Chinese Tea and the Bone Cup

a short story by Danielle LeClerc

Within the seed of every apricot lies a small, soft kernel. Just a few of these pack enough cyanide to stop your heart in minutes.
Jasmine flowers, a popular Chinese tea ingredient, benefit the immune system and lower cholesterol. Jasmine berries, however contain a powerful neurotoxin.
Goji berry, known in China as gou qi zi and in Europe as wolfberry, has recently gained much attention in the West as a naturopathic herb. In small doses it improves circulation and aides the kidneys and spleen. Higher concentrations were used by Germany to poison Nazi bullets, stopping the hearts of victims with remarkable efficiency. Continue reading…

The Box

By W.M. Butler

This place is horrible. I can’t have my baby here. Please don’t let me have my baby here! John! Please! — It’s OK. It’s OK. — No, you’re right, you’re right she makes it more beautiful here. Look at her eyes John they’re so brown and her hair, it’s black just like yours. Her fingers and toes John, all there and so wonderfully pink — John.

“…John.”
“Mr. Mori?”
“Wake up.” Continue reading…

The Third Chopstick

The Third Chopstick
A short story by Danielle LeClerc

To: annelsmith@hotmail.com
Thursday, May 13, 3:22am
From: Walt.is.cool@gmail.com
Subject: 489 Wanping Street

Dear Mom,

Here’s some pics of the new place, not bad eh? A 2 bedroom downtown for
$700, you wouldn’t even get half this in Prince Albert.

And how about that view? Pretty great, eh? I’m not saying I don’t miss
seeing the Esso station across the schoolyard from my bedroom window, but
this is Shanghai. The stove’s a bit weird, the only setting it seems to
have is “inferno”; unlike the shower, which has 2 settings: inferno and
arctic, but I’ll figure it out.

 Turns out it was a piece of cake getting the place, the agent set
everything up and sent a really nice girl named Jenny to help me out.
She’s really sweet, you’d like her. Anyway, I’m officially settled now, so
you don’t have anything to worry about. And yes, I’m eating well, they’ve got
this thing here called “Sherpa’s” where they deliver really good healthy food
to your house pretty much any time of day.

Don’t worry about me. I’m 34, I’ll be fine.

Say hi to Dad.
Love,

Walter

* * * Continue reading…

The Family Business

By Lindsay Redifer

Nana doesn’t like it here. She hates the apartment, the toys I bought her, the decorations, the DVDs. I’ve tried to talk to her, to coax her out of her corner, but she just screams and kicks. Those shiny black shoes I bought her can do some real damage.

I really thought this would be a special time for her. My own kidnapping started just like hers, but it went so smoothly. How did Big John do it?

I leave her alone with some crayons and paper near her corner and I wander through the penthouse. It’s not mine, it’s my dad’s. The security system installed in each room is my own design, right down to the logo. It blinks and beeps at me now with little red eyes.

Maybe I should call big John. Not that he’d answer his phone. He’s too busy running his empire. He has over one thousand employees now, each specially trained to make a person disappear, to negotiate for a huge ransom and then carefully disperse the small fortune. He has no time for self-trained amateurs. Continue reading…

Beauty and the Barbarian

by Ginger wRong Chen

​Second by second, the bitterness is brewing stronger and stronger as the sweet longing turns sour.
​One day, three days, a week, two weeks, four weeks, she hasn’t shown up. Not a word, not even a peep. The moment hatred starts to bud, it is self-nurtured already.
​Luke has been sick in bed for one month. His face is pale with sunken eyes and cheeks. His used-to-be-neatly-trimmed mustache has grown into chaos. The last time he saw Zhenzhen, she said: “Of course I will come back. If a little disease can stop me from seeing you, what is my love worth?”
​Good question! What is her love worth?
​She hasn’t visited him once ever since. He feels abandoned.
​“She is probably somewhere inside the Han District entertaining her friends. Those so-called ‘friends,’ God knows who the hell they really are. I dare to say some are her lovers, some are just lovers. She is such a shameless bitch,” he thinks to himself. “I am in pain; she is having fun, bitch, a thousand times a bitch!”
​“Ouc…” A sharp pang hits his chest.
​If he had the energy, he would have gone into the Han District to seek her out and humiliate her. It would require a lot of costume and make-up work — he needed bronze to turn his white skin yellow; for his deep eyes and high nose, he would use a pair of big sunglasses; and for his blond hair, a black wig was a must-have — but all the trouble would be worth it.
​He knows how much she hates losing face. She wants everyone to think of her as a precious flower, even sometimes appearing a little too exotic or wild to the common taste, but always fun and delicious. She can’t handle being laughed at in public. That would kill her. Yes, that would kill her real nice. Continue reading…

Groupthink Storytellers – Part II

Jeez Louise! This has been a crazy, strange week for us here at the HAL offices. First we get a huge response to our STORYTELLING GROUPTHINK meeting, with folks nearly crawling over one another to tell a tale. Then we get mysterious emails from mysterious writers, sitting outside of mysterious bars, who get mysterious notes from mysterious strangers who don’t tip their waitress (Please let’s all pitch in and send Jennifer 15% of that tab!). Now we get more Storytellers telling more stories! Will the madness ever end? Here are two more yarns for your listening pleasure! Enjoy.

Carrie Sanders: A Real Man

Robin Silver: Cream Puffs

Missed PART 1 of Storytellers? Check it out here.

STORYTELLING EVENT OCT: (Please note)

We are getting a lot of interest from people wanting to be storytellers at our storytelling event, so if you are in Shanghai and want a chance to join in please confirm with us at butler@haliterature.com ASAP. It might just turn into a competition to see who gets a slot, so act fast!

Groupthink: Storytellers

We write stuff. That’s what we do. We write and we read and we discuss stuff. That’s what Groupthink is. This week though we decided to go a different route. The route of our forepeeps. We wanted to get our olden timey on and do the whole “sittin’” by the fire telling tales thang”, and so we did. But HAL style.

Instead of a camp fire we sat around a table laden with cheep booze, getting hammered and chain smoking cigarettes of questionable authenticity. Yup, twenty people crowded around the tables at Crocus telling true tales. Real live stories! None of that fiction crap the kids are so crazy about these days. So sit back and enjoy these recordings from our evening of storytelling.

Oh, and just when you thought it couldn’t get any sweeter HAL is putting together the first ever Storytelling Event in Shanghai this coming October! We are looking for Storytellers, Musicians of all kinds along with Artists, illustrators, painters  and digital artists to join HAL in putting together an event that combines all these elements in a celebration of storytelling. Interested in joining? Email us at butler@haliterature.com

Click on the links below to listen to Groupthink live storytelling!

W.M.Butler: Extra Cracky KFC

David Hampson: Declare Your Pork Pies

Kitty Harlow: Mum, Dad, an Arabian Prince and an unspecified amount of Cocaine (We withhold, for now, from you this brilliant piece, it will instead be performed live in Shanghai soon by beautiful Kitty, stand by for updates on HAL events).

The Emerald Necklace

By W. Nat Baker
For a long time Conrad said nothing but just stood there and stared at the cable. He read the first line again, “Auditors arriving Shanghai next week STOP.” His throat felt thick and dry and his hands moist and clammy. He leaned against his desk to steady himself. He read the words again. He needed more time, he thought. He had to think this out. He needed more time. He had one week, no more.
“Handle this for me,” he heard his boss say, “It’s been three years since we’ve been audited so plan on spending most of next week with them. Just show them what they want to see and take them through the books.”
“Yes, of course,” Conrad stammered, “it’s just that I had no idea that they were coming. Why didn’t London notify us so we could prepare?”
“Consider it lucky they gave us this much notice. Last time I got one day’s notice. They’ll just go over the books, make sure that everything’s in order, verify export orders, find some minor deficiencies to justify their job, write up a report, and leave. It’s nothing to worry about. It’s just routine.”
“Right,” Conrad replied.
For the rest of the afternoon the words “Auditors arriving Shanghai next week” struck his senses over and over again like a wailing siren that wouldn’t stop. “Nothing to worry about,” his boss had said. If only it were that simple he thought to himself. If only it were that simple.

Continue reading…

Of Bikes and Shanghai Street Mobs

Shanghainese had an inbred flair for the theatrical, participating in as well as watching spectacles. For this reason, as one amused American, Julian Schuman, observed, “street brawls were an accepted part of the city’s life, had their own rhythm and ceremony, and never failed to attract an enchanted audience.” These featured “a great deal of shouted bluster and insult, some of it fairly inventive. But rarely was a blow struck. The conventional windup was an appeal to the galley for adjudication, which was willingly rendered and usually abided by.”
– Stella Dong, Shanghai, the rise and fall of a decadent city.

By Willow Neilson

So many things in Shanghai seem to draw a crowd. Being a foreigner, sometimes your appearance alone attracts attention. When bartering with stall keepers, people will often mill around to eavesdrop on the interaction, sometimes offering a commentary to or asking the opinion of their equally ogling counterpart on the unfolding interaction.
I noticed a habit of the locals when it comes to dealing with merchants, the raised voice and the shocked or mocking expression accompanied by scoffing laughter when hearing the price is not seen as rude, but as the prelude to an unfolding drama, the raised volume of the conversation becomes a public relations spectacle.
Dramatic negotiations transpose to areas beyond commerce. When witnessing the chaotic spectacle of Shanghai roads, it is not surprising that road accidents become enthralling matinees for gawking onlookers. The greater the accident, the greater the crowd; from a distance one often sees throngs of spectator’s gathered around some spectacle made anonymous by the shroud of their backs.
Continue reading…

The Beautiful Country

by Katrina Hamlin

My name is Xiao Yu. I am nineteen.

I have eaten KFC fried chicken and onion rings, washed down with milk tea. Then I ate a doughnut, which is an incomplete cake with a hole in the middle.

I have heard rap, which is when you have a song but you don’t sing. I can do that at the KTV.

I have seen their TV show series, which are about real life, but with shiny teeth and hair and perfect love.

So I already knew quite a lot about the Beautiful Country when I met my first Beautiful Person.

The Beautiful Person, whose name was Sam, was still in some way not what I expected.

Continue reading…