Xi Bou
(西伯)
Yan Shen Drabek
March 16, 2024
The grand celebration is still going on in the palace. Under the bright light of burning pine wood, the ministers were sitting on the floor, feasting on roasted meat, and drinking wine out of wide round bowls. There were dancing and singing, mixed with wild yelling.
In front of the palace, common people surrounding the roaring fires, beating gongs and drums, singing and dancing, crazy and drunken.
The moon is covered with shreds of clouds. Stars are fading.
At the host table, a large man sitting at the center quietly stood up and left the table. Moving swiftly, he disappeared behind the silk screens. The party had been going on for more than 10 hours, and no one has noticed his disappearance.
Under the moonlight, the large person rode a purplish-red horse toward the vest wilderness. The light, music, and the palace were soon behind him.
The time was 1100 B.C. Shang (商)Dynasty in China. The person’s name was Ji Change （姬昌）. People called him Xi Bou (西伯）。The celebration was held for him. The dance music, Arms Music (大武之乐), was actually created by him。He knew that the party would continue until sunrise. He kept walking until he was swallowed completely by silence. Eventually, he stopped and knelled on his knees in front of two imposing tombstones.
Under one of the tombstones, lies his grandfather Tan, and the other tombstone his father JiLi. Xi Bou took a deep breath and lowered his head. It’s been a long time, but he finally made it here to worship his father and his grandfather.
Xi Bou was the head of the tribe. For the last seven years, he was captive by the king Zhou of Shang (商纣王). Xi Bou’s subjects from the tribe spent enormous amount of efforts to rescue him. They bribed several ministers of the Shang, sent a lot of presents to the king, including beautiful women, good horses, and jewelries. Xi Bou’s freedom was bought back.
The celebration was for his return. Again, he keeled in front of his father and grandfather, he told them his days in the past seven years, and his determination to overthrow the King of Shang. He begged his ancestors to bestow him more courage and wisdom.
A dim light appeared at the horizon. Xi Bou stood up. Leaning onto his horse, he looked at the sky and the vest land in front of him. Pale blue light shining behind the black mountain that is so familiar to him, even though he hasn’t seen it for seven years. He felt that he had never left. The tall and continuous Qi (岐) mountain range - eighty years ago, his grandfather led the tribe walking out of the mountains, arriving at this land.
This land – will be Xi Bou’s kingdom.
* * * * *
On my oldest brother’s 18th birthday in 1965, “You are”, said my grandmother to him, “the 100th generation of Xi Bou! I’ve added your name to our family-tree book.”
Q.M Chang (Kim) MemoryWorks Workshop
Writing in Proximity to History
Writing Provocation #2: Family Myths and Origin Stories