on every street

"...and it's your face i'm looking for on every street."

noodle and little chinese seamstress for a laugh

welcome, my honorable guests. please sit over there for a while, before i assign to each of you some quality times to be on my bedside, when we will spend hours together reading.

first, you, "noodle maker" by ma jian. yes, you please sit there next to the red dust which i havent returned to its owner.

and then next... yes you, "balzac, and the little chinese steamstress" by dai sijie, please go with 'sang pemimpi', the dreamer, which i just finished yesterday.

and finally, by mo yan, "shin, you'll do anything for a laugh", please take your place on the left deck as i may i give you the opportunity to be read first.

well, thank you for coming from china. i hope with your companion, my weekends and my late night moments will be somehow more oriental. i know santo quite well, a good man who sent you here. maybe he wants me to read the three of you to convert me from a russian-and-irish-literature lover to a big fan of chinese stories. hoho... i cant tell for sure. but nevertheless i should give a credit to emily as well for introducing me to the red dust, a book which carried me to tibet in my dream.

so please feel comfortable in my room. stay as it will be your new home. and if you want some green tea, its available on the plastic box above the fridge.

five to one

there are five principles that you have to know and respect when dealing with the people's republic...

1. mutual respect for each other's territorial integrity and national sovereignty.

2. mutual non-aggression.

3. mutual non-intereference in each other's internal affairs.

4. equality and mutual benefit.

5. peaceful co-existence.

interesting, isn't it?

red flag at dusk

it's coming through a hole in the air, from those nights in tiananmen square. it's coming from the feel that this ain't exactly real, or it's real, but it ain't exactly there.

it's coming through a crack in the wall; on a visionary flood of alcohol; from the staggering account of the sermon on the mount which i don't pretend to understand at all...

it's coming from the sorrow in the street, the holy places where the races meet; it's coming to america first, the cradle of the best and of the worst...

it's there they got the range and the machinery for change and it's there they got the spiritual thirst. it's there the family's broken and it's there the lonely say that the heart has got to open in a fundamental way...

i'm sentimental, if you know what i mean; i love the country but i can't stand the scene. and i'm neither left or right i'm just staying home tonight, getting lost in that hopeless little screen. but i'm stubborn as those garbage bags that time cannot decay, i'm junk but i'm still holding up this little wild bouquet...

where there's a great will...

...there's a great wall.