encounters.

"There seems to be a Tang poem for all the scenery a human could ever encounter," he said.

When he feels lonely, lines like, "Where, before me, are the ages that have gone? And where, behind me, are the coming generations? I think of heaven and earth, without limit, without end, and I am all alone and my tears fall down" by Chen Zi'ang, come to him.

When he misses his family, Wang Wei's words, "being a stranger alone in a strange land, I miss my dear ones on every happy festival with a heavy mind" give him pause.

Avijit Banerjee, an associate professor and head of the Chinese Language and Culture department at Visva-Bharati University in India, is also a big fan of Tang Dynasty poetry.

He started to learn Chinese in 1991 and began to read Chinese poems in 1993. His favorite poet is Li Bai. Banerjee is amazed by how Li Bai uses language and imagination to create rich characters.

"He also crowds Chinese myths and legends in his poems," Banerjee said.

To better understand the poems, Banerjee tries to learn more about the historical and social context in which they were written.

He said that China and his home country have cultivated a great number of outstanding poets and "poems act as a bridge that helps readers from both countries know more about the culture of the other."

Unique style and structure

Nampet Saesong, a 27-year-old Thai postgraduate student in Shanghai, started to study Chinese poems when she was a primary school student in Thailand.

She first learned simple ones, such as Jingyesi (Quiet Night Thoughts) by Li Bai and Chunxiao (Spring Morn) by Tang Dynasty poet Meng Haoran.

She likes many Chinese poems. Qiang Jin Jiu (Cheers) by Li Bai, Shuidiao Getou (Prelude to Water Melody) by Su Shi, Duangexing (A Short Song Ballad) by Cao Cao and Mianchao Dahai, Chunnuan Huakai (Facing the Sea With Spring Blossoms) by Hai Zi are her favorite.

She found that Chinese poems pay close attention to rhyme and are often quite readable and catchy.

"They also put emphasis on word choice," she said. "Sometimes, a single word can bring a work of art to life."

Saesong likes Li Bai the most among all the poets because his poems are filled with his emotions and aspirations.

"Being a romantic poet, he yearns for freedom while attaching great value to friends," she said.

The main difference between Chinese poems and their Thai counterparts lies in the ideology and worldview, according to Saesong.

"Confucian thought and Taoist thought are influential in China. Therefore, the idea of how to conduct oneself in society constantly appears in Chinese poems," she said.

"However, religion, such as Buddhism, has more influence in Thailand, so causality and the world after death are often depicted in Thai poems."

Vlada Koroleva, a 22-year-old Russian who came to Beijing in September 2016, read her first Chinese poem around 2006.

"I read it in my school textbook," she said. "It was a translation, and, at that time, I didn't understand why people like it. It was very different from the Russian or English poems that I was used to reading."

However, when Koroleva started learning Chinese history and poetry at university, things changed drastically. She began to understand the charm and rhythm of Chinese poems.

Her favorite Chinese poem is Ziye Sishi Ge (A Ballad for Four Seasons) by Li Bai.

"Everyone can see himself or herself as one of the characters in this poem," she said.

Ways to delve into the text

Tran said that understanding the underlying meaning of some of the expressions was not easy for a foreigner like him. For him, the best way to access a Chinese poem was to learn it from movies or TV programs.

"I can quickly get the meaning of the poem with the movie or the TV program as the background information," he said.

Citing the TV drama versions of Dream of the Red Chamber and Journey to the West, Tran said he understood much more from the dramas than he would have had he pondered the poems alone.

"With the help of the storyline, I easily understood that the poems were describing the beauty of women and fairies," he said.

Saesong also conceded that she found studying Chinese poems difficult, not only in terms of gleaning their meaning but also in getting the right pronunciation.

She gains a deeper understanding of the poems by learning songs adapted from them. For example, to really dig into Su's Prelude to Water Melody, Saesong listened to Mingyue Jishi You (How Long Will the Full Moon Appear), a popular song by Chinese singer Faye Wong.

"I especially listened to that song in order to grasp the poem," she said.

She would also sometimes do an adaptation of a poem with her friends. It made memorizing the poems much easier and the learning process less boring, she said.

For instance, instead of "Moonlight before my bed; could it be frost instead? Head up, I watch the moon; head down, I think of home" from Li Bai's Quiet Night Thoughts, Saesong and her friends changed the lines to "Moonlight before my bed; I am sad because of the test. Head up, I watch the moon; head down, I work on my essays."

Studying Chinese poems was not easy for Koroleva either. To get over the challenge, she treated reading Chinese poetry as an opportunity to learn more about Chinese history and culture and China itself.

Koroleva's goal is to one day master the art of writing Chinese poetry."I have been writing in Russian and English, but I hope that one day I can write a Chinese poem of my own," she said.