Saturday night, when Benjamin Martin set foot in the JZ Club near the corner of Fuxing Xi Lu and Yongfu Lu, he found himself in a packed music box, the music venue in town, and it was already full, like every weekend.

Benjamin was in a high-spirited hunting mood.

A handsome man in his mid-thirties, tall and well-built, he believed in taking good care of himself by eating well and strictly sticking to his exercise schedule, even reading, both Internet articles and books, so he could be as physically and intellectually fit as possible. He had been trying his best to train himself into a Renaissance man, equally conversant about wine as well as baseball, the Chinese Tang dynasty’s history as well as the American Civil War‘s, and Shanghai women as well as Paris Fashion Week, all with the goal of easily passing as a perfect lover and a brilliant mind.

A young Chinese girl was looking at his direction. She was a pretty girl about 20 years old, with silky black hair, full lips, and of average height, but with lines of pleasing proportions, with a small, tight,waist that created an illusion that it could be easily held in one hand.

When her eyes saw Benjamin, an almost unnoticeable smile of desire crawled up to her eyebrows.

Benjamin deftly returned her interest.

She turned her head aside at once, pretending to be not interested, but couldn’t help laying her eyes back on him again. He took the hint and went over to her.

“Hi,” he extended his hand, “I’m Benjamin.”

“Spring,” she replied, taking his hand with much delight.

“What a beautiful name!”, for Benjamin never forgot to pay any girl a compliment, “And, may I say, you look stunning!”

She cast her eyes down slightly, however, the pleased flushing shown on her cheeks didn’t escape his observant eyes.

“Are you Shanghainese?” he asked her in the casual way that people have when
they say, “how are you?”.

“No. I’m from Tianjin, the city very close to Beijing.”

Her answer relieved him somewhat. Shanghainese girls had gained some notoriety for being too practical, calculating, and tough to deal with. For Benjamin, it was always a good sign to know that the girl he was hitting on was not a local.

Yes, he admitted to himself that he was holding a prejudice against Shanghainese women based on stereotypes. But, he also justified his prejudice by reasoning, “I’m a very busy man. I don’t have time to waste on proving a stereotype is right or wrong.”

However when it came to himself, Benjamin was more open-minded and impartial, which was also quite human, since we all tend to love ourselves a little more, and was generally quite satisfied with himself. He loved what he saw in the mirror every morning, enjoyed what his mind had to say every day, and took great pleasure in how his body performed every night.

If there was one itsy-bitsy regret, it probably would be that he was an American. Oh, please don’t get him wrong, Benjamin loved his country. Most of the time, he was proud to be a great Yankee. Sometimes, when he crossed borders, he would hold his passport in hand and confidently grin, thinking, “With a U.S. passport, the world is yours.”

But, whenever with other cosmopolitans in this oriental melting pot, he couldn’t help thinking that,were he born French or British, how much easier it would be for him to make others believe he was an interesting and intelligent person, because he would have had better stereotypes to work with in dealing with them, since Europeans are supposed to be cultured and sophisticated, unlike Americans.

As an American, Benjamin was supposed to be rude and stupid. He admitted that there certainly were rude and stupid Americans, whom even he looked down on. But Benjamin certainly wanted to make the point that not all Americans are rude and stupid, and there were also plenty of polite and smart ones, like him, to say the least. So, for him, the phrase, “You are so American” became the worst insult he could get, and he hated every syllable of it. It felt unfair, because it was such an easy comment to make, it also wiped out all of his efforts at being a true gentleman, and, worst of all, Benjamin couldn’t even argue about it, because he was an American.

“What about you,” he heard Spring asking, “where are you from?”
He flashed a charming wink, “Everywhere.”

She giggled at his answer, “Interesting!”  In fact, she couldn’t care less.

He knew very well his “everywhere” would work on a girl: it was cute, indicated an atmosphere of adventure and mystery, and girls liked that.

“Can I get you anything to drink?”

She nodded her head, “Dirty Martini,” eagerly accepting his offer.

When Benjamin came back from the bar with two dirty Martinis in hands, he found Spring had another companion by her side, a stout man in his 40s, with red skin and dirty brown hair.  When he came up to her, she introduced them to each other, “ Benjamin, this is David.”

They simultaneously said, “Hey”, and nodded greetings.

“Where are you from?” David spoke in a drawl, coming from through his nose than his mouth.

Benjamin understood his cute “everywhere” answer wouldn’t do here, as it would be too obvious that he was trying to avoid something. So, he replied, “The States. You?”

“Australia.”

Benjamin gave a slight sigh of relief inside his head. Thank God, it was Australia,  as Australians were regarded as equally rude, if not ruder, and crude as Americans.

.
Just then, a third man came up to this little group. He had dark hair and a slightly-snarled face, somewhat like a half-ironed walnut; but also looked stylish in his well-fitted suit, with a bright-yellow-colored dress shirt, and an aura of better-than-anyone-else.

He greeted Spring with a “Buona Sera, Bella!!!,” threw up his hands dramatically and hugged her like a bear crushing a frightened bird. Then, he turned to David and slapped him on the back, “Hey, buddy. It’s been a long time. How is everything?”  Finally, he noticed Benjamin.

“Benjamin,” Benjamin reached forth his hand, “Nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you! Donato. Donato Barboni.” He spoke in the romantic, singing tones of the unmistakeable Italian accent, “Where are you from?”

A bit self-consciously, “The States,” Benjamin replied in a muffled voice.
“Oh…”, Donato smiled, “the U.S.”

“Was it a smirk?”, Benjamin thought to himself.

Evidently, Spring, David, and Donato already knew each other, so they naturally went into their catching-up ritual.

Donato came first, and started briefing what was new with him, with his plans to import Italian wine to Shanghai. He was very excited about this idea, and soon began counting the restaurants he planned to contact one by one, Da Marco, Issimo, Gennaro…
“Wine is so hot here right now, and it’s continually getting hotter. I’m also thinking about organizing a wine tour in Italy next year,” and his voice rose with excitement.

Armed with the spirit of self-advertising, Benjamin realized here was the place to jump in to make the point that he was more than an average American, and was, in fact, a man of culture, “That’s interesting. At least it will give Chinese more to taste and talk about than Chateau Lafite and Great Wall.”

He was happy with what he came up with, because it showed his knowledge of the current trends in food and drink, and what tickled Chinese consumers,too.

Benjamin further amplified his statement’s effect, by rambling on, with utmost enthusiasm, about how Chinese nouveau-riche are obsessed with big names in the wine world, without really caring about the taste of the actual product, the rising price of Bordeaux wines, French culture, New Orleans, Jazz, Hip-Hop, the Taiwanese rap singer Jay Chou, the differences between the Chinese and Latin writing systems, the differences between simplified Chinese characters and traditional ones, the lack of “R”  and “Sh” sounds in Japanese, the difficulties of understanding Japanese-speakers’ accents when they speak English, how Koreans ended up with a bad reputation among their neighbors due to their claims to inventing all of the great Asian cultures, Korean barbecue, Turkish kebab, Egypt and Africa, the latter’s many wars and resources, and, finally, back to China.

All of those words and topics flew out of his mouth like a stream of lotuses, with a lovely, smooth and delicate rhythm. When he uttered the last period of his last statement on them, the other three persons around him all appeared mesmerized and stupefied.

“What were we talking about at the first place?”, they all wondered in their bewilderment.

“Was it one of my never-go-anywhere-but-good-for-a-little-talk business ideas?,” Donato recalled vaguely to himself.

“Jeez, this guy is a talker!”,  the vanquished David thought, while guzzling down his beer, which was already getting warm during Benjamin’s world-tour speech.

Overwhelmed, Spring gazed at Benjamin admiringly, “Wow, there are so many things about China he knows that  I don’t even know. What a great mind he has! And,” with a  beam spreading over her pinkish face, “what a great body he has too!”

There was a prolonged vacant pause among the four-some following Benjamin’s speech,  as if all of the available topics had been exploited that night, and now there was only awkward silence left for them to enjoy.

Benjamin again bravely stepped in, opening his mouth, “You know…”

Before Benjamin finished his first sentence, David jumped up, “Oh, excuse me, I have to go to say hello to an old friend,” and vaguely pointed at the bar area, before hurrying away like a kid escaping from his principal’s lecture.

.“Ah, I just remember I need to get up early tomorrow.”, Donato spoke as he made up his excuse.

“You do? It’s Sunday tomorrow,” asked Spring.

“Yeah, yeah, you know, the wine thing, the thing I was talking about,” he stammered, “I need to get up early to get to that, the wine thing.”

The three of them exchanged cordial farewells, and Donato left.

Now only Spring and Benjamin remained

“Do you need to get up early tomorrow, too?”, Benjamin asked Spring.

She shook her head.

“Do you want to watch a DVD with me?”, Benjamin asked her, throwing just a little sexual intonation into his voice to add to his triumph.

Spring nodded her head vigorously.

* * *

“Come on in.” Benjamin said, as he opened the door of his apartment. When it was shut, Spring turned her face towards him and looked into his eyes with much tenderness. He pressed her closer to him and gently pressed his lips on her eyelids, then on her little nose. But before his lips moved onto hers, she said in a flattering tone, “You are so American, rule them all.”

Ever on the alert, Benjamin froze still, “What do you mean?!”

“I mean you are the man of the men, the ruler of them all…”

“No, the one you said before that,”the smile had gone off his face.

“Before that?” she thought for a second. “The men I’ve dated?”

“No, the one after that.”

“You are an American?”

“Yes, right there! You said I am so American.”

“You are! You are American, aren’t you?”. Spring was innocently confused.

“I am. But when people say, ‘You are so American,’ they mean something else.”

“What something else?”, she asked, genuinely unsure, then added to clear things up, “I love Americans, they are macho and tough, I love that in a man,” and leaned in to him, tipsily and flirtatiously.

“Oh, no, no! Now, you are humoring me,” as Benjamin held Spring by the arms and pushed her away a little.

“You just told me you have dated men from other countries. If you mean what you just said, I want you to be more specific, I want you to write down the pros and cons of Americans point by point. I want you to prove to me I am the best, the most interesting, the most macho of them all.”

“Now?” she asked in the midst of intoxicated and dizzy air, “It’s three o’clock in the morning.”

“Yes. Now.” He was determined.

“I thought you wanted to…”, she rolled her eyes, “…watch a DVD.”

“Yes, that too. But this is important! Important to me!”.  To explain himself better, Benjamin went on, “Just think about this, if I had a Japanese girlfriend before, don’t you want to know who I prefer, you or that Japanese girl?”

“You had a Japanese girlfriend?”, she became curious.

“It’s a hypothesis.”

Without understanding him, she followed her own thoughts, “Where did you meet the Japanese girl? Japanese, they seldom mingle with other expats here.”

“No. It’s a hypothesis. It’s not real. What I am trying to say is in a similar circumstance, you’d be just like me.  Race envy and rivalry are deep inside us, every one of us.”

Spring studied his eyes for a long while, then finally said, “Did you just say girlfriend? You want a serious relationship between us? I thought this is a one-night thing,” she was almost moved.

“No, no, no. You’re not getting the point here. I am not talking about us. I am talking about me. I didn’t say anything about us being boyfriend-girlfriend. This is a one-night thing.”

She widened her eyes, looking hurt, as there is always something that is better left unsaid, even though everyone knows the truth.

Benjamin couldn’t believe he had been talked into a corner by this girl. Or, was it only by himself?

“You know, you are so not like the Americans I’ve ever known,” she tilted her head backwards.

Right then, he felt all of his night’s long work had paid off, and a deep relief and contentment welled up from the bottom of his heart.

Spring stood up straight  and declared, “You are so sensitive and…”, searching hard for the right word from her limited vocabulary,  until she finally found it, “weird.”

She then opened the door herself and stomped out of Benjamin’s apartment without looking back.

After Benjamin shut the door, he leaned against it, like waking from a dream, and, for the first time that night, asked himself, “Didn’t I go out to get a girl in the first place?”

“Well,” quickly brushing this fuzzy thought aside, “at least I am so not like the Americans she has ever known,” and the corners of his mouth began to curl up with self-assurance.
A charming smile hovering about his lips was reflected on the mirror hanging by the doorside. Benjamin was unspeakably satisfied with himself.

Author Biography

Ginger is a female writer; wRong is an incorrect writer; Chen is a Chinese writer.Ginger+wRong+Chen is a female incorrect Chinese writer, who manipulates the art of storytelling into short stories, film and TV scripts.

Superman Down - Photography - Jillian Brall of Unshod Quills

In June 2011, UQ’s sister site, HALiterature, an English language independent press and journal based in Shanghai, China, conducted an exchange program of sorts with members of the Unshod Quills Writer’s Collective.

Challenge: Panda. Write on the theme of pandas? The Shodomites went nuts, and the HALites went even nuttier, and the results were mad, bad and dangerous to know, like if Byron had been a panda, especially in some of the HAL stories.

Unshod Quills asked WM Butler, director of HAL’s own writer’s group, Groupthink, to ask his people to participate in yet another sister-lit spit swap; this time on the theme of America. Lovely, if only slightly troubled, America.

In response, a few members of Unshod Quills Writers Collective threw some letters, and a little art, on the topic, as well.

Simply follow the links next to each author or artist’s name to see his or her contribution.

Now, where the in the holy hell is Woody Guthrie when we need him?

MADE IN CHINA – Haliterature’s Groupthinkers on America

“America is a feudalistic dynasty…” Populated by bunnies!

Lucinda Holmes of Groupthink – “Bunny America: An Alternative Wiki Entry”

Katrina Hamlin of Groupthink – “The Beautiful Country” 

Jason Lasky of Groupthink – “America”

LITTLE PINK HOUSES – Unshod Quills Writers Collective on America

Images from Eva Steil, of Unshod Quills

Wendy Ellis of Unshod Quills – “America”

Viv G of Unshod Quills – “American Mythology”

Jillian Brall of Unshod Quills – Out of This World

Jason Mashak of Unshod Quills – “American History – Excerpt”

Mark Brunke of Unshod Quills –  Transubstantiation in America

“Stoic, I populate.”

Dena Rash Guzman of Unshod Quills – Salt Box

The River-Merchant’s Lover

After Ezra Pound’s The River-Merchant’s Wife: A Letter,
Which was based on a translation of Li Bai’s poem “A Song of Chang Gan.”

The plum-blossom boughs hang heavy with doubt
That spring could come and go so quickly.
They sway and dip and light disperses,
Scattering shadows across your face.
The dim line of hills recedes to the west,
The swift rush of river hastens to the east.
Already you are distant, your thoughts lighting
Towards Chang Gan, the courtyard gate.

This is not a time for promises
Even if it were in your nature to give them,
Nor will I offer to wait or write
Or even watch for your return.
Just as I cannot say if I am more undone
By your presence or your absence,
By your look that is a caress
Or your hollow glance that passes me over.

If I step away from you as the blossom lifts
I will see skiffs tethered, boatmen
Making ready to depart, ropes cast loose,
The sudden motion of a slim craft
Assured, skipping out of sight
Around the first bend of the river,
Away towards Chang Feng Sha.

Author Biography

Catherine Platt arrived in Beijing from England as a language student in 1985, and her life and work have intersected with China ever since. She has degrees in East Asian Studies and Anthropology of Development. Based in Chengdu with her family since 2004, she is a freelance writer, translator, editor and consultant to non-governmental organizations.

(originally published at Haliterature.)

My name is Xiao Yu. I am nineteen.

I have eaten KFC fried chicken and onion rings, washed down with milk tea. Then I ate a doughnut, which is an incomplete cake with a hole in the middle.

I have heard rap, which is when you have a song but you don’t sing. I can do that at the KTV.

I have seen their TV show series, which are about real life, but with shiny teeth and hair and perfect love.

So I already knew quite a lot about the Beautiful Country when I met my first Beautiful Person.

The Beautiful Person, whose name was Sam, was still in some way not what I expected.

He was quite shiny in his teeth and hair, and his clothes were Famous Brand clothes. He said he sometimes liked a doughnut, and no, he was not upset that there is a hole in the middle. But he did not eat chicken burger because meat, because he felt sad for the chicken birds, and he said milk tea was maybe more English like British English.

He could rap or sing, and he did not speak like Wu Tang Klan, which was a pity, and many of my friends felt he was boring at KTV. He also said whisky and green tea made him sick. Then it did make him sick.

It was after the sick night, when we found he could drink beer ok, that I really came to know the Beautiful Country better than any of my friends because the Tsingdao helps him to speak more true.

Because we were talking about why he must leave the Beautiful Country and come to the Middle Kingdom, why the Middle Kingdom is ok. I said I thought he must like the bright lights, tall buildings, very modern technology places like Pudong.

He said he was a little sorry, but no, it was not for the development of our country that he came. It was more negative choice, because there was nothing for him in the Beautiful Country.

I asked him more about this, and told him to remember the famous brands and the television series. He said this is not really the Beautiful Country. But anyway, he said he meant more no girl friend, no job, no money. He was looking sad.

I told him clearly he can find these things in Shanghai, I could help him. So this is no problem, and he should not worry.

I said this because I wanted him to shut up about these easy to fix things, which made me boring to listen, to ask him about these not-Beautiful Beautiful things, the Famous Brands and KFC and etc.

So he explained that actually really life in the Beautiful Country is not always perfect and rich although people have very white teeth. He also explained that the KFC in the Beautiful Country does not sell the fried pumpkin cakes like they have here, which I think are much better than doughnuts since they have no hole in the middle when you buy them.

This and the Tsingdao, which actually I have not drunk so much of before, all this allowed me to see things much more clear. I told him he could live forever much more happy in Pudong, where I will help him to find a girlfriend and a job and a money, and also live in a very modern tall buildling with flashing lights.

He said thank you.

I said no need to thank me.

I said good night.

I will meet him again tomorrow.

The End.

Author Biography

Katrina Hamlin is a journalist and writer living and working in Shanghai. Originally from Hong Kong, she has also lived in England and Chengdu, China. Katrina’s articles and stories appear in Shanghai-based HAL publications’ books and website,  Chengdu-based MALA literary journal, the Curious Ant and ThinkSix web projects, and Shanghai Business Review magazine, which she edits.

untitled

-on When We Two Parted

susana takes

her leave. there is a grim moment

of notice; storage, apartments,

celebratory wines. nothing stops,

nothing knows how, even memorials

stand cringing at their own pretence.

we are people without gravity, cannot

fill occasion with words have no

place to stand in no ceremony

to summon things happen

merely

the contented spend

whorls of surfeited sorrow

on her; the peripatetic pounce on

new plans, ogle itineraries,

bring themselves this once more to

believe in the meaning of

travel of place of shifting

to frantically revisit reacquire exchange

gossip and tidbits of misheard

trivia, the debris of history

of unreal empires in places

undone

the maudlin recount

every parting to themselves

every ungrasping every

fearfulness of finality since the first

tang poet was dispatched to

barbarian posts, they are of

those who miserously exult

whose climaxes are in welters

and washes of sorrow

and for all: it is, it must be

patterned on foibles of

attachments imagined

and built on the assumption

of a present protracted

eternal and lost

but moments

mercifully pass : we are

overgrown

the present

JS

Untitled

-on transportation

of course even just passing
through or on is travel,
and the drift as criminal as the drive;
meanwhile the constant
disjunctions of culture and
nonsense of race and tantalus
of language and faint pines
or palms make remnants
of shadows on plates of
impression; all this is mere
constitution. so ooze or
exude or bind it. live in departing
getting there harbours
piers airports station. the baroque
detritus of mind is always preparing
universal perpetual motion; no one
and nothing stays put. even the lives of
the never-changing are set
against the rolling eye, glimpsed
as we went past, seeming
to move in the abrasive drag the
gasping rush the sick list and tip the engines of
lucre and fear and wonder and
hope. and in attempting
the observation of difference,
risible in our commonality and our commonness,
desire to provoke that
greedy self-mockery which
demands redemptive the
ability to see in our cruelties
and magnanimities always
like a deep flat drone our
sweet and brutal and mutual dumbness.
yes we talk but not with
yes we move but not on
so that every step pas-de-deux
or circling sally seems to occur
at the pole, where all directions
are meaningless, and the primary
concern is where to get warmth.
write me if you discover
where to get warmth.

JS

Author Biography

Josh Stenberg’s fiction and creative non-fiction has appeared in Asia Literary Review (HK), Kartika Review (USA), Pograniczcza(Poland), Tissages/Weavings (Canada) and Corrego (Brazil). His translations of Chinese fiction and theatre have appeared in Kyoto Journal, Copper Nickel, Renditions and in two volumes, Madwoman on the Bridge (2008, Black Swan) and Tattoo (2010, MerwinAsia). Born in Canada, he teaches at Nanjing Normal University and conducts research at the Jiangsu Kun Opera Company.

Photo: Jianjue bu zou! (We Refuse To Leave!) Bjorn Wahlstrom, on "When We Two Parted."

Poetry and photography by  Shanghai’s Björn Wahlström 

I Look At You Shanghai

– When We Two Parted

Shanghai, April 2011

I look at you Shanghai. I look at you, you look away.

But mind you Shanghai, this is not a love song,
and fuck the broken hearted,
you know what you did to lose what you had,
you all do, as do I.

You gave me everything Shanghai, all you had to offer,
a billion RMB in an LV man-bag, prime real estate in Lujiazui, an uncle in politics,
and a mink mini-skirt on a late night Mint massacre.

That’s right, I know you Shanghai.

I’d race along your gaojia at approaching midnight,
drink and drive from Puxi to Gotham City,
drink and fuck whoever with an ever numbing sense of self-pity,
as M. closes at two,
I’d spend hours on hands and knees by the Jiangpu,
drinking from your veins Shanghai,
as you would want it,
as you demand that I do,
you dirty beautiful whore, you
pulled my head down by the hair, down under the surface,
and refused to let me die.

I look at you Shanghai, and you look away.

In stars and pearls you dress yourself,
my darling mistress of 2008, back when I owned you,
that’s right Shanghai I owned you, I fucking owned you,
and you loved it how i I’d treat you like a slut back then,
I’d do whatever and you’d follow,
I still found the green alleys of the French Concession charming back then,
I’d text you and you’d join, your own plans instantly over board,
summer evening strolls,
no worries, no panties,
always on the first date, and always closing.

Back then I was mean to you Shanghai, and you never said a word. It goes to your credit.

I look at you Shanghai. You look away.

I cry in Jing’an, but I get wasted in the French Concession,
with all the other 10 million homeless people here,
like all the other secretly exiled poor fucks here,
tequila to forget and drugs for the pain,
pints for the wicked and wine bars for the vain,

Shanghai, you keeper of tabs, you high roller; shine you crazy diamond.

Shine.

I look at you Shanghai, I look at you but I have no idea what you are thinking Shanghai, right now in this moment, right here in this forgotten shitty bar on Wuning Lu where I happen to be now in early 2011,
our fling long gone,
dust and dirty tap water,
rust and 9-5 to no good end.

You see I loved you those first years, I did
I just didn’t understand you, I didn’t know how to show it.

Whatever.

You wear a fashionably short evening gown tonight,
and I was the one who helped you with the zipper in the back, Shanghai, only to see that beautiful back walk away.
That sounds sad, but to you it’s just another bottom line.

I look at you Shanghai and I imagine
that your eyes have a secret warmth for me,
black hole suns for the homeless, a tiny bit of
hot burning love for me, “real” feelings for me, ha!

I look at you Shanghai. You look away.

This is not a rant

Shanghai

you crazy bitch, you lovely creature you,

This is a

requiem.

Author Biography

Born sometime in late 70s Stockholm, Sweden, Björn Wahlström  is editor and co-founder of HAL Publications. A sometime writer, he’s a promoter of China based literature, including his own.

After a six year stint in sinologist academia Bjorn became a corporate stooge in 2005, two years after first moving to China. Despite this severe digression, he maintained his interest in the arts and is a passionate patron and promoter of the literary scene in Shanghai, having conceived and founded the city’s most popular English based writers’ group.

His creative writing is colored by a peculiar insight into China, and  by his broad familiarity of Western and Eastern philosophy. Bursts of cynical laowaisims (read: foreignerisms) are tempered with a genuine appreciation and understanding of China, a sane madman in a crazy land. Bjorn is a member of the Unshod Quills Writers Collective.