Poem by ZHANG QIAOHUI
Translated from the Chinese by YILIN WANG
Poem appears below in both English and Chinese.
Soliloquy
You know where Grandma is buried, but do not know
where Grandma’s Grandma is
By PATRICIA LIU
Yunnan Province, China
Paper is thin. In the beginning, still billows in the wind, still petal-like, still grounded in this world
of living. The incense is the only material that translates the viscera to mist. Early, the fog has not yet
lifted, and we move through the white drip as if through total darkness. Fish lost in the deep under-
water. It is easy for water to find home in our bodies. How wonderful it is to think my father’s
dead father a translation of our living selves, the water in-between my cells, the same water of
ghosts. Of women and Buddha, of lotus flower and palace, of lion. See the shine of fire, even
now. See the smoke, encapsulated by the fog. My father tells stories of the state’s inexorable beckoning,
the brothers, and the sisters, too, sent to the countryside. What they remember most is the truck
and the dust, the broad shoulders of horse, that first night and its stars, the mass exodus of dragonflies
following the monsoons—but no, exodus is uniquely a human endeavor. My father cannot bring
himself to anger; he knows it is shame that is the ugliest language. Somewhere, I have lost my place
in the life-wheel, and the only words I know in Chinese are our names. Jiayu is rain. Jialei is rosebud.
Only years later do I learn that Jiayu means jade. Only years later do I long for pure, unadulterated
fortune over the ritual of early rain. Somehow, turn face to sky. Here. In memory, to burn is to revere.
Poems by JINJIN XU
Image by Xu YuanYan
Table of Contents
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By KAREN KAO
The first time I went to China was in 1984. I didn’t need a map. You could only travel in groups back then with a government handler to navigate the way and guide thoughts. We travelled from Beijing to Xi’an in a decommissioned military airplane reserved for the exclusive use of Party leaders and foreign tourists. From Xi’An to Luoyang we took a train that required eight hours to cover a distance that now needs just half that.
By LISA CHEN
In Susan Sontag’s short story “Project for a Trip to China,” the unnamed narrator is invited on a junket by the Chinese government. The project unfolds as a loose association of daydreams, epigrams, facts, and memories triggered by the promise of this future trip.
By VAL WANG
By lunchtime, Beijing had reached 102 degrees and our four-year old twins were hungry. We’d spent the morning exploring the shadeless Yonghegong Lama temple and now sought out the refuge of the simple vegetarian buffet nearby where my vegetarian husband and I had had a transcendent meal on our last trip six years before. To our dismay, it had been, according to a nearby security guard, demolished. One of our twins emitted hangry squeals, the other went boneless. The air was dense with humidity and pollution. On our way to the temple from the subway stop at the top of Yonghegong Street, we’d passed another, fancier-looking, vegetarian restaurant and so we elbowed our way all the way back up the narrow corridor of manic Buddhist commercialism thick with incense and the calls of hawkers selling religious tchotchkes and crowds of midday worshippers and tourists; we drowned in sweat.
By JINJIN XU
Every summer, we boarded the sleeper-train from Shanghai to Jiangxi and I squeezed through the crowds to claim the top bunk in a tight compartment shared with two strangers. The train always smelled of feet and instant noodles, and I loved the 16-hour journey because it was the only time I was allowed to have the MSG-flavored noodles. I rolled onto the scratchy bleached sheets that stuck to my sweaty body, and pressed my head against the cool metal bar to peek out the window, upside-down. Rocking to the train’s steady sway, I felt the soft, comforting crease of the cash my mother had sewn into my underwear against my thighs, in case of pickpockets. Meanwhile, she sat bent on the bottom bunk, purse clutched to chest, glancing up at my dangling head and legs, muttering, “Behave, you are a city girl.”
We are pleased to present the second installment of our two-part feature on New Poetry from China, translated by Stephen Haven and Li Yongyi. Click on the titles below to view bilingual editions of new poetry by Yang Jian, Mo Fei, and Li Yongyi.
We are pleased to present the first installment of our two-part feature on New Poetry from China, translated by Stephen Haven and Li Yongyi. Click on the titles below to view bilingual editions of new poetry by Tang Danhong, Zheng Min, and Yu Nu.
By ZHENG MIN
Translated by STEPHEN HAVEN and LI YONGYI
Inside my body there is a gaping mouth,
A lion roaring
Rushing to the end of the bridge,
As the ship glides by.