--- product_id: 1393047 title: "The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain (Mandarin Chinese and English Edition)" price: "23671CFA" currency: XOF in_stock: true reviews_count: 13 url: https://www.desertcart.sn/products/1393047-the-collected-songs-of-cold-mountain-mandarin-chinese-and-english store_origin: SN region: Senegal --- # The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain (Mandarin Chinese and English Edition) **Price:** 23671CFA **Availability:** ✅ In Stock ## Quick Answers - **What is this?** The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain (Mandarin Chinese and English Edition) - **How much does it cost?** 23671CFA with free shipping - **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship - **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.sn](https://www.desertcart.sn/products/1393047-the-collected-songs-of-cold-mountain-mandarin-chinese-and-english) ## Best For - Customers looking for quality international products ## Why This Product - Free international shipping included - Worldwide delivery with tracking - 15-day hassle-free returns ## Description A Zen-Taoist poetry classic, in a handsome Chinese-English format This definitive translation of Han Shan’s poetry appears in a bilingual Chinese-English format. Included are extensive notes, a preface by renowned translator Red Pine, a findings list, and photographs of the cave and surrounding area where Han Shan (“Cold Mountain”) lived. Cold Mountain is one of the most revered poets in China. He was a Taoist/Buddhist hermit who begged for food at temples, often sang and drank with cowherds, and became an immortal figure in the history of Chinese literature and Zen. His poems were written twelve-hundred years ago on the rocks, trees, and temple walls of China’s Tientai Mountains. This revised edition also includes poems by Han Shan’s colleagues, Pickup (Shih-te) and Big Stick (Feng-kan), translated here for the first time. As Red Pine begins his Preface, “If China’s literary critics were put in charge of organizing a tea for their country’s greatest poets of the past, Cold Mountain would not be on many invitation lists. Yet no other poet occupies the altars of China’s temples and shines, where his statue often stands alongside immortals and bodhisattvas. He is equally revered in Korea and Japan. And when Jack Kerouac dedicated The Dharma Bums to him in 1958, Cold Mountain became the guardian angel of a generation of Westerners as well.” Reviews of Red Pine's Collected Songs of Cold Mountain : ”The translator’s preface describes his rendition of the life of Cold Mountain, offering an excellent historical and philosophical context for the simple yet profound poems attributed to the poet."— Library Journal “These are poems one must taste fully and drink whole... The poems of Han-shan read like a journal or memoir, and they often work as Zen koans, challenging the mind to go beyond the words and reason.”— Parabola “Red Pine... has given us the first full collection of Han Shan’s songs in an idiom that is clear, graceful, and neutral enough to last... His translations are accurate and mirror the music of the originals... The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain is a considerable performance and a truly valuable book. Thanks to Copper Canyon's high standards of bookmaking, it is beautiful to hold and behold; thanks to Red Pine’s care, it will survive as the definitive text of Han Shan in English for many years. It belongs on the shelf of everyone with an interest in poetry and... should be opened often."— The Bloomsbury Review “An exquisite publication that captures the Taoist practice of passionate attention, of being still inside and relaxed in the comforts and discomforts around you, going nowhere else... We discover this in the poet’s vision and spirit, in the precision and balance of the translator’s scholarship and heart, and in the elegant wilderness of the bookmaker’s art around them. On every level this is a beautiful book.”—Judges’ comments on awarding the WESTAF Award in Translation “Cold Mountain’s colloquial poetry...sound like inspired raps—marvelously direct, with skips, jumps, verbal nudges and abrupt revelations... The volume is beautifully produced, with a long and careful introduction... This is an indispensable book.”— The Berkeley Monthly “More than anyone else, Red Pine has made [Han Shan’s] spontaneous poems accessible to Western readers... In this new, expanded edition, invaluable notes and an extensive new critical preface provide a contextual awareness, not just for the poems, but for their sources in Buddhist and Confucian culture.”— Inquiring Mind Red Pine is one of the world’s leading translators of Chinese literary and religious texts. His other translations include Lao-tzu’s Taoteching (isbn 9781556592904) and Poems of the Masters: China’s Classic Anthology of T’ang and Sung Dynasty Verse (isbn 9781556591952). Review: Satirical poetry from old China - This is a beautiful edition from Copper Canyon Press of the poems of Han Shan (Cold Mountain) and a few poems of two of his companions. Han Shan was a medieval Chinese poet, often considered part of the Ch'an (Zen) Buddhist tradition. In my opinion he owes more to the Taoists, but gets his morality from the Buddhists, and morality is the subject of a lot of the poems. He is often classified as a wilderness poet, but he is more of a satirist. Many of his poems are scathing denunciations of society, including Buddhist and Taoist religious society. The poems are short, but the book is long, containing 307 poems by Han Shan, 49 by Shih Te, and four by Feng Kan. Han Shan's style is simple and straightforward, lyrical at times and rhetorical, even invective, at others. For a wilderness poet, it doesn't demonstrate love of nature so much as love of simple living. For a religious poet, he is remarkably non-pious. He also has a sense of humor, which tempers his satire. Like much Chinese poetry, his is very allusive, which makes Red Pine's footnotes most helpful. The translation is line by line, sticking close to the original (as far as my limited Chinese could detect from the Chinese text on facing pages). Red Pine's style is clear and concise, without affectations. Han Shan is considered (at least by Americans) as a classic Zen poet, but to my ear he lacks the heavy symbolism and deliberate mystification I often associate with Zen poetics. I appreciate his freshness, vigor, humor, and austere advice. Review: The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain - Red Pine's bilinqual translation of all the poems of Han Shan is a real treasure. He is also a very accurate translater according to a Chinese professor I know. Others has confirmed this. My own ability with Chinese is very limited, but I've had enough to sometimes use his Chinese text with a Chinese-English dictionary for some fun. It is too bad the Chinese characters are not larger in his book, for there is a lot of space on the page that could have been used for larger characters. If you want to try your hand at some translation, you need to be able to count the strokes, which is difficult with smaller characters. It is a good idea to have a couple other translations at hand, such as Burton Watson's. Red Pine provides an index that allows an easy comparison of his translation of a particular poem with other 7 published translations. Sometimes I do prefer Burton Watson. For example, Burton Watson: Who can break the snares of the world/ And sit with me among the white clouds?" Red Pine: who can get past the tangles of the world/and sit with me in the clouds." In this case, Red Pine omits the word white, which is in the original poem. His book has very good notes for the poems and an excellent introduction. Also included are poems by Feng-kan and Shih-te, two friends of Han Shan. ## Technical Specifications | Specification | Value | |---------------|-------| | Best Sellers Rank | #118,953 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #5 in Chinese Poetry (Books) #15 in Chinese Literature #24 in Buddhist Sacred Writings (Books) | | Customer Reviews | 4.7 out of 5 stars 191 Reviews | ## Images ![The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain (Mandarin Chinese and English Edition) - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81ngKeqfz3L.jpg) ## Customer Reviews ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Satirical poetry from old China *by L***E on June 29, 2015* This is a beautiful edition from Copper Canyon Press of the poems of Han Shan (Cold Mountain) and a few poems of two of his companions. Han Shan was a medieval Chinese poet, often considered part of the Ch'an (Zen) Buddhist tradition. In my opinion he owes more to the Taoists, but gets his morality from the Buddhists, and morality is the subject of a lot of the poems. He is often classified as a wilderness poet, but he is more of a satirist. Many of his poems are scathing denunciations of society, including Buddhist and Taoist religious society. The poems are short, but the book is long, containing 307 poems by Han Shan, 49 by Shih Te, and four by Feng Kan. Han Shan's style is simple and straightforward, lyrical at times and rhetorical, even invective, at others. For a wilderness poet, it doesn't demonstrate love of nature so much as love of simple living. For a religious poet, he is remarkably non-pious. He also has a sense of humor, which tempers his satire. Like much Chinese poetry, his is very allusive, which makes Red Pine's footnotes most helpful. The translation is line by line, sticking close to the original (as far as my limited Chinese could detect from the Chinese text on facing pages). Red Pine's style is clear and concise, without affectations. Han Shan is considered (at least by Americans) as a classic Zen poet, but to my ear he lacks the heavy symbolism and deliberate mystification I often associate with Zen poetics. I appreciate his freshness, vigor, humor, and austere advice. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain *by D***T on May 5, 2011* Red Pine's bilinqual translation of all the poems of Han Shan is a real treasure. He is also a very accurate translater according to a Chinese professor I know. Others has confirmed this. My own ability with Chinese is very limited, but I've had enough to sometimes use his Chinese text with a Chinese-English dictionary for some fun. It is too bad the Chinese characters are not larger in his book, for there is a lot of space on the page that could have been used for larger characters. If you want to try your hand at some translation, you need to be able to count the strokes, which is difficult with smaller characters. It is a good idea to have a couple other translations at hand, such as Burton Watson's. Red Pine provides an index that allows an easy comparison of his translation of a particular poem with other 7 published translations. Sometimes I do prefer Burton Watson. For example, Burton Watson: Who can break the snares of the world/ And sit with me among the white clouds?" Red Pine: who can get past the tangles of the world/and sit with me in the clouds." In this case, Red Pine omits the word white, which is in the original poem. His book has very good notes for the poems and an excellent introduction. Also included are poems by Feng-kan and Shih-te, two friends of Han Shan. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ It reads like beat poetry from a thousand years ago ... *by M***K on April 27, 2016* This book brings to life the poems of a legendary Chinese hermit in a Taoist/Buddhist era some 1100 years ago. The author is to be commended for both his translations as well as the context he gives to help contemporary audience understand each poem. Han Shan, the hermit poet, is an esoteric, eccentric, spiritual figure who shunned the religious institutions and society of his era. The poems are written as Han Shan lives his days in isolation on a mountain. Expect observations on birds, streams, and the unfolding of seasons, punctuated with ruminations on the pointless yearnings of normal civilized life. This collection reads like beat poetry from a thousand years ago in a culture with which I only have a vague, romantic understanding. I personally empathized with Han Shan, and imagined myself a Chinese hermit, alone in the wild with hardly a concern for the daily struggles and tribulations to which I currently choose to subject myself. This is Han Shan's point: you choose your dramas, you create your own suffering by clinging to the ways of the world. In this, he is the classic detached, enlightened bodhisattva. He just happens to have a knack for wry observation and a poetic yearning for the freedom found only in nature. --- ## Why Shop on Desertcart? - 🛒 **Trusted by 1.3+ Million Shoppers** — Serving international shoppers since 2016 - 🌍 **Shop Globally** — Access 737+ million products across 21 categories - 💰 **No Hidden Fees** — All customs, duties, and taxes included in the price - 🔄 **15-Day Free Returns** — Hassle-free returns (30 days for PRO members) - 🔒 **Secure Payments** — Trusted payment options with buyer protection - ⭐ **TrustPilot Rated 4.5/5** — Based on 8,000+ happy customer reviews **Shop now:** [https://www.desertcart.sn/products/1393047-the-collected-songs-of-cold-mountain-mandarin-chinese-and-english](https://www.desertcart.sn/products/1393047-the-collected-songs-of-cold-mountain-mandarin-chinese-and-english) --- *Product available on Desertcart Senegal* *Store origin: SN* *Last updated: 2026-09-28*