Reading The Records of the Grand Historian in Cadboro Bay, Victoria, Canada. September, 2009

The clear sky blue as a standard blue sky.
If I could somersault through it, if I could drive my heavenly steeds through it…
A sea of calm breeze and still waters, infected by the placidity of tourists, demanding it live up to its world civilization tourist destination’s good name.
The vessels head out, white without exception, cruising along the shore without exception;
the masts on the vessels that do not head out stand upright, with the Cowichan totem pole artifacts and the trees of the dense forest on the shore.
Where do the driftwood logs crisscrossing the grey beach come from?
The people burning driftwood illegally at night are upright citizens during the day.
Each face in sunglasses. People come to the beach
Someone walking a dog runs into someone else walking a dog.
The male dog sniffs the female dog’s butt. The male dog mistakenly sniffs a male dog’s anus. (I know, I only crack nice jokes).
The white-haired old woman sitting on the bench has elegantly lived seventy rational years, growing with democracy during Catholicism’s decline, helping hilarious Dalai Lama achieve no less fame than Charlie Chaplin in his own right.
and it dawns on me that swimwear doesn’t have to be worn for swimming. That it’s just for covering up nipples and below the belt, which in comparison with 100% nude would be even more, well.
The stillness of her flesh, her soul a bowl of level water within it.
Don’t incite her fury—oh, don’t—nice people
A beach full of nice people!
The boy selling lemonade has written on the box where his coins go: “Help Solve Global Poverty.” How’s that supposed to work?
So it dawns on me that a “nice person” is someone nicer than others.
And I who am no better than others takes a seat and opens up the book I brought: The Records of the Grand Historian, unheard of by the Cadboro bay.
I’m determined to read it all the way through, to see if I can leap out of myself, as my Chinese grandfathers clamor to be reincarnated into skateboarding kids.
And these kids rescue their football from the sea;
and the dogs go into the sea, fetching their plastic balls.
This middle-class sea has been unwilling to lose its calm breeze and still waters for a hundred fifty years.
where “The Basic Annals of Qin” read: “In the eleventh year [374 bce], the Grand Scribe of Zhou was presented to the Duke. He said, ‘Zhou had been joined with the state of Qin, but they separated. Five-hundred years after separating, they will rejoin as one again. Seventy-seven years after joining, a Hegemon King will emerge.”¹



Walking by the Hongjiang Ancient Commercial City in Western Hunan. July, 2010

The abandoned old man
Alive at 94, fair and light and still alive, staring at the strangers approaching
In and out of the dusky cellar, very few words.

The abandoned middle-aged man
In Qing dynasty magistrate garb, in another cellar, acting out Qing dynasty law suits,
Just some amusement of himself and others, for a little bit of pay

His wife is still his wife
Sweat running down her face, the water she washes vegetables with, the sound of her knife
           chopping vegetables, the oil smoke that rises from the sautéing vegetables,
Looking forward to the new apartment on the hill, abandoning this old home that was never hers

The 1930s smalltime warlord who abandoned Hongjiang
The 1940s bandits who abandoned the bordello
The 1950s shopkeeper who abandoned his shop after donating a fighter plane for the aid of Korea

The craft of coffin-making
Bequeathed to a middle-schooler with concomitant cultural knowledge
This order of business will continue though the stars fall from the sky and the rivers run dry

Fine scenery is always old and worn
The faded slogan on the wall once proclaimed revolution, now it’s there for tourists
The crossroads where firing squads shot counter-revolutionaries is now for “new-style capitalism”

And old-style capitalism retreats to
Agricultural moonlight, buried by the sound of the river, the squeaking of field mice,
And the pretentious poetry recitations of ghosts

In some old oil shop basement
Tons of old gold re-appear, claimed by the government, who knows if it will be re-distributed
Back to society? —the unbearable cackling of the powerful.

The Yuan and Wu rivers still converge at the source
Will the vessels shipping lacquer oil answer the call of the Party to develop tourism
And re-create the old wharf?

走过湘西洪江古商城。2010年7月

被遗弃的老人
活到94，白白净净依然活着，注视着陌生的来人
进出昏暗的窨子屋，话很少。

被遗弃的中年人
清代小官吏打扮，在另一座窨子屋里，表演清官断案，
娱人娱己而已，可领到少许工资。

他老婆还是他老婆
大汗满脸，洗菜用水，切菜出声，炒菜起油烟，
盼望搬进山上的新房，遗弃这本属他人的旧居

三十年代的小军阀遗弃了洪江
四十年代的土匪遗弃了青楼
五十年代的掌柜的为国家捐罢飞机就遗弃了柜台

打寿材的手艺
被一个初中文化的青年继承下来
这类生意任你天翻地覆将持续到地老天荒

好风景总是破旧的
墙上褪色的标语表达过革命，现在留给游人
枪毙过反革命的路口现在留给了新型资本主义

而旧资本主义退回
农业的月色，被埋葬于江声、老鼠的叽叽叫
和鬼魂的附庸风雅的吟诵

在某间旧油号的地下
几顿旧黄金重现，归了政府，不知是否又重新
流通回社会？——受不了得势者的哈哈大笑。

沅江和巫水依旧汇流于旧地
运桐油的大船是否会为开发旅游，响应党的号召
而从水下开回旧码头？

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1 Translation adapted from Ssu-Ma Ch’ien 司馬遷, The Grand Scribe’s Records, Vol. 1: The Basic Annals of Pre-Han China, trans. and ed. William H. Nienhauser (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995), 107.