Amongst the flowers I
am alone with my pot of wine
drinking by myself; then lifting
my cup I asked the moon
to drink with me, its reflection
and mine in the wine cup, just
the three of us; then I sigh
for the moon cannot drink,
and my shadow goes emptily along
with me never saying a word;
with no other friends here, I can
but use these two for company;
in the time of happiness, I
too must be happy with all
around me; I sit and sing
and it is as if the moon
accompanies me; then if I
dance, it is my shadow that
dances along with me; while
still not drunk, I am glad
to make the moon and my shadow
into friends, but then when
I have drunk too much, we
all part; yet these are
friends I can always count on
these who have no emotion
whatsoever; I hope that one day
we three will meet again,
deep in the Milky Way.
– Li Po (701-762)
Yvette And Doreen are taking a seminar on Li Po at the Poughkeepsie Center for the Eastern Arts.
Yvette: How interesting.
Doreen: How delightful.
Yvette: The moon, a man talking to the moon… you gotta come up with that…
Doreen: Yes ha… quite unexpected.
Yvette: …Turn off your cell-phone, Doreen.
Doreen: It’s on vibrate.
Yvette: I know Doreen, but I can still hear it. It’s not nice for the other people.
Doreen: …
Yvette: (to student B to her left) We’re sorry, it’s just her… cell phone. (To Doreen) You see?
Doreen: If I didn’t know you, I’d think you can’t stand me.
Yvette: Shhh, it was your idea to come here so be quiet please, let me learn.
Doreen starts sobbing and takes out a huge vibrator from her purse. She stands up and starts waving it on the air. The whole class is staring at her.
Doreen: So now you can see… it wasn’t my cell phone, no, it was this. How depressing am I? How desperate?
Instructor: Excuse me miss, but I actually think that you are the only person here who really understood what Li Po was trying to say. It’s exactly that acknowledgement that we are alone even when we are surrounded by people. That false sense that our despair is shared by the people who seem to care the most. Bravo, miss…?
Yvette: Doreen, she’s Doreen and I’m her best friend Yvette.
Doreen stares at Yvette and sees in her eyes the truth of a lifelong friendship. Yvette puts her arms around Doreen. While Doreen is trying to put her vibrator back in her purse, it falls on the head of Student D, who’s sitting right in front of her. A moment of nervousness is followed by a relaxed and shared laugh in the whole class.
Posted by lucio | more »sit down next to me
¡¡vamos chicos!! que la clase ha terminado
women chopping wood
a live installation by choreographer Dorte Olesen, yesterday in alexanderplatz, berlin:
“15 Swedish women will travel to Berlin to meet a group of German women. They will have three days to complete their task: transforming 30 cubic metres of logs into imaginative woodpiles. The challenge includes co-operation, communication and getting to know one another across language and national barriers.”
Posted by f | more »community building
Our recently-met companions say, unfortunately, that Christians cannot really be friends with Buddhists.
(video courtesy of members of the Beijing Chaoyang Church)
Posted by 丫 | more »what is communication, what is imperial, what is revolutionary, what is natural? Posted by 丫 | reply »
everything from my mother
謝謝媽媽
Posted by 丫 | reply »a little of switzerland or something in Vietnam
I met my grandfather on my father’s side, who turns 96 this year, for the third time. In 1996, I went ‘back’ to Vietnam for the first time to attend my grandmother’s funeral. My mother’s parents passed away when she was still little. Simone and me visited ‘Gong’ (grandfather in Teo Chew, our Chinese Dialect from Shantou, 汕头 in Guangdong) in Ho-Chi Minh City for 5 days. I consider myself as an ‘Overseas Chinese’, because Chinese Culture/Tradition was passed on to us. However ‘Home’ for my parents has always been Vietnam, because they were born and grew up as ‘Overseas Chinese’ in Bac Lieu, South-Vietnam. We stayed with my uncle’s family who look after ‘Gong’ and everybody in ‘our’ neighborhood knew that the two of us were the relatives abroad from Switzerland. We went every day down to his room and were talking to him in Teo Chew. I was happy to see ‘Gong’, but in some ways he was a stranger to me, but I did notice similarities to my father. ‘Gong’ knew all the facts (school, profession, salary…) about his grandchildren and kept on asking us if it’s true that Binh, my second oldest sister, has become a lawyer. He also kept on asking if we really got the grant from Pro Helvetia and if we are really working on our project in Beijing. He said proudly that he is amazed how many languages his grandchildren speak. Somehow he thought Linh, my oldest sister, speaks Italian, what is NOT true…Pictures of us grandchildren and my parents were hanging on the wall. I recognize our old apartment in Solothurn, my Swiss hometown. I see family picture of us when we were little. All those pictures are part of my memories from Switzerland and are hanging on the wall in my grandfather’s room on the second floor at Binh Toi No133/5/3 in the 11th district of Ho-Chi Minh City – Saigon, how my parents still call the city! In the morning on our last day before we left for the airport we went down to ‘Gong’ to say goodbye. Both us took a picture with him to capture this moment. He wished us a save journey to Beijing and asked me: Is Beijing nice? I think he has never been to Beijing and has never returned to China since he moved to Vietnam.
Posted by mon | reply »|
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