YU Xiang: A Women's Lot

　　A WOMEN'S LOT
　　　　　　　　　　　　by YU Xiang 　tr. FAN Jinghua
Dark and skinny, Ricey and Nar,
Like two rocks covered with whelks,
Knees protruding from their bodies.
We used to play house and hopscotch,
We used to fight and make up.
My childhood in beautiful Horse-Choice Village
With Grandma, and wild roses that reddened the mountain.
Upon turning seven, I went back to the city for school,
And left them behind.

Whenever I was bullied
And called a bumpkin
Beckie, my primary school classmate,
Would come out every time,
Boldly, like a boy,
To protect me. In the third grade
She was struck with pneumonia, and failed to go up to the fourth.
I missed her every day, but I dared not look for her.
I felt inferior. She was my hero.

May, my distant cousin, lived in another city.
One Saturday in 1983,
While cycling to her drawing lessons in the Children's Palace
A truck ran over her right arm.
Later, she tried to draw with her left hand.
One day in 1985 spring, I went to see her.
Her mother said with a dim smile:
May is in the suburb,
In an asylum. She added, the landscape there is cheerful.

In junior high, I lived very close to Yonyon.
We went to school together and both secretly loved our Chinese teacher.
We tore up our Physics and Math textbooks
And let the pieces flake on the forehead of our headmistress.
We were placed into the Slow Class,
And dreamed of becoming writers.
Now I live by teaching Math,
While she lives in Germany, a businesswoman.

Beth, my desk-mate. In the second year of senior high,
I received a love letter from a certain boy
Just as she did.
All the words in hers were the same as in mine.
This happened more than once.
We played pranks and tortured him.
After he suddenly transferred to another school,
Her spirits sagged in a deep slump.
Three years ago, I heard of her story.
She swallowed a bottle of aspirin and forty Valium pills.

During my apprenticeship, I met a woman worker
Whose name I cannot remember now.
About twenty-seven or eight, she always tried to avoid men.
She would clamp an LBD with her fingers
And hold a soldering iron in the other hand,
Gesturing to me the way of the world.
After I left that factory, I missed her a lot
And I asked someone to tell her I was grateful,
But she said she did not know me.

Dawn, my colleague. Short-haired, straightforward,
And easily moved.
Once, in The Death of So-and-So she read and returned,
I saw a stain of tears.
Last summer, she went swimming and was drowned in the pool.
To this date, I do not go into the pool water.
My breath is saturated with chlorinated lime and bleaching powder.
I always run into her boyfriend,
A sad boy, like that tear stain
She left in my book.

I have never again met any from this lot,
And I’m always expecting
To bump into any of them
On a shiny afternoon.
　　　　　　　from Current Chinese Poetry 中国当代诗歌 (bilingual edition)
　　　　　　　　　(Shanghai: Shanghai Lit. & Art Press, 2008)


　　她们
　　　　　　宇向

又黑又瘦。小米和小拿。
像两块爬满海砺的礁石，
膝盖是突出的身体。
我们一起过家家、踢沙包……
打架，然后和好。
童年，在美丽的马卜崖村，
还有姥姥和满山鲜红的野玫瑰。
七岁。我回城上学。
离开她们。

张溪。小学同学。
那时我常受人欺负，
被骂成“乡巴妮儿”。
每次，她挺身而出，
像个男孩子，
保护我。三年级，
她因肺炎休学一年，留了级。
我天天想她，却不敢见她。
我自卑。 她是我心中的英雄。

梅。远房表姐。在另一座城市。
83年，一个星期六
她骑车去少年宫画画，
被一辆卡车碾断右臂……
后来，她试着用左手拿画笔。
85年春，我去找她，
姨淡淡地笑：梅在郊区
一家精神治疗中心，
那里风景怡人。

初中时，我和泳泳住得很近。
一起上学，一起暗恋语文老师。
我们撕碎物理和数学课本，
让纸片雪花般落向女校长的额头。
我们被编到后进班，
梦想长大成为作家。
现在，我靠数学糊口。
她生活在德国。商人。

贝芬。同桌。高中二年级时，
我收到一个男生的情书，
贝芬手里也有一封，
内容一字不差。
这种情况，经常发生。
我们便恶作剧，折磨他。
他中途转学。
她从此萎靡不振。
三年前，我听说，
她吞下一瓶阿司匹林、四十片安定。

实习时，认识一个女工。
名字，已经记不起来。
二十七、八岁，躲避异性。
她总是一手捏着一只发光二极管，
一手握住电烙铁，
比比划划，向我传授人生指南。
我离开那个工厂后，
非常怀念和感激她。
托人找她，可她说，
不认识我。

晓华。同事。短发。简单。
易被打动。
一次，在她还我的《XX之死》里，
我见到一滴泪痕。
今年夏天她去游泳，淹死在池子里。
如今，我仍不忍下水，
氯气、漂白粉化合了我的鼻息。
我常见到她的男友，
一个悲伤的男孩，
仿佛她留下的那滴泪痕。

我再也没有见过她们，
常常期待
在一个明朗的下午
遇到其中的一个。

About the Poet:

宇向，诗人、作家。“70后”重要诗人。现居山东济南。参与中国当代艺术、地下音乐、先锋诗歌等活动多年之后，2000年左右开始写作，2002年获“柔刚诗歌奖”；2004年被评为中国当代“最受读者喜爱的10位女诗人”之一；2006年获首届“宇龙诗歌奖”。

YU Xiang is one of the key figures among the Post-70s poets, currently living in Jinan, Shandong Province. After years of engagement with contemporary art and music, she became devoted to writing around 2000. Her awards include the 11th Rou Gang Poetry Prize (2002), top ten women poets in China (2004) and the First Yu Long Poetry Prize (2006).