Literary Shanghai

John Mulrooney – three poems

July 31, 2017

John Mulrooney is a poet, filmmaker and musician living in Cambridge, MA. He is author of If You See Something, Say Something from the Anchorite Press and co-producer of the documentary ‘The Peacemaker’, from Central Square Films. He records and performs regularly with a number of groups in the greater Boston area. He is Associate Professor in the English Department at Bridgewater State University. His work has appeared in Fulcrum, Pressed Wafer fold’em zine, Solstice, The Battersea Review, Poetry Northeast, Spoke, Let the Bucket Down and others.

At the Brooklyn Promenade

Blue clouds of the dusk sky

shimmer on the surface of the harbor;

placemats of blue lace on a bluer table,

and then shift back to something more

cloudlike; something less, being only

the things that they are, and reflections at that.

And what of it. All day

sorting a crate of our recent past

which cannot go away

fast enough, dividing stacks

of almost identical diagnosis attempts,

a hundred pages of the unsaid,

layered blue of MRI prints –

a series of study sketches

toward an unfinished work.

This park is the triumph of making,

a template for Sunday afternoons

where I had guided her slowly,

so careful as to be clumsy,

along the promenade to sit

on a bench under Brooklyn Bridge,

its vast arc the manifest perfected

sum of some quantifiable knowledge,

because it was something she could do,

just to get out for a while.

Today, a man photographs

the cobbles along the walkway

littered with cellophane and

pink strands from a feather boa,

a newspaper soggy with urine,

its letters running like mascara;

these are all this day alone,

against the irreducible sky

and the splendor of structure;

what the wind has done

to make this day particular.

And these shapes changing

on the water like like or as

are not even, cannot be what I sing

because memory is death; it kills the things

you cherish or dread and replaces

each one with your memory of it:

a hollowness built of the real.

And suddenly it was almost me who

could not walk to a bench by the bridge,

although it never was,

although my arms and legs

obey my commands,

do what I tell them but never what I want:

wrong and helpless,

I span one to the other

because all I can do is identify

make myself metaphor,

a thing that might look like,

that you think is but isn’t.

And I want to dive,

that marriage of plummet and jump,

in below the refracted sky,

to the water’s silence

and come out on the surface

that might make me one of

these changing things I cannot change,

which will erase my clumsiness

and redraw me as shimmer.

~

Autumn Walk After Jodorowsky

More métier en scene

than inchoate vagabond

some summer in the knees

some summer in green

and of course in the water

were protean secrets,

the day and clock pulse

still too small to retain

an atmosphere true but

in the forge of gravity

The Empress of autumn

sought the star, summer

plunged below and yellow

irises found hiding spots

and our eyes seeking them

confirmed that we all sought

the commensal beauty

and usefulness therein –

big fish and little fish

bandicoot and boa –

blood is protein knowledge

on autumn’s whistle stop

or winter’s all aboard,

but summer yes she bleeds –

rats and racoons wreak

havoc around her feet

cluttered under composts

of spring that winter nicked.

~

Poem on Madonna’s 50^th Birthday

here is August soaked with reminder

that the world is material that changes

there’s a flag at half mast

for someone who didn’t even make the papers

the rainy season comes upon us

like it was the tropics like the

flutters and hums on Bleeker

were south beach waves and breezes

the flutters and hums on Bleeker

that becomes a material that changes

Paparazzi armies lay siege to the ineffable

dumpy men made of rain

make glimmer solid in a flashbulb

and Elvis Presley 31 years dead

waits with us to reinsert mystery

into the material substance of our lives

says with us we ache we ache we ache

comes to love us

as we come to love ourselves

by waiting upon those

we desire to both want and be

until memory strikes a pose

and crosses over the borderline

of our love.

Fiction

Jason Erik Lundberg – ‘Bodhisattva at the Heat Death of the Universe’

July 28, 2017

Zha materialized in my front yard, having finally found me after an interval of roughly five million years, give or take a few millennia. He was human again, and male, wearing those ragged worn-out monk’s robes he seemed to cherish so much; they rippled and fluttered in the breeze, even though my little asteroid hosted no atmosphere and, therefore, no wind. Above us, the twin red supergiants of this system—which I’d long ago named Mother and Father, so much bigger and older than when I had first settled in this place—rotated in their dance of peanut-shaped illumination.

“Hello, Zha,” I said, continuing to rake pebbles into the form of a gigantic asterisk, the image reaching halfway round the asteroid’s face, taking patience and artistry and determination; he and I both knew what the message meant, and I suppose I’d done so in order to call him here. Despite millions of years of solitude, I supposed I still wanted the occasional contact.

Yha. My name was projected, sent directly into my mind. I preferred the physical act of talking, of sending air up my esophagus to vibrate my vocal cords and produce sounds. The fact that no air could be found in the immediate vicinity was irrelevant, and both Zha and I were past such trivialities. Have you finally decided to forgo this existence and travel with me into the Pure Land?

“Can’t a person call her former lover for a chat without leaping into the subject of existence-transcending? Has it been so long that you’ve forgotten how to engage in small talk?”

Zha’s expression remained neutral, but a dozen microscopic gestures flitted across his face. I smiled at the thought that I still knew how to irritate him. What would be the point, Yha? We have had every conversation that it is possible to have, in so many incarnations and iterations that I have lost count. Even after achieving enlightenment, I remained in cyclic existence in order to guide every last sentient being to Nirvana, including you, who are now the last. I am tired, and the stars are tired. It is time to end this foolish game of yours.

“Game? You think I’ve been playing a game all this time?” I threw my rake down onto the carbonaceous chondrite and began kicking at the pebbles of my asterisk, scattering the image into unrecognizability. It seemed that my message had been both prescient and affirmative: Zha was still an unbelievable asshole. “You still don’t understand me, you arrogant bastard. Not during the many incarnations in which we were married, not when I was your daughter, or mother or father or brother or sister, and certainly not now. You want games? I’ll give you games.”

I dematerialized, leaving behind my corporeal form, my latest home, and the plants and pets I had conjured up from the asteroid’s physical material and manipulated for my amusement and companionship; I left it all to crumble and became pure consciousness, leaping light years with but a thought, pushing myself beyond the bounds of the Milky Way, skipping from one star system to another as easily as I once had skipped over the paving stones on a pond filled with artificially-enlarged koi, the pond where we had first met, all those endless lives ago. After I’d slipped from a wet stone and splashed into the shallow pond, Zha, crouching on the bank, had laughed, not maliciously, but with a wisdom that already understood futility and acceptance; I had taken his hand then, and laughed too at my sorry state, and our karmas become forever intertwined, like a carefully sculpted bamboo.

I felt Zha’s presence dozens of light years behind me but closing the gap quickly. My path led directly through the hearts of moribund blue supergiants, immersed me in the violent radiation of hypernovae, and skirted the infinitesimally-detectable event horizons of supermassive black holes. I felt the urge to clutch every passing star to me and fling them back at Zha as casually as a clod of dirt, but incorporeal as we both were, the effect would have been negligible.

I ran, Zha chased, and billions of years flowed by. It gave me time to think, and to reflect on the gradual darkening of the space around us. The galaxies were burning themselves out, what had seemed like endless fuel and energy proving its finitude before my vision. Would it be possible to exist once the universe had expired? And, as Zha had so frustratingly pointed out, what would be the point? Damn him.

I became somatic once more and reposed onto the shifting plasma surface of a white dwarf on the outer edge of the known universe, warming myself with the dying star’s heat. The crackling and hissing of its radiation in extremis tickled my auditory senses. Why was I still clinging to this existence? Was I really so afraid of death? It was unclear how long I sat there contemplating my stubbornness and fear, but at some point Zha arrived, as I’d known he would. He didn’t say or think a word, and instead just rested next to me, still infinitely patient despite everything I’d ever said and done to him. Calm and resignation settled over me like a blanket as the white dwarf’s energy cooled.

“I’m ready,” I told him, and his response was not condescension or arrogance, but relief. He took my hand and vocalized the mantras he’d so long ago devoted himself to learning and tried to teach me. The ancient words flowed around us as a palpable living river, and I repeated them in sync with Zha’s utterances. All around us the stars winked out, but the chanted syllables took their place, filling every occupiable space in the now-cold universe with Om, our white dwarf the last to burn out, but deplete itself it did, bleeding its energy into us, into the words, lending us strength, and as its temperature reached absolute zero and its atoms ceased movement, a doorway of blissful orange light opened in my mind.

Zha turned to me, his smile both beautiful and beatific, his essence the very apotheosis of empathy and love, and held out his hand. I took it and followed him through.

–fin-

(originally published in Strange Mammals, Infinity Plus Books, Oct 2013)

Poetry, Translation

Scott L. Satterfield – translation of ‘鹿柴’ by Wang Wei

July 24, 2017

Deer Fall

Empty mountains – no one seen

yet echoing voices are heard

Setting sunlight enters deep forest

again lighting the moss green

Wang Wei

鹿柴

空山不见人

但闻人语響

返景入深林

复照青苔上

王維

Fiction

Jason Erik Lundberg – ‘Occupy: An Exhibition’

July 21, 2017

Jason Erik Lundberg was born in New York, grew up in North Carolina, and has lived in Singapore since 2007. He is the author and anthologist of over twenty books, including Red Dot Irreal (2011), The Alchemy of Happiness (2012), Fish Eats Lion (2012), Strange Mammals (2013), Embracing the Strange (2013), the six-book Bo Bo and Cha Cha children’s picture book series (2012–2015), Carol the Coral (2016), and the biennial Best New Singaporean Short Stories anthology series (2013–2017). He is also the fiction editor at Epigram Books (where the books he’s edited have been shortlisted for and won the Singapore Literature Prize and Singapore Book Awards, and made multiple year’s best lists since 2012), as well as the founding editor of LONTAR: The Journal of Southeast Asian Speculative Fiction (est. 2012), and a recipient of the Creation Grant from Singapore’s National Arts Council. His writing has been anthologized widely, shortlisted for multiple awards, and honourably mentioned twice in The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror.

Occupy: An Exhibition*

The early morning sky over Singapore’s Central Business District, grey and overcast. The clouds harshen the sunlight into flatness; one can almost hear them rumbling with impotent thunder, holding the air tense and stiflingly still with the anxiety of the forthcoming rainstorm that will not come.

The ground floor steel-and-glass entrance of One Raffles Quay, Asian headquarters for international banks such as UBS, Barclays, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, and Societe Generale. A chain of elderly women and men with interlinked arms forms a blockaded perimeter, some sitting in wheelchairs, some standing on aged legs and propped up with canes or walkers, some sitting on blankets directly on the ground, all of them staring straight ahead, unmoving.

A similar linear barricade of the elderly, this time blocking the entrance to the ORQ offices inside the pedestrian underpass that links up with the MRT train station.

A wide shot of the CBD’s other skyscraping seats of capitalist power and influence—including the UOB Building, the Far East Finance Building, and Ocean Financial Centre—all surrounded on the ground by calm, unmoving chains of the elderly, looked on by armies of ambitious civil servants and financial wizards eager to cross the line and earn the day’s manna.

The gathered crowd outside ORQ, an ocean of white button-down long-sleeved shirts and black slacks and skirts. In the foreground, a handsome European man of indeterminate ethnicity in his late 20s, dressed from head to toe in tailored Massimo Dutti and holding a Fendi briefcase, representative of the financial success of the young men and women around him, likely with clients all over Asia and Europe, and an imported Jaguar housed in ORQ’s basement car park. On the man’s face is an expression of bemused confusion, as if unsure whether this is all a publicity stunt, or a government-mandated day of observance, or something else entirely.

A close-up of one of the ORQ “protestors,” a Chinese octogenarian so thin that he appears barely more alive than a skeleton, clothed only in a stained singlet, greyish Bermuda shorts, and undersized thong sandals. The old uncle’s face is lined with deep crevasses, his skin leathery with a lifetime spent working outside under the scorching tropical sun. Despite his tired appearance, his eyes blaze with determination.

A female police negotiator, engaged in a one-way conversation with an old Malay woman in a wheelchair. The negotiator’s posture and gestures are indicative of a willingness to discover what the protestors want, but the old woman’s gaze purposefully avoids eye contact, making it apparent that the police are not who the elderly will open to. Out of focus in the background are just visible a number of other police officers in their dark blue uniforms of authority.

Mr. Massimo Dutti stands less than half a meter from the old uncle in the singlet, his mouth open in an angry tirade, no longer bemused or confused, his pointing index finger only centimeters from the uncle’s nose, the tendons in his neck protruding, a vein in his forehead swollen and standing out. The bankers in the immediate vicinity look uncertain whether to cheer the young man on or restrain his outburst.

Mere seconds later, yet Mr. Massimo Dutti and his cohorts are recoiling backward in incredulity at the sight of the entire chain of elderly surrounding ORQ having transformed into stone as a reaction to the threat, looking for all intents and purposes as if they have been sculpted and then placed in that location as a work of public art.

The ORQ protestors once again flesh and blood, the old uncle’s eyes projecting an implicit warning. The elderly on either side silently share the uncle’s expression, their attention now focused.

Mr. Massimo Dutti, very likely not accustomed to being treated in such a way from a runty little uncle who looks as if he normally hassles hawker center patrons to buy packets of tissues, leans forward with his arm over his head, his Fendi briefcase in mid-swing on a trajectory to connect with the old man’s cranium, his lips drawn back sharply over his teeth. In the background, horrified looks from the assembled bankers. The female police negotiator reaches forward with one hand, her mouth open in a shout.

The octogenarian effortlessly grips Mr. Massimo Dutti’s wrist holding the briefcase with one hand, a steely strength belying his age and appearance, preventing the Fendi from making contact. With the other, he has pulled the young banker close by the lapels of his designer suit jacket, his tight grip wrinkling the material into distortion, their faces close enough to kiss. The old uncle is completely calm. The young man’s eyes are widened in surprise.

Close-up on the horrified expressions of the young bankers. Their features are pinched, as if responding to the sound of horrible unearthly shrieks that seem as though they will never end, and then cut off abruptly. Out of focus, a young Chinese man’s head is turned to the side, his hand over his mouth, as though about to vomit in terror.

The sidewalk in front of the old uncle, where lies a desiccated corpse still clad in Massimo Dutti, the clothing now hanging loosely from the steaming husk of a human being. Only the legs of the old uncle and the elderly to either side are visible in the frame, but their skin glows golden as if from an infusion of siphoned energy.

An overhead shot of the entrance of ORQ, where hundreds of people scatter in all directions at once, away from the elderly perimeter. The police officers in dark blue are just barely noticeable, attempting the futility of calming down the fleeing bankers or directing their egress.

A long shot of the CBD, utterly abandoned but for the single street-level ring around each financial building and a smattering of drained corpses, the noon sunlight gleaming off skyscraper glass onto the empty thoroughfares below. Police barricades as far back as Niccol Highway form a secondary security perimeter.

A shellacked MediaCorp television anchor, her mouth open in mid-word, nearly crowded off of the screen by the gigantic inset displaying an image of the link-armed elderly at ORQ and the words: WHO ARE THE 35K? WHAT DO THEY WANT? The static ribbon up top, in bright red letters: A National Day of Emergency. The news crawl at the bottom of the screen displays the time (2:24 p.m.), the Straits Times Index (down over 1,300 points), and the score of the latest Manchester United vs. Arsenal match (2-1).

An army tank squats on the street just outside of ORQ, its cannon barrel aimed directly at the elderly perimeter, the afternoon sun glinting off of its green metal exterior, surrounded on all sides by young National Servicemen called up on reservist duty, covered head to toe in pixelated camo gear, their rifles raised and ready.

The air thick with rifle smoke. Pockmarks dot the neighboring buildings, broken glass litters the concrete sidewalk. Three NSmen lay on the ground, their faces contorted in pain, hands attempting to quell the blood oozing from the holes punched through their bodies by their own ricocheting bullets.

Out of focus, a camouflaged pant leg retreating to a distance behind the tank, a blurred variegation of greens.

Close in on the muzzle flash from the barrel of the tank’s 120-millimeter cannon, the explosion of force a blazing orange mushroom, with a lighter orange line of trajectory extending forward from its middle, reaching, reaching, reaching for the statues in such close proximity.

Stillness. Billowing smoke. What on first glance appears to be a grey sheet of paper drifting to the ground; on closer inspection: a rectangular sliver of concrete.

The tank in retreat, its rear end displayed to the unharmed once-again flesh-and-blood elderly, turned away by non-violent resistance. On the sidewalk and the city street: concrete and rubble and shards of glass, all loosed by the massive concussion of energy.

A line of young protestors beyond the police barricades, none older than thirty, mouths open in defiant yells, fists pumping the air, each holding a man-made placard: THE 35K ARE ALL OUR GRANDPARENTS! ABANDONED BY SOCIETY ≠ NATIONAL THREAT! THE 35K ARE NOT YOUR ENEMY! WHERE’S YOUR FILIAL PIETY NOW?! Unlikely that they would have been granted a permit for this protest, and yet the nearby police officers stand back, unable to join in, but unwilling to disperse.

A MediaCorp news feed, but off-kilter as though the video camera has been bumped, zoomed in on a leg emerging from the rear passenger door of a black Mercedes-Benz limousine, clad in charcoal grey designer pants, the equally expensive shoe polished to a high shine. Recognizable outfitting of the Old Man. The time indicated on the crawl: 6:37 p.m.

The mass of elderly protestors all stares at the Old Man, whose hands are raised in a questioning gesture. His face out of view, his back muscles tense against his ironed white short-sleeved dress shirt, his white hair cropped close to his skull as if just cut earlier in the day. A small irregular oval of perspiration in the middle of his back.

The ORQ perimeter, now unfurled, reaching around to encircle the Old Man, all elderly eyes on their contemporary in age. The Old Man’s head is turned, shouting to someone out of frame, his hand up in a gesture of halt against the barrel of the handgun only just visible.

From above, a double ring of protestors completely pens in the Old Man at its center. Outside the protective paddock, a confusion of security officers, hands to ear-mounted Bluetooth communication, body language indicative of panic.

The wrinkled octogenarian uncle in singlet and Bermudas faces the Old Man, his mouth open, his hand extended to shake. The Old Man’s gaze at the proffered hand is wary and anxious, as though recalling the fate of Mr. Massimo Dutti and the other expendable bankers.

Close-up on a tight handshake, the skin of both hands creased and liver-spotted, yet the muscles and bones underneath still convey power and confidence from both men.

Tight on the Old Man’s face, his expression full of surprise and relief. The elderly in view behind him relax; some begin to smile.

The entire perimeter, and the Old Man, sit down directly on the ground. The old uncle speaks. The Old Man leans in to listen.

Over the shoulder of the Old Man as he calls to the other limousines parked next to his, the assembled crowd consisting of his son, the entire Cabinet, and various other members of Parliament, who lean forward to catch every one of the Old Man’s utterances.

The suited government figures spreading out in all directions, each man and woman headed toward a different occupied area, not entirely comfortable but unwilling to contravene the Old Man’s dictum.

An Indian woman in leg braces shakes the hand of the Old Man’s son, whose smile is practiced yet genuine. The woman’s sari is faded, its colors dulled with use and wear, yet it glitters in the fading sunlight, throwing sparkles onto her interlocutor’s face.

A longer shot of the CBD, displaying more double rings, inside which sit each Cabinet minister and the other members of Parliament gathered for this summit, each locus of political power straining to hear the quiet, yet firm, voices of their constituency.

From far overhead, the thick orange rays of the setting sun illuminate more than two dozen perfect circles, each circumference glowing a light gold, a color endemic of hope, acceptance, and optimism.

–fin-

* originally published in Red Dot Irreal, Revised Edition, Infinity Plus Books, Dec 2012

Poetry

安琪 – 《某某家阳台》

July 17, 2017

(A translation of this piece into English by Tse Hao Guang can be found here.)

安琪 (1969-)，女，本名黄江嫔，1969年2月出生，福建漳州人。1988年7月漳州师范学院中文系毕业。中间代概念首倡者及代表诗人。第三条道路诗歌流派代表诗人。

诗作入选《中间代诗全集》《现代中国文学精品文库·诗歌卷》《感动大学生的100首诗歌》《新世纪十佳青年女诗人诗选》及各种年度诗歌选本等，主编有《中间代诗全集》（与远村、黄礼孩合作，海峡文艺出版社2004年出版）等。出版有诗集《奔跑的栅栏》《任性》《像杜拉斯一样生活》《个人记忆：2004——2006》等五种。诗作被译成韩文、希伯来文、英文，入选韩国、以色列、美国等诗歌选本。现居北京。

我喜欢某
某某
某某某
我用它们代替我喜欢的某，某某，某某某
某+某某=某某某
某某某就是你
你在你家阳台望出去
望见春秋战国时代走来的一个人
一个女人
她在你家阳台望出去
望见春秋战国时代走来的一个人
一个男人
他们互相望了望，互相笑了笑，就走到了
秦朝、汉朝
和唐朝

Poetry, Translation

Tse Hao Guang – a translation of An Qi’s ‘So & So’s Terrace’

July 14, 2017

Tse Hao Guang 謝皓光 is the author of Deeds of Light (Math Paper Press), shortlisted for the 2016 Singapore Literature Prize. He co-edits the cross-genre, collaborative e-journal OF ZOOS, and is a 2016 fellow of the International Writing Program.

So & So’s Terrace

Poetry

Annie Christain – two poems

July 10, 2017

Annie Christain is an assistant professor of composition and ESOL at SUNY Cobleskill with poems appearing in Seneca Review, Oxford Poetry, The Chariton Review, and The Lifted Brow, among others. She received the grand prize of the 2013 Hart Crane Memorial Poetry Contest, the 2013 Greg Grummer Poetry Award, the 2015 Oakland School of the Arts Enizagam Poetry Award, and the 2015 Neil Shepard Prize in Poetry. Additional honors include her being selected for the Shanghai Swatch Art Peace Hotel Artist Residency and the Arctic Circle Autumn Art and Science Expedition Residency.

The Sect Which Pulls the Sinews: I’ve Seen You Handle Cocoons*

“[A man] shall not lie with another man as [he would] with a woman, it is a to’eva.”

(Leviticus 18:22)

Silkworm dung lines my gums for tea;

I clutch menorah for paddle.

Malka, give me mother-strength

to save the scrolls.

I could never lie with Yôhanan

as I lie with women—

our chewing mouthparts,

our tongues just wringed fiber.

My holy sparks dwell in him.

The first time I touched a boy,

I glimpsed pomegranate arils in the bowl

and felt beetles walk across my chest.

When I crushed them,

a monstrous insect leg broke

forth from my midsection,

ready to strike me at any time—

how I discovered my nature.

With faith, I could have spat into my hand,

clapped, and scored myself with a knife.

Instead, I, the most Chinese of the Chinese Jews,

love Silk Maker Yôhanan,

who sees me as a dybbuk.

It’s true I carve questions onto the bones

of a rooster during Passover

and leave my doorpost bare.

You bring the smell of juniper and ammonia,

he hissed at my belly while breaking his tools.

I burned this foreign body once to please him,

but new and stranger shoots emerged.

I imagine placing his hand there.

There is no Malka,

Just a mother who carved Shalom

onto my infant chest

before drowning herself.

Carry me away, Yôhanan,

if I wind myself up in the floating Torah;

the sign on my hand is twisted bark,

fringe, spooned over pulp.

I’ve seen you handle cocoons.

* First published in ICON

~

We Must Kill All Rats Before We Can Kill Your Rats*

When I’m up late mixing concrete, the little children who live inside the walls scratch out phoenix designs. I talk to myself to drown out their chants of white devil,

and never once do I mention the Revolution—only how the leaders put an end to starvation.

I explained all my problems to the apartment manager, but he just said: We must kill all rats before we can kill your rats. It’s true because the police only wiped out the local cat population after they had reached a tipping point.

To talk of starvation—my mom stopped feeding me when I was five because she was too busy sleeping with men to get free rations of chocolates and cigarettes. No wonder I ask the gods for more and more offspring—

no one pays attention to just one emaciated child.

Soon I was allowed to plug up all the rat holes in my apartment if I paid for the cement myself. Word of my strong character spread to all the parents on the block with left-over women daughters. Every mother I meet bows and gives me soft chicken bones and eggs preserved in ash and salt. I only take them because it means less food for her.

The guards told me with pride that they help all the sick mothers on my block. Just in case it’s true, I place bananas at the feet of Shiva gutting a mermaid-whore so I can convince the gods to make more mothers suffer alone.

I spend my time renovating my apartment, teaching English, shooting roosters bound to blocks of ice, or volunteering to improve society. Just yesterday Onion’s parents gave her gold earrings and pushed her into the closet where I was waiting to finally give them a grandson. I paid for those earrings myself.

Her male ancestors stood on a cloud and cheered me on with their demands for a male heir. I told her what I tell all the girls: I want to investigate your faith.

Many of these so-called cherished mothers here sleep stacked in silos that once stored rice. I shook their hands while the director of the senior center snapped some photos. The newspaper article said I was a doctor from a local medical university doing routine check-ups.

Western man monitors health of Bao Ming . . . .

Her kind won’t be safe anywhere in this world.

* First published in Skidrow Penthouse

Thanks to CR Press

Fiction

Jerica Wong – ‘Sandpaper Towels’

July 7, 2017

Jerica Wong is a secondary school student who is currently studying in Singapore.

You can dry my tears

With abrasive

Sandpaper towels

Weak light bathed her in a soft glow. Her gnarled hands rested limply on the armrests of her wheelchair as she stared out at the same maddening view she had seen for the past five years. A smog of different fumes enveloped the city, casting yet more gloom onto the despondent cityscape (which she was merely imagining – row after row of tiny apartments filled up most of the view). Her time was nearing.

The end comes from the beginning. The beginning to the cycle of life puzzled her. Why would a woman put herself through such suffering to raise a child? The reason lay before her eyes now – to birth the possibility of changing things for a better future.

In her youth, she had scorned the sacrifice and hardship a mother had to endure. She had scorned the pitiful resources left on Earth, and the dying Earth itself that would be pushed into her child’s palms as inheritance when her generation died out and washed their hands of it. She had scorned the obligation of filial piety her child would have to fulfil, even though the child had no other freedom of choice but to live.

A child was optional in her life, compulsory for humankind.

Now she was three decades past the expiration date of her fertility, alone. Her paralysis immobilized most of her body but could not freeze the tears that were trickling on her face. The unnatural sound of moving metal parts unnerved her.

“There, there. You must be going through grief. I can only imagine your pain. It’s alright to cry, and if you need to talk I’ll be here.”

The robot was only uttering recordings of soothing, comforting words, scripted by psychiatrists to fit a situation it had identified. A mathematical algorithm enabled lifeless objects to take care of the elderly. A hand even rested on her shoulder to mimic human warmth. And when she died, this same warm personality would be the one to put her death into an equation and a series of commands:

= no protoplasm detected

= no signs of life

= find corpse

= clean up

= notify robots in residences of acquaintances/friends (if any [living]) of deceased’s passing + Block 2679 Unit #14-19 ’s vacancy

= cremate.

= report to distribution centre for new human

Her mouth opened and shut like a goldfish, gasping for air as sobs stole her breath. A dry, abrasive square was pressed against her face, rubbing up and down. She opened her eyes a crack and saw the robot in front of her.

Sandpaper.

The robot had mistaken it for her face towel – the sandpaper she kept in an old wooden tissue box from her days as an artisan.

The Elderly Care Association had assured the government that the robot was “99% compatible for all ages”. But the 1% incompatibility had manifested itself.

Her lips to cry out but her feeble vocal chords refused to comply. The shutdown button was frustratingly out of reach. Even if it was within reach, she wouldn’t have been able to press it. She desperately willed it to run out of battery. The salty tears stung the abrasion; the agony of the roughness on top of existing pain brought forth more tears.

Perhaps this removal of layers, sanded away to smoothness, would reveal the essence of humanity. What was left for humans to do? The robot moved away from her. The sandpaper fluttered to the ground.

Literary Nonfiction

宁岱 – ‘我的两位数学老师’

July 3, 2017

A translation of this piece, by Nyuk Fong Parker, can be found here.

从小学到中学，我记忆最深刻的数学老师有两位。一位是初中二年级开始给我们授课的刘克智老师，一位是高中两年的李德雨老师。两位老师曾经互为师生，可讲起课来却完全是截然不同的风格。

刘老师给我们上课的第一天，正值刚开学的日子，课间休息时，同学们有说不完的话。刘老师是在上课铃响起的时刻，站到我们教室门口的。当时我们都明白他大概就是新来的数学老师，可铃声还没停，老师也没走进来，就都抓紧时间继续说话。直到大家突然意识到什么，先后闭上嘴巴时，我才觉出铃声已经停了好一会儿了。怎么老师不说话也不进来呢？我看着依旧站在门口外的刘老师。他一脸严肃地望着教室里的我们，一行行扫视，一个个注视。他一身略有褪色的深蓝色中山装，高大黑瘦，手中的数学书被他来回搓揉地攥成了一根小棍。待教室完全安静下来后，刘老师才沉默着走进来，把手里的书往讲台上一撂，“上课！”对刚才的长时间等待，只字未提。以后他天天如此，服装不变，表情不变，目光不变，等待不变。后来我也不记得从什么时间开始，我们变了，只要是老师一站到门口，不管铃声是否还在持续，就立即安静下来。

刘老师还有个特点，上课时从来不说一句与数学无关的话，开口就是讲课。他不看数学书，那课本每次就那么卷卷地往讲台上一躺，下课再被老师抄走。刘老师从不点名批评学生。他有个绝技，能把手中的粉笔掐成药片那么薄，准确地向他所要的方向砍过去。谁上课说话或做小动作，刘老师就停下讲课，掐一截粉笔打过去，然后一句话不说地盯着那位同学，直到他意识到自己的错误，自己纠正了，才继续讲课。一次我跟同桌玩碳素墨水，刘老师一截粉笔不偏偏不倚直接打进了瓶口里。我俩惊讶着老师投掷的准确，看着粉笔头在墨水瓶中冒气泡，忍不住笑起来。刘老师依旧是目光严肃地盯着我们。那目光逼得我们忍住笑，逼得我们把瓶盖盖上，拧紧。可刘老师仍旧不开口继续讲课，目光定在墨水瓶上。没办法，我们只好把瓶子收到课桌抽屉里，从此再没在课堂上拿出来。

我很喜欢刘老师。喜欢他是从他留家庭作业开始的。刘老师要求作业要用数学纸来完成，还要像做手工一样把中间折叠一下，用角尺和圆规在上面画，还要写问、答、定律、定理等许多文字，像是写作文。这些都太好玩了。自从他给我们讲授数学开始，我就觉得数学作业特别容易，对他的严肃和不拘言笑也就不在意了。

我同桌是个特别喜欢课间找老师聊天的学生，而我因为课外学着音乐和美术，课间要赶作业，从未被她拽去过。她经常回来后告诉我，刘老师又夸谁谁谁进步大，谁谁谁有数学天分只是粗心了。我期待刘老师夸奖到我，可从来不曾有过。刘老师夸奖的，总是那天课堂上第一次举手发言的学生。每当回忆起这一点，我又觉得好像见过刘老师笑，只是不再课堂上。

上中学时，我不知道刘老师的全名。那会儿还没有想知道老师全名的想法。总觉得只要是说“刘老师”，大家都应该知道就是我的数学老师。现在想起来，跟刘老师学数学，对我人生最大的提高，不仅仅是让我喜欢上了数学，更重要的是让我学会了自觉，尽管刘老师从来没提过这个词，只是用他坚韧的目光和长久的等待。

高中时，我们换了李德雨老师教数学。又是我那同桌打听到的，李老师是刘老师的老师。可一开始，我还是很怀念我的刘老师。

李老师跟刘老师太不一样了，从作派到讲课方式都完全不同。李老师不光年龄比刘老师大很多，而且总是穿件蓝色大马褂。这在上世纪七十年代的北京中学里是很少见到的。李老师每天一走进教室，就要很认真地把数学书打开，翻到他这节课要讲的页码，用个长长的教具木尺压在讲台上，压住课本。讲课中，李老师还不时地翻看一下。课堂不安静时，他会用那木尺敲讲台或黑板。

其实，李老师和刘老师有师生关系，还是能从一个习惯看出来的。李老师也从来不点名批评学生，不管错误有多大。可李老师的嘴永远都不停，无论遇到什么事情，都要评论一番，都要回忆他小时候或曾上过的教会学校。他见什么评什么。语调平稳，表情随意，却总有无穷无尽的风趣词语，时刻准备着对我们的缺点狠狠地“冷嘲热讽”一番。比如他正讲着课会突然停下来，生动地介绍他小时候喜欢过节，是因为期待卖货郎。卖货郎走街串巷使用的拨浪鼓叫卖，他小时就总期待拔浪鼓的声音。拔浪鼓是一个小圆鼓边缘用小绳拴两个小球，卖货郎在手里那么一摇，它就没有屁股没有根基地发出响声……我们正听得兴趣盎然时，李老师突然话锋一转，说就像现在有些学生上课时前后左右地扭头说话；李老师批改作业后，会讲起小时候看戏，特别热闹，他最喜欢看武戏，遇到演员基本功差，动作没做好，一甩长衣袖把脸给蹭花了，扮的是武生却成了小丑相，就像有些学生那涂得乱七八糟的作业本。听他讲课，我们总是笑声不断，欢乐无比。到后来，我每天等待数学课的心情，就像等待一场相声晚会。

李老师给我印象最深的，是他总爱说一个英文词“雷日包”。第一次听老师说这个词是有同学上课迟到，李老师停下讲课，面无表情地看着那同学坐到位子上以后，问我们谁知道人身体上一共有多少根骨头。正当我们漫天乱数瞎猜时，他说了句“雷日包”。然后可能想到我们是学俄语班，解释说：英语非常形象。用英语说一个人懒，它不直接说你这个人懒，而是说这些骨头懒。英语“雷日包”就是懒骨头的意思。教会学校的老师都是用英语教学，谁迟到老师就叫他“雷日包。”我们大笑起来。以后一有同学迟到，我就望着李老师，等待他那句“雷日包”。可我从来不敢迟到，怕老师说我的骨头懒。其实我也不愿意迟到，喜欢听李老师说“相声”。后来工作时接触到英语，我特地请教英语好的人“雷日包”怎么写。对方说，骨头是bone，懒骨头是中国人才有的俗语吧。我不甘心，最后还是在字典里查到了lazy bones，译为“懒人”。李老师是在告诫我们不要做懒人，是要让我们在人生的每一分钟里都不偷懒、不懈怠。

高中毕业后，我就没再见过李老师，以后也不可能见到了，他已经去世了。可我见过一次他的照片。那是中学毕业五六年后，一天有个中学同学给我打电话，说《北京日报》上刊登李老师的照片了，介绍他退休后义务指导武警战士学数学。我去找到了那张报纸，看到了我的李老师。他仍旧是那和蔼可亲的样子，退休却仍不闲散。我和同学相约去看望老师，可之后一直忙，忘记了。又过了五六年，那时我正在国外学习，快要回国了。有天晚上做了个梦，梦中的场景像是个小型图片展览会。我先见到了刘老师，他依旧是表情严肃地讲述着什么，引导我往会场深处走，最里面正中央是李老师，他正站在他的大幅照片前风趣幽默妙语连珠，却不似我们的课堂效果，未引起周围阵阵欢笑。梦醒后想到那景象都是黑白的，一个念头刺了我。我想，回国后一定要去看望李老师。回国一个月后，我打电话问那也已成为数学老师的原来同桌。同桌说，李老师两个月前病逝了。……我怠慢了李老师。可我真想告诉老师，离开中学后，我一直没敢怠慢生活。

刘老师和李老师是我一生崇敬的老师。他们一个教导我做人要自觉，一个教导我做人不偷懒。他们都是非常优秀的数学老师，可他们对我数学之外的教诲，更让我受益终生。

（原载于《心理月刊》2012年十月号）

Literary Nonfiction, Translation

Ning Dai – ‘Lessons’ (Translated by Nyuk Fong Parker)

June 30, 2017

Screenwriter and novelist Ning Dai was born in Tianjin, and graduated from the Beijing Film Academy in 1989. Her films include 找乐 (For Fun) and 警察日记 (Police Diary). In 2006 she won Best Screenplay Adaptation for 看上去很美 (Little Red Flowers) at the 43rd Golden Horse Awards in Taiwan.

Nyuk Fong Parker is a literary translator based in the USA.

Lessons

Throughout the course of my education from primary to secondary school, two math teachers stand out in my memory. One of them was Mr Liu Kezhi, who began to teach us during our second year at middle school. The other was Mr Li Deyu, who taught us in our second year of high school. Mr Li had been Mr Liu’s teacher, but they had completely different teaching styles.

Mr Liu’s first day of teaching was the start of a new school year. My classmates and I had spent recess chatting. When the bell rang for the lesson to start, Mr Liu appeared at the classroom door. At that moment, we all guessed that he was the new math teacher. However, the bell had not yet stopped ringing, and the teacher had not come into the classroom, so we seized the opportunity to carry on talking. Suddenly, something dawned on us. One by one we fell silent. The bell had stopped ringing. Why had the teacher not said anything? Why hadn’t he come into the room? He was still standing in the doorway. I looked at him. He was watching us sternly. His eyes swept over us, row by row and one by one. Tall, slender, and dark, he was wearing a slightly faded navy-blue Chinese tunic suit. The math book in his hand was rolled into a small bat, which he was rubbing. As soon as silence had fallen, Mr. Liu finally walked in, not saying a word. He threw his book on the desk and said, “Let’s begin.” He did not mention his long wait outside the classroom. From then on, he was exactly the same every day, not changing his outfit, expression, look, or demeanour. I couldn’t remember when it started, but we changed. Whether the bell was ringing or not, when we saw Mr Liu at the door, we stopped talking straight away.

Mr. Liu had another distinctive feature. During class, he would never say anything that wasn’t related to math. When he opened his mouth, it was to talk about the lesson. He never looked at his text book. It always lay rolled up on the desk, and he took it away when class was over. He also never criticized a student by name. He had a special trick, pinching the chalk in his hand until it was as thin as a pill, and accurately shooting it in the direction of his target. If a student talked in class without permission or made inappropriate gestures, Mr Liu would stop the lesson, take a piece of chalk, and flick it at the student, then stare at the culprit without a word. He would only continue with the lesson when the errant student realised their mistake and corrected it. Once, my deskmate and I were playing with carbon ink. A piece of Mr Liu’s chalk landed squarely in the ink bottle. My friend and I were astonished at the accuracy of our teacher’s aim. As we watched the chalk bubbling in the ink, we couldn’t help but laugh. Mr Liu continued to stare at us. His sternness stopped our laughter. I closed the lid on the ink bottle tightly, but Mr Liu didn’t continue with the lesson. He was eyeing the ink bottle. We had no choice but to put it into the desk drawer. We never took it out again during class.

I was very fond of Mr Liu. I started to like him the first time he gave us homework. He asked us to complete it on math paper, folded in the middle, as if doing crafts. We were to use an angle ruler and a pair of compasses to draw on it or write questions, answers, laws, and theorems, as if we were writing a composition. It was fun. Thanks to Mr Liu, I discovered that math homework could be easy and enjoyable. I forgave him for his serious words and manner.

My deskmate liked to chat with teachers. I was never able to do this; I studied music and art outside of class, so I had to fit my homework in during class time. She often told me that Mr Liu was praising so-and-so for making great improvements, and said so-and-so had a talent for math but was not careful enough. I looked forward to a word of praise from Mr Liu, but it never came. He tended to compliment students who raised their hands for the first time in class. When I thought about that, I felt as if I had seen Mr Liu’s private smile.

I didn’t know Mr. Liu’s full name at secondary school. I was at the stage when I felt no need to know what teachers were called outside of class. Just calling him “Mr Liu” was enough; everyone would know I was referring to my math teacher.

Now that I think about it, learning math from Mr Liu enriched my life in major ways. I not only began liking the subject, but – more importantly – I learned the meaning of self-awareness, even though he never taught it directly. All he did was wait patiently, tenaciously, for us to develop it on our own.

Our math teacher at high school was Li Deyu. It was my deskmate who told me that he’d been Mr Liu’s teacher as well. This was some consolation; I still missed Mr Liu.

Mr Li was very different, both in his bearing and in the way he taught. He was a lot older than Mr Liu, and always wore a blue mandarin jacket – a rare sight in Beijing’s secondary schools during the 1970s. When Mr Li came into the classroom each day, he would open his textbook earnestly and turn to the lesson. He would then place a long wooden ruler on the desk to hold the page down. While he taught, he would turn the pages for an occasional look. When the class was noisy, he would use the ruler to rap the desk or black-board.

The fact that Mr Li had been Mr Liu’s teacher was also visible in one habit. Like his student, Mr Li would never target a student by name for criticism, no matter how big their mistake. But he never stopped talking. He liked to comment on everything that happened, talking about his childhood and the Christian School he had attended. He remarked upon everything he saw. He had a smooth intonation and casual expression, but never held back with a joke or a cutting riposte. For instance, he would suddenly stop in the middle of a lesson and tell us a lively anecdote about his younger days. Apparently, the reason he’d enjoyed festivals as a child was because he liked the peddlers who wove through the streets, calling out their wares while they beat their wave drums. He always looked forward to the sound of those drums. The wave drum is small and round, with two small balls tied to its side. As the peddler shook the drum, the sound rang out in a jagged rhythm.

As he told these tales, we would all listen, entranced. But Mr Li would change the subject abruptly, to teach us a lesson about classroom distractions. Students nowadays, he said, were always turning their heads to chat with their friends during lessons.

Each day, after Mr Li had reviewed our homework, he would describe plays he had attended during his childhood, bustling with the noise and excitement of the theatre. His favourite dramas had military themes. He had seen actors with poor technical skills who could not execute their moves well, messing up their face makeup with a sweep of their long sleeves, appearing more like clowns than martial artists. Mr Li compared this to our messy homework notebooks. It was always fun to listen to him in class; he always raised a laugh. I looked forward to math class as if waiting to watch a cross-talk show.

My strongest memory of Mr Li is his fondness for the English phrase “lazy bones.” The first time I heard him use it was when a student was late coming to class. Mr Li stopped the lesson and watched, expressionless, as the student took his seat. Then, he asked if any of us knew how many bones we had in our bodies. As we were guessing and counting, he uttered the words “lazy bones.” He knew we were learning Russian, so he started explaining that the English language was figurative as well. To describe someone as lazy in English, there was no need to say it directly; it was enough to say that his bones were lazy. He’d learned it at the Christian school he had attended. Lessons there were taught in English, and latecomers were always labelled “lazy bones”. We all laughed when he told us. From then on, whenever someone was late for class, I would look at Mr Li, waiting for him to say it. I didn’t dare to be late, partly because I was afraid of being called “lazy bones”, but mostly because I enjoyed his “cross-talk” so much.

Later, when I came into contact with English through my work, I asked a colleague to teach me how to write Mr Li’s pet phrase. My colleague was confused. She thought it came from a Chinese saying. I didn’t believe her, and finally found it in a dictionary. It was only then that I understood its true meaning: Mr Li had been cautioning us not to waste or neglect even a moment of our lives.

After I graduated from high school I never saw Mr Li again, and I never will – he has passed away now. However, about five or six years after I left school, I saw a picture of him in the Beijing Daily. A friend from secondary school called me, saying that a piece had been written about him. After he retired, he had volunteered his services to teach math to soldiers in the armed police force. I found a copy of the newspaper, and there was my Mr Li – his usual amiable self, still working, even in retirement. My friend and I talked about visiting him, but we never got around to it due to our busy schedules.

After another five or six years, I was studying overseas. Just before I came back to China I had a dream about a small art exhibition. Mr. Liu was there, wearing his usual solemn expression. He seemed to be narrating something, guiding me further into the exhibition hall. In the middle of the deepest part of the hall was Mr. Li. He was standing in front of a large portrait of himself, rattling off humorous, sparkling patter. The effect was different from his classroom discourse. His audience were not laughing. When I woke up, I realised I’d been dreaming in black and white. A thought struck me. I knew I had to visit Mr Li when I returned to China. A month after I got back, I called my old deskmate, who was now a math teacher. She told me that Mr Li had passed away from an illness two months earlier. I had lost my chance. I had neglected him, but what I’d wanted to tell him was this: I had never neglected a single moment of my life since leaving secondary school. That was the lesson he had taught me.

I have never forgotten Mr Liu and Mr Li. My respect for them has lasted throughout my life. One of them taught me to be aware of myself; the other taught me never to be lazy. They were brilliant teachers, but the education they gave me was more than mathematics. What they taught me will benefit me for life. It had nothing to do with numbers.

The Literary Shanghai Journal

Alluvium

Welcome to Literary Shanghai!

At the Brooklyn Promenade

~

Autumn Walk After Jodorowsky

~

Poem on Madonna’s 50th Birthday

Related posts

Related posts

Deer Fall

鹿柴

Related posts

Occupy: An Exhibition*

Related posts

Related posts

So & So’s Terrace

Related posts

The Sect Which Pulls the Sinews: I’ve Seen You Handle Cocoons*

* First published in ICON

~

We Must Kill All Rats Before We Can Kill Your Rats*

* First published in Skidrow Penthouse

Related posts

Related posts

Lessons

(Originally published as《我的两位数学老师》in《心理月刊》in October 2012)

Related posts

Poetry Prose Literary Translation

Recent Posts

Subscribe and follow

Categories

Popular posts

Nicole Callräm - Three Poems

[Review] The Vanguards of Holography by Annie Christain (reviewed by Johnny Payne)

William Ross - Three Poems

REVIEW: “They Called You Dambudzo” - A Memoir by Flora Veit-Wild (reviewed by Miho Kinnas)

Srinjay Chakravarti - 'The Butterfly Net'

Megha Rao - 'Applause'

Pages

Subscribe to our mailing list

Follow us

Poem on Madonna’s 50^th Birthday

Poetry
Prose
Literary Translation