scruta

China will be the next great power.

The 21st century belongs to China.

Nothing can stop the rise of the Chinese juggernaut.

+++

I hear these pronouncements daily now

Like a mantra spoken religiously to this idol of the future

By pundits and publishers, financial wizards and frenzied technocrats

Doctors and drunks, politico-poets and pallid prosecutors

All of them gripped with expectation and envy.

+++

I still see China as the gangly son

Of some great althlete, whom everyone expects

To fill out in the course of a summer

And become a bone-jarring beast like his dad.

+++

I think more about this on the bus to Jing’An Temple

Shanghai’s newest city center with spindly skyscrapers

Popping up in dust and refuse like a bad case of acne

Unable to be restrained, a nuisance of development.

+++

The TV on the bus is playing the third report in my memory

About the newest talking magpie or parakeet that says:

Nihao, zaijian and byebye.

Although last time, it was nihao, zaijian and hello.

I guess people at the last featured bird spot

Were more fond of saying hello than byebye.

Maybe the shopkeeper was an asshole

And byebyes weren’t necessary.

+++

The segment ends and another begins:

A girl who’s become a balloon-animal wunderkind,

Twisting up swords and flower bouquets

Bridegrooms and cartoon characters

In an awe-inspiring display of carnival-styled genius.

They ask the girl if she’s afraid the balloons will pop,

And she says she’s used to it.

Then it dawns on me:

These are the real trappings of power.

I’ve seen it all before.

Cutesy animal shorts and children’s tricks

Soon give way to interventions

Escalations, assertions of economic dominance

In order to ensure their continued presence

On the TVs in buses and skyscrapers

Promising their viewers that their pets

And balloon gifted children

Might claw their way onto the screen too.

+++

When I get off the bus at Jing’An

I see a young man in a beauty salon

Feeling his flexed bicep.

Despite his apparent lankiness

I can tell he puts pride into this brawn

What little of it he has.

As if there’s much more to come

And soon the world will have to take note.

On a fairly frozen evening in November

As the Shanghai lowlands fell towards freezing

We stood there wating to cross the road

We off-workers, going-homers,

Bearing home hopes and hatreds

To the curtained corridors

That we’d haltingly call home.

And in that moment everything was so calm:

Just us, our crosswalk

The great obelisks of Pudong vaulting higher

The ocher reaches of neon,

The soft hush of the city surrounding us.

+++

I turned around to see this spectacle.

All of us quiet together now.

+++

I thought I saw a girl murmuring incantations under her breath.

I raise these hands hewn roughshod like sandpaper.

In the dim light I’ll try to read their lines,

Knowing they tell how I came to this place,

How my toil will give a man his dreams,

Or perhaps give me my own.

+++

But soon I tire of all of this.

Soon I’ll only rub these hands together

Vigorously trying to rub away this coarseness,

Forgetting the lines crisscrossing my palms,

As if to bring me back to my home,

But mostly just to stay warm.

There’s confusion in your demeanor,

A double meaning perhaps?

There’s laughter in your words,

What words can be made out

Through the blaring fog of your sonic soundscapes.

+

You’ll wrap yourself in cords!

You’ll prance above the electro-base!

You’ll call into the Mikes (and Marys),

Blaring hard down to their soles

To jump and do the cha-cha-cha!

Listen!

[FERRET is on his way home on a Sunday night. After spending a cab ride to his corner trying to explain to the cabdriver why Shanghainese girls are tricky (i.e. their families want to control you), he takes the last block on foot to collect his thoughts before writing a composition. Just as he comes to the gate of his compound, he sees a lone shoe strewn in the middle of the sidewalk, poking out of the shadows of a poorly lit corner. As he walks closer to it, he hears rustling and heaving from the shadows. He turns and makes out the form of two people struggling in the dark. One is clearly bigger than the other, dominating the situation, forcing itself upon the other. Soon his eyes adjust, and the shadows become clearer. It’s a man and woman. His mind races: What is this? Rape? Passion? A joke? He stares at them for a moment, then decides he’ll ask the woman if she’s okay, but before he can call out to her, she speaks assuredly, for his benefit as much as the shadowy man’s:]

WOMAN

 让你通我。

I’ll let you inside of me.

[FERRET looks for a second more, and decides that everything is okay. Strange, but okay. As he returns to his apartment he thinks about China, the country where people blush at the mention of sex and make love in dark corners.]

[FERRET and WEASEL are sitting, waiting to get a seat at a small, yet well known hole-in-the-wall restaurant in Shanghai. WEASEL starts gawking through the window at a waitress working in the restaurant next door.]

WEASEL

Man, she’s not bad.

FERRET

Mmm. The one in the red checkered dress thingy?

WEASEL

Yeah. But, damn girl. You’re only workin’ for 1500RMB a month! [1500RMB = approximately $220]

FERRET

What are you talking about?

WEASEL

Look at the sign in the window!

[FERRET and WEASEL begin to inspect a sign placed in the window. It reads:

招聘

服务员（女）

月薪1500元

包吃　包住

有服务经验1600元

Wanted

Waitstaff (Female)

Monthly Salary 1500RMB

Includes room and board

1600RMB if you have experience ]

FERRET

Well, at least she gets free room and board.

WEASEL

Yeah, that’s true. Hmm… and that extra 100RMB for experience.

FERRET

Yeah.

WEASEL

She’s looking at us now.

FERRET

Yeah, a deer in the headlights.

[FERRET imagines they’ve been having this conversation:]

THE GIRL

那个老外在盯我啊！

Those foreigners are looking at me.

WAITRESS

他们在找女朋友，而且觉得你好性感哦！

They’re looking for girlfriends, and they think you’re damn sexy.

THE GIRL

他们工资多少？

How much money do they make?

WAITRESS

他们是年青的，所以只是一百万。

They’re young, so only a million.

THE GIRL

没有。他们有那么多钱的话，为什么去旁边吃饭？

No way. If they had that much money, why are they going next door to eat?

WAITRESS

旁边餐厅很有名。

The restaurant next door is famous.

THE GIRL

没有这么有名。

Not that famous.

WAITRESS

哈哈，他们在看着招聘。

Haha, they’re looking at the job listing.

[THE WAITRESS notices that THE GIRL isn’t listening.]

干吗？

What are you doing?

THE GIRL

他们很有钱，可是他们的脸有寂寞的样子。

They have lots of money, but they’ve got this lonely look on their faces.

[THE GIRL looks at them, fascinated as FERRET and WEASEL discuss the sign, unsure of what to make of them. Suddenly, they are looking at her looking at them. Her co-worker urges her on.]

WAITRESS

交男朋友吧！

Get yourself a boyfriend!

[THE GIRL is confused and doesn’t know what to do. A deer in the headlights.]

The two of you gripped tightly

Vowing for the top

Unimpeded by the strange nature of your footholds

Brass, twisting like flowers and dragons, flowing in on themselves.

The years will go by and this gate will grow

So high you might think that you can’t reach the top;

You’ll say you can’t find a foothold in the tangled mess,

But even then you still can.

There’s a fat guy who rides the subways in Shanghai, admonishing the onlookers to fight against rampant corruption in Chinese society. Lately people have been finding his overtures a matter of entertainment, a good chuckle. He looked discourged. He shouldn’t be. As everyone knows, ridicule always appears before the fight. The iconoclast suffers, but we, the masses, always laugh into truth.

The timers in the Shanghai subway are changed when the trains are late. In a second, 1:15 to go suddenly becomes 2:09 and counting. A committment to accuracy for those waiting?  Or a way to avoid the consequences of poor service?

There was a child playing unattended,

Balancing precariously on a rickety, rusty public trash can,

Using a low hanging high-voltage electric cord for balast,

In the rain.

***

A man screamed suddenly next to my ear,

Abrasive, unrelenting, stern.

The entire street of vegetable sellers looked up.

I shuddered for a couple seconds,

As my mind sorted out what the hell he was saying.

Chinese often feels like that,

Like a parallel universe suddenly opens up before you,

And you need to process, to sift, to lay yourself open

And see the world as it could have been.

Up ahead there was a shopkeep quickly stepping away from a cart.

She was trying to steal his umbrella.

He was telling her to back off.

***

When I got home, my neighbor was howling,

Screaming to someone on the phone,

Wailing incomprehensibly in Chinese.

I didn’t want to get involved.

The next day the police came.

Her entire flat had been robbed,

Even the furniture,

I’m still not sure if it was hers.

***

Today someone new is moving into the woman’s flat.

Their new belongings lay strewn before my door,

Like a new furniture store, full of promise.

I saw the same little kid munching idly on some fresh dumplings,

Even as he goes to throw away an empty cola bottle, there is no mischief in his eyes.

The sun is shining. The vegetable sellers have no need for umbrellas.

***

This is the way that life wags on,

Never speaking.

As if the entirety of its creation was a secret,

Where one doesn’t know the risks, the trials or the sufferings

That moved to create it.