{"id":173385,"date":"2026-02-11T12:32:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T12:32:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/173385\/"},"modified":"2026-02-11T12:32:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T12:32:12","slug":"at-s-f-senior-home-100-year-olds-meet-1000-year-old-poems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/173385\/","title":{"rendered":"At S.F. senior home, 100-year-olds meet 1,000 year-old poems"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Comic<\/a><\/p>\n

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The youngest woman in the poetry class is 85. The oldest is 100. The poems are about 1,000, give or take a few years.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Clara Hsu<\/a>, a renowned Hong Kong-born poet and executive director of the Clarion Performing Arts Center, began teaching the course in 2019 to residents of the Bethany Center, an affordable senior housing community in the Mission District that houses a sizable number of Chinese elders.<\/p>\n

To some, the layered meanings found in these poems may seem obscure. Yet for the elders, all of whom are women, they are absorbing. \u201cI don\u2019t get many chances to learn new things these days,\u201d said one 91-year-old, by way of explanation.<\/p>\n

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Hsu teaches the class in Cantonese, the only language that her students speak. Many of them came from the Canton area of China to the United States one or two decades ago to help care for grandchildren. She has found them to be a \u201chigh-functioning\u201d and fiercely independent group. \u201cThey like to have their own community,\u201d Hsu says. \u201cDo their own stuff.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

For the classes, Hsu chose a few hundred poems \u2014\u00a0usually celebrated works from the Tang or Song dynasties \u2014\u00a0printed them out in large font, and placed them in folders provided to each student.<\/p>\n

\"AnA Chinese poetry class at San Francisco Mission District\u2019s Bethany Center on Feb. 3, 2026. Photo by Yujie Zhou.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn autumn, I climb up the mountain to enjoy the scenery,\u201d Hsu said on a recent Tuesday, explaining a Tang Dynasty poem praising the beauty of autumn (\u5c71\u884c). \u201cOnce I\u2019m up there, I find myself captivated by the maple leaves, which resemble flowers blooming in spring.\u201d<\/p>\n

Across the table, her 100-year-old student held a cassette recorder under the table, quietly recording the lecture so she could listen to it again back in her apartment.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hsu moved on to a sentence describing a bright moon among the pines (\u660e\u6708\u677e\u9593\u7167). \u201cDid anyone see last night\u2019s moon?\u201d she asked the class. \u201cIt was so bright, golden and crimson. It was the fifteenth day of the lunar month.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI was already asleep at that time!\u201d exclaimed the youngest student in the class \u2014\u00a0an 86-year-old, who is also the only student who needs a reminder from Hsu to come to class. The young student\u2019s penetrating laughter arrives in the classroom before the rest of her, and she cuts a dashing figure when she finally appears: one hand gripping her walker, the other holding a coffee, with her eyebrows and eyeliner meticulously drawn.<\/p>\n

Many of the poems Hsu assigns touch on loneliness, a theme that resonates deeply for her students. \u201cWhen no one comes to visit me, there\u2019s no need to sweep this path,\u201d said Hsu, reading from Arrival of a Guest (\u5ba2\u81f3) by Du Fu. \u201cBut since you\u2019ve come to see me today, I open my door to welcome you.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ancient poets, Hsu told the class, often withdrew into nature after realizing their ambitions could not be fulfilled in the imperial court.<\/p>\n

\"An\u201cI was already asleep at that time!\u201d exclaimed the youngest student in the class, an 86-year-old, on Feb. 3, 2026. Photo by Yujie Zhou. <\/p>\n

Originally, said Hsu, she debated whether to share poems about death, or even loneliness, with the students. Apart from the occasional bus ride to Chinatown, the women spend much of their time in a neighborhood where they cannot communicate with many people.<\/p>\n

Yet Hsu decided not to shy away. \u201cIt\u2019s good to see how ancient poets deal with this. Sometimes we are overly protective,\u201d she said. If \u201cyou\u2019re understanding the historical context of death and dying \u2026 you feel you\u2019re not alone.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAll those poems from before were so beautiful,\u201d said the 100-year-old.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd so profound,\u201d Hsu added.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Although some of the grannies live with their husbands at Bethany, they attend the class alone. Hsu didn\u2019t set out to have an all-female class, she said. She tried for years to recruit male participants, to no avail.<\/p>\n

One said,\u00a0 \u201cI don\u2019t know anything about poetry.\u201d Hsu replied: \u201cThere\u2019s no homework. I\u2019m just telling you stories the whole hour.\u201d Another excuse: \u201cOh \u2026 no \u2026 It\u2019s all women.\u201d<\/p>\n

One notable exception was Mr. Deng (Hsu is not entirely sure of the spelling of his last name), the only man to ever attend regularly. Deng worked hard to bring in more students, and he compiled a book of songs for the class to sing before discussing poetry.<\/p>\n

After Deng died two or three years ago, the class shrank from a dozen students to six, or fewer. Without Deng, \u201cnobody leads them to sing\u201d anymore. Hsu had no choice but to take on as the group\u2019s song-leader as well.<\/p>\n

Locally, Hsu is perhaps best known for writing the Gai Mou Sou Rap<\/a>, which went viral on YouTube after being performed by grandmothers a couple of decades younger than those in her poetry class.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Even in San Francisco, where one in five residents is Chinese, \u201cnobody\u2019s interested in Chinese poetry,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m lucky to have them,\u201d she said of her students.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"FourA Chinese poetry class at San Francisco Mission District\u2019s Bethany Center on Feb. 3, 2026. Photo by Yujie Zhou. <\/p>\n

Initially, Hsu said, she picked relatively simple poems for the class to discuss \u2014 many ancient Chinese poems are self-explanatory and have a mere 20 characters. But her students wanted more.<\/p>\n

At the height of the pandemic, when the classes were held over the phone (not even Zoom), Hsu ended up teaching the entire Three-Character Classic (\u4e09\u5b57\u7d93), a 13th century Chinese text with 1,140 characters, at the students\u2019 request.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Later came Orchid Pavilion Preface (\u862d\u4ead\u96c6\u5e8f), a prose essay from almost 2,000 years ago about the fleeting nature of joy and the relentless passage of time, and Song of Everlasting Regret (\u9577\u6068\u6b4c), a longform narrative poem about an emperor and his concubine.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Despite the upheavals China has seen in the past century, this generation of elders tend to be well-educated. \u201cI think they all went to school, at least high school,\u201d said Hsu. \u201cTheir education probably included poetry.\u201d She\u2019s found that some younger seniors \u2014\u00a0those in their 70s or early 80s \u2014\u00a0are less interested in poetry, possibly because their schooling was cut short during the Cultural Revolution.<\/p>\n

Hsu wishes her students would speak up more in class, but they remain shy even after years together. Most interactions involve Hsu leaning close to a student\u2019s ear to repeat a line, or telling a granny that her phone is ringing.<\/p>\n

Still, the class has already planned to begin its next session with two songs: What a lovely forsythia (\u597d\u4e00\u6735\u8fce\u6625\u82b1) and Beloved family (\u53ef\u611b\u7684\u5bb6\u5ead).\u00a0<\/p>\n

They will also spend the first day of the Lunar New Year together. It\u2019s another Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The free Chinese poetry workshop<\/a> taught by Clara Hsu takes place every Tuesday from 10 to 11 a.m., and is open to all Cantonese speakers. The program is supported by Ruth\u2019s Table, Front Porch and Department of Disability and Aging Services.<\/p>\n

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