Thoughts from Xi’an

At the end of August, I had the opportunity to be a delegate for the Dragon 100 in Hong Kong and China. It was amazing to be with so many Chinese leaders from around the world. Thanks to the Wing Luke Asian Museum, Dragon Foundation, and Washington State Arts Commission for their support.

In the photo above, you can see half my face fifth from the left in the top row to the right of the really tall guy. Below are some of my informal impressions from the experience.

What I eat in a day
could feed 100 people.

What I see in one hour
could inspire 100 lives.

How did I become so lucky
to be descended from a dragon,
to be fed and clothed
with a wooden comb for my black hair?

How can I lift this fork and feel blessed
when children come to my hotel window
hungry ghosts all waiting to be fed?

When my bones are brittle and my breath is cold
acid raindrops from the dark grey sky
beat the drum tower down to red splinters.

I crawl towards a tiny bird
to warm the blood in my veins
with fire from her flapping wings.

11th photo op
of an old man with cigarette
who stares at the camera
while the tea pot bleeds.

His ashes surround two cups –
cracked blue and white porcelain.

Above a Mao jacket
his eyes declaim:
Good morning, Young Dragons.
Zhao an, Xiao Long.

Black mat floors
puddle from the water of
pipes hidden above the ceiling
in the archaeology exhibition.

Unable to see
the boy paws
the Plexiglas.

His fumbling prints leave
an indecipherable hieroglyphic.

In the Xi’an airport at midnight
unattended baggage waits
in the empty load/unload zone.

A body becomes the testing ground
for paperwork between countries.

Pigs stare quietly
from the holding pen
of the truck.

On the bus
tourists chatter noisily
until one passes out
from the air-con mixed with
the stale taste of pork fat
from breakfast.

Concrete encased flowers
learn not to cry out.

Just bloom
a pretty purple
fed by sugar water.

An anthem of love
echoes throughout
the hollow auditorium.

Hands raise a salute
of the mimed cigarette lighters
with sputtering flames.

He had one of those faces
I’d only seen in clay.

The clay from 2,000 years ago
dug up from the tomb
of a decomposed emperor.

I reach to touch this face
three seats away
indented to the bone.

Moving closer
I notice that
the smoothness
is pockmarked.

I close my eyes
to decipher this coded braille
pockets of space and time
in the pores of past and present.

Confused like the clay
dug up from a grave.

Confused like the face
struggling to stay alive.

Confused like this boy
with many futures to choose.

Fingers trace the topography of being Chinese
the outer shell of a soul where
eyebrows catch the perspiration,
the flooded field before the flood,
rivulets through the hills
of oil and dust.

Red flower
I go towards you
and see curled leaves
above rotted roots.

I hope you’ve enjoyed the photos and poetry. The final photos are from the Xi’an Drum Tower. This was my favorite place despite the pollution hovering outside and the odd context of the drums .

The “No Smoking” sign tacked to the drum stand is my favorite touch.

Here’s a close-up.

 

Five years after 9/11

Five years ago, my friend Michelle woke me up early one morning. I had been dreaming of grey clouds covering blue skies. Bleary eyed, I watched in confusion as she pointed to her TV.

Black smoke and crumbling towers filled the tiny screen. Over and over again: two mechanical birds crashed into the World Trade Center, fires exploded from the skyscraper windows, then fearful faces looked up.

Over and over again.

Five years later, the airport security guard makes me drink my bottled water before boarding a plane from Hong Kong to Los Angeles. I am scared to wear certain clothes in public and I have mixed feelings about being a U.S. citizen.

Do other people with black hair dread going outside?

I am inspired by all those who continue to work at ground zero. I applaud seekers of truth in this time of loss. I applaud those who reveal the stories of people who have been neglected.

Dylan Yeats sent me one such project about the impact of 9/11 on New York City’s Chinatown.

Ground One: Voices of Post-9/11 Chinatown

I take a moment this morning to remember, then muster up the courage to begin my day by stepping outside.

 

My first trip to China

This July, I visited Xiamen, Fuzhou, Shanghai, and Beijing. This was my first time in mainland China. The first week, I traveled with my grandmother, dad, first uncle and aunt, third uncle, and fourth aunt.

We explored the island city of Xiamen where my grandmother went to boarding school beginning at age 13. Throughout our time there, my 97-year-old grandmother asked, “What are we doing in Hong Kong today?”

Xiamen had changed since she was young. It was now full of high rises and she was surprised. I was also surprised by China’s modernization.

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Here are impressions from Xiamen…

At the seafood restaurant
the rollerskating waitress falls
porcelin shatters surprising the cicadas.

Xiamen University has
music practice rooms
that face the ocean.

A tenor sings Puccini
to the container ships.

Luxury accomodations
23 stories high
with an elevator that traps
my screaming grandmother.

Here are photos from Gulangyu, an island that used to bear the sign “no Chinese, no dogs.” it was inhabited by foreigners from 13 different countries and had mansions and pianos to rival Europe.

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After Xiamen, my dad returned to Seattle, my other relatives went to Manila. I went on my own to Shanghai. I stayed with two teachers, age 70 and 64.

In this metropolis of 20 million, I’m surprised to see old men wear pajamas on the main tourist drag Nanjing Lu. Children run around naked enjoying the People’s Square fountain in the summer heat. Storeowners say “man zou” or walk slowly as the good-bye phrase, so I feel relaxed, even though my feet hurt from walking all day.

Sitting in the history museum
I watch a silent film
projected onto the side of a model T
driven by a wax Englishman.
a Shanghai orphan from the 1920s
looks for work pushing rickshaws.

I watch quietly
until a startled girl jumps
realizing I’m not wax.

Isetan near the Ritz
Karen Carpenter sings
every sha na na na
while a violin plays
the Tonight melody
from West Side Story.

This is what the white marble floors echo
footsteps of Shanghai shoppers buying
clothes the price of an airline ticket to Beijing.

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After Shanghai, I went to Beijing. I visited all the main attractions: Tianamen Square, the Forbidden City, Tian Tan, and the Great Wall.

I was very lucky to have Suli, Jessie, and Chen as hosts. They brought me to a retro Mao military bar, a tea house, the conservatory of music, and other places. Still, I was saddened by Beijing, especially the pollution.

Haze of smog
over the capital
the cicadas muffled
from lack of oxygen
accompanied by hand phone gulps
brown water
blurry sky
blossoms taunt pink
as I search for the buddha.

Speaking in shapes
the poet uses his hands
clearing the air
flattening a plane
curling upwards
falling diagonally
circles upon circles
tightening the heart.

Smoking a cigarette
past the “no smoking, no scratching” sign,
an old man with heaving breaths
passes me up the Great Wall.

A boy in a red hat
picks through the garbage
searching for plastic bottles.

He finds a battery
and studies the shape
as if it were a snuff bottle
from the Qin dynasty.

He has no pockets
for his treasure
only bags
of flattened bottles.

What is it like
to face a wall
day after day
mortar from the blood
of our ancestors lost
crushed from stones
now carved with the scratches
of signatures from those who pay
the $45 RMB entrance fee?

The boy’s half-nylon sock
tan and see-through
covers a bony ankle above
orange-black tennis shoes.

He studies his scraped knee
the mountains shaped by the wall
a dragon sloping up and down
the angle of his elbow
as it rests against handrail.

I imagine him accusing me
10 years from now
“you are lucky to travel”
not realizing that I just want
to lay my head on my own pillow.

Aunt with the flowery shirt
faded from the sun
wears a straw hat
that matches her straw broom.

She sweeps in the crevices
of past laborers
their ashes from no incense
passing the red hat boy with blue veins
“get back to work,” she says.

On the Great Wall
I catch his smile
and offer him a peach
thinking that maybe
like Monkey
he can escape, but knowing
as the wall is long
and broken at parts
that the juice of fruit
is only temporary.

I have many more thoughts about China that I will continue to write. The exciting news is that I will be going back to China in August as a delegate for the Dragon 100.

 

Ishquoh: Where Sounds Meet

There is a point in the old town area of Issaquah, where Front Street, Dogwood, and Rainier Boulevard intersect. Train tracks cross a creek traveled by salmon and in the distance Tiger and Squak Mountains converge. I am excited by this location, inspired by both the historic railway tracks that are part of American iconography and the glorious power of the Pacific Northwest ecosystem.

Puget Sound Coast Salish originally called this place home. They gathered berries and roots and were blessed with the cedar and salmon. The Lushootseed Salish called this area “Ishquoh” from the sound of waterfowl taking flight. They rarely went into the mountains, but knew that the Issaquah Alps contained “fire rocks.”

When non-Native Americans entered the area in the 1860s, Ishquoh was transformed from a sustainable home for the Puget Salish to an area mined for coal. For nearly 100 years, coal miners transformed the landscape and left holes in the earth. In it’s heyday, Issaquah’s mining town had 1,000 residents.

Today, over 17,000 people live in Issaquah. A few citizens are descended from coal miners, but most are recent transplants from all over America, China, India, and other parts of the world. They come for the forests, lakes, hiking trails, and historic ambiance. Standing on Front Street looking towards the mountains, I close my eyes to feel the breathtaking natural beauty and suddenly, I am no longer in Issaquah.

Car engines growl. Brakes squeak. Tires swoosh. Noise, from the Latin word for Nausea, causes my stomach to churn. Instead of the expected wind, water, and bird songs, I hear the roadway sounds of Anywhere, America.

I live in a country where people dream of finding a peaceful home. Issaquah has that potential, yet my ears and stomach ask me: “10,000 years from now, will you be able to hear ‘ishquoh’ ring through the trees?” I ponder this question with rocks and water, listening to my footsteps between the train tracks as I walk quietly towards the cedar trees.

Invited by the Issaquah Arts Commission, I create a musical ceremony where the streets, train tracks, creek, and mountains meet. The site-responsive work Ishquoh: Where Sounds Meet will happen just before sunset on October 14, 2006. The performance space will be between and alongside the railroad tracks from Dogwood Street to the 1889 Train Depot. With music and movement, my performers and I will explore how people affect the natural environment in the historically charged, stunning location many children call home.

4Culture and the Issaquah Arts Commission are the presenters of this project. Thanks to Karen Klein (Issaquah Historical Society), Charlie Rathbun (4Culture), June Sekiguchi (Issaquah Arts Commission), and Coll Thrush (University of British Columbia) for their expert advice in the initial development of this project.

 

SAMAI: Lost in Time

When Archana Kumar and I met last month, she had just returned with Ying Zhou from the Asia Meets Asia Festival in Tokyo. We talked about how global time zones affect our chronological, metaphoric, relative, and genetic sense of time. These thoughts form the basis of Samai: Lost in Time, a new work we will premiere at the Grand Reopening Celebration of the Seattle Asian Art Museum on January 21, 2006.

Archana and Ying are very musical choreographers. While watching a preliminary version of Samai, I noticed their penchant for momentary pauses where they spoke or sung. These moments were surrounded by detailed gestures. Their movement ideas at Open Flight’s second floor dance studio with the ticking clock reverberating and cars passing on the rain-swept street below revealed a complete world.

Therefore, the musical score I created is sparse. I surround my voice with three prayer bowls tuned a fifth and a tri-tone apart. I also use a few rice grains and two sticks. With these instruments I play music that initially references chronological time with a stick strike every second. This transforms into a dream-like soundscape with resonant elongated vocals singing:

Dho pal ttokar, rakthee hoon, uski raahein takthee hoon.
(I am ready to give away my time as long as I see that person’s shadow.)

Bandhene lagi, yun kisi ke saath zindagi.
(As I walk down the road, my life begins to braid with the lives it comes across.)

1979. 2001. Falling rice. Stuck. Heavy. Small village.

In addition, these are some of the words and images that pass through my mind as I sing:

Flesh. Husk of rice. Deception. Balance. Eyes winking. Confusion. Sorrow. Amazement. Fear. Pleasure. Turmoil. Commotion.

Working on Samai, I realize that the space between the live music and silence holds the elusive and complex character we call time. This is the space where we often find ourselves: lost denizens traveling through life.

Watch a Windows Media Video excerpt from the performance at the Z.A. Ensemble link on Archana’s website.