scruta

When I first came to Shanghai I was curious, and I asked its greatest sages to tell me the nature of Shanghai:

The first whispered  Shanghai is soft, malleable like the clays of the earth dredged up in springtime by blushing virgin women molding vessels for a great celebration.

The second spoke that Shanghai is hard, impenetrable, unassailable, a diamond so hard the lasers falter in its radiance, diverted into paths unknown, throwing the surest of men in their calculations to chance, to error and possible ruin.

The third railed Shanghai is a man, building himself from scratch, turning away the errors of the past, striving upward with an unassailable determination, reaching for the sky with hands that could grow fingers for fingers, nails for nails from the very thought of possibility, waiting for that moment to dig into a jugular and slake a thirst for power.

The fourth laughed that Shanghai is a woman, petty and longing for the capability of a man, searching for a mate to feed its desire, born in the streets of destitute greatness, the kind that longs for an order it knows it cannot have, but desires all the same.

The fifth said that Shanghai was fire, the kind that burned away all the viewpoints of old, to birth them better in a new light of day, miles beyond the haze of the rising sun, where the sun rays speak of new eras yet to coalesce in the shining.

The sixth said that Shanghai was flooding, ebbing, flowing, churning, rushing water, taking its toll, moving wherever it likes, held by the desire of gravity that says down, down and down. To follow it is a foolish errand, lashing oneself to a barrel only to know that it will topple over a waterfall deep towards its doom, where it might be eaten in the depths and recycled in the shallows.

The seventh said that Shanghai was death. He spoke little, and let the placid look on his face do the speaking.

The last spoke that Shanghai was life. His face contorted strangely and he laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed…

The heat of mid-summer was stifling, and I journeyed to the woods looking for comfort. I was sitting by a fresh, mountain stream when I saw it. The cub was exhausted, dragging itself slowly towards the other side of the stream, panting with thirst. It was so tired that it didn’t notice me, or find me threatening. It suddenly slumped over, as if to pass out. I wasn’t sure whether it would make it to the stream or not, and I wanted to help it.

Thinking twice, I stayed where I was. You just don’t get involved in the affairs of a bear cub. You just don’t.

The mother is always around, and she is unforgiving.

The lid is attached just so to the slot at the top of the SWFC, holding the entire thing in place. Condensation collects in the dome of the sky and drops down suddenly in torrents, only to evaporate again. The process repeats and repeats ad infinitum.

I like to think that we are all grains of white rice flailing around in it – growing larger, more saturated and clumping together. We are full, gushing with starchy energy, burning quickly for whoever could find a use for us. We accommodate all flavors.

We’re happy this way. Although we know well how we’ve been bleached, made uniform, stripped of our husks and the hearty way we once faced the world.

[Ferret and Bu-Ran-Don are walking through a lackluster exhibit on bugs at the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum. They watch a video of a beetle being eaten alive by a swarm of ants, and as it becomes more gruesome they walk away. Bu-Ran-Don continues to mill around, but Ferret spaces out by a fake stone column, thinking about the sudden severity of life and death. He is standing very still. A Chinese Girl sees him and meets his gaze. She studies him strangely, and he continues to look back at her, but gets bored and suddenly shifts his gaze. The Chinese Girl jumps back:]

Chinese Girl

哦, 吓死我啦!

Oh, you scared me to death!

[Ferret smiles, and the Chinese Girl walks away. Ferret walks over to Bu-Ran-Don laughing to himself.]

Ferret

Bu-Ran-Don.

Bu-Ran-Don

Yeah?

Ferret

I think a girl just thought I was part of the museum.

Bu-Ran-Don

Haha, awesome. Wait ’till we get to the part about evolution. Then we’ll really be able to mess with people.

All day long Shanghai made me think of a drunken poet, reeling his bearded-head around, shaking it in the breeze, as if he knows something that I don’t. The white, wild tangles of his hair seem to say so.

It’s nighttime, and he has just finished engaging in a night of drinking and feasting at an outdoor pavilion by a lake. All around him there are half-eaten dishes of food and empty bottles of beer and baijiu. There’s a pit of embers burning off to the side where there had been a barbecue. Small wooden stakes are sticking out of the ground nearby, monuments to the festivities.

I don’t know where his companions have gone, or why they left him there to contemplate the lake in the moonlight.

I greet him in English, finding it somehow appropriate, “Hello.”

He just shakes his head again, the same way he did before, smiling as he does so.

“What are you doing here?”

He shakes his head again.

“Are you composing poetry?”

Another shake.

I know I’m looking at Shanghai, but I’m compelled to ask, “Will you tell me who you are?”

And another.

I grow frustrated, and sit down next to him at the table, contemplating the mess: crab shells full of ashes and cigarette butts, fish bones piled like offerings to a lowly god of the nearby lake, gobs of pork bellies swimming in seas of purple, coagulating goo, tiny pieces of diced garlic that had once sat in a sea of green vegetables…

I notice that he’s now looking at me, watching me survey the mess. I ask him again, this time almost pleading with him, “Who are you?”

He shakes again, but this time points with his hands, out towards the lake then back across toward the table, as if that gesture itself could relate all that he is – a move from the lake and the forest beyond in the moonlight, full of promise, pristine and untouched to the glaring fluorescent lights just above us and the junkyard of scraps that lay below.

[Ferret and Glasseye are outside of Logo talking.]

Ferret

I think it’s weird.

Glasseye

What’s weird?

Ferret

I think it’s weird that in Shanghainese people always speak English to me.

Glasseye

What do you mean?

Ferret

I mean. If you came to America, people wouldn’t go out of their way to try and speak Chinese to you. They’d just say, “You’re in America, so speak English.”

Glasseye

Yeah. No, I understand. But that’s the thing about Chinese people. You know S&M?

Ferret

Yeah.

Glasseye

We’re the M.

Ferret

Haha. Okay.

Glasseye

No, seriously.

Ferret

I believe you, but it’s weird. I don’t see why they think it has to be that way. Chinese isn’t impossible for us foreigners to learn, and I bet you’d be surprised how quickly we’d pick it up if we were forced to learn it.

Glasseye

所以我们在说中文吧 .

So let’s speak Chinese then.

Ferret

[startled a bit, then realizing what was said]

好的, 我们说中文.

Okay, let’s speak Chinese.

[There's an awkward pause. Suddenly nobody has anything to say.]

Glasseye

You’re right though. It’s still weird.

Ferret

Yeah, it is.

I dreamed that Shanghai was a simpleton

Who ate glass bottles,

And picked the shards out

From his teeth with a rusty coathanger.

+++

Though many said he would die

From hemorrhaging or tetanus

Coughing his last breaths

In pools of blood and vomit,

He came into his own all too well.

+++

His breath full of fire,

He spat diamonds.

And when he spoke,

The people listened.

[Ferret is on his way to a show with Goose to go see a show by a hip-hop has-been. As they walk up to the club, they see Two Drunken Laowai and Two Bums standing face to face making far too much noise. Their rantings become clearer as Ferret and Goose get closer:]

Drunken Laowai #1

Fuck off!

Bum #1

Fa-cof-fa!

Bum #2

Fa-cof-a! Fa-cof-fa!

Drunken Laowai #2

[gesturing rudely away]

No! Fuck off! Don’t you understand? Fuck off!

Drunken Laowai #1

Fuck off!

Bum #1 and Bum #2

[in unison]

Fu-cof-fa!

[The two pairs square off, screaming "Fuck off" back and forth, obtaining a cadence as if the Two Drunken Laowai were teaching the Two Bums a class in English pronunciation. The Two Drunken Laowai become more frustrated, while the Two Bums become more and more exhilarated. Ferret and Goose walk by, chuckling, and commenting soon after:]

Ferret

Those guys just don’t understand.

Goose

What d’you mean?

Ferret

I mean, it doesn’t matter what you say to those bums. They have no shame. It’s all a game to them. You could tell them to “Fuck off” in perfect Chinese, but they’ll still just laugh at you and ask you for money. That’s the point. You have no choice but to pretend that they don’t exist.

Goose

Yeah. Those drunken dudes kind’ve look like idiots.

Ferret

That’s the funniest part. The bums’ revenge so to speak, by getting a rise out of those guys, the whole thing becomes a joke on them. It makes it look like those drunken laowai have no shame, either. Screaming “Fuck Off” over and over on a street corner in the middle of the night.

I imagined that Shanghai was a colt on the verge of becoming a stallion.

Yes, there was much talk in the past about leaving him as a gelding, a workhorse and nothing more. But this idea was soon dropped. We were all too well aware of Shanghai’s potential.

Many had tried to tame him, but nobody could do it. It’s not because he was too vicious, well, at least not at first. That was the thing that made Shanghai impossible to tame. To the rider who had never known him, he would appear to be tamed at first, calm and placid, civil in the utmost, or as civil as a stallion can be. He wore a saddle comfortably, and did not fight when his handlers threw it on his back. At the most, he would let out a casual snort; he would drag an idle hoof in the dirt, but that was all.

The most courageous of men would approach him, and hop into his saddle, wondering what the fuss was all about. They would set out at an even trot into the middle of the large pen where he was kept, grinning and stinking with an air of confidence. It was at this moment that Shanghai turned wild, as if possessed by a demon.

The powerful animal would heave his entire frame forward and backward, lurching, kicking, twisting, doing everything in its power to heave the rider from his back. Most of the time, this sudden change in behavior was so unexpected that the rider was instantly thrown from the horse, leaving his life in the hands of fate. Even if he did walk away from the pen, the rider’s confidence would be shaken, and chances were that he would refuse to ride Shanghai again.

They would mutter: “Shanghai you bastard, you beast, you hellspawn, you horse of the apocalypse. Curse the mare who gave you life. Curse these handlers who tend to you. May your hooves crack and rot. May you break your leg and fall lame with no one to put you out of your misery, except the bands of ravenous wolves already feasting on your flesh.”

Yet if you followed these men, years later when they found themselves in different pastures, at the mention of the great animal, they would only smile, look towards the sky and exhale: “Shanghai. Shanghai. Shanghai…”

I dreamed that Shanghai was a woman in a white dress, and I took her out for dinner. She wasn’t a pretty girl, but she had style, and was well built in all the right places. Sometimes she would smile strangely with a kind of tentative haughtiness as if she knew the world looked to her, but she didn’t have anything prepared to say. The dinner went well, and we laughed over a bottle of wine. I talked about my old girlfriends, women etched on the back of my brain in a giant mural, all of them holding hands and dancing in the park of an immense city that holographically defied perspective, depicting all the places I’d loved them and all the dreams that came floating out of our heads as we made love. Shanghai spoke about the one boyfriend she’d had briefly, elusively. I had the feeling the breakup was not mutual, or perhaps they hadn’t broken up officially and she was still dating him. She must have defied a great deal of expectations to come out on this dinner of seared steaks and finely boiled pastas.

Later that night we made love, and afterward I found myself immensely satisfied and suddenly thrown deep into a dream in a dream. Shanghai was a pretty girl now, and she was haughty in a way that indicated she wanted to say something. She spoke, “I don’t need you.”