1984.10.16-12.9

Gary Snyder travels in the Peoples' Republic of China as part of an American Academy of Arts & Letters delegation for a 4-day writers conference, as guest of the Writers' Union with Toni Morrison, Allen Ginsberg, Harrison Salisbury, William Gass, Francine du Plessix Gray.
The American writers were taken to the most famous tourist destinations : Beijing, the Chinese Acrobat Theatre, the Imperial Palace, a section of the Great Wall. After a week in Beijing, the group went to Xian, to Shanghai, to see the Buddhist temples, the Tang gardens in Suzhou and Han Shan's Cold Mountain.
After the other members of the mission went back to America, Allen Ginsberg stayed in China by himself for some time to have more communication with contemporary Chinese writers and a spiritual dialogue with great ancient Chinese poets. He wen to the universities in Beijing, Shanghai, Baoding and Guiling to read and instruct his own poems and other western poets. In this period he wrote more than ten poems : One morning I took a walk in China, Reading Bai Juyi, Improvisation in Beijing, I love old Whitman so, Black shroud. In these poems Ginsberg depicts his endearment of China and its profound culture. And the poems have been praised as opening a window for western readers to understand China.