21st Century Chinese Poetry

Ordinarily it's the fortune tellers who are eager to engage.
One of them staked out the underpass to the train station.
He said, “oh, come, wait, look at your face, let me tell you about...”
Tell her about what? Fate? Money, love, luck, career, health?
Was the “telling” meant to map an escape route from misfortunes,
from one’s demons, the decisions made and not made?
That particular afternoon the fortune teller pointed out a few milestones,
fat years and lean years, some past, some still to come.
“Oh, but that was the year my daughter was born.”
“It had nothing to do with your daughter,” he replied.
They say fortune-tellers are masters of statistics,
using the same method as facial recognition, but leaning more on intuition.
That afternoon, when she sat before the monk, south of eastern Mongolia's grassland,
under the white and vermillion Tibetan-Buddhist monastery,
it felt less tentative than science.
Her travel companion was displeased, muttering
words such as scam, fools, weak-minded, and so on —
to the daughter of an impoverished postwar soldier,
every expense had to have a tangible purpose,
had to fit in with logic.
Towards the end of the day, they took the bus to return to the city
— so slow-moving was the bus that they wondered if the driver was paid by per passenger,
unwilling to miss the teenager dashing out from the alley
in a glorious retro-metrosexual outfit,
or the grannie with a grocery bag in her saggy arm,
or the foreign trio in black Gore-Tex, map in hand, trying to plot their next move.

Written and Translated by Meifu Wang

與算命先生相對而坐

王美富

通常算命先生是比較主動的一方。
還有一個還常常守在火車站的地下道。
那天他衝著她説：“哦，等等，過來，你的臉型，啊，請聽我說……”
要告訴她什麼？不就是命運？不就是錢財、愛情、事業和健康？
說是算命，不就是告誡如何擺脫厄運？
或是擺脫內心的掙扎，來到岔路口不得不做選擇（有的人就愛一拖再拖）？
那天下午，算命先生為她指出生命中的關卡，
豐年，荒年，過去與未來。
“哦，可是，那是我女兒出生那年。”
“這和你女兒沒有關係，” 他回答。
人們說算命先生其實是統計學大師，
用的方法與人工智慧的臉部識別類似，但更憑直覺一些。
那天下午，在蒙古草原的東南角，在一座朱白相間的藏傳佛寺的高牆下，
她與算命的相對而坐，
雖説僧侶是帶著她摸石頭過河，卻比科學家更有自信。
她的旅伴很不開心，哼哼唧唧地嘀咕著，
說什麼傻瓜，迷信，騙局，弱智，等等。
戰後士兵人家的女兒，從她的觀點，每筆開銷都必須有實際用途，
必須符合邏輯。
時近傍晚，她們一起搭車返回城市，
公車慢吞吞的走著，以至於她們開始猜測：也許司機的工資是按人計酬的，
因此不想錯過那個從巷裡衝出來的少年 - 穿著幾年前時髦過的貼身男裝 -
還有那個手臂鬆軟，擰著購物袋的老奶奶，
還有三個老外，一身新款防風防水黑外套、抓著地圖，在討論下一段旅程。

AN IMPERFECT HOUSE

by Meifu Wang

Not all houses are perfect,
some come with ad-hoc apparatus,
for example a log ladder in a two-story cob home;
some are improvised sanctums, like an igloo;
some are relics, valued only for sentiments.
Once I stayed in a house
that had rigged a wired net to act as a lift.
I was terrified after just one ride,
shaken like a bluefin tuna hoisted over open sea
or an acrobat in a glass cage at the carnival.
Not all houses are castles,
not all manors come with a chapel for prayers,
but oftentimes there are children and animals around
that more than make up for
the house's imperfection.

Written and Translated by Meifu Wang

不完美的房子

王美富

並非所有的房子都很完美，
有的就是將就將就，簡單臨時拼湊出來的，
比如土坯樓房裡瘦長的獨木梯，
老松或杉樹的樹幹鋸出來的一節;
有的是緊急避難所，如愛斯基摩人的冰屋;
還的非常破舊，像古代遺址，卻充滿回憶。
我去過的一戶人家，
他們把鐵籠簡單處理，做成臨時升降梯。
我僅僅乘坐一次，就給嚇得不可言喻，
經歷了鮪魚被撈出海面吊在半空中的心悸，
也像馬戲團的雜技演員，高懸在玻璃球裡。
並非所有的房子都是城堡，
並非所有的莊園都有清淨的诵经堂，
即便如此，附近常有小孩和小動物追逐玩耍，
足足彌補了房屋的缺陷。

WATER

by Meifu Wang

Once upon a time I saw a salt merchant sitting by her donkey cart.
She and her donkey had travelled far and waited long to enter the monastery,
but the monks’ prayers went on even longer.
By mid-morning the little monks’ clogs began to clatter behind the temple walls,
and soon the great gates opened.
The donkey finally unlocked her knees and entered the holy ground,
carrying life-saving salt, harvested from an inland sea
a few hills away.
The monastery sat on scrubland, hemmed in by bald mountains
south of the windblown Silk Road. A sleek airport was just been built
to funnel in modern visitors, offering perks like thirty free minutes on the phone.
I used one minute to call you to say goodbye.
Earlier that day, we had walked up a concrete bridge over the churning Yellow River.
At the top of its curve, you spoke of your mom and dad,
picturing them at their front door, eyes lifted, waiting for rain.
Their sod house stood north of the great Yellow River,
though your ancestors had chosen the desert as home, to elude the warlords.
Settlers everywhere tell their own stories of love for water.
There's the Fountain of Youth, the Eternal Spring, the Whispering Well, amongst others,
but of all men's intimacies with water, none is sweeter
than an oasis in the desert.