Terracotta

Typewriter

Issue #5

Spring 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 Magnus © 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

From the Editor 1

Butterfly Effect 3 Kate Bergen

Liu’s Pigeons 4 Jack Frey

Chinese Girls Don’t 7 Jennifer Hecker

Have Frizzy Hair

Nameless Faces 12 Joanne Olivieri

Jubilee Street 13

Interview with 14

Peter Hessler

Fog 25 Jim Davis, Jr.

Li Po 26 Kevin Wu

Exquisite Corpse 30 Multiple Poets

Contributor Notes 31

From the Editor

Dear Readers and Writers,

We are moving into our second year of publication with our

fifth issue. Your support is greatly appreciated, and we look

forward to bringing you more literary enjoyment in the fu-

ture.

For this issue we attempted to create an exquisite corpse with

some of our previous contributors and friends. Usually such

a poem works better when everyone is in the same room, but

it’s difficult when everyone lives around the world. In the

spirit of modern progress, we assembled our exquisite corpse

through e-mail. This is the first time that our poets will see

each others’ names attached to the experiment.

We are also grateful to author Peter Hessler for taking the

time to participate in an interview for this issue. It was a

pleasure to talk with him about his life and work. We recom-

mend his newest book, Country Driving.

Keep writing!

Matthew Lubin

Editor & Publisher

tctype@gmail.com 1 一

2 二

Kate Bergen

Butterfly Effect

Beijing—

Leopard lacewing

Takes flight over garden

Teeming with Perpetual Spring

Stirs haze of cool March air

With beat of wing

Is gone—

August—

Monarch death march

Nectar-heavy wildflowers

On hurricaned Texas prairie

Death throws beat back wet air;

Traced back to March,

Beijing—

Summer—

Effect and cause

Of spring wings that chanced to

Cause a current that bred a storm

Air stirs and a world ends

The Butterfly

Effect—

3 三

Jack Frey

Liu’s Pigeons

T here had been too many tragedies over the years, some of

them only now unfolding, and I was reluctant to ask about

them. So instead I waited until the old man had finished

his cigarette, gave him an opportunity to spit a frothy glob

of phlegm into the brown water that lapped at his door, and asked

him about his gezi. Tell me about your pigeons, I said.

Liu’s eyes lit up, grey filmy eyes that danced behind soft lids. He

looked over at the wire cage fixed to the wall of his farmhouse, where

the birds crouched, their smooth bluish heads turning with sharp

jerky movements. The bars of the cage were coated in a thick layer of

pasty white excreta that dangled from the bottom like stalactites.

He’d kept pigeons for as long as he could remember, he said. He

received his first pair as a gift from a neighbour. Liu pointed at a

house a few steps down the hill. The house was already abandoned,

water up to the tops of the windows, flowing into the black cavities

and out the front door.

As Liu grew older, he said he’d learned to love the birds for their

quiet ways and their shy manners. The males, with their broad tail

feathers, the way they put on a show whenever they sought to woo

their mate. The babies, with their thin pink skin and bulging sightless

eyes.

At one point, he’d had as many as sixty birds in half a dozen

cages. But hard times came now and then, and the pigeons were the

first to go. Three times his family had eaten the flock down to the last

bird. It was hard, Liu said, like losing special seeds that have been in

the family for many years. But he always acquired new birds, and the

ones he had now were the offspring of a mating pair he’d bought

twelve years ago.

I looked at the birds, huddled in their cage. How is it, I asked, that

they don’t fly away for good when you open the cage? Liu laughed,

showed me his dark teeth, and said that they just knew the way home,

4 四

knew where they were safe.

As if to demonstrate, he hobbled towards the cage and twisted the

wire hook that held the door shut. He reached in, grabbed the nearest

bird in his leathery palm, and tossed it into the air. The pigeon spread

its wings, flapped furiously, and then sailed into the dull grey

sky. Those in the cage took this as their cue to hop out, one by one,

and take off after the leader.

We watched them for a few moments as they gathered into forma-

tion beneath the heavy clouds, circling the old house. Two or three

had special flutes attached above their tails, resting on their feathers

like old bustle skirts. The flutes were shaped like a gourd, with a

number of short tubes protruding all around, and as the birds flew,

the wind passed through and produced an eerie wooden sound. If I

closed my eyes, it was possible to imagine that I stood beneath a pass-

ing flock of ghosts.

The pigeons descended and came to rest on the sloped roof, where

crispy weeds had sprouted from the dirt caked between the

tiles. They cooed and ducked and turned their heads in circles. Liu

had lit up another cigarette by now, and stood with his back against

the cart near the door. He dragged his toe through the brown water.

I took a chance, brought up the tragedy, and asked him where his

family would be resettling. Liu blew a fine plume of smoke between

his thin lips and sighed. Up north, he told me, where some farmland

had been set aside and some houses already built. He hadn’t seen the

place personally, but the local official told him it was even better than

here.

I could tell from the tone in his voice that he didn’t believe it. But

what other choice did he have? In a few days, the water would be

spilling over his doorstep, and within a few months this whole valley

would be underwater.

Liu moved towards the cage once more, and grabbed it firmly at

both ends. The cage rested on two hooks set in the wall, and once

he’d wriggled it free, he set it on the back of the cart.

The first drops of rain began to fall, darkening the packed earth

before the house, plopping into the water in a splatter of concentric

rings. I asked if he would be taking the birds north with him.

5 五

Of course, he said. The pigeons were a part of him, an extension of

his body almost, and I think that he flew with them, rested on the

rooftops with them. He puttered with the cart for a while before dis-

appearing inside the farmhouse, and as I watched him go, I thought

about those birds and the way that they always returned home. But

where do they fly to, I wondered, when the cage is gone?

6 六

Jennifer Hecker

Chinese Girls Don’t Have Frizzy Hair

I never told my grandmother that when I was little I

thought China was a fictional place; somewhere that

she and my mother had made up to scare me. They

would tell me to eat all my rice because the children in

China had to grow it, but barely had enough for them-

selves. Grandmother would babble for hours in her heavy

accent while brushing her short, straight, dark hair that be-

fore she left China mobs had broken into her house and de-

stroyed everything. The only thing she had brought to the

United States was a dragonfly hairpin that she wore

daily. To me, China was a reprimand and a warning to be-

have myself.

I am the second generation of my family to be born in the

United States and I never felt Chinese. My father is Irish-

American. My mother was born here. I don’t even have a

Chinese name. When my grandmother and mother speak to

each other in Chinese, I don’t understand them. Even my

grandmother constantly reminded me as she combed my

hair, that I did not look Chinese.

“This curly, frizzy hair!” she would complain. “How is

anybody supposed to brush it? Good Chinese girls don’t

have frizzy hair.”

One day, when I was seventeen and filled with teen

angst, I finally answered, “Then I guess I’m not Chinese.”

“You have no respect for your ancestors!” my grand-

mother yelled at me as she snapped the brush through my

hair.

7 七

“Ouch!”

“Our ancestors lived in China for thousands of

years. We must honor our land.”

“I’m American, grandma. I don’t care about stupid

China.”

That was the day that it was decided. I heard my mother

and grandmother talking for hours in the kitchen. The scent

of green tea alerted me to the fact that an issue was being dis-

cussed and when I peaked my head around and saw that

grandma had used the tea in her special red tin, I knew the

issue was a serious one.

I called home during lunch the next day and Grandma

answered.

“Grandma, I’m gonna go to Tina’s house after school

day. Is that okay?”

“Not today, no,” she answered without explanation.

“Why not? We have to do a project together,” I lied.

“Not today. I already told you.”

I huffed out a long puff of air and groaned, “But we

have to. The project is due tomorrow.”

“You will come straight home today.”

I imagined grandma quickly pulling the brush through

my curly hair, the way she only did when she was upset and

I conceded to let her win the argument. “Fine. But it’s not

fair!”

When I came home, my grandmother sat me down in the

kitchen and broke the news to me.

“You are going to spend the summer in China.”

“What?” I screamed as I jumped out of the chair and

across the kitchen. “No! I’m not going. You can’t make me

go. This is a free country. You can’t just ship me off to

8 八

China!”

My grandmother did not react to my protests, but went

on speaking calmly. “You are going to have Chinese lessons

everyday.”

“This is so unfair! None of the other kids have to learn

Chinese. All my friends get to go to horseback riding

camp. Mom promised me I was going with them. It was a

promise. You can’t take it back!” I slammed my body

against the fridge and cried.

My grandmother continued calmly. “It has been de-

cided.”

That was the only year in my life that I dreaded summer

vacation. I hated the long, boring, cramped flight. I despised

the crowds on the streets, the smells that saturated every

molecule of air, the stomach churning food. I abhorred the

sound of Chinese surrounding me. I loathed my mother and

grandmother most of all for having put me in this place. My

mother stayed with me the first month and then left me with

distant cousins of mine.

My distant cousins took to staring at my hair and occa-

sionally plucking strands from my head. The youngest girl

in the house, who was about twelve, was always hiding in

corners and popping out to be able to grab onto my hair and

pull on it. I was lucky I could not understand the words they

said to me about my appearance, even though I knew they

were insults. For three months I locked myself in the bed-

room, coming out only to eat breakfast and snacks. I called

my dad as much as I could and begged him to move my

flight up, but my mother wouldn’t let him.

When I finally came home, I marched right up to my

grandmother, who sat drinking green tea at the kitchen table

9 九

and let out three months worth of frustration.

“I hate you! I hated your stupid country. It was horri-

ble. You’re so mean!” My insults must have continued for

ages, but my grandmother sipped on her tea and looked me

in the eyes without words.

After I was silent a moment she asked, “Are you done?”

“No! Why can’t you just accept that I’m not Chinese and

never will be? Look at me. You even said it: Chinese girls

don’t have curly hair.”

September came. I turned eighteen and moved away for col-

lege. Three months later, as I was planning my schedule to

study abroad in Ireland, my mother called to tell me that my

grandmother had died suddenly in her sleep. Regret hit me

before the tears. I ran my hands through my hair and my fin-

gers became tangled in the curls. I pulled the strands in front

of my face and stared at the dark brown frizz before me. I

thought of my grandma’s smooth, black hair and her dragon-

fly pin.

The day of my Grandmother’s funeral I dyed my hair jet

black. For hours I labored to make sure every strand was

straight. I stood in my grandmother’s room in front of her

old, immaculately clean mirror and placed the dragonfly pin

on right side of my head, just as she did every day. I gazed

into the mirror and then at the faded picture of my grandpar-

ents in China on their wedding day. It was the first time I

ever felt Chinese. In the mirror, staring back at me, was the

image of my grandmother as a young woman.

When I went back to school, I put together my schedule

for my semester abroad; five months in China. I couldn’t

wait for my flight to end, not because the seats were uncom-

10 十

fortable, but I wanted to experience the smells, the sights,

and the crowded streets. Everything reminded me of my

grandmother.

11 十一

Joanne Olivieri

Nameless Faces

Walking foreign steps

to the rhythm of taiko

the pulse of erhu

dancing Buddha.

Cantonese croonings

lotus flower soft

silk smooth

operatic chants.

Lanterns parade

a welcome smile

nameless faces

yet known.

Humid mist

Eastern breeze

incense fog

scents of life.

and the journey begins

12 十二

Jubilee Street

Smoky Incense

orange, mango and pear

offered to Buddha

in a wooden alcove.

The street lined

as a red carpet event

with paper lanterns

green, pink, red, gold.

Hand woven baskets

home to fruits, flowers

bok choy and cabbage

strewn among street stalls.

Neighbors along the street,

raw silk, pots and pans,

souvenirs and toys

compete for attention

and the Hong Kong dollar.

13 十三

An Interview with Peter Hessler

Peter Hessler moved to China in 1996, beginning his career

with the Peace Corps in Fuling, Sichuan Province. He later

became the Beijing correspondent for The New Yorker from

2000 to 2007.

Hessler has written three books on China—his most re-

cent is Country Driving, in which he documents the growing

automotive culture of China and its effects on rural mobility

and migrant life. Hessler’s first book, River Town, which fol-

lowed his experience teaching English with the Peace Corps

in Fuling won the Kiriyama Book Prize. Oracle Bones, pub-

lished in 2006, was a finalist for the National Book Award. In

2008, he won the National Magazine Award for excellence in

reporting.

I caught up with Hessler at a Meet the Author event at

Asia Society in New York City. He agreed to be interviewed

via e-mail, and I appreciate the long-distance conversation.

Excerpt from Country Driving:

In Beijing, I rented a car and headed to Shanhaiguan, a city

on the coast where the Great Wall meets the Bohai Sea. From

there I drove west through the harvest of Hebei Province. It

was mid-autumn and most crops had already been cut down;

only the corn stills tood tall in the fields. Everything else lay

out in the road—mottled lines of peanuts, scattered piles of

sunflower seeds, bright swaths of red pepper. The farmers

carefully arranged the vegetables on the side of the asphalt,

because that was the best surface for drying and sorting.

They tossed the chaff crops into the middle of the road itself,

14 十四

where vehicles would be sure to hit them. This was illegal—

there’s no other act that so publicly violates both traffic safety

and food hygiene. In rural China, though, it’s still widely tol-

erated, because threshing is easiest when somebody else’s

tires do the work.

Initially I found it hard to drive over food. On the first

day of my journey, I screeched to a halt before every pile,

rolling down the window: “Is it OK for me to go through?”

The farmers shouted back impatiently: “Go, go, go!” And so I

went—millet, sorghum, and wheat cracking beneath me. By

the second day I no longer asked; by the third day I learned

to accelerate at the sight of grain. Approaching a pile, I’d hit

the gas—crash! Crunch!—and then in the rearview mirror I’d

see people dart into the road, carrying rakes and brooms.

That was my share of the autumn work—a drive-through

harvest.

Terracotta Typewriter: What would you do if you didn't

write?

Peter Hessler: I’d probably teach. After grad school, those

are the only two things I seriously thought about do-

ing: writing and teaching. I think I might also enjoy driving

a truck.

TCType: Was there anywhere you didn't travel in China that

you wish you had visited?

Hessler: I would have liked to have spent more time in Xinji-

15 十五

ang and Tibet. I actually never visited Suzhou or Hangzhou,

despite all the time I spent in Zhejiang province. But I don’t

regret it too much as the tourist places are usually not that

interesting.

TCType: Did you ever have the desire to learn to make Lan-

zhou la mian?

Hessler: My friend Jen Lin-Liu learned how to do it. I did

learn how to bao jiaozi recently, here in Colorado, which tells

you that I’m very slow-moving when it comes to food. It

would take a very long time before I’d get around to Lan-

zhou la mian.

TCType: What is the best Chinese food for creative inspira-

tion?

Hessler: My favorite is Sichuanese food. We had that every

day in Fuling; back then there were no other options, no

other cuisines near the college. So I became very accustomed

to it and now it just feels like “normal” Chinese food to

me. Of course, there’s a lot of Sichuanese food in Beijing, so I

ate it often when I lived in that city. You can find it in some

places in the U.S. I’ve been to first-rate Sichuanese restau-

rants in Flushing, San Diego, and Denver.

TCType: What advice would you give writers who are con-

sidering a move to China?

Hessler: I think it’s a great place for a writer. I guess the

main advice would be to study the language first; sometimes

16 十六

when you first arrive it’s best to have a period where you’re

not writing so much. It gives you a space to learn about the

place and start to figure it out, and it gives you time to focus

on the language. Eventually I’d recommend finding subjects

outside of Beijing and Shanghai—there’s so much interesting

stuff happening in the interior, and we don’t hear that much

about it. I was glad that I started out by living in a small city,

but that’s harder to do for a writer who needs to make free-

lance contacts. Still, they can travel to these places and find

stories.

I’d also recommend trying to find long-term projects.

This can be another way to balance a Beijing or Shanghai per-

spective. When I was working on my Lishui project, I would

go down there every month or so and spend a few days or a

week doing research. I had a regular deal with a local hotel,

or I could have rented an apartment. It’s probably not that

hard for a Beijing- or Shanghai-based writer to do this in an-

other city, and it would give them a chance to know the place

well and do deeper research projects.

TCType: What should be required reading for Westerners

moving to China?

Hessler: Anybody going to Beijing should read Michael

Meyer’s The Last Days of Old Beijing; we are good friends but

regardless I would recommend that book. There’s also a

good range of books for people who are doing business—Mr.

China gives an excellent portrait of business during a slightly

earlier generation, and James Kynge’s China Shakes the World

is a very good general overview. I think my wife’s book, Fac-

tory Girls, is great for people coming to China from many dif-

17 十七

ferent directions—it’s important for those involved in busi-

ness to understand something about the workers, and the

book also covers women’s issues in a personal and interest-

ing way. There are a number of good teacher books out there;

when I was in the Peace Corps I much enjoyed Mark

Salzman’s Iron and Silk and Bill Holm’s Coming Home

Crazy. It’s really worth reading Wild Swans, Life and Death in

Shanghai, and Red Azalea—these are historically important

but also deeply felt. I’ve always felt like The Private Life of

Chairman Mao is underappreciated; in addition to the history,

it says a lot about Chinese psychology. In recent years we’ve

seen a much broader range in books by foreign journalists

than ever before; it used to be that all journalist books had a

vaguely similar feel. But now a reader can usually find

something good that touches on a particular topic that inter-

ests him: Postcards from Tomorrow Square, China Road, Chinese

Lessons, Wild Grass, Out of Mao’s Shadow, Serve the People.

TCType: Did you ever play the part of the dumb/ignorant

laowai to avoid trouble or a difficult situation?

Hessler: I guess we all do that to some degree. In general

people give you more breaks if you’re a laowai, especially if

you speak the language. I’ve usually found that it’s better to

establish that you speak the language than to pretend that

you don’t.

TCType: Do you have a set routine when you set out to write

a book?

Hessler: The research always follows its own path; each book

18 十八

has been different. But the writing is similar. I write best in

the mornings and early afternoons, and then I usually go for

a long run in late afternoon. It’s a pretty quiet and enjoyable

routine. I don’t find that writing causes me a lot of stress.

TCType: Do you edit your work while you write or do you

wait until you've finished a draft? How do you decide that

your work is complete?

Hessler: I edit while I write, and then I edit afterwards. I’ve

always been a very thorough and compulsive editor. From

my perspective, this is the hardest part, because after you’ve

been through the book so many times you start to get sick of

it, and it’s easy to let your attention flag. But it’s so important

to do multiple edits. I’ve always felt the thing improve a

great deal in these latter stages, especially with my last two

books. I shortened Oracle Bones by about 100 pages, and I

shortened Country Driving by 70 or 80. There were also reor-

ganizations and rewritings that sharpened the books im-

measurably.

I find that this is usually the hardest thing for journal-

ists—the industry encourages us to move fast, and people are

conditioned to always look to the next project. A lot of books

by journalists (I mean journalists in general, not just China

journalists) have very good material but could have used an-

other two or three edits. Often I pick up a book by a journal-

ist and I can tell that he or she needed three more months of

research and three more months of editing. Six months in-

vestment and the book will be around for a decade; instead

they rushed and it’ll hit the remainder shelf in eight months.

It’s like running a marathon and dropping out at mile 25.

19 十九

TCType: How long was the process from completing your

first draft of Country Driving until it was edited and prepared

for publication?

Hessler: I finished a draft of the book in early fall of 2008, not

too long after returning from the Olympics. I edited very se-

riously in the spring of 2009, spending months on it. And

then I did some final edits in the summer. The thing was fin-

ished roughly a year after I turned it in. Relatively

painless. The editing for Oracle Bones took a lot longer and

was more stressful, probably because I was living in Beijing,

getting my electricity cut off periodically and listening to the

neighbors zhuangxiu endlessly. I can tell you that it’s a lot

easier to write a book in southwestern Colorado than it is in

Beijing.

TCType: Have you written anything that you thought no one

would understand without previous experience in China?

Hessler: The books have all been structured in a way that I

hope is intelligible to people who do not know China, as well

as to people who have lived there. I think that Oracle Bones is

my most challenging book, and there are some elements to it

that probably can only be appreciated by people who have

lived in China, especially a lot of the language stuff. But you

know, there are always elements of a book that work for

some and don’t work for others. I’m a very deliberate and

conscious writer, and if somebody has not thought hard

about the craft they probably won’t pick up on some of the

technical things I’m trying to do. A lot of China readers

20 二十

won’t entirely get the writing, and a lot of writers won’t en-

tirely get the China stuff. But if the thing works as a whole

then most readers should come away satisfied.

TCType: Since the success of River Town and Oracle Bones,

have you found that you have more freedom to write what

you want? Are you less worried about what critics say about

your work?

Hessler: I think it’s true that the first book matters most, in

terms of response. As time passes you become more philoso-

phical, and you realize that some people like a book and

some do not. And it’s true that once you’re established a bad

review is not going to kill your career. But then it never

does. Any writer needs to tune that stuff out to some degree,

and excessive praise can be as damaging as harsh criticism.

For me, the main difference is that after River Town I rec-

ognized how important books are, and I became more patient

and less inclined to rush. It’s like I mentioned earlier—

there’s often an exponential payoff to increased effort on a

book. You spend a little more time and it makes a big differ-

ence. And I’ve come to realize that you don’t get that many

chances. A book has to be done carefully; you want the thing

to last. I would be really disappointed to spend three or four

years on a book and have it disappear after a year. I want

these things to be around for the long term.

This is why books are more satisfying than any other

type of writing. Any magazine or newspaper story disap-

pears; people can look it up, of course, but it’s not the same.

It’s been nine years since River Town came out, and that book

still gets read. I had no concept of that while I was writing

21 二十一

it. I didn’t know it was going to be published at all. If some-

body had offered me a low-level newspaper job while I was

in the middle of the book, I probably would have dropped

the project and taken the job, hoping to finish the book in my

spare time. I didn’t have any money and I had college loans

to repay. Fortunately, nobody offered me a job and I finished

the book. But that experience made me intensely aware of the

odd way that time works with books. I had a good six

months to write the first draft, and during that period that’s

all I did; because of the attention and focus the book is still

around. But what if I had taken a job and tried to write the

thing on the weekends? I don’t think it would have worked

out. It might have been good enough to get published, but I

think my attention would have been scattered and the book

probably wouldn’t still be around in a meaningful way. So I

realize the incredible importance of those six months. Ever

since then, I’ve approached the other books the same

way. My thinking is, do whatever it takes to make this book

as good as possible. Nothing else matters as much. And I try

to clear out distractions so I can focus.

TCType: Was there a moment when you wanted to write

something but didn't for fear of offending someone?

Hessler: With every book, there are details that I left out be-

cause I didn’t want to get somebody in trouble, or I didn’t

want to embarrass them. Often these are good details, but it’s

never that difficult, because there are other good details. If

you spend enough time with your subject you should have

plenty of material.

Sometimes you even get a second chance. With River

22 二十二

Town I changed a lot of the names, because it was my first

book and I wasn’t sure how people would respond. So one

of my students became “Anne” instead of Emily. She had

chosen her name from Emily Bronte; it was a good character

detail and I regretted losing it. But I wanted to be care-

ful. After River Town was published and I could see the reac-

tion, and there weren’t any problems, I talked with Emily

about it and she was fine with my using her “real” English

name for Oracle Bones.

TCType: Have you considered writing a work of fiction or

poetry?

Hessler: Not since Fuling. I was trained in fiction and origi-

nally wanted to be a novelist; I studied under a lot of fiction

writers—Russell Banks, Joyce Carol Oates, Joseph

Heller. But I believe that all young writers want to be novel-

ists. As time passed, I realized that in fact I was much better

at nonfiction. I like doing research, and my voice comes

more naturally with nonfiction. When I wrote fiction it al-

ways felt a little stilted and humorless.

For other reasons I’m grateful that I didn’t go into fiction.

Nowadays most aspiring fiction writers do an MFA, and then

they teach in colleges, or find writer in residence gigs. I had

an opportunity to do an MFA on scholarship in the mid-’90s,

but instead I travelled around the world, a trip that took me

to China. And then I joined the Peace Corps. I went to China

instead of sticking with fiction, and as a result I spent a dec-

ade in a fascinating, energizing environment, instead of try-

ing to write fiction while living on an American college cam-

pus. Unfortunately this is pretty much the only way that a

23 二十三

young fiction writer can support himself nowadays, but I

think it’s deadening.

TCType: What book needs to be written about China?

Hessler: It would be good to have a first-rate book about Ti-

bet or Xinjiang. But it’s so hard for people to get into these

areas and do the necessary research.

I think there should be better fiction about China. I think

nonfiction is generally moving in the right direction, and

there are some pretty good books right now, ranging from

history to current society. But the fiction about China feels a

little out of touch to me. It tends to be pretty heavy-handed

and humorless, and there isn’t much evidence of deep con-

tact with everyday life. I wish that a good Chinese fiction

writer would base him or herself in a factory town, or a dy-

ing village—some archetypal element of today’s society—

and write something that feels accurate and interesting and

full of the life that we see in China. Filmmakers are doing

this, both with documentary and feature films, but I don’t see

the same thing happening with fiction. Part of the problem is

that a lot of the best Chinese fiction writers are exiles who for

political or personal reasons are no longer able to have deep

contact with contemporary society. They write well about

earlier periods but they don’t have a strong sense of what the

country now feels like.

24 二十四

Jim Davis, Jr.

Fog

The fog at my feet is a rabbit

Creeping through and over

Blades of grass, clover

Pawing in from the creek bed

At the foot of the Tai Shan,

Losing itself in the thorned brush

Nesting among brambles.

Confidently weaving through the cane palms.

Curious, he approaches.

Contented, he departs.

Tiptoeing through the lilies

Chewing a crystal bloom,

Off to discover another creek bed, clover.

25 二十五

Kevin Wu

Li Po

W hy did Li Po jump into the river? In the Chi-

nese legend, in the Yangtze river, Li Po the

mad poet jumps into the river to catch the

moon. He was drinking wine, and he was

not plain mad, but mad with love, and it wasn’t a moon in

the river, but the reflection of the moon, and after that it was

all forgetfulness for him, but for the rest of us we all remem-

ber. But what it is to forget, and what it is to remember? Can

the mad poet teach something to us to forget and to remem-

ber? What does he know about things such as remembrance,

about things such as love? Has he loneliness? Is his music

broken, does he listen to the cry of the bird which is mad

sometimes, but which is love sometimes, does his flute ac-

company along the depths of his soul?

One day I asked my teacher a question about Li Po,

about his poetry, and how it is about mountains and rivers,

about shadows and the moon, how he wrote about the moon

goddess, in the night, looking up at her through his own

brown eyes, thinking of an ancient song to sing to her, be-

cause she is the most beautiful, because she is what he re-

members about his childhood, the stories his mother told,

about heaven and the golden palaces, about the emperors

and their dynasties, about the sons of heaven, born from

heaven itself, here to rule the Chinese kingdom, the pure, vir-

tuous, divine ones. If he was a divine one, Li Po wonders,

what entitlements would he get, what responsibilities would

he take on, how would he rule, or ponder on the poor hungry

26 二十六

masses, in their brief and suffering time…

Does poetry, I wonder, does the poetry that Li Po wrote,

what sentences did he write, to write that high, such as the

moon, why things can be so cool, like the moon, why things

can be so beautiful, like the moon, and am I so forgetful, to

remember Li Po, and all the dark beauty that he de-

scribed…

And I can remember, like Li Po, the loneliness of the riv-

ers and mountains, as he and I walked along them, what was

so beautiful to remember, the lost, the unrecovered, and to

forget, all of everything dark and suffering, as to forget the

night…

And what is poetry, but the writing of loneliness, the sal-

vation of solitude, in the middle of the night, of the constant

and inconstant moon, of the moon’s reflection in the river,

swaying and swaying, and I have forgotten what my pen

writes, and what my pen writes, and I have forgotten what it

was for the heart to hear poetry, every line, every recogni-

tion, every word…

Tenderness, and the surface of the skin, ah, and the sur-

face of the water, ripples, and every poetry that seems, is

heard, and the knowingness of the beauty of the crane, or the

sword; says nothing about who Li Po was, except his eyes,

his words, moving and moving on the page that has no com-

panion, every word dripped from his tenuous, mysterious

mind, what was he thinking, the torrent was so peaceful, and

yet it was surprising; my life was tumultuous, yet it was

empty…

The line of my life moves back and forth, forward and

against, the poet, the poet, what was his dream, what was his

vision, the ten things he says were mirrors, how he must not

27 二十七

have cared, how he must have loved something so deeply, so

deeply, so lost, how he must not have cared, as he lost him-

self…

I have lost myself repeatedly, also, in the mirror, gazing

and gazing, not at myself, but at the mirror, how it dances

and reflects, as the afternoon sun falls, in that reflection of

something that I don’t know, and things I know, how grace is

in there, somewhere, given and received, how I don’t know

of what’s truly beautiful, amidst the disguises of humanity,

how there is truly no wonder in modern civilization, except

with a child’s eyes, and I look, with fear and difference while

there are only things that are fascinating, for a second, in

June, for a moment…

Will I know someone like Li Po? Or his poems? In sum-

mer? While the sun shines in the reflection of the waters, the

duck creases across the water, the boat disappears into the

lake’s horizon, a moment in the sun… I have many things to

say but I am lost, I keep looking at Li Po’s poems to find, the

truly original of the past, the truly inspired of his writing,

and what I know, of the true poetry of his life, and his im-

ages… What they speak of, what they know and contem-

plate, how I must not know that what they are, at that time,

how I must think and understand, their significance,

now. And his sorrow, and his tragedy, and his madness in

contemplating the light, surrounded by darkness, sur-

rounded by the eternal…

Li Po, you were always with us, day and night, the river

you jumped into turned into silk and wine, you did not ques-

tion, did not ask, for another death to accompany the moon, I

was your hearer as you drank the sorrow of the wind, as you

grasp and embraced the night, the echo of madness was your

28 二十八

music and friend, you did not wonder at another lover, but

the moon was your pain and longing…

But can I hear the sounds of another crier? In this desert of

sand and sun I cannot hear another voice, which would

speak of nameless rivers of China, while drinking his wine

did Li Po say of another poet, who did not speak as he

drank…

And of the river Yangtze, did it rise at the break of mid-

night, did it flood over with light with the tide of the moon,

what did Li Po say about the river, about how it had turned

cold…

In the river where Li Po had died, where countless men

and women had died, I brought my son back to look onto the

sunset and, in the distance, a mountain where Li Po had writ-

ten one of his poems. My son, who was a child of two, did

not realize the significance of the experience. I, at the age of

thirty-two, wants to tell him, that this is the distance, these are

the great mountains, that is the great river, and the poet’s

blood, his unwept tears, still runs through the river, onto the

mountains where my eyes can see, his eyes can see, and, my

son, I brought you here, to see it, and it is for you, it is your

birth, your childhood, your baptism, and your first poem,

written by a poet, told to you, always, from your father…

29 二十九

Rob Schackne, Susi Niedbalski, Andrew Carpino,

Doug Johnson, and Prasanna Surakanti

Exquisite Corpse

Identical unfinished ink

crying circles echo

the squid link that

made history of you.

Magisterial blotting

above the sands of time;

the natural selection

in thinking twice;

it always seems to happen when the right

time meets the wrong red light and the sirens.

She arches her neck to scents that twist upwind

and break off into the cold gray sky of a closing day.

Shimmering in the sunblown glass skin

while the light rest vaporous between two worlds.

Water bouncing from skin to skin and

I sit and wait for the light to change

in a poet's rite to search and find

the like of an apricot or mustard

in the skyline

carousel space within an acacia tree

for mockingbirds round chase

cut iron wood the acacia weeps

whispering to Africa in the wind

as bad as a tangled line when you're hungry

and you're out a 100 meters from the shore.

30 三十

Contributor Notes

Kate Bergen is 28 years old and lives in Westchester

County, New York, where she works for an International

Non-Profit Organization. Her works have recently been pub-

lished in 2RiverView and The Battered Suitcase, and have won

acclaim in the Greenburgh Poetry Contest. She is an annual

participant in NaNoWrimo and ScriptoWrimo. When not

glued to her keyboard writing, she enjoys music festivals, na-

ture, singing and painting.

Jim Davis, Jr. holds a B.A. in Studio Art from Knox College,

where he was also an All-American football player. His in-

terests continue to offer him opportunities worldwide: teach-

ing art lessons in Limerick, Ireland; sketching the Dolomite

Mountain landscape on the Austrian/Italian border; swim-

ming in the Mediterranean Sea after football practice in Va-

lencia, Spain.

Jack Frey is a Canadian living in Beijing. He has received

awards from the University of Manitoba and York University

for 'progressive' academic writing. A piece of his short fiction

will appear in Shelf Life Magazine.

Jennifer Hecker grew up in suburban Los Angeles and stud-

ied international relations and Spanish at the University of

San Diego. She has traveled extensively through Western

Europe and Latin America and hopes to one day see all the

continents. She is currently in final stages of editing a novel

about her hometown while also developing another book in-

spired by the challenges in Latin American politics.

31 三十一

Joanne Olivieri is a published author and poet. Her work

has appeared in Parnassus Literary Journal, Soma Literary Re-

view, Things Asian and Tango Diva, just to name a few. Her

poem "Symphony of Lights" from her chapbook Red Lanterns

was chosen as one of the 300 Short Listed Entries in the initial

round of the Cathay Pacific Airways - 100 Reasons We Love

Hong Kong contest for July 2007.

Kevin Wu is originally from Guangzhou. He holds an M.F.A.

in fiction from Brown University and a B.A. in English from

University of California at Berkeley. His stories have been

published in Word Catalyst, Kartika Review, Issues Magazine,

and Visions Magazine.

Magnus and Mingxing (cover art) run their websites

MandMx.com and ChineseComicsOnline.com which con-

tains stories about China and the first ever English-Chinese

comic strip. Magnus is an American cartoonist from western

Massachusetts with more than five years’ experience living

and working in China. MingXing is a Shanghai local with

over four years’ overseas work and life experience. They fea-

ture their son on Study Chinese with Ryan videos which are

a hit on Youku and Youtube. They also offer a Shanghainese-

podcast.

32 三十二