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