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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 ex-
ample, 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 con-
nection 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. Longpré 1 Arrival at Pudong
Dennis Maulsby 2 My Asian Son Lifts Weights
Katharine Mitchell 4 Turtle Skirt
Karen Loeb 8 Lei-an-gu
10 Case of the yellow umbrella
Liang Yujing / 12 Song of West Islet
Yuefu translations 15 Song at Midnight
17 Song of River Water
Charles Lowe 19 The Incident
R.D. Lomax 34 Tantilising
Buff Whitman-Bradley 35 An Airplane Crash in
Ancient China
Contributor Notes 37
Robert G. Longpré
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
1 一
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 二
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.
3 三
Previously published in The North American Review May-August 2004.
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 Letter-
man’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 pro-
file 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. stu-
dent 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 partici-
pate 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 her-
4 四
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 yellow-
and-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 encour-
5 五
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, mean-
while, seemed less concerned about the actual race than com-
peting 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 sum-
moned 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 an-
nounced. 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 all-
male 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 elas-
tic waistband of my skirt slipping down over my granny
6 六
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 al-
most 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 waist-
band 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.
7 七
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 八
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.
9 九
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 十
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.
11 十一
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 十二
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.
13 十三
西洲曲西洲曲西洲曲西洲曲
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。
14 十四
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.
15 十五
子夜歌子夜歌子夜歌子夜歌
侬作北辰星,千年无转移。
欢行白日心,朝东暮还西。
16 十六
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.
17 十七
河中之水歌河中之水歌河中之水歌河中之水歌
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。
18 十八
Charles Lowe
The Incident
W en had learned over his long career, at least
long by the standards of the trade, that mis-
understandings and miscommunication
were the basis of success. Others might ar-
gue 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 cus-
tomer 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 re-
fund. 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 十九
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” vaca-
tions 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 ill-
ness and reward their families with a first perhaps modest
taste of success.
But here was the flaw in the otherwise well-earned va-
cation 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 grandfa-
ther: there was always one of those, was in a taxi ride: the in-
cident, 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 hospi-
tal, 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 二十
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 at-
tempted 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 fig-
ures, 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 ex-
plaining 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 ex-
plain 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 sug-
gested that the vacation package had more or less the same
amenities as a five star one. It had a complimentary break-
21 二十一
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 spec-
tacular 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 dynamit-
ing 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, be-
cause of the injured grandfather, that in helping his colleague
somewhat junior to him, Wen was showing respect to an in-
firmed 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 dis-
covered 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 二十二
western and Chinese breakfast thrown into a near five-star
vacation.
Then, the complaints would start to flow in: some-
times 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 an-
other family and be given as a bonus a full view of the pyro-
technics. And so these text messages went back and forth.
The teacher got ill from the milk served for free at an Authen-
tic 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 profession-
alism 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 appreci-
ated. But for some reason, this remark did not have a com-
23 二十三
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 re-
citing a poem about getting drunk on plum wine and drown-
ing 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 Wu-
han 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 shoul-
ders, not an easy feat, considering the height differential be-
tween 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 mat-
ter how many times he had tried to develop a thicker skin, he
would hear someone would toss back a nasty comment, in-
tentionally or otherwise, or in the case of these teachers,
would blame Lin for an incident that was entirely of their
24 二十四
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 sim-
ply took on the new duty. Worse, Lin felt guilty for being un-
able 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 un-
til 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 per-
manent residence in the hospital did end their mar-
riage. Well, not ended, but at least ended Lin’s stay on their
double bed. Lin’s wife was willing to hold together an intra-
venous so that the old guy could have his regular feeding,
but she was certainly not willing to sleep with his weak-
minded 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 fore-
seeable 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 二十五
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 retire-
ment, 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 inex-
perience 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 二十六
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 tour-
ist from the cold. Beijing winters were famously bone chill-
ing. 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 sum-
mer 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 passen-
gers. Then, close your eyes or do whatever it is that passen-
gers 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 二十七
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 opti-
mal 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 be-
coming 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 stu-
dent 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 fe-
tal 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 enve-
lope 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 12-
year-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 二十八
guy you think is a peddler because in your experience, there
can be no other reason for a guy (and he definitely wasn’t re-
tired) 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 be-
cause 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 in-
sect that is intelligent enough to score high on a college en-
trance 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 ex-
tras. Now it’s your turn. The spectators are all addicts to ca-
ble 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 as-
29 二十九
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 pack-
age 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 hu-
man 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 col-
league 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 cer-
tain 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 some-
what 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 out-
lined by his senior colleague except of course that now his
business was finished and Lin was again within firing range
30 三十
which was when Lin became attracted to the neon multi-
colored 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 mas-
seuse, 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 an-
31 三十一
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 unaccompa-
nied and the junior colleague had decided to celebrate that
encounter by not resisting a barber holding a pair of sharp-
ened metal shears and to further the festivities, had ex-
changed 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 ex-
planation (doubtful) and not divorce and fire Lin respec-
tively, 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 advan-
32 三十二
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, de-
spite 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 unac-
counted-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.
33 三十三
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.
34 三十四
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 三十五
36 三十六
Contributor Notes
Liang Yujing is a Changsha-based poet and literary transla-
tor 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 Col-
lege, 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 news-
papers, 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 三十七
Charles Lowe’s work has appeared in Guernica, Fiction Inter-
national, Pacific Review, and elsewhere. He lives in China
with his wife and daughter and is a lecturer at Shanghai Uni-
versity 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 po-
etry, 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, Califor-
nia, with his wife Cynthia.
38 三十八