The Poetry of Diabetes and the Wuhan APACPH Conference

Abstract

As this issue of the Asia-Pacific Journal of Public Health (APJPH) goes to press, we will be meeting in Wuhan for the 45th Asia Pacific Academic Consortium for Public Health (APACPH) Conference. Wuhan has a 3500-year history of education and scholarship, a tradition that is continued in the modern universities located here. During the eighth century, the Golden Age of the Tang Dynasty, one of China’s greatest classical poets, Li Bai (李白), traveled around the country writing poetry and sampling the local wines. He was born in the far West, probably in present-day Kazakhstan or Kyrgyzstan where his family was in exile from southeast China. At the age of 5 years, his family moved to Jiangyouin Sichuan Province, where he studied the classics and gained skills in Chinese marital arts. There is a statue to his memory in that city, which has survived the recent Great Western China Earthquake. 1 Later during his travels, Li Bai stopped for a period in Wuhan as he travelled along the Yangtze River. He is remembered for naming the city as “River City” (江城). Wuhan is the city’s present name dating from early in the 20th century following several amalgamations. Because of its beautiful location on the mighty river with its lakes and mountains nearby, Wuhan will always be thought of as a beautiful “River City.” One of the best known poems that Li Bai is remembered for is his poem “To the Moon” (静夜思) (which is only 20 words long) and its descriptive of nature while the wandering poet reveals his longing for his home. Seeing the moonlight in front of my bed – I took it for frost on the ground! Lifting my head to watch the bright moon, I thought of hometown when I bent my head The round shape of full moon in Chinese culture has many meanings, including unity, closeness, completeness, healthy, peaceful, and immortality. The moon was seen as a symbol of protection. The image of a full moon rising over the river is also an appropriate one for public health. The circle represents completeness or wholeness, which is the goal of public health. Public health is characterized by scientific assessment and rigorous cost-effectiveness evaluations as we seek to make individuals and populations whole, using the best of a seething river of options made available in our modern world. We could really stretch the analogy and imagine the “hometown” he is referring to his early origins, which is an increasingly important topic in public health. Li Bai wrote more than 1000 poems before he died at the age of 58 and is remembered as one of