Cultural Garden
The Turkish sunset is probably not like this. He swayed, lying on the loose armrest of the ambulance stretcher,
looking at everything, all dissolving into a milky-white sour round. The one who loves him decided back in Sichuan
that he would come to Shanghai to work. Slowly, when he’d finished high school, he left Istanbul, met him in person, rented a place, went to university,
met his widowed mother, bought ingredients to cook. But he never thought only old-fashioned people like him tend to witness time shuttling past, or see all things new.
Sadhu life
Making love is such a simple matter. Although I’d chatted meticulously for a week, he always set up meetings in
slightly improbable places. Finally, from afar he saw that reflection of his profile, still in the taxi, flash in the mirror
the colour of the sky outside the rain, adds drumbeats to the chest in an instant. Actually, what has that got to do with making love? You still have no way to understand,
I can do it with anyone, but I like him, so I want to show my truest self to him. Can you?
Iron Village
In the deep of night, she suddenly returned, rushed to the closet upon opening the door, furiously stuffing all sorts of clothes into her backpack.
He woke with a start, got out of bed barefoot, asked what was the matter. She rushed into his arms, grabbed his hand and said, touch me
here, my heart, it’s jumping so fast. The raised hand was still hanging by his side, and he already felt a slap dispersing all the gods
in his brain. Everyone is the outer suburbs, it’s not so easy to come and go, and not so easy to leave a lasting imprint.
Oblique Pool
He writes scripts, the light rail tracks passing the bridge, her fingernail seeming to flick the gravel protruding from the cement pillar.
The midday sky is shaken by unceasing traffic. She pressed herself against the mirror in the lift, letting him remove from her body
any horizontal lines he liked. She heard the sunset is like a chestnut, cracking open the barbed shell, the glossy lustre gently incited by the head of
the night heron. The wind in the body, like the displaced air in a subway car when it opens, the cool air shifting out hitting you by chance like a person.
Revival Island
Only after their son graduated from university did they divorce. He chose a few winter clothes, then gently locked the door.
He felt like the wind was very dark, and while crossing the iron bridge, the distant outline of the wheel pushing itself against the waves
onto the bank. Two months later, his son decided to go to Japan to continue his studies. He helped him on his visa run, sold the house
his father left, and stayed for a few days by the by. Just so in the emptiness of waiting did Spring slowly arrive.
Shiliupu
At that time, his father hadn’t passed away yet, but he knew he would never be able to return to Shanghai.
Accompanying his non-Shanghai friends on the Bund, he gazed at the rarely visited seagulls, exulting. They spread their wide
wings, in flickering sweeps across the water. He caught their yellow shackles in an instant, like crescents,
gently scraping the sky: under the light green backdrop, appear countless meandering, wasted sentences.
Bridge of Release
When the good weather finally returned, they went to see a friend’s new house together. It is a villa along the river with a private garden,
the sunroom full of callas, and in the corner opposite the stairs hung oil paintings. The friend’s mixed son, not yet a year old,
already knew how to press his palms together before the Buddha statue. The friend’s parents bought groceries home, and he found even they, too, were already
white and grizzled. The sugar-soaked walnuts were delicious, in the mushroom bun there was some unknown fuzz, finely chopped together.
Shanghai Stories
Xiao Shui
translated from the Chinese by Judith Huang
Read the original in Chinese, Simplified
Listen to the original Chinese read by the poet:
I came to know Xiao Shui’s work through the literary collective Spittoon in Beijing, and immediately fell in love with the evocative and beautiful little vignettes and narratives which spoke to my own aesthetic as a poet. I was asked to translate some poems for Spittoon and soon wanted to read more so I got the poet’s contact. Then we were able to discuss the nuances of each piece, and he revealed that they are all “true stories”, filtered through his sensibility. Having lived in China for two and a half years, I was more familiar with the cultural context of migration, alienation and the rare spark of human connection in this vast and beautiful, complex country in flux. It was a privilege to be able to work closely with Xiao Shui himself on these translations.
Xiao Shui (b. 1980, Chenzhou, Hunan, China) has a degree in law and Chinese literature from Fudan University. His published collections include Lost and Found, Chinese Class, and Chinese Mugwort: New Jueju Poetry.
Judith Huang was shortlisted for the Epigram Book Fiction Prize 2017 with her bestselling first novel, Sofia and the Utopia Machine. A three-time winner of the Foyle Young Poet of the Year Award, she graduated from Harvard University and works as a writer, editor, and translator. She has translated four books of Chinese poetry by Cultural Medallion winner Yeng Pway Ngon. She has published in Prairie Schooner, Asia Literary Review, QLRS, Cha, and many anthologies. She taught writing at Yale-NUS College and is currently working on her second novel, By the Nose.
