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Terracotta Typewriter #2, Summer 2009
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Terracotta Typewriter
A literary journal with
Chinese characteristics
Issue #2 July 2009
Terracotta Typewriter
A cultural revolution
of literature
Unsolicited manuscripts are welcomed throughout the year.
Terracotta Typewriter seeks submissions of literary works
with a connection to China. The definition of “connection to
China” can be stretched as much as an author sees fit. For ex-
ample, expatriate writers living in China or who have lived
in China, Chinese writers writing in English, translators of
Chinese writing, works that are set in China, manuscripts
covered in Chinese food (General Tso’s chicken doesn’t
count), or anything else a creative mind can imagine as a con-
nection to China.
© 2009 by Terracotta Typewriter. All rights reserved.
Visit our Web site at http://www.tctype.com.
This literary journal is free for distribution.
NOT FOR RESALE.
July 2009
Table of Contents
From the Editor 1
Prasanna Surakanti 2 Pictures Claiming
Adoration
Michael Shorb 3 Galloping Horse
Unearthed at Leitai, China
Charlotte Hyvernaud 5 Perceptions
Rob Schackne 9 The Bones of Fish
10 Sunday in Century Park,
Shanghai
R.J. Devoix 11 My Mother’s Dumplings
J. Whitmel Earley 15 Be Still, Shanghai
17 If Seamus Heaney Came to
Shanghai I’d Tell Him
18 June Fourth
Andrew Carpino 19 from East
Christopher Mulrooney 20 sayings of Confucius
Contributor Notes 24
From the Editor
Dear Readers,
Welcome to the second issue of Terracotta Typewriter. I’m
pleased with the response the first issue received, and I’d like
to thank everyone who read it. Of course, the success of this
literary journal couldn’t have been achieved without the
wonderful writers who submitted their work.
We recently began a couple features on the News section of
the Web site: Mandarin Mondays and Get Over the Hump.
We hope that you will find the Mandarin lessons interesting
and helpful. We also hope the writing prompts for Get Over
the Hump will breed creativity. Please e-mail us or leave a
comment if you have any questions or suggestions for either
feature.
I hope you enjoy issue number two of Terracotta Typewriter,
and continue to enjoy this literary journal far into the future.
Sincerely,
Matthew Lubin
Publisher & Editor
1
Prasanna Surakanti
Pictures claiming adoration
says Amy Lucile Rolfe
may be placed above the
level of the eye
where just pictures should
be
Pairs of statues of
men on horses
and terracotta warriors
on long cupboards
inspired awe
unlike on a ledge
at waist level.
2
Michael Shorb
Galloping Horse Unearthed at Leitai, China
Your blind green eyes saw all
There was to see on earth
Your massive bronze shoulders
Tested every grade
of mineral age and snow
Chisel-stroking sunlight of creation
Motion of a vanished master's hand.
Your silence outlasted sound:
Storm where a city burned, roaring market rivers,
Carts bearing away rice, silver, human bones.
An arrogant emperor loved you more than wisdom.
Stood you running in Taoist stillness before
His palace gate, ordered a jade sparrow
Welded to your upraised hoof to show
The speed and balance of your stillness.
The cities and systems of this earth
Are wheat fields in the mind.
Grown to bearded heights of fruitfulness
They fall
field street and armory
Threshed away
By inviolable waters of ignorant repetition.
You alone, sleeping two thousand years
Like a seed in the loam of China, remain.
3
I wanted to be among the Chinese diggers
Who discovered you. With a vanished
Youth bound for war who touched your hoof
For grace because he had no God.
To help hold you as the brushes strained
Residues of oblivion from your long smooth face,
Joining a common impulse
To lift you back into the blackbird-
Flooded skies of time,
Whole and human.
4
Charlotte Hyvernaud
Perceptions
August 1, 2007
I ’ve been in Beijing almost a week now. The skies are
grey with pollution; the air heavy with smoke and heat;
the view from the 18th floor apartment somewhat de-
pressingly blocked by high risers in the distance; the
roads are fogged up with exhaust fumes. Our apartment
building stands high in a popular area, with hairdressers/
prostitution parlours down an uneven alleyway filled with
bins bursting with rotting vegetables and pools of piss; col-
lectors pile up cardboard and plastic bottles in carts they
wheel to the end of the alleyway where they get packed up
and driven away on trucks at night; street vendors sleep on
wooden planks in cramped square rooms under the huge
apartments blocks; oblivious children sleep round street cor-
ners on carts at night. I saw a man sleeping on the pavement
the other day: he was lying there, not drunk, but sleeping,
under a bridge, seemingly unconsciously inhaling the fumes
of the busy dual carriage road. The following day he was still
there mending some rags. A few minutes away fishermen
fish in the lake; men in underwear hanging wet from their
bony buttocks swim in the canal; young girls wearing the lat-
est trend (mid-thigh flimsy dresses over lace knee-low black
stockings) smoke in the streets; young men are adorned with
tattoos and piercings; middle aged men with bellies protrud-
ing from under their rolled up white T-shirts squat, a water-
melon slice in hand; women in their pyjamas after night fall,
walk the streets leisurely; crowds shout in high-tech mobile
5
phones; startled groups of people scurry under the antici-
pated and welcomed summer rain; cycles wind in and out of
traffic. A biker almost hit a woman about to cross at a pedes-
trian red light: he turned back and his finger pointed straight
at her, hatred in his eyes, hissed, saliva dripping at the cor-
ners of his mouth.
Beijing is a world of contrasts. Unapologetically.
Third evening in a row, the refreshing rain falls down in
sparkling strings, washing away the dirt and leaving behind
the promise of a new beginning. The whole city is being
washed of the sweat and dirt it accumulated today. Yet to-
morrow will be another sweaty dirty day…From the balcony,
the windows from the surrounding buildings gleam in the
shadows at irregular intervals like a Chagall painting: one
expects some fish to float around as a reminder of Arizona
Dream.
Meanwhile, drops continue to splatter through the mosquito
window nets. Light touches of freshness. In the distance the
thunder tears the fabric of the night sky revealing the blind-
ing white light inside.
Surely a change is taking place. Outside and inside.
August 4
As we walked along the shallow canal that flows 5mn away
from the flat, squat old buildings sit in a row at the bottom of
the high risers, dwarfed by them. A rusty truck, wheel-less,
advertises for “mei rong” (beauty parlour) and the eyes of
passers-by have worn out the two upholstered chairs in a
6
junkyard behind the buildings. They sit like furniture of a
surreal theatre scene. Waiting for Godot. Soot-covered youth
pedal along the river, delivering rings of coal that look like
burnt doughnuts taken out of the oven and put to cool down
on wooden planks. Oily frying pans aligned on the pavement
evoke the remains of a frugal feast. Mothers scrub their chil-
dren who bathe in plastic basins in courtyards otherwise
piled up with antiquated junk on the pavements. A truck
parks daily along those family quarters, selling anti-
cockroaches spray.
August 5
Every time I look out of the window a new landscape seems
to have emerged since the last time I gazed out. I am discov-
ering new shapes, new lights, new voids, new colours. Differ-
ent models of life.
At night it seems some parts of the city are more beautiful,
more tranquil even. Away from the cacophonous pollution of
the soul, the noise recedes and lights shimmer in the lake. Is
there a city at the bottom of the lake, under its wriggling rip-
ples and is it only a reflection on its surface? Ducks paddling;
cranes standing on floating branches; benches in the shadows
welcome the nightwalkers. It’s around 12 at night and walk-
ing back home we come across workers carrying long bam-
boos balanced on their shoulders. They are taking the poles
to a building site.
Last evening, we were eating at the terrace of a restaurant in
a narrow street. A shiny new foreign car drove past, a self-
assured, well-dressed Chinese man in his 30s at the wheel.
7
The front bumper slightly touched the ankle of a stout,
cropped-haired Chinese passer-by. He slowly turned round,
almost indiscernibly, looking quietly at the driver. Walked
around the car. The driver pre-empting what was going to
happen gently undid his safety belt and opened the door to
face the passer-by who was now rubbing the back of his an-
kle. A hushed but straight-to-business exchange of words en-
sued, ending up in the driver handing out 100 RMB to the
passer-by. The driver climbed back into his shiny expensive
car, a faintly amused smile on his lips. The passer-by walked
on leisurely, smugly.
8
Rob Schackne
The Bones of Fish
Indented are the tiny bones
In the fossil record
Vibrating an irritation
Down strange countless years—
A teenage boy holds
An exceptional surprise
The skeleton remains
Of a nervous spinal system;
Maybe unpredictable
Balanced with a tear
Everyone eschews their memory
Leaves old things undigested—
He feels maybe he can’t love fish
Frantic in understatement
Until he can hear their bones
Perfecting the continuous wave;
Man, that system was working
Crazy and open like the swirling sea
But when waters receded
Landing the ancestors high and dry
They gave their augury to the earth
Left their lives behind on stone
Like the teeth of a billion frustrations—
Or nothing if not in the shape of bones.
9
Sunday in Century Park, Shanghai
The blue sky is against the people
Occasional birds fly high overhead
Insisting against the worsening air
She lays her light green jacket down
You lie back against a decade-old lake
On surprising grass under new trees
And she puts her head against your chest
On a heart of spring while the birds
And the people sing against time.
What is it for this time? Don’t ask
For what you don’t know anything about
This song is for everything that’s missing
The population here for the evening breeze
Forgetting the fevers of work and food
Everyone walks slowly in forgiveness
For the natural world must be remembered
One step at a time around a modern park
For cherry blossoms and the tiny mushrooms.
10
R.J. Devoix
My Mother’s Dumplings 饺子饺子饺子饺子
T here's no taste in the world better than my
mother's dumplings. On winter evenings the steam
from the dumplings would fill our small kitchen. I
remember the sound of the water boiling and the
smell of cooked pork mixed with herbs. On the walk from
school the thought of the hot dumplings warming my stom-
ach made me want to run home.
My mother was born in the summer of 1937, just before the
War of Resistance Against Japan. She grew up in a small vil-
lage in the countryside not far from the city of Chaoyang,
Fengtian (now Liaoning Province). Her parents were peas-
ants. When my mother married the young man from a
neighboring farm they were happy. He was twenty-four and
she was nineteen years old.
In those days country girls did not got to school and my
mother could not read and write. All her life she said she
wanted to learn to read but she never managed it. Instead she
took care of our family.
Once I saw a photograph of my mother. It had been taken at
a neighbour's house. It showed a smiling, red cheeked
woman holding a young child. From then I recognised the
way the sun and the wind had burnt the youth from her face.
It felt strange to look back, to think of her life at that
time. The child in the photograph was me.
11
The photograph was taken before my father went to fight
with the Nationalists against the Japanese. He did not return.
My mother would not have been able to read the telegram
that arrived at the village hall. The leader of the village had
to come to the house to read it to her. When my mother saw
him through the window she let out a high shriek. It was the
noise of a woman's worst fear. When village chief left she
locked the door so no-one could enter the house. She cried
for three whole days.
After my father's death my mother's smile changed. Her eyes
remained sad as if to honour the memory of my father. I re-
member the next Spring Holiday she put on her red quilted
jacket and tried to squeeze happiness into her voice like jam
into a bare tin. She invited the local children to play. For sup-
per we had a feast of beautiful fish, chicken, doufu, and my
favourite dumplings. My father's parents said they enjoyed it
very much. Afterwards I saw my mother sobbing, her shoul-
ders rocking silently, alone in the kitchen.
I was diligent at school. I hoped my hard work would make
my mother happy. Soon it was time for me to attend a new
school. The school was far away. I would have to stay with
an aunt in the town. How can you leave your mother? I re-
fused to go but my mother insisted. She told me that my fa-
ther had promised to teach her to read. As he couldn't do that
now someone else would need to teach her. If I learnt to read
and write then I could teach her. "Ping, will you do that for
me?"
My years at High School went quickly. The aunt took good
care of me. I concentrated on my studies. My only wish was
12
to post a present to my mother. I had no money so I painted
pictures of my school and posted them in little stiff brown
paper envelopes.
It wasn't long before I sat the university entry examinations. I
was lucky. My memory was strong and the examination
questions suited me. I was accepted at TsingHua Normal
University in Beijing. When I returned home in July that year
and told my mother the true smile returned to her face. She
was so proud she ran through the summer rain to tell our
neighbours. Later, before I left, the villagers gave me money
to help my studies.
It was in the cold weeks of late November when I received
the message. My mother had been taken ill. She was in hospi-
tal. Immediately I grabbed my bag and rushed to Beijing rail-
way station. How long had she been ill? Was she in pain?
How serious was it? My mind was in turmoil.
When I got to the town railway station Xiao Deng, the son of
our village chief, was waiting to meet me. His face was long.
I was too late. Tears welled in my eyes as he explained my
mother's illness. She had said she was unwell only the week
before. When she collapsed in the field a neighbour had ar-
ranged for a car to take her to the hospital. She had died at
dawn.
How could this happen? My mother wasn't even old.
"Why don't I take you to your parents' house?"
I nodded.
13
When we got to the house it was cold and dark. I looked
around nervously. Xiao Deng asked if I would prefer to go to
his house. His wife was making supper. "Come and have
some food," he said. I said it was okay, I wanted some time
alone.
Inside everything looked the same, as if my mother was
about to return at any moment. I stifled the urge to cry. My
mother would not approve if I shed tears before her funeral.
I looked in the small kitchen. The scruffy refrigerator stood
where it had always stood. I opened it. There was little food
inside. I pulled at the door of the small freezer compartment.
Crispy ice showered the floor like sparks jumping from a
wood fire. I pulled out a full paper bag.
On the bag was careful writing, in pencil. "Xiao Ping", it said.
I placed the bag of frozen dumplings next to the cooker and
looked for the boiling pot.
14
J. Whitmel Earley
Be Still, Shanghai
I must wake her early, on this cold March morning.
Rain again. So I lie back down next to her.
We, parallel curves leaning into coming day.
When nothing moves your weight spreads over your back
like a puddle, like goose flesh. Her skin near hot to the touch,
smooth by negation as I'm not. I ward off blurry sleep
distortions of the
room that seep in like mist through my walls, reluctant
insistence
on actuality. I dream best on the metro anyway,
in fragile vacuums, fluorescent tubes of white. She arches
her head into my collar, responding to my presence—
this is the privilege of kings, without words, beyond
purchase or wage.
While she is gone, still off in the haze, I for an instant feel
strong
like a husband. Defined by her, like a lover. But soon as
moods
fade to particulars, moments all go to movement, we will
fuss
over breakfast and I will not say how I wished never to get
up.
15
16
Gone now, I’ve descended, the stairs to the platform—my
throne to
moist city innards. The train’s rushing echo caught in my
throat I pray
be still, Shanghai, and let me know just one moment.
If Seamus Heaney Came to Shanghai I’d Tell Him
Take the back alley behind HongKou Stadium
and as you are going you will pick your way, stepping
over a bucket of eel, around the blanket of winter melon
and green leaves in the fierce hold of blue rubber bands.
Squeals of children drawn into the shade of the alleys
like echoes going backwards. Steps flattened out in the
wet film the sidewalk sweats in summer, soft suck of knife
pulled from meat, smack of dough on tin counters; all enters
through the stomach and in the shape of O’s. Do not
distinguish
but eat them whole and crack the seeds under your tongue.
It’s best to think in aftertastes. A language sensible only
between
the syllables. And do not reach for your camera or worship
the
memory. Only look back through the steam and the spokes,
with the light rubbing the blue tile and shining the ink black
wires drawn across the sky, and the humming current will
sing over you
a song of exile. In your pockets you will press your fingers
into your palms
and the space you find there will inflate your chest like a big
red balloon.
17
June Fourth
Twenty years after 6/4/89
and Shanxi road is so damn quiet.
A country lane of woven ladies shoes between
meadows of dandelion cranes.
One wishes you would
grow your bamboo. Or catch fire, blaze shops
and designer flagships and banks.
The darkness something viscous
dripping on street lights and shop windows,
bubbles of yellow slowly shrinking back
like faded memories.
A man leans on the balcony of a makeshift
dormitory full of co-workers
too sleepy for a conversation of tea
or a red bucket of suds to scrub a t-shirt.
The brave moths are twittering
in the lost hours of the retreat
caught and nervous, trapped in the glow between
the oil black and the phosphor burn.
18
19
Andrew Carpino
from East
"Funny how paper muted light,
on artificial evenings,
breath pulses into attempts
of conversation between the in and out
of block engines and the hidden master's
thoraxal orchestra in the dry tangles
of Chinese bushes in the fresh boxes."
He thought, in an ancient scene
recapping his sleep,
"Glad to be free of teenage myth,
democracy, —filled to the brim
with graces and paternal dedications.
Unsettled soldiers call, arms waving,
'dress for revolution laddy!
Long past?
Surfacing again, son,
pushing the blood through'"
Only to tarnish leather with civility.
No longer migrating smallwinged Yankees,
now a single herring, low flying
leaving ripple flutters for the koi
while turtles slow wrestle for a pile
on the indistinguishable stone sacrifice.
Christopher Mulrooney
sayings of Confucius
those of Chi without authority went to sacrifice on Mt. T’ai
thus said the Master to their minister Jan Ch’iu
it is yours to stop them in the rites
no
is Mt. T’ai stupid any more than Lin Fang?
versed in Hsia and Yin rites am I
Ch’i and Sung know nothing
unwritten untold
otherwise known
I am of Yin
Yen Ying knows people
forgives long acquaintance
study without Tao
Tao without sureness
sureness without converse
cherry flowers spin
I think of you
far away
there is what is not
superior men
Yen Hui
Min Shun Jan Keng
Jan Yung
fine speakers
Tsai Yü
Tuan-mu Tz’u
governors
20
21
Jan Ch’iu
Chung Yu
learned men
Yen Yen
Pu Shang
Yen Hui did not help me to think
he was a yes man
Yen Hui expired his father asked the Master’s carriage
to exchange it for a double coffin
the Master said to him all my pupils are my sons good or
bad
when Li my son expired he had a single coffin I did not go on
foot
so he could have a double coffin I am the son of a gentleman
and do not go on foot
Yen Hui expired all the pupils wanted to bury him richly
not Confucius yet they did so and the Master said
I was a father to Yen Hui but did not treat him as my son
this is your fault pupils
Chuan-sun Shih wanted to know about superiority and non-
sense
superiority is adherence trueness and justice
life for love death for hate
together nonsense
not for wealth
something else
Ching of Ch’i wanted to know about ruling
king king
minister minister
father father
22
son son
though grain were abundant you could not eat more
the superior man makes allowances uniquely
the inferior man is ubiquitous and irks
Nan-kung Kua asked Confucius Yi of Hsia shot well
Ao shifted a beached vessel and they died early
Yü the Great and Chi were farmers and ruled
why? the Master said nothing
afterward the Master said he is a superior man
for he prizes it
Pi Ch’en sketched it
Yu Chi analyzed it
the Great Secretary Kung-sun Hui revised it
Kung-sun Ch’iao of Tung-li polished it
Tsang-sun Ho of Fang solicited his brother Wei
as leader of the family ancestral sacrifice in Lu
it is said without pressure on the King
not so
the best withdraw
next advance
next shun
next flee
seven persons
Yüan Hui wanted to know about rule
calendar of Hsia
coach of Yin
hat of Chou
music of Shun
none of Cheng no fine speakers
Cheng is depraved fine speakers are baneful
together among kindness without justice
impossible
once the astrologer wrote nothing
when in doubt
once the horseman
had his horses broken in
not now
at forty it is necessary to win respect
Chih the great musician of Lu went to Ch’i
Kan the next went to Ch’u
Liao the next went to Ts’ai
Ch’üeh the next went to Ch’in
Fang-shu the drummer went north
Wu the drumtwirler went to the Han Valley
Yang the assistant and Hsiang who played the gongs went to
sea
in the reign of Chou
eight gentlemen four sets of twins by one mother
Po-ta and Po-kuo
Chung-tu and Chung-hu
Shu-yeh and Shu-hsia
Chi-sui and Chi-kua
23
Contributor Notes
Andrew Carpino was born, raised and schooled in New
Hampshire. After graduating with a BA in English, he trav-
eled from Kyoto to Ho Chi Minh by boats, trains, buses, and
tuk-tuks. He currently lives and works in Washington, CT,
with his girlfriend and dog, Stonewall Jackson. This is his
first published work.
R. J. Devoix is a writer and commentator. He has lived in
Asia, Europe, and North America. He speaks a little English,
Mandarin, and Cantonese, and has fun with French, German,
and Italian. He enjoys walking in the mountains where he
used to climb as a young man. He can be found at http://
www.devoix.com/.
J. Whitmel Earley is an English Literature graduate of the
University of Virginia and now lives, studies, and writes in
Shanghai, China. His poetry and short fiction, interested on
reducing cities to their people, have appeared in Relief Maga-
zine and Inkstone Magazine.
Sylvie Charlotte Hyvernaud first came to China in early
2001 to work as a volunteer for VSO, teaching English in
Qinghai province for two years. In all she stayed over six
years in Qinghai. She currently teaches French in Wuhan
where she’s been for just under one year.
Christopher Mulrooney has written poems and translations
in Nebula, Caesura, New Translations, Drunken Boat, Moloch,
and The Delinquent.
24
Rob Schackne is an Australian writer currently working in
China, watching it all get curiouser and curiouser—and some
days he thinks there's nothing easy about the Tao. In spite of
that—or because of it—there’s a slightly feverish literary blog
he writes with Boris Knack called “The Tao That Can Be
Named…” which is found at http://www.blognow.com.au/
borisknack.
Michael Shorb's work reflects a satirical focus on present
day trends and events, as well as a lyrical interest in culture
and history. His poems have appeared in The Nation, The Sun,
Michigan Quarterly Review, Poetry Salzburg Review, Rattle, and
European Judaism, as well as other publications and antholo-
gies.
Prasanna Surakanti is an electrical engineer interested in lit-
erature. Prasanna’s previous work appeared in the Fall 2007
edition of Ignite ASU poetry magazine (http://
www.west.asu.edu/ignite/publications.html) and in K.L.
Storers chapbook The Motion in Motive (http://
www.thewritegallery.com/cb/motion-motive/sundial.html).
25