'On My Late Mother’s Refusal to Harm Birds': When Birds Cease to Fear Us, Su Shi Sees the Human World More Clearly
Grandevity Studio presents On My Late Mother’s Refusal to Harm Birds, a cinematic neo-classical Chinese narrative setting of 100% of Su Shi’s original Northern Song prose. A restrained Mandarin baritone, cello, low piano, guqin, xiao, pipa and chamber strings move from a compassionate mother and low nesting birds to the grave conclusion: 'Harsh government is fiercer than a tiger, truly so.'
Some forms of trust require no shared language.
A living creature simply observes you long enough to discover that you will not harm it.
On My Late Mother’s Refusal to Harm Birds is a Mandarin male-vocal work setting 100% of the original prose by Northern Song writer Su Shi, also known as Su Dongpo, to music.
There are no expanded lyrics, no modern rewriting and no newly written chorus.
The prose unfolds entirely in Su Shi’s own words, beginning with an almost idyllic childhood courtyard and ending with one of the most severe conclusions in the piece:
Harsh government is fiercer than a tiger, truly so!
At first, the memory is gentle.
Outside the study of Su Shi’s childhood home, bamboo, cypress and flowers fill the courtyard. Birds build nests among the branches.
His mother, Lady Wuyang, detests killing living creatures. Children and servants are forbidden from catching the birds.
Years pass.
Something changes.
The birds begin to nest lower and lower, until their young can be seen simply by bending down.
Then an even rarer visitor appears: the Tonghua Feng, a bird described as exceptionally beautiful and seldom seen. For four or five days it flies and gathers within the courtyard, remarkably tame and unafraid of people.
The neighbours consider this extraordinary.
Su Shi gives a much simpler explanation:
There was nothing else to it: the sincerity of a heart that did no harm was trusted even by creatures of another kind.
Trust has become visible.
But the prose does not end there.
Watch the MV: 🎬 On My Late Mother’s Refusal to Harm Birds | Official Music Video
Headphones recommended. Enter a late-spring courtyard in Northern Song Meishan, where the young Su Shi watches his mother protect the birds that nest around their home. Follow the nests downward, encounter the rare Tonghua Feng, then move with an old villager’s reasoning into a darker world of snakes, rodents, foxes and birds of prey. By the end, the childhood memory has become an adult meditation on fear, power and the meaning of “harsh government is fiercer than a tiger.”
Lady Wuyang: Su Shi Lets the Birds Testify for His Mother
The “late mother” of the title is Su Shi’s mother, née Cheng, referred to in the prose by her title Lady Wuyang.
Su Shi does not offer an elaborate moral portrait.
Instead, he records one household rule:
Lady Wuyang detested killing living creatures. Children and servants were all forbidden from catching the birds.
She does not tame them.
She does not call them toward her.
She merely ensures that no one in the household harms them.
Over time, the birds themselves respond.
This is the elegance of Su Shi’s remembrance.
He does not need to tell us that his mother was compassionate.
The wild creatures around her house provide the evidence.
“They All Nested on Low Branches”: Trust Changes Distance
Over several years, they all began nesting on low branches; one could bend down and look upon their nestlings.
For a wild bird, distance is usually protection.
Height is protection.
A nest close to people can be dangerous.
Yet in this courtyard the logic has changed.
Because people do not kill them, proximity becomes safer than distance.
The movement of the nests from high branches to low ones is therefore more than a charming natural detail.
It is a physical measure of trust.
No human declaration is required.
How closely another creature is willing to live beside you may reveal more than any proclamation of kindness.
The Tonghua Feng: The Rarest Thing Is Not Its Plumage, but Its Lack of Fear
Su Shi then introduces the most visually striking creature in the prose:
There was also a Tonghua Feng which, for four or five days, flew and gathered among the trees. Its plumage was exceptionally rare and beautiful, yet it was tame and showed no fear of people.
The exact modern species corresponding to the old name Tonghua Feng is difficult to establish with certainty.
For that reason, the MV does not force the bird into a modern zoological identity.
It is presented as a rare but naturalistic small bird: refined, unusual and visually memorable, yet never supernatural.
Its importance lies not in fantasy.
The extraordinary fact is that even this rare bird does not fear the people of the household.
“There Was Nothing Else to It”: Kindness Becomes Credible Only through Time
The neighbours regard the scene as something marvellous.
Su Shi refuses a supernatural explanation:
There was nothing else to it: the sincerity of a heart that did no harm was trusted even by creatures of another kind.
The key is duration.
A single harmless encounter does not produce trust.
Repeated harmless encounters do.
Eventually another creature no longer needs to guess what you might do.
It knows.
That knowledge changes behaviour.
This is why the passage feels unexpectedly modern: trust is not demanded, declared or performed.
It is accumulated.
The Old Villager Speaks: The Gentle Memory Gains a Second Explanation
An elderly countryman then offers a practical observation.
When birds nest too far from people, their young face danger from snakes, rodents, foxes, owls and kites.
If humans do not kill them, the birds may deliberately live closer to human habitation in order to escape those predators.
The explanation is ecological rather than sentimental.
The birds are not expressing gratitude.
They are making a survival decision.
And that simple observation suddenly opens a much darker question.
If birds may choose people over natural predators, why were birds traditionally so afraid to nest near people in the first place?
“They Considered Humans Worse than Snakes and Rodents”
Su Shi answers:
In former times, when birds did not dare to nest near people, it was because they regarded humans as worse than snakes and rodents.
The entire emotional structure of the prose turns at this moment.
The compassionate courtyard is no longer merely a pleasant memory.
It has become an accusation.
What kind of human behaviour is required before a wild creature considers us more dangerous than its natural predators?
The question is no longer about birds alone.
It is about power.
“Harsh Government Is Fiercer than a Tiger”
The prose ends:
Harsh government is fiercer than a tiger, truly so!
The famous idea of harsh government being fiercer than a tiger is associated with the classical tradition preserved in the Book of Rites.
Its force lies in comparison.
A tiger is visibly dangerous.
Its violence has claws and teeth.
Human power can be more terrifying precisely because it may become systematic, unavoidable and enduring.
Su Shi’s short prose therefore moves with remarkable economy:
mother → birds → trust → low nests → rare bird → predators → humans → government.
The final political thought is not detached from the childhood memory.
It is its logical completion.
Fear creates distance.
Mercy creates proximity.
Cinematic Neo-Classical Chinese Narrative: Letting Warmth Slowly Acquire Weight
The final musical production is built around a Cinematic Neo-Classical Chinese Narrative Song, approximately 72 BPM in 6/8, with a through-composed structure.
The arrangement features:
- A cultured, restrained Standard Mandarin baritone with clear classical-Chinese diction.
- Solo cello, low piano and distant birds opening the world of childhood memory.
- Guqin and xiao establishing the quiet architecture of the Northern Song courtyard.
- Pipa textures and chamber strings widening the sound as the rare Tonghua Feng appears.
- A deliberate pause after the neighbours consider the event extraordinary, allowing “There was nothing else to it” to arrive almost alone.
- A long orchestral interlude before the old villager’s reasoning, transforming domestic memory into philosophical reflection.
- Gradually darkening harmony in the final paragraph.
- A single grave climax reserved for “Harsh government is fiercer than a tiger, truly so!”
- A long decrescendo ending not in triumph, but in unresolved birdsong.
Nothing is added to Su Shi’s text.
The music simply gives the original prose more time to reveal what was already there.
The MV: From a Compassionate Mother and a Safe Nest to an Adult Su Shi in Reflection
The MV places the original narrative within a historically grounded visual world of mid-Northern Song Meishan in Sichuan.
The season is late spring moving into early summer.
The first half is built from white plaster walls, grey tiled roofs, timber architecture, bamboo, cypress, flowers, paulownia branches and low nests.
The young Su Shi is around twelve years old.
Lady Wuyang becomes the visual centre of the early film: elegant, beautiful, composed and compassionate.
She is not treated as an abstract moral symbol.
She watches the birds.
She stops children and servants from disturbing them.
She stands quietly beside nests that have moved closer precisely because the household has never harmed them.
The appearance of the Tonghua Feng creates the visual high point of the first half.
The second long instrumental passage then changes the film’s grammar.
The courtyard remains behind.
The viewer enters distant woodland.
A snake approaches a nest.
A rodent watches from below.
A fox moves in shadow.
Owls and kites survey the branches.
When the film returns to the human dwelling, the meaning of safety has changed.
Adult Su Shi then appears.
The memory belongs to childhood.
The conclusion belongs to a man who has learned what human power can become.
📜 Complete Original Text with English Translation
[Su Shi, “On My Late Mother’s Refusal to Harm Birds” — Complete Original Text]
少時所居書堂前，有竹柏雜花叢生滿庭，眾鳥巢其上。
In my youth, before the study where I lived, bamboo, cypress and many kinds of flowers grew thick throughout the courtyard, and numerous birds nested among them.
武陽君惡殺生，兒童婢僕，皆不得捕取鳥雀。
Lady Wuyang detested killing living creatures; children and servants were all forbidden from catching the birds.
數年間，皆巢於低枝，其鷇可俯而窺。
Over several years, they all began nesting on low branches, so low that one could bend down and look upon their nestlings.
又有桐花鳳四五日翔集其間，
There was also a rare bird called the Tonghua Feng, which for four or five days flew and gathered among the trees.
此鳥羽毛至為珍異難見，而能馴擾，殊不畏人。
Its plumage was exceptionally rare and beautiful, yet it was tame and remarkably unafraid of people.
閭里間見之，以為異事。
The people of the neighbourhood saw this and regarded it as an extraordinary event.
此無他，不忮之誠信於異類也。
There was nothing else to it: the sincerity of a heart that did no harm had earned the trust even of creatures of another kind.
有野老言，鳥雀巢去人太遠，則其子有蛇鼠狐狸鴟鳶之憂，
An old countryman once said that when birds make their nests too far from people, their young are endangered by snakes, rodents, foxes, owls and kites.
人既不殺，則自近人者，欲免此患也。
If people do not kill them, the birds naturally draw close to human dwellings, wishing to escape these dangers.
由是觀之，異時鳥雀巢不敢近人者，以人為甚於蛇鼠之類也，
Seen in this light, when birds in former times did not dare to nest near people, it was because they regarded humans as more dangerous than snakes, rodents and such creatures.
苛政猛於虎，信哉！
Harsh government is fiercer than a tiger, truly so!
A Song with No Expanded Lyrics and No Need for Them
There is no modern chorus.
No explanatory refrain.
No contemporary writer arrives to complete Su Shi’s thought.
The original prose already possesses a complete dramatic arc:
A mother.
A prohibition against killing.
Trust.
Low nests.
A rare bird.
An old villager.
Predators.
Human beings.
Government.
It begins in tenderness.
It ends in warning.
Adding another lyric would risk weakening that architecture.
The production therefore allows Su Shi’s own language to complete the journey.
💿 Credits
- Song Title: On My Late Mother’s Refusal to Harm Birds
- Chinese Title: 記先夫人不殘鳥雀
- Classical Source: Su Shi, Ji Xian Furen Bu Can Niaoque, Northern Song Dynasty
- Narrative Setting: Meizhou / Meishan, Northern Song China
- Original Text / Lyrics: Su Shi
- Expanded Lyrics / Adaptation: None
- Lyrics Format: 100% of Su Shi’s original prose; no modern expansion, rewriting or additional lyrics
- Composition / Arrangement: Suno AI / Grandevity Studio
- Vocals: Suno AI Standard Mandarin baritone
- Music Production: Grandevity Studio
- AI-Assisted Visuals: ChatGPT Images
- Video Editing / Art Direction / Creative Production: Grandevity Studio
- Released by: Grandevity Limited
- Production Year: 2026
Final Music Style and Mood:
Cinematic neo-classical Chinese narrative song, 6/8, 72 BPM, through-composed; cultured Standard Mandarin baritone, clear, reflective and restrained; solo cello, low piano and distant birds, guqin, xiao, restrained low percussion, pipa textures and chamber strings; warm childhood courtyard scenes, a luminous expansion around the rare Tonghua Feng, sparse accompaniment for “此無他”, an extended orchestral transition before the old villager’s speech, one grave climax at “苛政猛於虎，信哉！”, and a long decrescendo into unresolved birdsong.
⚖️ Copyright Notice
Su Shi’s classical prose On My Late Mother’s Refusal to Harm Birds is a public-domain literary work.
This song uses 100% of Su Shi’s original prose as its lyrical text and contains no modern lyrical expansion, rewriting or newly written lyrics.
The musical production, sound recording, arrangement, mixing, mastering, MV imagery, cover artwork, video editing, copywriting, subtitles, storyboard design, art direction and overall creative concept were produced or lawfully licensed by Grandevity Limited / Grandevity Studio and are protected by copyright and related rights to the extent permitted by applicable law.
Unauthorized re-uploading, redistribution, reproduction, editing, sampling, commercial use, public broadcasting, platform distribution, AI training, dataset use, remixing, or use in any other audiovisual work is strictly prohibited.
Licensing Contact:
About the Project
On My Late Mother’s Refusal to Harm Birds is part of Grandevity Studio’s Classical Literature Reimagined in Music series.
The aim is not simply to make old prose sound modern.
It is to restore the experience of reading it slowly enough for its structure to become visible again.
Su Shi begins with birds.
He ends with government.
Between those two points lies a single principle:
When living creatures expect harm, they keep their distance.
When they learn they are safe, they come closer.
The distance between a high nest and a low branch may be only a few feet.
The distance between that low branch and the words “harsh government is fiercer than a tiger” contains an entire vision of human society.
Nearly a thousand years later, the question remains:
Do those with less power feel safer when they come closer to us,
or safer when they stay away?