Time to go home

by ferret

I’m in a club. It’s late. I’ve had too much to drink, and I’m bored. I’m about to go home when some girl walks up to me.

Hey.

Hey.

Where are you from?

America. You?

China, of course.

Of course.

How long have you been in Shanghai?

Two and a half years.

Oh, cool. Continue reading…

Hitotoki: Fahuazhen Lu/Huahai Xi Lu, June 13, 2010, 5:30am

by ferret

I’d stayed up all night, and I was surrounded by the morning hush. For this brief hour, the city had crashed, fallen into a deep slumber. The revelers and party demons had retreated, and the drivers, the busybodies and the makers of the day had yet to arise and meet the morning. All that shuffled about were the soy milk servers and newspaper couriers, working in silence, as if the city were a temple.

A man brushed by me on my way down a wide avenue, babbling to himself, using the silence as a sounding board. I regarded him with some interest, but I found nothing strange in his behavior. I was talking with the silence as well.

How could I not? In these moments, the world was spread out before me, unified in that silence, bereft of differentiation, blurred from right and wrong, existing as itself and nothing more. Continue reading…

China, China, China

by ferret

The breeze of politics overtook our conversation

Lapping at our ears with its incessancy
Nagging at our eardrums
With the patter of rights and dispensations.

You talked about China and futurity
Your tongue sticking on that word
“Ascendance”
As if it were the name of some lover
You’d forgotten from long ago. Continue reading…

A Letter for Li Peng

by ferret

Li Peng,

I know my parents told you that I won’t be coming on the class fieldtrip to the Expo because I’m sick, but it’s not true. You’re my best friend in the world, and I want you to know the truth about why I’m not coming. But please promise you won’t tell anyone.

I’m a wicked person. My parents keep telling me so, and I think that they’re probably right. But there’s this part of me that thinks they are wrong, and I’m not so wicked. This makes me more wicked. That’s the truth.

Do you remember the card for the Dark Woodland Elf? The one that Xiao Bai always plays? The character can make himself stronger than almost any other character, but only by sacrificing the trees which retain his power? He gets stronger, but it doesn’t last. I’m afraid I’m like that Dark Woodland Elf. My parents built me this forest, and they told me not to destroy it, but I want to tear it all down just the same.

Continue reading…