Tags
Ansel Adams, Dim sum, El Capitan, foreign mud, Hong Kong, Jetcat, kitchen god, Kung Fu, lai see, Lion Dance, lotus, Mongkok, opium, Pearl River, sampan, Tsao Wang, Winna Lodge, Yosemite, Zhaoqing
Found this period piece in the garage:
(View of Zhaoqing- 7 Stars by Antoine Mouquet,
23/7/2005)
It’s just as well there are no Pearly Gates
in Spring Festival iconography,
such is the push to be the first one through.
Being British, we naturally wait,
believing that the last shall be first.
Chinese courtesy proves just as ‘Christian’
and stewards show tourists to the best seats-
or is it that we have a group booking?
Further enigmas for us to ponder.
From the Jetcat we hear the deep drum beats
of a Lion Dance; then we are whisked away
from Zhaoqing to Hong Kong, through a grey mist,
as dreich as any Calvinist devil
trafficking in foreign mud* could invoke,
to cover up his nefarious deeds.
Sampan fishermen float among lotus,
seeking a catch of mercury-tainted fry,
while passengers gorge pre-ordered noodles,
violent videos, or gawp at old films
of Yosemite’s winter wonderland,
with El Capitan’s giant monolith
more enduring than Communism.
I feel guilt, having experienced both:
the luxury of Winona Lodge and
mainland China’s dire sanitation.
My eyes stray to a peeling pagoda
while chipmunks skitter through the pristine snow
on screen. The only wildlife that I saw
in town was a dangling, threaded turtle
and two spiny creatures gnawing through mesh,
in adjacent cages outside a shop,
while all the little yellow trapped birds sang,
to celebrate the British Handover.
By the time we had reached the neon bay,
the children had grown bored by loud Kung Fu
and animal tracks in Adams country.
They were focusing on their next Dim Sum
and whether the Kitchen God, Tsao Wang,
would report favourably about them,
on his annual journey to Heaven
(which might have seemed like the United States
to those who had no hope of travelling there.)
Clutching their scarlet Lai See envelopes,
they sought Mongkok, their Chinese Paradise,
to eat mushrooms of opportunity
with relatives who must have pushed harder.
We waited politely and then disembarked.
The Star Ferry turned around and sailed back.
* opium
