Strangers in the Night

So this chick sitting next to me at the Korean café turns to me all of a sudden and goes, "hey, I don't want to be rude, but can I get your. honest. opinion. on something?" She's the one sitting alone with a bottle of sake, but if I had a bottle in my hands, I would have set it down without missing a beat, "yes, let's hear it."

I was a firm believe in the power of saying "yes," and seeing where that might lead to, and so I set down my imaginary soju and turned to her, "sure thing."

The chick's Asian (aren't they all in K-town) with long hair (again, don't they all) and had an air about her that was straight-up New Yorker. She tells me about her boyfriend, their relationship, her feelings, his actions. What it boils down to and what you can take away from the story is basically he dumped her because he was looking for fun and she wanted a relationship. Now she's hung up and sitting alone in a crowded café on a Friday night, drinking to her own misery and spilling her guts at a stranger.

When I cleared this hurtle I said, "Oh, right then, so it's not mutual."

She replied with a "of course not" that sounded more like "no shit" and waited for me to relay some sage advice as if I could pull out a Chinese cookie fortune out of my ass. I wished for both our sakes that it was my friend the psychologist who ended up sitting next to her.  As it was, all I can say now is that while my answer referenced Will Shakes, it precluded the sprinkles of idealism that permeated the story life of fair Juliet and her Romeo. Love is about communication, girl. You've been with dude for a year. You should know what he wants and what you want out of it.

Or something like that.

I'm no Abby after all, and seeing her eyes glisten with tears kind of made you aware that she might have taken your words too seriously when you only knew 1/100 of the story. What you really should have said was "hey it's gonna be all right," so you try to say it with your eyes when your friends say it's time to party, let's go go go go. You give her the biggest smile you own for situations just like this, and leap into the night.

We're all going to be all right.

interview with BOCOG member

These days in Beijing, it seems like everyone is involved with the Games one way or another. Whether you’re a flag-seller, or flag waver, the spirit is in the air as much as the presence of televisions seem to spike. You could literally go from one end of the city to the other without missing a score. Every restaurant, coffee shop, bar, fruit vendor, convenient store, not to mention malls, plaza squares, and bus stream the latest competition live. Just take five. I took five and sat down with Wang Gang, a member of the Beijing Organizing Committee for a snapshot of his Olympic life.

What’s your job title?

I’m a staff member of BOCOG (The Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad).

What do you do?

On site Chinese commentating. My sports for the Beijing Olympics include track, cycling, BMX, and mountain biking. Mostly, I do consecutive translation of what the English announcer is saying.

Consecutive translation? That’s pretty impressive.

It’s actually not that hard. It’s easy when you are familiar with the sports jargon. It would be hard if I was translating a speech by an economist.

How did you get the gig? Me and most of my CUC (Communication University of China) classmates all applied for something to do during the Olympics. I sent in my application, went through an interview process, and was picked from thousands to be a commentator. Most of my classmates were selected as announcers, which means they do the intro before every event like “Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the XXIX Olympiad… etc. etc.” or “Today the weather is fine, a nice 29 degrees.”

What did you have to do to prepare for your job? Just the other day I went in to do a BMX game simulation. Which basically means we screen previous games and do voice over commentating over it.

(At this point, Wang Gang was mixing in a lot of English with his Chinese) Do you realize you speak with an English accent? How did your English get so good? Trainspotting is my favorite movie. A very memorable, very impressive movie. I guess I watch a lot of English movies. I like Jude Law’s accent a lot also and try to emulate it. I’m good enough to do commentating in both English and Chinese. It’s actually my dream to become a sports commentator abroad one day. NBA, here I come.

…So, are you a volunteer? No, not at all. I’m a step above those guys. Paid employee here. I get paid about 80 RMB (about 10 dollars) a day. Enough to get me a pair of new shoes okay? I also enjoy free transportation. Basically, what I’m trying to say is, the Chinese Olympics Committee is shitting on the sweat and blood of energetic youth. It’s great.

Describe your average day for us. Normally, we have to be at the office before 8:00 am and check out by 7:00 pm. I spend a lot of time on PSP, chatting, taking sitting naps. It’s the rule for us to check in everyday though. During competition, of course, it gets busy. Also, the other day I had to pick up an English commentator 4:00 in the morning at the airport. Somebody bought a cheap ticket. So yeah, catering to the needs of foreign announcers and commentators is also part of the job description.

/Wang Gang, August 14, 2008

Running Man vs. Kowtowing Man?

The main conversation aloft between friends during the China vs. Dream 8 game was how the “running-Peking-man” in the official symbol for the ‘08 Olympics also looks like a “kowtowing-Chinese-man.” It took me ages to see it but I’ve always been horrible at magic eye.

Instructions on how to see the kowtowing, “please love us foreigners we are a friendly, peace-loving, back-bending people, here for your every need” man.

1. Flip the view you would normally see the running man. 2. The horizontal line (running man’s arms) is the kowtowing-man’s hat. 3. The circle in the middle (running man’s body) is the kowtowing-man’s head, bowing. 4. The running man’s right leg is the kowtowing-man’s bent back. 5. The running man’s left leg is his arm, in upward motion, ready to please.

All Things Noted

My English prof, Jack Shuler, who was total boss, told me to submit my American lit essay on Paul Beatty/Cornell West/Cosby’s Pound Cake Speech/Obama to publications, and I got this the other day… Dear Ms. Chen,

Thank you very much for submitting your article, “The Poetician Suicides: Nihilism or the Audacity of Hope?,” to the Columbia Journal of American Studies (CJAS). Despite your work’s great potential, the journal’s editorial board has decided that it cannot accept your very provocative essay for publication at this time. I encourage you to consider submitting other work to CJAS in the future.

Regretfully,

Daniel Webb Managing Editor The Columbia Journal of American Studies (CJAS)

Provacative? Way sweet. I dunno if they are just being nice, and I don’t think I will be writing much publishable essays (did it only for school man) in the future, but this was a good rejection letter. Haha.

Being among many talented writers at the New York State Summer Writers’ Institute has made me realized I’m not quite ready for an MFA (maybe never). On the one hand, being amongst smart and devastatingly sharp people is like finding home. Everyone is such a dork (in a good way). I would love to maintain some of the relationships here, and look forward to coffee and AWP meetings in the future, and familiar names on the bookshelves. That said, it’s one thing to be talking about reading, writing, and the writerly life nonstop, but a whole other to see everyone around you scribbling feverishly into a notebook with handwriting just as bad as yours, and it’s a whole other to bounce back and forth hawkish, “extra-perceptive” observations on each other. The problem is when you bump eyes.

10 days until China. I will be trying to find some gigs to do (including as a translator/guide for a documentary on the Chinese baseball team), but mostly enjoying the company of friends and family, as well as meeting new friends.

drift

http://clearsoclear.tumblr.com/

Get Out and Live

It's a beautiful world. This is the end. :)

Wish you the best.

Let’s go to Yunnan

“Let’s go to Yunnan.”

Her cursor beamed and blinked at her rhythmically, aligning universes to the same beat. “Let’s go to Yunnan and get a plot of land. We can grow tomatoes and basil under the sun. We can have animals two of each: sheep, monkeys, rabbits, horses, snakes, an elephant to carry us through the contours of the land. Let’s get a plot on top of a mountain, and every time we go into town to buy rice and grain, we’d take our shoulder poles and bamboo hats. You could grow your hair long and roam with a red-tail hawk, and when my knees get cold, we’d know the rain was coming, and we can do the rain dance around our tomatoes and basil. We’ll make millions with our tomato and basil brand. In Italy, they will worship us. Michelangelo will retire from death and erect a statue of us holding a jar of tomato sauce and a leaf of basil. It will be his magnum opus.”

blur

Listening to: Lupe Fiasco - Superstar if you are what you say you are, a superstar, have no fear, the crowd is here, and the lights are on.

what a show.

time: 6:36pm. check. six minutes into a brand new born day. check. just got up. "you read me like a picture book." four hours from whiskeybourbontequillasheerybrandyvodka, we cooking a meal that smells inflammable, and infallible we are. check. ARE. (the entire house is out or sleeping) here's my stomach made of antioxidants. we rolled through the day like a dream, a segue within the dream of sleep, and between sleep and waking up is letting go, baober it's hard to let go. "drifting into the sea, eating passion fruits." or "floating into the sea, eating a passion fruit?" always write now what you meant to say.

Next time, I'll write down what I meant. They say limerance lasts three months. Here's to three months of no return. And I'm buggin' trippin' living for the stars. Remember the days before, and remember me.

Reunion on Union Square.

The most romantic song you ever heard...

Listening to: Henri Salvador - Chambre avec vue You know it's not your school anymore when 3/4 of the faces are of strangers picked up from random truck stops. It's as if the whole world is trying to excise you the moment you finally find a ball of yarn to grasp on. Here in Ohio the snow looks metallic under the orange glow of lamps that imitate Sherlock's London street accessories. It's pristine white snow against green pine trees, and the ground never turns slushy brown because it's earth as it is meant to be. I guess this will be my last winter in Ohio. I guess when next year comes, wherever I will be, the snow willbe less idyllic, the sky less clear, the love more complicated.

I guess I'm saying goodbye before it ends. I wanted to escape the moment I got here, and here I am reminiscing before I even leave.  Irony? I'm sorry I lose. I'm sorry I'm a fighter with a forked tongue, biting, flinching and running out. I'm glad you smile like there's no reason not to, like mouths were made to smile, to carouse, to sing, to kiss. A mouth is a thousand vitriolic verbs burning spades on my skin, and it's a thousand words unspoken in fear of fear. But you my little love, you. are. great., greater than all the adjectives men have mused on me, suckle on carbonated French water, Sushi and snails of worldly cuisine, New York fashion and Japanese soirée.

I'm still ready to get out of here, but, it's good better to frolic away than flee. Don't you think?

Stream of Syllables

A confession. It is hard to be unhappy these days. Even looking at photographs with artistic poses make me a bit wary. Well, Kafka wasn't raised on happiness. As for me, I guess I'm just waiting for the bungalow shack to be swept by the sea. So this is how you lose your girl best friends. I'm working (still working dammit) on a story right now and I wish it could be a tighter narrative. I just need to pick it up period. Tomorrowwww...! O god it's 2.20 already.

Rebel Ravage

Listening to: Manu Chao - Mama Call scene i: dippin' dots (four) were falling from the sky today! i was going to go out with a cup to catch some ice cream from the sky, but then the sun came out... but then the sun came in. that's ohio weather for ya. hohoho.

{Today, from 12am to a solid 11:05am of heavy sleep, I dreamed a dream. A most uncompromising, vivid, and narrative-driven dream that probably had me blacklisted by the Chinese government. It started with a park. Sunny day. Green grass. Sasha and I were moving about, moving across the lawn, and there were six, six kids our age, six against the world. Li Hui was one of them on the swings, the charismatic leader of the pack whose name conjures a mix of fear and awe. I knew nothing about him until days after his death (uh, I'll get to that). I knew nothing of his terrorism, his martyrdom, nor do I remember exactly what he was fighting for. All I remember was six kids talking with two in a park. I remember him swinging on the monkey bars, a mass of tousled black/gray hair and startling smile. He had chiseled features, small falcon eyes and lips perpetually fixed in a lopsided smirk like he knew exactly what you're worth. He was criminal and dangerous and exactly the bad boy all the good girls fall for, and really now, he was the leader of a rebel group (again, the cause of which I don't recall, but I believe falls somewhere in the blurry lines of liberty, justice, and the pursuit of happiness through destructive, flashy means. If I were an artist I'd draw out exactly what he looks like before I forget, but as it is, I can only fumble with falcon eyes and descriptions in vain. Li Hui. Li Hui. Li Hui. This is what you looked like, and tomorrow I'll forget.

The rest of the dream sort of went by in a flurry of motion, with gun shots and mug shots. There was like a swat team that surrounded us on the lawn, cameras flashing, accusations of us being involved with terrorists. Then we all escaped somehow, and did I mention all of this took place in a New York-esque setting with a Chinese mindset?

Then came the fateful day when the six kids were somehow found. At the cataclysmic junction that looked like 34th street, they were shoved into the part of a bus where luggage is usually thrown in, and I remember a pair of legs sticking out as waves of screams tempered the crowds. I remember their mug shots stuck to every surface, the face of Li Hui, and a girl with really sweet hair that parted and stuck out three ways, and I remember hiding because I thought I too was going to be executed due to being a co-conspirator.

Yeah I think that's all I remember. Wait, then I saw my boss at a cafe. She had a daughter with her instead of a son though, and seemed more demure than usual. In fact, the world became rather muted yellow after the six kids were captured and executed. I wasn't at their execution (I believe I was hiding), but that stuff is of legends. Apparently they all gave speeches on runways, and Li Hui was riding a bike???}

yeeeeep. ;)

he

he. <3

Poet Mentor

what do you say to your favorite poet writing to you about san bernardino.  i don't remember being so impressive a year ago. the snowcapped mountains of san bernardino. it's t-shirt and shorts weather here says he, and bitterly cold. i don't remember being so pretty a year ago. last year this time, was i in hong kong, yunnan, or the glooms of canton? i remember he wore a traditional chinese gown, his long hair tied back, with dissidence written on his fore arms. do you miss your home your motherland your reign upon middle kingdom o poet? and i'm tired of poets and their tragic ironies, self-consciousness, meddle nonsense.

i want to sleep on porcelain painted with golden and silver, and dip my feet in lotus seed.

Burrow

being a writer sucks.  you burrow yourself in a room, in front of your desk or in your bed, breathing foul, dry, cold wintry air through your mouth because it hurts to breathe through your nose after a hangover (the wind knocks you down from your nostril to the spot between your forehead and right eye). if i could choose any profession in life, it would certainly not be the writer, artist, musician type. i mean, good god, really, who wants coffee as a lover, drugs as paramour, and a keyboard for a husband? not i sire, not i. i want sunshine! i want the moon! i want mountains by the sea!

i want homework to magically vanish, but when they do i'm not sure what to do with myself, because after the work there's applications to reality. lately, my life has become one big ellipsis. right now, my head swells like a grapefruit.

please give me an eskimo kiss.

hot boiz

I read a short story in the Brooklyn Review on the way home from NY, on a claustrophobic propeller plane, about a plague. Then last night, quite appropriately, I dreamed of a plague that took us by shuttles to quarantined hotels, and I was screaming at mother and father for somehow losing three key members in the "family" (all of whom were my good friends). Before the plague, the narrative of my dream was set in sweaty parlors with stand-alone beds and swaggering young men. I think someone was out to kill me, so I was playing hide and go seek while managing multiple lovesex affairs by broken stairs. Before I fell into dreams, I was thinking about mountains and seas with the boy in my arms, he smells like fabric softener and brightness and I murmur "thank you... thank you... thank you." I don't do poets, but I've loved Rob Herrick ever since "Upon Julia's Clothes." In Baker's class we're moving onto Love/Erotic poetry, and I want to chortle at him to explain why I haven't been  the most studious example. Dear professor, I'm too busy living the poetry.

Then be not coy, but use your time, And, while ye may, go marry; For, having lost but once your prime, You may forever tarry.

Lately, I've been thinking about the landscape of oceans and seas, of lakes and ponds, of mountains and hills, and grasslands and plains, looking out with eagle's eyes from plateaus and monuments, on this earth I proclaim, that I would love to reclaim the soil, the dirt, the earth, to swallow the breeze and feel the trickle of a stream. Once upon a time, all I loved was music, stars, and the mountainseas. Today, I dream of kisses from lovers and heartfelt words from people. PEOPLEMOUNTAINSEA.

Ham Lam says I'm whimsical. Still, I intend to rule the world, the way Sasha and I dreamed it on a roof six years ago. The writers' conference was funny because, all the writers were such flimsy things. They walk with their thoughts and their feet take slow dainty steps. There was a bar association conference next door, and all the lawyers walk with their chest forward, their suits pressed, and their sturdy minds ready to wrestle their piece of the world. Writers' are funny because 2/3 of us are cat people and the rest are academics.  I don't want to be a cat person. To be honest, I just want to be hot to trot and melt the world with prose.

Here

MACKDear Mack, I'm sorry I cried. It's like I'm 12 again back on the piano bench. I hope that when you walked out of the coffee shop, after your "I've been walking in a dream," after the hug, that you didn't see one tear out of my eye. Kevin Mcilvoy blends in with the citylights of New York, walking into another dream.

Dear Mack, I love you. Even now I'm crying just thinking the way your eyes rested on, tested, assured me. The way the skin around your eyes crinkle when you smile, just enough worry, and the way your voice is like deep cello to the vanilla latte you brought for me, just enough tired. They say you dwell in solitude. Have you a wife and a kid, a backyard with a puppy named Sammy, Goldie, or Daisy? Is solitary lonely as you grip your pen hard in the city of lights. I know you're not lonely because all your kids love you. I know it. I know it as I know it in that coffee shop, a whirlpool of emotions dissolved by your kindness.

I've never known such kindness, such pure, selfless kindness and honesty in all my life. And you are without veils. And you are proud of the little fissures, madness, idiosyncrasies that make us artisans of the word. I still don't know if I'm special enough Mack, but I'll try my damn hardest Mack, even if it's only because I was special enough for you to take one hour out of your day in New York, to sit down, take time, and tell the girl that "I'm rooting for you...."

And I know you mean it from the pit of your gut, the bottom of your wish, the wish of your being.

Thank you Mack. Once upon a time, a little girl met you, and she loved you she loved you she loved you.

ARI My favorite Jew told me once that Yes of course he knew a lot of dumb Jews My favorite Jew talks a cannon of metaphors, philosophies, tropes and allusions out of his gunshot mind, and by God, the smartest Jew I knew was left broken, crushed, stabbed in the gut by the world he renounced. I want you to stop thinking so much love. I want you to close your eyes and smell the sun just as the way it is, and isn't life just as sweet for us Godless children, because we have each other, our strengths, our whimsicalness. I never knew one who rode the roller coaster of life as mad as you. And this is when I say don't pull the brake on us mid-air. Throw your hands out and embrace. Live, and really love. Really love, and live. I told you so, your eyes are like a kid's. You can't stop smiling and loving this rotten piece of pie we call life even if you try. Live for love, not whim, real love.

YUER Let's go climb a mountain and swim a sea. Seriously. I've waited three and a half years to climb again.

ALL Even if all else fails, remember to breathe!

The Dream Before Yesterday

In the dream before yesterday, I lost a tennis shoe to the sea that swept cities away. I was standing aloft the porch to four apartments. Inside each door was a little man pining away on a tiny metal bed or little wooden chair, their plastic hearts and glass eyes creaked with the wind. I was standing there when the sea carried my tennis shoe away. It floated on across the flooded landscape until I could see it no more. I remember it being blue as cerulean paint. It's been a week without an iPod and liFE is a-ok. I think if we learn to tune our ears to humanity, we might learn more than we ever could have from chan marshall mathers.  It's been like spring these winter days, and while taking a walk yesterday (without my ears plugged up), I started singing as if I had a range of vocal abilities. The point is, these days, there is too much going in and not enough coming out. There's reading, listening, watching, holing... and writing in itself, perhaps, is a way of basking, wallowing. It's the most indulgent "outage" for me. To excise, on the other hand, is to sing, to speak, to scream. To use ! instead of ... To love and hate instead of meditate and hesitate.

I wish I could write less dramatically.

Dr. T said the other day she threw out a journal from the college days. I look forward to the day when I can chunk out the girl I am now.

Talks of Conundrum

the conundrum rolls on, blinds your soul and sucks your breath out. the conundrum of sun, of light, of happiness. the conundrum of thinking too much, of doubts on your goosebumps, and the only reassurance you have is skin on skin and breath against breath. and i _know_ i know you're good for me the way princes are good for queens, but on the throne i'm still staring at vultures glowering the sky, and you see through me, eye to eye to your beautiful world. new york on wednesday, new york again. the love affair of my life. the city of pain. the city of harangue. the love of my life. the insouciance and glowering towers, lifted by thousands of towering gazes... and here i am trying to be one in a million. think me not foolish, says the eye, heed me and praise me by the dock of provincials,  buy me fish and candy as we row down the lane, down the drain, down the vain.

praise me.

Roll

Happiness is a state of mind. My roommate reminded me last night of just how happy I sounded when I called her in New York, "oh my god, you sound so happy and SO LOVING, Qing Qing." A couple days before Christmas, I was making round calls to friends while walking down 6th Ave toward Union Square. I don't think I was feeding off any specific event that made me glorious happy, rather, I think I was literally bouncing off the energy and pace of the city: the Christmas store fronts, the crowds of people. In other words, I was literally hyping up my own happiness because I believed that by being in the greatest city of the world, I ought to be happy. Maybe it's this ought that makes all the difference. Maybe it's this ought that made me a hermit in Ohio, that made me semi-renounce humanity, a bigot wearing the guise of the victimized. And so, I wager to... start listening to more pop music. That's it. I know nothing. I renounce myself.

n/n

I dreamed that n/n's getting married. The wedding was to take place the next glorious summer, somewhere in the mountains of Louisiana. I didn't even know there were mountains in Louisiana, but I imagined the glaze of the warm, violet sun against his copper skin and brown curls, and I imagined him as a shepherd leading a herd. The girl he was to marry was a mutual friend. She was short, too short for him. I thought, a moment in eternity, that he and I would make a much fairer pair. So when he reached to hug me, long limbs and the smell of pine enveloped me, and I told him "you've grown taller." He laughed and shook his head, "not at all. It's you who's grown."

On his fingers, n/n wore these exaggerated jade rings that only exist in dreams. They were three long stripes of specked green/grey jade on his thumb, index, and ring finger. Then on his middle finger, a huge silver ring glinted like a symbol of manhood and prowess. But his fingers were thinner and more graceful than I remember.

We talk. We walk. We dine at the strangest places - in rooms with gaudy carpets, silver candle holders, animal screens, mahogany wood, dark wallpaper - places I can only appreciate in dreams. I told him, it's a lot easier to talk to him now that he was getting hitched, none of that pent up glow, but instead of wishing him all happiness, I told him so, that I adored him so.

In dreams, he's a blur of army green and coffee brown, with a smile that embraced my coquette verbs. I'm feeling Scarlet O'Hara, but he's no Ashley. He's out of this rundown village to find another village. He's marrying a short girl whose name I forgot, and in all my lies is a debris of truth, and feign, heart, feign.