Poetry

Jonathan B. Chan is an undergraduate at the University of Cambridge reading English. Born to a Malaysian father and Korean mother in the United States, Jonathan was raised in Singapore and sees his cultural tapestry manifest in his writing. He has recently been moved by the writing of Marilynne Robinson, Joan Didion, and Shusaku Endo.  His mind is preoccupied with questions of theology, love, and human expression.

take a walk

today after meeting a friend I

ambled through orchard road,

absentminded without a destination;

paused for an out-of-tune singer and

exasperated accompanying beatboxer;

wandered through lucky plaza curious

about the bastion of pinoy secrets; past the

rows of emerald hill bars inhabited by

expats and disgruntled white collars;

sipped a mojito in the masquerade of a

sanfran cable car; wove through shuttered

shops and dimmed stores; cast curious

glances upon fellow wednesday night

streetwalkers; peered into bank buildings

like art installations and furniture stores like

colonial houses; ventured to art galleries

that only allowed for window scrutiny;

thought about nothing in particular. the

adage that singapore has no soul is

reflected by the shiny artifice of its

shopping district: a grandiose veneer that

masks a system of transactions and

conditions. this is not the place to find

poetry recitals or aspiring bands or

bartending conversationalists or morose

comedians; this is not a place to expect

meaningful and heady exchanges (with

exception to dinner’s dialogue); the city

projects the image of what is expected of

luxury and commerce- a moving image

sustained without substance.

~

i need to know

to conversations that

meander through

chinatown festivals,

graphite stains

that mask

bashfulness, no,

to billowing ambition

wafting through

twice-boiled aromas and

bitter chocolate, no, to

trailing wordlessly

in hongdae thrift

stores, no, to unwitting

glances during mimed

raps, no, to untouched

garageband euphoria

between languid

afternoon smiles, no,

to the first time i

mustered what i

had and asked

if we could

sing together

~

road trips

billy joel on a mountainside path

singing of heartbreak and drink

amidst flanks of dust and rock

and well-dressed nepalese that make

ramshackle buildings and traffic disorder

(there are neither addresses

nor traffic lights but a cacaphony of car horns)

even more baffling. the momentary

discomfort of 10 hour journeys in

this claustrophobic

provides glimpses
of destitution and poverty and

masses of people and acres

of farmland that whisk past our windows.

we sip their chai, eat their momos,

chow mein, dhaal bhat;

our tourist’s novelty is their daily diet.

I wince at the

juxtaposition of dulcet

california tones and the

monotony of nepali workmen.

~

tanahun

open fields team with crumbling

rocks and crags; a farmer walks

by with a line of livestock-

our urban eyes jolt at the sight of

goats and cows and chickens

and those who tend to the

hopes of harvest. the local

pastor diagnoses them with

chronic laziness-

“they work for 4 months a year

and spend the rest doing little else”

would a taste of

salvation arouse them from

moribundity?

we offer our services-

a volleyball,

a football, a

guitar, they snap our photos like

zoo animals. they accept us

into their homes, perhaps

endeared by a foreign face rather

than a savior’s sacrifice. the

prayer circles assure us we have

scattered the seeds; we wait

for them to flourish.

Jonathan B. Chan is an undergraduate at the University of Cambridge reading English. Born to a Malaysian father and Korean mother in the United States, Jonathan was raised in Singapore and sees his cultural tapestry manifest in his writing. He has recently been moved by the writing of Marilynne Robinson, Joan Didion, and Shusaku Endo.  He is preoccupied with questions of theology, love, and human expression.

hồ chí minh

motorcycles weave

like flotsam in a slipstream

anxious swarms nudging

through gaps, I twist

to avoid their brusque advance

as epaulette-bearing shophouse

guards glance furtively from

their stools. the humidity

is swift and familiar, local cacophony

splashed with tonal colour, food

painted with colonial hues-

the city whispers

“I’m not some war torn country.”

I slurp pho in a 6-villa compound;

I nod guiltily at limbless beggars.

a tremulous emotional current

envelops me at the war museum: the

claymore that’s accompanied me

for months rests indignantly in a glass

case. the trenches, jungle marches,

rifles held above crossed water:

I quiver with sympathy

for the vietcong

the new face of vietnam

is global: the young

bury their dead, epithets in

museum displays and lacquer

rendered with expressionist

technique. scars are masked

by korean cosmetics, echoes

drowned by the zing of

fast food (I am told today’s

youth could not fit in the cu

chi tunnels), moans and cries

swallowed in the optimistic

motorbike hum- it is more

fastidious to march to this beat.

market vendors jockey for

attention, food stalls wave

their laminated menus, old

cyclo peddlers grunt at

the chaos in the junctions,

acrobats leap on bamboo to

remember the pulse of

village life, I stand with unease

in the facsimile of a gangnam

department store.

the only

locals are

in uniform.

~

mahjong

after psle*

my tuition teacher

turned her center

into a mahjong den

“you deserve a break,”

she’d chortle,

teaching us to fling

thick tiles, eye one

another amidst

the click-clack of

washing, stack

tile walls as if to

guard state secrets.

we’d bet on things like

school postings and

scores, things so

important to a 12-year old

but inconsequential

in a game of mahjong.

we never did play again; our

teacher wary after they

complained, “teach our kids

to score, not gamble,” and

the humdrum of

secondary school

encroached on our aptitudes

the clicking of tiles a

coda resounding in

emptied chambers.

* Primary School Leaving Examination

~

boyhood

harbinger: starched fabric rests on

shoulders, the auditorium a

formidable patchwork of stern and

naive, a song resounds- the

lyrics wrestle on your tongue

arborescence: nurturing gentlemen is

like pruning bonsai- every red stroke

a snip, every reprimand a shear,

pressure toughens the bark, but can

trees water themselves?

supine: there’s a compulsion to let

the winds bowl you over- you’ll learn

to say no after calling it quits too

many nights, red retinas tracing

the reasons not to get out of bed

epoch: a young man has clear

milestones- graduation, enlistment,

parades. we are not empires that wax

and wane, we look on zeitgeists with

face-grabbing bemusement

denouement: typing poems in an

empty bunk, ignoring the thought of

arrested development, cautiously

contemplating what comes next,

short answer- more of the same