LǍOWÀI: The Cultural Othering of Multiple Selves

    Watched with curiosity & disdain:
    I am the Other that is foreign,
    a strange monkey not understanding Chinese ways.

    I am hordes of barbarians storming the imperial gates
    & monks from shrouded mountains far away.

    I am the haughty British opium merchant
    with paunchy belly & teeth decayed.

    I am the village drunkard
    seemingly harmless but crazed.

    I am an impoverished girl sold into prostitution
    so her parents can eat another day.

    I am the demented school teacher
    whose calligraphy is above disdain.

    I am the aging eunuch
    whose testicles rot in a cracked porcelain vase.

    I'm that which some pray for
    while others scorn:
    I am each revolution that allows
    the old to become transmute into new norms!


n-Yi:    (shaking her head) This poem is counter-revolutionary! In my village, it would be burned.

Daiki:   To the contrary – I believe it suggests a real revolution involves something 
         more than replacing one ruler with another.

Chariya: Real revolution? (laughing dryly) Perhaps a change in human DNA is needed for that.

Bhäraté: Do you think our genes are the problem?

Chariya: (scratching his head) I honestly don't know what to think anymore. Maybe we should think 
         less and observe more?


=====================================================================================
from _Pan-Asian Pulses: Poetry, Art, and Dialogs about Asia_ by T Newfields
SUMMARY: A poem about foreigness and conversation about revolution.
KEYWORDS:  otherness, foreignness, revolutions, hegemony, Chinese history, gaijin, counter-revolution

Author: T Newfields [Nitta Hirou / Huáng Yuèwǔ] (b. 1955)
Begun: 2014 in Tokyo, Japan ≜ Finished: 2021 in Yokohama, Japan
Creative Commons License: Attribution. {{CC-BY-4.0}} Granted

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