Terracotta Typewriter
A literary journal with Chinese characteristics
Issue #2
July 2009
Terracotta Typewriter A cultural revolution of literature
Unsolicited manuscripts are welcomed throughout the year. Terracotta Typewriter seeks submissions of literary works with a connection to China. The definition of “connection to China” can be stretched as much as an author sees fit. For example, expatriate writers living in China or who have lived in China, Chinese writers writing in English, translators of Chinese writing, works that are set in China, manuscripts covered in Chinese food (General Tso’s chicken doesn’t count), or anything else a creative mind can imagine as a connection to China. © 2009 by Terracotta Typewriter. All rights reserved. Visit our Web site at http://www.tctype.com. This literary journal is free for distribution. NOT FOR RESALE.
July 2009 Table of Contents From the Editor
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Prasanna Surakanti
2
Pictures Claiming Adoration
Michael Shorb
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Galloping Horse Unearthed at Leitai, China
Charlotte Hyvernaud
5
Perceptions
Rob Schackne
9 10
The Bones of Fish Sunday in Century Park, Shanghai
R.J. Devoix
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My Mother’s Dumplings
J. Whitmel Earley
15 17 18
Be Still, Shanghai If Seamus Heaney Came to Shanghai I’d Tell Him June Fourth
Andrew Carpino
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from East
Christopher Mulrooney
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sayings of Confucius
Contributor Notes
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From the Editor Dear Readers, Welcome to the second issue of Terracotta Typewriter. I’m pleased with the response the first issue received, and I’d like to thank everyone who read it. Of course, the success of this literary journal couldn’t have been achieved without the wonderful writers who submitted their work. We recently began a couple features on the News section of the Web site: Mandarin Mondays and Get Over the Hump. We hope that you will find the Mandarin lessons interesting and helpful. We also hope the writing prompts for Get Over the Hump will breed creativity. Please e-mail us or leave a comment if you have any questions or suggestions for either feature. I hope you enjoy issue number two of Terracotta Typewriter, and continue to enjoy this literary journal far into the future. Sincerely,
Matthew Lubin Publisher & Editor
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Prasanna Surakanti
Pictures claiming adoration says Amy Lucile Rolfe may be placed above the level of the eye where just pictures should be Pairs of statues of men on horses and terracotta warriors on long cupboards inspired awe unlike on a ledge at waist level.
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Michael Shorb
Galloping Horse Unearthed at Leitai, China Your blind green eyes saw all There was to see on earth Your massive bronze shoulders Tested every grade of mineral age and snow Chisel-stroking sunlight of creation Motion of a vanished master's hand. Your silence outlasted sound: Storm where a city burned, roaring market rivers, Carts bearing away rice, silver, human bones. An arrogant emperor loved you more than wisdom. Stood you running in Taoist stillness before His palace gate, ordered a jade sparrow Welded to your upraised hoof to show The speed and balance of your stillness. The cities and systems of this earth Are wheat fields in the mind. Grown to bearded heights of fruitfulness They fall field street and armory Threshed away By inviolable waters of ignorant repetition. You alone, sleeping two thousand years Like a seed in the loam of China, remain. 3
I wanted to be among the Chinese diggers Who discovered you. With a vanished Youth bound for war who touched your hoof For grace because he had no God. To help hold you as the brushes strained Residues of oblivion from your long smooth face, Joining a common impulse To lift you back into the blackbirdFlooded skies of time, Whole and human.
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Charlotte Hyvernaud
Perceptions August 1, 2007
I
’ve been in Beijing almost a week now. The skies are grey with pollution; the air heavy with smoke and heat; the view from the 18th floor apartment somewhat depressingly blocked by high risers in the distance; the roads are fogged up with exhaust fumes. Our apartment building stands high in a popular area, with hairdressers/ prostitution parlours down an uneven alleyway filled with bins bursting with rotting vegetables and pools of piss; collectors pile up cardboard and plastic bottles in carts they wheel to the end of the alleyway where they get packed up and driven away on trucks at night; street vendors sleep on wooden planks in cramped square rooms under the huge apartments blocks; oblivious children sleep round street corners on carts at night. I saw a man sleeping on the pavement the other day: he was lying there, not drunk, but sleeping, under a bridge, seemingly unconsciously inhaling the fumes of the busy dual carriage road. The following day he was still there mending some rags. A few minutes away fishermen fish in the lake; men in underwear hanging wet from their bony buttocks swim in the canal; young girls wearing the latest trend (mid-thigh flimsy dresses over lace knee-low black stockings) smoke in the streets; young men are adorned with tattoos and piercings; middle aged men with bellies protruding from under their rolled up white T-shirts squat, a watermelon slice in hand; women in their pyjamas after night fall, walk the streets leisurely; crowds shout in high-tech mobile 5
phones; startled groups of people scurry under the anticipated and welcomed summer rain; cycles wind in and out of traffic. A biker almost hit a woman about to cross at a pedestrian red light: he turned back and his finger pointed straight at her, hatred in his eyes, hissed, saliva dripping at the corners of his mouth. Beijing is a world of contrasts. Unapologetically. Third evening in a row, the refreshing rain falls down in sparkling strings, washing away the dirt and leaving behind the promise of a new beginning. The whole city is being washed of the sweat and dirt it accumulated today. Yet tomorrow will be another sweaty dirty day‌From the balcony, the windows from the surrounding buildings gleam in the shadows at irregular intervals like a Chagall painting: one expects some fish to float around as a reminder of Arizona Dream. Meanwhile, drops continue to splatter through the mosquito window nets. Light touches of freshness. In the distance the thunder tears the fabric of the night sky revealing the blinding white light inside. Surely a change is taking place. Outside and inside. August 4 As we walked along the shallow canal that flows 5mn away from the flat, squat old buildings sit in a row at the bottom of the high risers, dwarfed by them. A rusty truck, wheel-less, advertises for “mei rongâ€? (beauty parlour) and the eyes of passers-by have worn out the two upholstered chairs in a 6
junkyard behind the buildings. They sit like furniture of a surreal theatre scene. Waiting for Godot. Soot-covered youth pedal along the river, delivering rings of coal that look like burnt doughnuts taken out of the oven and put to cool down on wooden planks. Oily frying pans aligned on the pavement evoke the remains of a frugal feast. Mothers scrub their children who bathe in plastic basins in courtyards otherwise piled up with antiquated junk on the pavements. A truck parks daily along those family quarters, selling anticockroaches spray. August 5 Every time I look out of the window a new landscape seems to have emerged since the last time I gazed out. I am discovering new shapes, new lights, new voids, new colours. Different models of life. At night it seems some parts of the city are more beautiful, more tranquil even. Away from the cacophonous pollution of the soul, the noise recedes and lights shimmer in the lake. Is there a city at the bottom of the lake, under its wriggling ripples and is it only a reflection on its surface? Ducks paddling; cranes standing on floating branches; benches in the shadows welcome the nightwalkers. It’s around 12 at night and walking back home we come across workers carrying long bamboos balanced on their shoulders. They are taking the poles to a building site. Last evening, we were eating at the terrace of a restaurant in a narrow street. A shiny new foreign car drove past, a selfassured, well-dressed Chinese man in his 30s at the wheel. 7
The front bumper slightly touched the ankle of a stout, cropped-haired Chinese passer-by. He slowly turned round, almost indiscernibly, looking quietly at the driver. Walked around the car. The driver pre-empting what was going to happen gently undid his safety belt and opened the door to face the passer-by who was now rubbing the back of his ankle. A hushed but straight-to-business exchange of words ensued, ending up in the driver handing out 100 RMB to the passer-by. The driver climbed back into his shiny expensive car, a faintly amused smile on his lips. The passer-by walked on leisurely, smugly.
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Rob Schackne
The Bones of Fish Indented are the tiny bones In the fossil record Vibrating an irritation Down strange countless years— A teenage boy holds An exceptional surprise The skeleton remains Of a nervous spinal system; Maybe unpredictable Balanced with a tear Everyone eschews their memory Leaves old things undigested— He feels maybe he can’t love fish Frantic in understatement Until he can hear their bones Perfecting the continuous wave; Man, that system was working Crazy and open like the swirling sea But when waters receded Landing the ancestors high and dry They gave their augury to the earth Left their lives behind on stone Like the teeth of a billion frustrations— Or nothing if not in the shape of bones.
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Sunday in Century Park, Shanghai The blue sky is against the people Occasional birds fly high overhead Insisting against the worsening air She lays her light green jacket down You lie back against a decade-old lake On surprising grass under new trees And she puts her head against your chest On a heart of spring while the birds And the people sing against time. What is it for this time? Don’t ask For what you don’t know anything about This song is for everything that’s missing The population here for the evening breeze Forgetting the fevers of work and food Everyone walks slowly in forgiveness For the natural world must be remembered One step at a time around a modern park For cherry blossoms and the tiny mushrooms.
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R.J. Devoix
My Mother’s Dumplings 鼺ĺ?
T
here's no taste in the world better than my mother's dumplings. On winter evenings the steam from the dumplings would fill our small kitchen. I remember the sound of the water boiling and the smell of cooked pork mixed with herbs. On the walk from school the thought of the hot dumplings warming my stomach made me want to run home. My mother was born in the summer of 1937, just before the War of Resistance Against Japan. She grew up in a small village in the countryside not far from the city of Chaoyang, Fengtian (now Liaoning Province). Her parents were peasants. When my mother married the young man from a neighboring farm they were happy. He was twenty-four and she was nineteen years old. In those days country girls did not got to school and my mother could not read and write. All her life she said she wanted to learn to read but she never managed it. Instead she took care of our family. Once I saw a photograph of my mother. It had been taken at a neighbour's house. It showed a smiling, red cheeked woman holding a young child. From then I recognised the way the sun and the wind had burnt the youth from her face. It felt strange to look back, to think of her life at that time. The child in the photograph was me.
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The photograph was taken before my father went to fight with the Nationalists against the Japanese. He did not return. My mother would not have been able to read the telegram that arrived at the village hall. The leader of the village had to come to the house to read it to her. When my mother saw him through the window she let out a high shriek. It was the noise of a woman's worst fear. When village chief left she locked the door so no-one could enter the house. She cried for three whole days. After my father's death my mother's smile changed. Her eyes remained sad as if to honour the memory of my father. I remember the next Spring Holiday she put on her red quilted jacket and tried to squeeze happiness into her voice like jam into a bare tin. She invited the local children to play. For supper we had a feast of beautiful fish, chicken, doufu, and my favourite dumplings. My father's parents said they enjoyed it very much. Afterwards I saw my mother sobbing, her shoulders rocking silently, alone in the kitchen. I was diligent at school. I hoped my hard work would make my mother happy. Soon it was time for me to attend a new school. The school was far away. I would have to stay with an aunt in the town. How can you leave your mother? I refused to go but my mother insisted. She told me that my father had promised to teach her to read. As he couldn't do that now someone else would need to teach her. If I learnt to read and write then I could teach her. "Ping, will you do that for me?" My years at High School went quickly. The aunt took good care of me. I concentrated on my studies. My only wish was 12
to post a present to my mother. I had no money so I painted pictures of my school and posted them in little stiff brown paper envelopes. It wasn't long before I sat the university entry examinations. I was lucky. My memory was strong and the examination questions suited me. I was accepted at TsingHua Normal University in Beijing. When I returned home in July that year and told my mother the true smile returned to her face. She was so proud she ran through the summer rain to tell our neighbours. Later, before I left, the villagers gave me money to help my studies. It was in the cold weeks of late November when I received the message. My mother had been taken ill. She was in hospital. Immediately I grabbed my bag and rushed to Beijing railway station. How long had she been ill? Was she in pain? How serious was it? My mind was in turmoil. When I got to the town railway station Xiao Deng, the son of our village chief, was waiting to meet me. His face was long. I was too late. Tears welled in my eyes as he explained my mother's illness. She had said she was unwell only the week before. When she collapsed in the field a neighbour had arranged for a car to take her to the hospital. She had died at dawn. How could this happen? My mother wasn't even old. "Why don't I take you to your parents' house?" I nodded. 13
When we got to the house it was cold and dark. I looked around nervously. Xiao Deng asked if I would prefer to go to his house. His wife was making supper. "Come and have some food," he said. I said it was okay, I wanted some time alone. Inside everything looked the same, as if my mother was about to return at any moment. I stifled the urge to cry. My mother would not approve if I shed tears before her funeral. I looked in the small kitchen. The scruffy refrigerator stood where it had always stood. I opened it. There was little food inside. I pulled at the door of the small freezer compartment. Crispy ice showered the floor like sparks jumping from a wood fire. I pulled out a full paper bag. On the bag was careful writing, in pencil. "Xiao Ping", it said. I placed the bag of frozen dumplings next to the cooker and looked for the boiling pot.
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J. Whitmel Earley
Be Still, Shanghai I must wake her early, on this cold March morning. Rain again. So I lie back down next to her. We, parallel curves leaning into coming day. When nothing moves your weight spreads over your back like a puddle, like goose flesh. Her skin near hot to the touch, smooth by negation as I'm not. I ward off blurry sleep distortions of the room that seep in like mist through my walls, reluctant insistence on actuality. I dream best on the metro anyway, in fragile vacuums, fluorescent tubes of white. She arches her head into my collar, responding to my presence— this is the privilege of kings, without words, beyond purchase or wage. While she is gone, still off in the haze, I for an instant feel strong like a husband. Defined by her, like a lover. But soon as moods fade to particulars, moments all go to movement, we will fuss over breakfast and I will not say how I wished never to get up.
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Gone now, I’ve descended, the stairs to the platform—my throne to moist city innards. The train’s rushing echo caught in my throat I pray be still, Shanghai, and let me know just one moment.
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If Seamus Heaney Came to Shanghai I’d Tell Him Take the back alley behind HongKou Stadium and as you are going you will pick your way, stepping over a bucket of eel, around the blanket of winter melon and green leaves in the fierce hold of blue rubber bands. Squeals of children drawn into the shade of the alleys like echoes going backwards. Steps flattened out in the wet film the sidewalk sweats in summer, soft suck of knife pulled from meat, smack of dough on tin counters; all enters through the stomach and in the shape of O’s. Do not distinguish but eat them whole and crack the seeds under your tongue. It’s best to think in aftertastes. A language sensible only between the syllables. And do not reach for your camera or worship the memory. Only look back through the steam and the spokes, with the light rubbing the blue tile and shining the ink black wires drawn across the sky, and the humming current will sing over you a song of exile. In your pockets you will press your fingers into your palms and the space you find there will inflate your chest like a big red balloon.
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June Fourth Twenty years after 6/4/89 and Shanxi road is so damn quiet. A country lane of woven ladies shoes between meadows of dandelion cranes. One wishes you would grow your bamboo. Or catch fire, blaze shops and designer flagships and banks. The darkness something viscous dripping on street lights and shop windows, bubbles of yellow slowly shrinking back like faded memories. A man leans on the balcony of a makeshift dormitory full of co-workers too sleepy for a conversation of tea or a red bucket of suds to scrub a t-shirt. The brave moths are twittering in the lost hours of the retreat caught and nervous, trapped in the glow between the oil black and the phosphor burn.
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Andrew Carpino
from East "Funny how paper muted light, on artificial evenings, breath pulses into attempts of conversation between the in and out of block engines and the hidden master's thoraxal orchestra in the dry tangles of Chinese bushes in the fresh boxes." He thought, in an ancient scene recapping his sleep, "Glad to be free of teenage myth, democracy, —filled to the brim with graces and paternal dedications. Unsettled soldiers call, arms waving, 'dress for revolution laddy! Long past? Surfacing again, son, pushing the blood through'" Only to tarnish leather with civility. No longer migrating smallwinged Yankees, now a single herring, low flying leaving ripple flutters for the koi while turtles slow wrestle for a pile on the indistinguishable stone sacrifice. 19
Christopher Mulrooney
sayings of Confucius those of Chi without authority went to sacrifice on Mt. T’ai thus said the Master to their minister Jan Ch’iu it is yours to stop them in the rites no is Mt. T’ai stupid any more than Lin Fang? versed in Hsia and Yin rites am I Ch’i and Sung know nothing unwritten untold otherwise known I am of Yin Yen Ying knows people forgives long acquaintance study without Tao Tao without sureness sureness without converse cherry flowers spin I think of you far away there is what is not superior men Yen Hui Min Shun Jan Keng Jan Yung fine speakers Tsai Yü Tuan-mu Tz’u governors 20
Jan Ch’iu Chung Yu learned men Yen Yen Pu Shang Yen Hui did not help me to think he was a yes man Yen Hui expired his father asked the Master’s carriage to exchange it for a double coffin the Master said to him all my pupils are my sons good or bad when Li my son expired he had a single coffin I did not go on foot so he could have a double coffin I am the son of a gentleman and do not go on foot Yen Hui expired all the pupils wanted to bury him richly not Confucius yet they did so and the Master said I was a father to Yen Hui but did not treat him as my son this is your fault pupils Chuan-sun Shih wanted to know about superiority and nonsense superiority is adherence trueness and justice life for love death for hate together nonsense not for wealth something else Ching of Ch’i wanted to know about ruling king king minister minister father father
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son son though grain were abundant you could not eat more the superior man makes allowances uniquely the inferior man is ubiquitous and irks Nan-kung Kua asked Confucius Yi of Hsia shot well Ao shifted a beached vessel and they died early Yü the Great and Chi were farmers and ruled why? the Master said nothing afterward the Master said he is a superior man for he prizes it Pi Ch’en sketched it Yu Chi analyzed it the Great Secretary Kung-sun Hui revised it Kung-sun Ch’iao of Tung-li polished it Tsang-sun Ho of Fang solicited his brother Wei as leader of the family ancestral sacrifice in Lu it is said without pressure on the King not so the best withdraw next advance next shun next flee seven persons Yüan Hui wanted to know about rule calendar of Hsia coach of Yin hat of Chou music of Shun none of Cheng no fine speakers Cheng is depraved fine speakers are baneful
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together among kindness without justice impossible once the astrologer wrote nothing when in doubt once the horseman had his horses broken in not now at forty it is necessary to win respect Chih the great musician of Lu went to Ch’i Kan the next went to Ch’u Liao the next went to Ts’ai Ch’üeh the next went to Ch’in Fang-shu the drummer went north Wu the drumtwirler went to the Han Valley Yang the assistant and Hsiang who played the gongs went to sea in the reign of Chou eight gentlemen four sets of twins by one mother Po-ta and Po-kuo Chung-tu and Chung-hu Shu-yeh and Shu-hsia Chi-sui and Chi-kua
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Contributor Notes Andrew Carpino was born, raised and schooled in New Hampshire. After graduating with a BA in English, he traveled from Kyoto to Ho Chi Minh by boats, trains, buses, and tuk-tuks. He currently lives and works in Washington, CT, with his girlfriend and dog, Stonewall Jackson. This is his first published work. R. J. Devoix is a writer and commentator. He has lived in Asia, Europe, and North America. He speaks a little English, Mandarin, and Cantonese, and has fun with French, German, and Italian. He enjoys walking in the mountains where he used to climb as a young man. He can be found at http:// www.devoix.com/. J. Whitmel Earley is an English Literature graduate of the University of Virginia and now lives, studies, and writes in Shanghai, China. His poetry and short fiction, interested on reducing cities to their people, have appeared in Relief Magazine and Inkstone Magazine. Sylvie Charlotte Hyvernaud first came to China in early 2001 to work as a volunteer for VSO, teaching English in Qinghai province for two years. In all she stayed over six years in Qinghai. She currently teaches French in Wuhan where she’s been for just under one year. Christopher Mulrooney has written poems and translations in Nebula, Caesura, New Translations, Drunken Boat, Moloch, and The Delinquent. 24
Rob Schackne is an Australian writer currently working in China, watching it all get curiouser and curiouser—and some days he thinks there's nothing easy about the Tao. In spite of that—or because of it—there’s a slightly feverish literary blog he writes with Boris Knack called “The Tao That Can Be Named…” which is found at http://www.blognow.com.au/ borisknack. Michael Shorb's work reflects a satirical focus on present day trends and events, as well as a lyrical interest in culture and history. His poems have appeared in The Nation, The Sun, Michigan Quarterly Review, Poetry Salzburg Review, Rattle, and European Judaism, as well as other publications and anthologies. Prasanna Surakanti is an electrical engineer interested in literature. Prasanna’s previous work appeared in the Fall 2007 edition of Ignite ASU poetry magazine (http:// www.west.asu.edu/ignite/publications.html) and in K.L. Storers chapbook The Motion in Motive (http:// www.thewritegallery.com/cb/motion-motive/sundial.html).
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