CHPOEM Collection --- a growing Chinese classics library Compiled by: Huangxin Wang, University of Pennsylvania Last update: 6/28/93 Major changes since last update: new files including: classic5.gb yijing.gb ftp site: ifcss.org (129.107.1.155) directory: china-studies/literature/poetry cnd.org (132.249.229.100) directory: The plain text GB files in this directory are the entire collection of all postings on the Chinese Poem Exchange (CHPOEM) network so far (see the the file CHPOEM.README or README in the ftp sites above). The files can be read in the same way as you read Hua Xia Wen Zhai (HXWZ) Chinese magazine, using any softwares available on UNIX, IBM-PC and Macintosh (see the file INTRODUCTION in directory cnd-cm/ about how to read Chinese files). This collection is sure to grow as the days go. I will try to update it on the monthly basis. I. What's in these files? -------------------------- yijing.gb entire Yi-Ching text. laozi.gb entire text of "Laozi" (81 chapters) confucius.gb text of "Lun-Yu" mencius.gb text of "Meng Zi" zhuzi.gb miscellaneous works of Chinese ancient philosophers in the "Zhu Zi Bai Jia" period. Currently this file contains "SunZi Bin Fa", "Gui Gu Zi", and "Da Xue". classic1.gb from ChunQiu to Han and Wei dynasty classic2.gb [note] from Jin4 to pre-Tang dynasty tang1.gb early to middle Tang dynasty tang2.gb late-Tang dynasty classic3.gb Song dynasty classic4 post-Song dynasty to Qing Dynasty including the entire collection of poems in "Hong Lou Meng" (Red Chamber's Dreams). classic5 post-Qing dynasty to present (classical style), including the entire collection of Mao Zedong's poems, Wang Guowei's poetry commentary. modern*.gb modern poetry menglong.gb "Meng Long" poems by Bei Dao and others. post-menglong.gb poems after the "Meng Long" style era. foreign.gb foreign poems translated into Chinese songs.gb lyrics of some popular Chinese songs misc.gb miscellaneous collection, including "Dui-lian" (couplet), "Deng-mi" (puzzles), jokes, humors, "Chen-Yu" (idioms), etc. news.gb news digest compiled from HXWZ and other sources. classicaljokes.gb Jokes from ancient Chinese literature modernjokes.gb Jokes in modern Chinese recipes.gb recipes of Chinese cooking index.gb the index of all the entries in the above files. It is listed by the numbering, the label and the title of each record (see below). II. Ordering of Records ----------------------- Each poem or essay is called a "record" in these files. I try to order the records by the following rules: For ancient literature, they are arranged chronically, or roughly according to the period they are in. For modern poetry, they are arranged roughly into: (1) "Old" New Poems (such as those in the 1920s or 30s); (2) period until 1976; (3) The "real" New Poems after 1976, typified by Beidao and Shu Ting. (4) Everything else, including those by alive-and-young-and-bouncing-around poets (like Tuya). For the songs.gb, foreign.gb, misc.gb and others, they are almost randomly ordered. I try to follow these rules throughout, but my limited knowledge may make some mistakes as silly as assuming Mao Zedong to be the first emperor of Tang dynasty (even though I hope so :-) ). Please let me know any mistakes or any suggestions for improvements. Since many Chinese text editors have a limit on the maximal size of a file, the above files are kept below the same limit as the HXWZ file limit, i.e., around 40k per file. If a file grows too large, it will be split up. III. Text Format ---------------- All these files are plain GB texts. To facilitate processing the records (such as browse/edit, delete/insert), I adopt the following simple "database" format (except for ts300 series): Each file is made of records, the beginning of a record is marked by the character * at the beginning of a line (in UNIX notation, ^\*). The ASCII string after this mark on the same line is used to label this record, but this string can be empty. With this marker, it is very convenient to write a simple program to process the entries of this collection. For example, to show the poem (i.e., record) #25 of file tang1.gb, or delete that record, or extract out that record as a single file, etc. I use the following convention (similar to the convention of file names for CHPOEM posting) to label each record (even though in many cases, the label is empty): lastname-firstname.xxx xxx is 3 digits to distinguish different poems of the same author. For example, li-bai.001 li-qingzhao.002 A special one is: lastname-firstname.000 which is a record containing the information about the author. The content of a record can be in any format, as long as there is no line started with the character *. There is no restriction on the number of empty lines, or the format of the title line (first line) of a record, even though I prefer to have the following form for the title line: author name <> then an empty line after it. << >> is the Chinese punctuation of "book-name mark". IV. How these files are generated? ----------------------------------- When the collection grows, it becomes obvious that one needs a good organizer for the collection. The postings on the CHPOEM are spontaneous, thus organizing them together is a process similar to the database management --- random access, insert/delete, find/replace, and indexing. I developed a set of HyperCard stacks to do such maintenance. When I receive a posting in uuencoded format on CHPOEM, I display the uuencoded mail on screen (using a terminal emulation program on Mac, such as VersaTerm), copy it, use Ed Lai's "Clipboard Magician" to decode it. Then just paste it into a new card in one of these stacks. If the posting is in hz format (enclosed by ~{ ~} or zW), the easiest on Macintosh to decode it is by using QRead DA written by me (available from ifcss.org ftp site). V. About the HyperCard stack for this collection ------------------------------------------------- (for Macintosh users only) Using the Hypercard stack for this collection, the maintenance/browsing/Editing is very easy and enjoyable. For example, I can flip through the collection just like flipping books, or jump to a particular item by clicking at its title in the index. Reorganizing the card location according to the rules of ordering can be done by Cut/Paste. I can then update the index window (which list all the poems in the stacks by its label and title); or periodically, I can dump out the contents of all the stacks as plain text files (the files in this directory). The above plain GB files are readable on all computer platforms; on the other hand, the simple "database" format I define above also allows one to write a management program for processing/organization. In summary, here are some of the functionalities of the stacks: * Random access to any poems by simpling mouse-click in its title listed in the index window. * Update the index window as new records are added in. * Edit/Print/Search * Extract a record as a text file, or read from a text file into the record. * Bookmark (for you to set a certain frequent-visited record). * Rebuild stacks from, or output stacks as, plain text files specified in the format (as describe in III above). To use this stacks, you need to have the Chinese System (CH6.07) installed in your Macintosh, or install the Chinese script into the English System (e.g., System 6.07, or System 7.1 and WorldScript II with Simplified Chinese Script). These HyperCard stacks are available from the most popular Macintosh ftp site: sumex-aim.stanford.edu (36.44.0.6) in directory info-mac/Hypercard or a Sweden Macintosh ftp site: lunix.met.kth.se (130.237.16.204) in directory pub/poem or you can send three 800K disks (or two 1.4M high density disk), with returning address and postage to me: Huangxin Wang 435 Foulke Ave. Ambler, PA 19002 Currently I will be responsible for the maintenance of this collection. Any corrections, suggestions or comments can be sent to: wang@pennmess.physics.upenn.edu Have fun with the beautiful and entertaining Chinese literature, and thanks to everyone who contribute to the CHPOEM net.