A Bamboo wife,seido (also Jukbuin or Chikufujin),
is the East Asian version of a "Dutch wife",
a hollow bamboo form roughly the size of a human body.
Essentially used in hot weather,hugged,or wrapped between the
sleeper's legs.
I envision a lonely denizen of a bamboo forest
inventing the cooling wife after many tearful sleepless nights.
then there is this korean poem from the 19th century:
"Nong Li plays the four-stringed lute,
the wind blows away the matting
Zhao Hua plays the flute, the moon seeps into the floor
I have no red-sleeved girls to make the night fun
My true love: the seido, with its unmatchable coolness"
(translation is Korean to English)
after being translated into Japanese, it was translated again:
"There were geishas called Nong Li and Zhong Hua
Who could pluck the biwa and play the flute
Fit to blow away the rugs and let the moon shine on the floor
I haven't got a woman like that to keep me company by night
So I sleep with my bamboo wife—keeping cool's what I love best"
(translation is Korean to Japanese to English)
I wonder how different the bamboo wife would be
if it traveled the world via translation, to arrive once again in Japan.
Much as I wonder how my words are translated via the
experiences of "others". The bamboo wife is essentially a
reminder of our existential perview. After some trouble
in understanding...she told me,with pursed bamboo lips,
that I was perhaps right.
That's why I think I married her. But I am no longer sure of anything.
I would sleep on that thought, but it would be in a foreign tongue
when the sun came up. Having slipped through the lattice, meanings
cooled, reminding me of something once red-sleeved.
