Issue 6
Summer 2010
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. © 2010 by Terracotta Typewriter. All rights reserved. Cover art by Matthew Lubin © 2010 Visit our Web site at http://www.tctype.com. This literary journal is free for distribution. NOT FOR RESALE.
Terracotta Typewriter A Cultural Revolution of Literature
In This Issue Robert G. LongprĂŠ
1
Arrival at Pudong
Dennis Maulsby
2
My Asian Son Lifts Weights
Katharine Mitchell
4
Turtle Skirt
Karen Loeb
8 10
Lei-an-gu Case of the yellow umbrella
Liang Yujing / Yuefu translations
12 15 17
Song of West Islet Song at Midnight Song of River Water
Charles Lowe
19
The Incident
R.D. Lomax
34
Tantilising
Buff Whitman-Bradley 35
Contributor Notes
37
An Airplane Crash in Ancient China
Robert G. LongprĂŠ Arrival at Pudong Bodies Moving with one will Following strangers Turning as they walk Through the maze Of signs and names Searching Slowing Eyes turning and searching Hoping A flimsy card Name printed hastily Affirms Right place Right time
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Dennis Maulsby My Asian Son Lifts Weights Black cast iron disks ring together with each of his curls, a musical beat in 4/4 time. On the TV, a PBS crew explores the ancient Ch’in emperor’s tomb, an army of terracotta soldiers arranged there on parade. The cameras do profiles, pans and close-ups of the statues thin-lipped faces, high cheekbones and Asian eyes. On the screen my son’s reflected image animates the molded faces, as if he had been the model for the 2000-year-old sculpted clay. The empty shells clutch life: brows lift, black eyes shine again, gray pottery cheeks flush to tan, lips part and nostrils flare. Finished with his sets, 2
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a red Hibiscus silk shirt pulled over his head, my son strides from the house. In his silvered sunglasses shields flash, banners wave— ten thousand warriors bow.
Previously published in The North American Review May-August 2004.
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Katharine Mitchell Turtle Skirt
“N
o really,” I told Mr. Wang, “I can’t run.” Mr. Wang, giggled. “That is not true. Foreigners are very fast. Besides, you are track star!” In a discussion about sports, I’d told my class of 40 Chinese middle school students about the tradition of Letterman’s jackets. I’d bragged about earning my own fuzzy, red “G” as a freshman on the Varsity cross country team. What I didn’t bother mentioning was that my school didn’t have a JV team; that I’d only joined Varsity to help diversify my profile for college applications; or that I was, hands down, the slowest runner on the team. But it was too late to rectify the truth now. As the new foreign teacher at the Number 2 Middle School of Zhenjiang, I was required to participate in the upcoming faculty vs. student relay race, a highlight of the school’s annual sports day, which my students had described as one of the most exciting days of the whole school year. All classes were canceled and students and faculty gathered to cheer on Olympic hopefuls. I wondered if Pearl S. Buck had ever been forced to participate in a sports day. I seriously doubted it. Xiao Ping laughed when I told her I’d been selected to participate in the race. She had recently discovered I wasn’t very athletic—a weakness she milked mercilessly. Every day for weeks, between lulls in cooking and cleaning, Xiao Ping challenged me to various physical fitness tests. She delighted in demonstrating how high she could kick, and laughed her4
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self silly when my leg didn’t swing higher than my hips. We raced each other up and down the steps, lunged across the courtyard and jumped ropes fashioned from laundry lines. Yet no matter how hard I tried, Xiao Ping always outdid me. Though we both weighed 115lbs, she was three inches shorter, 20 years older and far more limber and fit. If only she could take my place in the big Sports Day relay race, we’d all have saved a lot of face. I’d read about a similar sports event in Peter Hessler’s memoir River Town. Hessler, who taught English along the Yangtze River on a Peace Corps assignment, had actually won a foot race against hundreds of other runners. I knew for a fact I wasn’t going to be a winner; I just hoped I’d sped up since my turtle days of high school. The day of the school-wide sports event was hot and humid. Sun glinted like diamonds off mica chips in the hard baked dirt. Students, grouped by class, filled the concrete stands on either side of the field, two seas of bright yellowand-white-striped tracksuits, buzz cuts and ponytails. Class 9 had prime seating, on the end of the field where a few oaks and smaller magnolias cast partial shadows on the warm concrete bleachers. Despite the mottled shade, students’ nylon tracksuits were damp with sweat by ten o’clock, their only refreshment boiled water. During morning break I snuck off to the closest grocery and bought several dozen packages of boxed drinks—apple juice, yogurt and chocolate milk. If anything, I figured, the sugar would help pep them up before their events. A tireless announcer called out the endless heats, and students sprinted down to the field to line up alongside their classmates. Jiang Liu taught me to chant “Jia you!” to encour5
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age participants. Li Mei Mei translated the phrase as “Add oil.” It was the equivalent of “rah” or just “Go!” I joined in the shouting, jumping up and down and frantically waving my arms each time a Class 9 student approached the starting line. Caught up in the excitement, I started shouting along. “Jia you, Mr. Xu! Jia you, Girl!” I still had names to learn. At the end of each race or event, the boys would storm the field to high-five winning classmates. The girls, meanwhile, seemed less concerned about the actual race than competing for the most dramatic finish. Dozens of girls collapsed at the finish line, languishing in the dirt until their classmates rushed over to scoop them up. The school nurse was summoned repeatedly, and an ambulance collected one student, whose reddened cheeks and arms glinted with mica and sweat. Most of the exhaustion appeared to be posturing, but I did worry about the students and encouraged Class 9 to drink plenty of water—even if it was piping hot. The faculty vs. student relay race was finally announced. After hours of student sprints, a mile-race, long jump, javelin, parallel bar stunts and a single silly sack race, it was my turn to storm the field, flanked by a team of allmale colleagues. No one had warned me I was the only woman on the team. I hadn’t brought any shorts to China, so I opted for the same old flowery cotton skirt I always donned. Because I was the foreigner, I was volunteered to run first. Just before the gun started, Mr. Wang warned me, “Careful. Watch your skirt.” The gun fired and all I could think about was the elastic waistband of my skirt slipping down over my granny 6
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panties and tangling up my feet in the dirt. As a precaution, I kept one thumb hooked around my waistband, and pumped my other arm full force, which caused me to weave and almost trip. As my black Skechers beat the hard earth, I was passed left and right by flashes of yellow-white tracksuits. By the time I’d made a full loop around the track, I’d been double-lapped by two student runners, and my own teammate, impatiently had taken off. I stood panting in the dusty air, my sweaty hand still clenching the elastic waistband of my skirt. My students had the grace to shout “Jia you!” as I climbed back into the stands, and a few boys gave me high fives but their nervous giggles and hung heads told me what I already knew. I’d not only disappointed my students, the faculty and Mr. Wang; I’d caused them all to lose face. Unlike my students, Xiao Ping was not so kind. She berated me all throughout dinner, joking about my turtle pace, and forced a goose head into my rice bowl, insisting the protein would help build up my muscle. I skipped the goose, but I did pile on the tofu, determined to increase my strength and flexibility over the coming months. I wouldn’t be able to redeem myself in another Er Zhong sports match, but I might be able to beat Xiao Ping at her own game before the year was up.
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Karen Loeb LEI-AN-GU LEI-AN-GU In the White Swan Hotel in the days after adoption--2001
Our daughter at three tries out light switches, tub faucets, stereo knobs and water bottles. There are many plastic water bottles for her and the girl next door to play with in a common bath. “Lei-an-gu, lei-an-gu” our daughter exclaims, plunging her hands into the tub, proudly holding up the bottles, her catch. The four parents crowd into the bathroom not wanting to miss a moment of what the girls are up to. We’re pleased to decipher lei-an-gu so easily. I grasp a bottle, saying, “Lei-an-gu.” “Kokunay?” our daughter asks. We don’t know that word either, but her frown declares lei-an-gu doesn’t mean bottle. “Lei-an-gu, lei-an-gu,” she says, holding up one bottle, then another, tipping them, letting fountains of water arc into the tub. Weeks later, home in Wisconsin, we finally get it. Maybe it’s when she holds up two crayons 8
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one after the other, says, “Lei-an-gu, lei-an-gu” one more time. She’s a toddler, interested in shapes, brimming over with the knowledge that one thing is like another. Lei-an-gu, lei-an-gu is one of the strings unwinding back to our daughter’s language that she has not forgotten from the many that she has. In our house even today we celebrate this simple phrase. Lei-an-gu, lei-an-gu. Same, same. Kokunay? Lei-an-gu, lei-an-gu. What is it? Same, same.
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The Case of the Yellow Umbrella—China, 2008 My daughter has lost her umbrella, with a flashlight in the handle. It’s not really lost—she abandoned it in the supermarket while looking at pens and pencils. I left it on a shelf. Come back with me so I can get it. Please come back with me. I don’t want to go there alone. Why won’t you come with me? I’m only ten—what do you expect me to do? I know you don’t speak the language. I don’t either. Come back with me. It’s going to rain later. It always rains here. I WANT MY UMBRELLA. I left it on a shelf so I could buy you some pencils. You always need pencils for your crossword puzzles. There’s no other umbrella in the world that has a flashlight. Please come back with me. NOW. My daughter has lost her umbrella. She was sent to the store for bananas and strawberry jelly, which in this store, comes in a jar the size of a baby’s fist. Straying into the aisle with pencils was optional, her own doing. She is Chinese, but she no longer speaks the language. 10
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She closes the door harder than she should when she heads out. Her steps are reluctant and heavy on the marble staircase. She is going to her doom, she’s sure of it. Later, when she returns with a clutch of yellow fabric she’s surprised that she made it happen. I found it right away. The man at the door wanted to make me PAY for it. I told him ten ways in English that it was my umbrella, that they didn’t sell ones like this in his store. Luckily one of your students, you know, Grover, was there, and he explained to the man what had happened. I could have gone to jail. I would have too. It was my umbrella.
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Anonymous Yuefu poems translated by Liang Yujing Song of West Islet Recalling the plums I went down for West Islet To pluck a plum twig and send it to the north of Yangtze. My unlined garment was apricot-red And the hair on my temples, the color of a fledgling raven. Where is West Islet? I only need to row a double-oared sampan past a bridge And reach the ferry. At nightfall, on my way back, the shrikes were flying over And wind was blowing the tallow trees. Under the trees is my gate, In which lives a girl, with a jade hairpin. I opened the door but you were not there, So I went out to gather red lotuses. In autumn I gathered lotuses in the south pond Where the flowers were higher than my head. Lowering my head, I played with lotus seeds, The seeds they were clear as water. I put the seeds in my sleeves and in my bosom; Their hearts were red, to the core. I remembered you but you were not here; So I raised my head, seeing the flying swan geese. The geese were flying around West Islet And I climbed up my attic to look for you Far into distance. 12
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My attic, though high, failed to give a view of you; I stood at the balustrade, till sunset. The balustrade has twelve curves And my hands were drooping, fair as white jade. Back in my boudoir, I pulled up the curtain Only to see the sky was high And the seawater was waving emerald, in vain. The sea is in an endless dream— You’re sad, and so am I And the south wind knows my mind And brings my dream to West Islet.
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西洲曲 忆梅下西洲，折梅寄江北。 单衫杏子红，双鬓鸦雏色。 西洲在何处？两桨桥头渡。 日暮伯劳飞，风吹乌桕树。 树下即门前，门中露翠钿。 开门郎不至，出门采红莲。 采莲南塘秋，莲花过人头。
低头弄莲子，莲子青如水。 置莲怀袖中，莲心彻底红。 忆郎郎不至，仰首望飞鸿。 鸿飞满西洲，望郎上青楼。 楼高望不见，尽日栏杆头。 栏杆十二曲，垂手明如玉。 卷帘天自高，海水摇空绿。 海水梦悠悠，君愁我亦愁。 南风知我意，吹梦到西洲。
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Song at Midnight My heart is North Star That never moves an inch for a millennium, Yet my love he’s got a sun-like heart That’s in the east at dawn, But at nightfall runs to the west.
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子夜歌 侬作北辰星，千年无转移。 欢行白日心，朝东暮还西。
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Song of River Water The water in the river flows to the east, And a girl in Luoyang her name is Mochou. At thirteen Mochou learned to weave damasks, At fourteen she picked mulberry-leaves by the south road. She married into Lu the noble family at fifteen And at sixteen she gave birth to Ah Hou her son. In Lu’s mansion her boudoir has laurel-made beams Permeated by a mixed scent of turmeric and storax. Her locks are decorated with twelve gold hairpins And the silky shoes on her feet, of five colors. Her mirror, hanged on coral twigs, is glazed with luster And hooded servants carry her powder box around. A wealthy and noble life she has, what else can she wish for? She only wishes she had married Wang The boy once in her eastern neighborhood.
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河中之水歌 河中之水向东流，洛阳女儿名莫愁。 莫愁十三能织绮，十四采桑南陌头， 十五嫁为卢家妇，十六生儿字阿侯。 卢家兰室桂为梁，中有郁金苏和香。 头上金钗十二行，足下丝履五文章。 珊瑚挂镜烂生光，平头奴子提履箱。 人生富贵何所望，恨不嫁与东家王。
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Charles Lowe The Incident
W
en had learned over his long career, at least long by the standards of the trade, that misunderstandings and miscommunication were the basis of success. Others might argue that the key to success was an effective sales pitch. Others would say that a solid business was founded on having a steady and satisfied clientele. Don’t trust those two-faced bastards. The truth was success in the business was dependent on a few choice misunderstandings, not lies. Then, the customer could demand his or her money back, and even if Wen didn’t give a full cash refund, Wen would be stuck without a ready reply and listening to an angry customer tear into him from an obscure province in Australia for an incident, unforeseeable or not, demanding that the price of the phone call be included in the refund. A refund and include the phone call. What did the customer think? Wen was a three-year-old. But could Wen say that? No, of course not: the second rule being that the way to handle a disgruntled client was simply to take the abuse. Be a wall so to speak. Despite whatever background noise, whatever screaming that took place over the phone, despite the customer’s deciding to use every epitaph known to humanity over a three-minute period, your job was to take it. Never give a refund. Under no condition, give a refund. And if you could, turn the unfortunate incident to your advantage, better, but if you couldn’t, take it as if you were responsible not only for a bad experience but for every bad experience that had ever been inflicted on this poor soul. 19
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By now, Wen’s line of work must be obvious, and Wen was a success in his chosen pursuit. Though it took 14 long months of diligence and minor deceptions, Wen had his own office on No. 112 Goubuli where from the Happy Times Travel Agency, Wen would book many “luxurious” vacations for the many up-and-coming workaholics in the Goubuli District, many of who were for the very first time, ready to dip into the savings hoarded away in case of an illness and reward their families with a first perhaps modest taste of success. But here was the flaw in the otherwise well-earned vacation break. The customer would want a luxurious break, but at the same time, well the customer didn’t want to pay the whole price: the fantasy being that well at some time, the family would need the whole lump sum. Let’s say a grandfather: there was always one of those, was in a taxi ride: the incident, the taxi collided with a bicyclist that dreamily took in a left turn as if on remote control, and the cab had to break quick into traffic, slamming the old fellow into a metal net separating the front from the back seat, causing the guy to pull a muscle in the rib, and then, when you got to the hospital, you discovered that your grandfather needed a machine to help him carry out the bodily functions. The body was a jig-saw puzzle, and one piece out of place. Well, Wen had a colleague who had been so unlucky. You know, a grandfather gets into an accident, not a taxi but a bus, and then, guess what, no office, nothing, just working as a free-lancer, no hope at all to get out of the circle. So, Wen understood these customers all too well. But as he told Lin, his younger colleague unlucky enough to have a living, though not fully in tact grandfather, Wen wasn’t a 20
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three year-old. The customers wanted to cut corners. They could cut corners, but there was always a price. For instance, Wen gave a pair of teachers the true price for a luxury cruise down the Yangtze. Normally, Wen would not have attempted the deal. He would have pawned the teachers off on a company with a bullhorn, but the teachers had a real job. They were a cigarette smugglers so might genuinely be able to afford a 5-star vacation. But alas, when they got the figures, they wanted to know if there was a discount. Always the discount, and right then, you could tell the teachers were counting body parts: what if the police arrested them for bringing in cigarettes without paying the custom’s duties. What then, a beating? So what, a few broken bones: a little pain, okay, that was incidental, but what if the stay was longer. They had insurance no doubt, but the insurance was flat fee, so once the bill got over 40,000RMB in a few weeks or so, what then? You could hear the accounting. Three broken bones take three months to heal, and with only a couple of 100,000 cushion: they might be forced to reside on a park bench off the stone walkway off the Hai River. What then? No use explaining to a couple of nervous cigarette smugglers the price of rest and relaxation. So instead, Wen gave them their dream, which as a dream, sounded nice: “I mean many of the foreigners take the three-star vacation,” but Wen didn’t explain that these foreigners were students and wanted to travel, as one of them put matters, “like a real Chinese.” Well, that little info won’t have helped. No Chinese wanted to vacation like a real Chinese. So, instead, Wen suggested that the vacation package had more or less the same amenities as a five star one. It had a complimentary break21
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fast, featuring dumplings and watermelon slices plus coffee and tea. Westerners liked coffee, Wen explained as if giving away a trade secret. Plus, the tour boat went down the same river that Wen had gone down, and indeed gave off a spectacular view of a cliff where Li Bai and Du Fu penned their poems before visiting the Three Gorges Damn and watching from a distance an entire city of workers working at dynamiting a lovely precipice. What a vacation, and the teachers agreed. Now, one of the luxuries of success is the opportunity to mentor a junior colleague, in particular a colleague unlucky enough to foot the hospital bills for a grandfather not fully in tact. And Wen felt that he was fulfilling a duty— a successful man should provide guidance to those burdened with incidents not within their control—and Wen felt, because of the injured grandfather, that in helping his colleague somewhat junior to him, Wen was showing respect to an infirmed elder. Quite simply, Lin had a job for life, and beside the pleasure of being dutiful boss, Wen had an assistant ready to take the complaints at the any time of the day or night when inevitably the other shoe fell, and of course, the customer discovered the truth that a discounted luxury tour was not same as a luxurious tour: in fact, could be the very opposite of a luxurious tour. Wen was well aware of this eventuality, and as a good teacher himself, Wen practiced foreshadowing, noting that the customers might experience some small incidents along the way in return for holding onto some RMB just in case. The customers almost always nodded, putting on the grim expression that accompanied the chance both to have a 22
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western and Chinese breakfast thrown into a near five-star vacation. Then, the complaints would start to flow in: sometimes full force, mostly like a drizzle on an early March day before a sandstorm blew off the Mongolian plains and into the Goubuli District. For instance, the teachers would text message that their small luxurious bungalow with a slender view of the dynamiting was in fact the summer residence for a family of rats. To which Wen would tell Lin to apologize and to tell them that Happy Times would try to get a bungalow where the teachers would not have to share their vacation with another family and be given as a bonus a full view of the pyrotechnics. And so these text messages went back and forth. The teacher got ill from the milk served for free at an Authentic Continental breakfast with fresh toast. The teachers were woken near midnight, and led by a kid overly familiar with a loud speaker up a rickety ladder to a string of huts, flooded with neon, where the teachers were nearly forced to pay an old woman to recite a Li Bai poem about an incidental drowning after drinking too much plum wine. But the most challenging part of Lin’s job came when the teachers called to say that the near five-star boat was fully equipped with a doughnut sized hole and therefore, was slowly but consistently sinking. Immediately, Wen noticed that Lin’s voice had lost the necessary element of professionalism and had verged onto complete shock. Wen grabbed the phone from his associate’s hand and started in on how he had explained that near five star vacations did have a sort of adventure quotient that many Westerners in fact appreciated. But for some reason, this remark did not have a com23
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forting effect but instead got the teachers screaming about how they wanted their money back for an incident that was fully foreseeable plus compensation for a drowned video camera that had filmed near midnight a peasant woman reciting a poem about getting drunk on plum wine and drowning a poet in a river. Well, Wen said afterwards to his associate, do they think I’m three years old? I asked them whether they had taken his advice and invested in travel insurance, which though nearly the price of the vacation, would have provided the couple with absolute security. This admonition provoked silence, then, a guilty mumbling response, which Wen had seized on, saying that he only wished that the customers had listened to their older brother instead of crying only after the dumplings were steamed. Happy Times Travel could help them though get a discount on a cruise that would allow a safe passage to Wuhan if they wanted their older brother’s help. Otherwise the teachers were on their own. Lin had to admire his boss’s skill and apologized as soon as the phone call was over for having so obviously botched the situation. Wen just put his arms on Lin’s shoulders, not an easy feat, considering the height differential between the very squat boss and the very slender and tree-like junior colleague. Then, Wen explained that the incident was not everyday one but you had to be prepared. Lin nodded his head. It was an age-old problem. He was weak. No matter how many times he had tried to develop a thicker skin, he would hear someone would toss back a nasty comment, intentionally or otherwise, or in the case of these teachers, would blame Lin for an incident that was entirely of their 24
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creation. And Lin would accept the blame. Lin was weak and easy to manipulate and had been as far as he could remember. Everyone knew it. That was why when his oldest uncle’s wife had come to him as the only son of a middle son and said the old man was your burden, Lin accepted the duty. No complaints. Lin didn’t point out that there were seven other grandsons equally culpable. Lin simply took on the new duty. Worse, Lin felt guilty for being unable to afford a nearly first class hospital and had sent his wife to keep the old man company. Nurses were terrible in these private dives, and someone had to hold down the clamp on the intravenous and clean up the old man’s shit until Lin arrived at 11 after closing up Happy Times Travel. Naturally, his wife didn’t argue. What could she say? Leave an elder alone in the hospital to die in unwashed pajamas next to the screamingly uninsured. But his grandfather’s permanent residence in the hospital did end their marriage. Well, not ended, but at least ended Lin’s stay on their double bed. Lin’s wife was willing to hold together an intravenous so that the old guy could have his regular feeding, but she was certainly not willing to sleep with his weakminded grandson. Maybe, if Lin had taken a harder line, claiming that the unfortunate situation was entirely the result of a combination of incidents that was entirely outside Lin’s control: an analysis that would have contained more than a little truth. But Lin acted as if he was a tourist in unfamiliar surroundings, and that was that. His wife threw every foreseeable and a few unforeseeable curses in his direction, and after taking over for his wife at 11 and holding together the clamp holding together an intravenous throughout the full half-and-hour feeding period, Lin returned to his family 25
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apartment where Lin fell asleep alone on a rollout until each morning Lin made his own congee and went to work to learn from his boss the art of making someone else feel guilty, an art that Lin felt that he would never master. Once though, Lin believed that he might at least have begun to climb that first unsteady rung leading to success. It was on a brief business trip that normally the more senior colleague of the Happy Times Travel Agency would have taken but Wen’s wife’s cousin had a wedding, and Wen had to be in town to arrange the five-star trip to Guilin. The wife’s cousin was marrying a government official who, since retirement, had bought into a coal mine and therefore, had an armed body guard. Someone was always taking a shot at one of these fellows after every accident whether the incident could be proven to be the owner’s fault or not, so this fellow did have the bucks and Wen was hooking up the couple with a vacation at the Shangri-La, a hotel featuring a real Western breakfast—they served real cheese and chocolates!—which left Lin to pick up some group tickets for a school trip to Mount Emei which was famous for having especially nasty monkeys, so Wen had warned the Principal to buy insurance just in case of a foreseeable or unforeseeable incident, “but did the fool listen!” But in any case, that wasn’t Lin’s problem. Lin only had to pick up the ticket package, a task that might seem at first glance not too daunting except that this was the first time that Lin had been to the capital, not that such the inexperience was that unusual for the time though Tianjin was really only three hours from the capital even if you traveled by school bus. The incident, after all, had taken place only a few 26
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years earlier, and everyone in the District, it seemed, had a similar vision. They were walking in the capital all innocent: maybe shopping at a newly opened Parkson. What could be more innocent than shopping at a Malaysian-run department store chain? Then, a tank approached. From real far away, the tank looked like an oblong bottle of plum wine. Then, closer up, an insect with an unusually flat skull. Then, closer a long steel tube and at first to the hard working residents of the Goubuli District, the steel tube looked like an all season vacation spot—well designed to insulate the individual tourist from the cold. Beijing winters were famously bone chilling. And in the springs with a little blanket could keep the dust rolling off the Mongolian plains that was otherwise blinding. And of course the benefits were clear in a dry summer heat. But Lin wasn’t a tourist seeking a resting spot free of seasonal discomfort. Lin was in the capital for purposes of business so had problems of a different order: the first being how to board a third-class bus. You wouldn’t think that would be a problem. You just buy the ticket, 10 bucks. Get on with the rest of the passengers. Then, close your eyes or do whatever it is that passengers on a bus do. Simple perhaps but not for a colleague with a slim travel allowance: then, there were two possibilities, both with a significant downside. Lin could climb on top of a reconverted school bus and hold onto the steel luggage rack in case the driver put too much a swerve into a left turn or sliced off a right corner too sharply so that the passengers had too close a view of the tulip poplars planted on the side of the road recently for cosmetic purposes. The obvious step, though, was to try to find place inside, not that the choice did not come with its own hardships. 27
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First there was the matter of boarding a ’50s school bus, an undertaking that did not necessarily come with a happy ending. Lin had to be lucky enough to find the optimal place in the crowd of passengers flooding through two narrow doors. Not that there wasn’t a skill: there was a skill to everything including surviving standing room on a third class bus: the number 1 being similar to the first rule of becoming a successful travel agent (a resemblance that gave Lin hope). Take whatever comes your way. When an old lady knocks you in the side with a bag of rice flour or a young student claps you on the ear with a recycled Red Book before letting you have it on the other end with a used copy of a Harvard MBA’s Recipe for Success: just smile: smiling was good. But taking it was better. And when the bus driver made up for the time lost from overfilling the bus with more last fare paying customers: bend your head and assume a fetal position, while making sure to check your back pocket for the fifth time. No one has picked your pocket and the tickets are not lying on the floor next to the business/poli sci major. Now, make the next connection. The lot is filled with dirt, the dirt invading your shirt and pack but not the envelope safeguarded by your un-tucked button down missing the top and third to the top buttons. Okay, you made your next connection and are hanging out the front door as the capital assumes a small city character: rice thrown on the side of the road to be ground and dried by a regular traffic flow till you reach the point where the buildings are taller than the threatening tulip poplars lining the side of the road from Tianjin to the capital. Then, the ticket collector, a lovely 12year-old, shoves you out on your backside at a stop near a very historic square, leaving you to ask a peddler or at least a 28
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guy you think is a peddler because in your experience, there can be no other reason for a guy (and he definitely wasn’t retired) to be loitering at 3 in the afternoon who directs you, kind of, to an alleyway where you come face to face with a tank blocking its entrance, a tank that is also a catty corner from a two-floor barber shop that catches your attention because the shop is lit with neon in the mid afternoon. The tank does bear an odd resemblance to an oblong wine bottle—from a distance—a resemblance that leads you to figure that the other travel stories must be true, that the turret, looking like the tower of European castle can (when set in motion) have a dangerously hypnotic effect on a tourist who may confuse the tank with an actor in a sci-fi film in which a large metropolis is demolished by a humongous insect that is intelligent enough to score high on a college entrance exam. So you pay the high fee for the 3-D glasses and watch a film that is altogether too vivid so must represent an advance in technology until you realize that the fact is that you have a bit part. The tank has annihilated an army of extras. Now it’s your turn. The spectators are all addicts to cable news so misinterprets the scene, taking the lead from a commentator who is paid to find a clever phrase to find a phrase to fit your dilemma—which is why you are called tank man though you are barely, if at all, aware of the tank’s slow but consistent progress, instead absorbed in finding the single turn amongst any number of turns that brought you to an alleyway opening onto a vast and historic square, so you close your eyes. But the junior colleague of Happy Times Travel was not on vacation so had no discernible reason to close his eyes. He was in the capital strictly on business, so his problem as29
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sumed a wholly different dimension: how to convince a tank that he, Lin, was not a tourist but was expected by a corrupt mid or high-level official who was selling off a vacation package intended as a perk for a military contingent? Lin’s more senior colleague had, to a certain extent, taken into account the challenge faced by a junior colleague: providing a letter that should secure clearance. Still, what if the soldier in the tank (Lin assumed that the tank was controlled by some human intelligence) started to approach Lin without troubling to discover that Lin was not a tourist—which was why Lin surrendered: a form of non-resistance that the junior colleague at Happy Times Travel was well practiced at: waving the official’s letter as if the letter constituted a white flag, the tactic working in so far as Lin was not crushed by the tank. The remaining directions were printed on stationary with a lilac as well as the company’s name embellished in green on the upper right corner. Step 1: find a heavy canvas tent less than a meter inside the perimeter. Step 2: make certain that all 25 tickets were inside and that all 25 had stamped “redeemable at a discount” on the upper right corner of an envelope marked “for PLA Troop 74” before completing steps 3, 4, and 5: putting down the cash envelope on a wooden mahjong table and proceeding to take the group ticket package before escaping the perimeter while making certain to stroll nearby a soldier as if the soldier was a somewhat distant friend. Step 6: again face the flat square steel top of a tank with a turret that turn in either direction. Step 7: there are no more steps. Lin felt satisfied, having following all the steps outlined by his senior colleague except of course that now his business was finished and Lin was again within firing range 30
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which was when Lin became attracted to the neon multicolored bulbs decorating the barbershop like a vacation home overlooking the Yangtze River—which was why Lin was not very deterred by a teenager, wearing a flowing polo shirt and holding a pair of metal shears. Later that evening, a masseuse, a little older than a soldier but younger than a barber, approached Lin: asking if Lin wanted to venture upstairs. Of course, Lin wanted to venture upstairs, and that was without considering the immediate prospect of facing a tank or the eventual outcome of falling asleep on a rollout—alone. But here was Lin’s problem. The no nonsense haircut had eaten through the meager allowance given to the junior colleague for a day in the capital. And the junior colleague didn’t have enough for a bowl of congee and a pot of cheap five-flower tea, no more a foot or hand massage, not to mention the full body type. So Lin showed a bulk ticket passage, which the masseuse, just older than the soldier but younger than the teenage barber, inspected carefully, leading Lin to recall how the senior colleague had exhibited a similar thoroughness a week or so ago when perusing a contract in which a nearly five star tour company agreed on the appropriate kickback in return for sinking a boatload of teachers. The masseuse gave back the envelope marked on the front cover, “for PLA Troop 74,” and led Lin up an uneasily attached metal staircase to a room the size of a closet and a half with a door to a room that Lin would never see. Then, motioned for a masseuse who looked as if she were a very small and timid boy: who very professionally turned off the lights: pulled a warm towel over Lin’s eyes and began to massage his knuckles and lower forearm till Lin was able at last to close his eyes, and imagine resting inside the turret of a gun facing down a crowd of an31
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gry demonstrators. Lin released his tickets, feeling that he was on vacation. Later, on the way back home, on the first rung of some steps, leading up to a rather squat bus driver who took one corner very sharply, nearly brushing the bus against a yellow tulip, Lin began to consider his next problem, a problem of more immediate import to a junior colleague than what to do when facing down a tank that could flatten a threatening or non-threatening traveler with equivalent ease. What to tell his boss about the missing tickets and what to tell his wife about the missing hair (the boyish masseuse would remain his secret)? Lin wanted to be honest, but what could Lin really say? That he had a first encounter with a tank, a tank with a heavy steel turret that looked to house a comfortable vacation spot, provided that Lin was traveling unaccompanied and the junior colleague had decided to celebrate that encounter by not resisting a barber holding a pair of sharpened metal shears and to further the festivities, had exchanged a bulk ticket package, redeemable at a discount, for a hand and foot massage, lasting forty-five minutes if that. Even if his wife and senior colleague were to accept Lin’s explanation (doubtful) and not divorce and fire Lin respectively, Lin would still be stuck paying back the price of the bulk package for the duration, and his wife would of course add the incident to her ready stash of highly imaginative curses. So naturally, Lin was not especially pleased to come face to face with his wife and his senior colleague, both of whom had blocked off the open entrance to Happy Times Travel until the junior colleague at Happy Times Travel came up with a tactic to turn the unfortunate incident to his advan32
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tage—and told his wife and senior colleague that the trip went longer than expected, which was the truth as far as it went. And when his senior colleague asked for the missing tickets and his wife for an explanation for the sudden rise in the hairline since her husband had last ventured out Goubuli Alley, Lin replied that the bulk package and the extra hair were gone. After, Lin prepared to apply the second rule being that, when as was almost inevitable, his senior colleague or his wife (or both) would explode, Lin’s job was to be the wall so to speak, and despite whatever screaming took place, despite whatever epitaphs were hurled in Lin’s direction, Lin’s job was to take it as if Lin was responsible not only for one terrible incident but for every incident that had been inflicted on these poor souls. But his senior colleague and his wife did not continue to try to parse out the mystery of the unaccounted-for tickets and the unaccounted-for hair. The two of them were caught off guard, enabling Lin to take advantage of the lull in the hostilities and slip off to the back storage room for a nap: exhausted from a first trip to the capital.
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R.D. Lomax Tantalising There’s chicken feet and coke in my fridge. And I am just not even going to go there with the metaphors. Just trying to show the shock of solitude I sometime find On Wednesdays. Contentedly boasting also That a soliloquy can be found in a world of billions, In a country not so much smaller than that And my family of three. The reports I could make, Proof of how there is a lot more going on than numbers. A life bigger than a half an hour, six o’clock news slot, On all of the other days. There’s even the light relief bit. The part that is suppose to ward off nightmares, Caused by insight into our fellow in-humans; Very randomly scheduled. But this is not about the news: Merely some way to realise, to express the absolute joys At finding chicken feet and coke in my fridge On Wednesdays.
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Buff Whitman-Bradley An Airplane Crash in Ancient China Tu Fu, drunk in his boat, contemplating the moon Had to be careful of falling overboard Lest his great sleeves drag him down To the bottom of the cold black lake Above him a sliver plough cut a trench in the sky The emperor’s philosopher told the Ch’an master Someday people will fly around the earth The Ch’an master replied What do you mean, someday? A plane crashed in the mountains of Wu And the dead wrote their names in the snow The rice sings in the wine in the brain Time is nothing If we think we will die we are wrong If we think we will not die we are wrong Each moment the plane slams into the ground In the apricot dawn Tu Fu rows ashore His sleeves are soaked with dew His tongue tastes of ashes In his mind the brush Forms the first characters Of a new poem 35
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Contributor Notes Liang Yujing is a Changsha-based poet and literary translator who writes in both English and Chinese. His poetry in English has previously appeared or is forthcoming in Word Riot, Weyfarers, Wasafiri, Peril and Tipton Poetry Journal. He is now working as an English teacher in Hunan Business College, China. Yuefu is an ancient official collection of folk songs in China. they were composed during the Southern Dynasties (420-581 A.D), with their authors unknown. Karen Loeb’s experience in China started in 2001 when she adopted her three-year-old daughter. She returned in 2008, where she and her husband team-taught in a Guangzhou university. Her work has appeared in magazines and newspapers, including The Louisville Review, 100% Pure Florida Fiction, Phantasmagoria, Pinyon, Wisconsin People and Ideas, Flash, and Verbsap. A collection of her stories, Jump Rope Queen won a Minnesota Voices award and was published by New Rivers Press. R.D. Lomax has been writing and working in Huhhot, Inner Mongolia, for more years than can really be good for him and is indeed as happy as the poem suggests. Robert G. Longpré’s poems are based on the impressions he experienced as a foreigner hired to teach history and English in a university in Changzhou. Jiangsu, from August, 2006 to June, 2008. 37
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Charles Lowe’s work has appeared in Guernica, Fiction International, Pacific Review, and elsewhere. He lives in China with his wife and daughter and is a lecturer at Shanghai University of Finance and Economics. Dennis Maulsby is a retired bank president living in Ames, Iowa. His poetry and short stories have appeared in Lyrical Iowa, the Des Moines Register, Peregrine, The North American Review, and other journals. His book of poetry, Remembering Willie, and all the others was published in 2003 and won silver medal book awards from the Military Writers Society of America (2005) and the Branson Stars & Stripes organization (2009). After five years of living and working in China, Katharine Mitchell returned to the Carolinas to spend time with her family, including her five lovely nieces and nephews. She hopes to travel again soon, but is increasingly enjoying life back in these United States, where she’s studying for a teacher certification (high school English) and continuing to work on a book about her first year in China with Xiao Ping– an auntie who continues to inspire her, wherever she is now. Buff Whitman-Bradley is the author of two books of poetry, b. eagle, poet, and The Honey Philosophies. His poetry has appeared in many print and online journals. In addition to writing, he produces documentary videos and audios. His interviews with U.S. soldiers who have refused to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan can be heard at www.couragetoresist.org. He lives in Marin County, California, with his wife Cynthia. 38
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