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Life will not answer to reason. And meaning is too young a thing to have much power over it.
Richard Powers Overstory Loc 2075
A foreigner with a little language
Is still a novelty in
Hangzhou in the 90s.
So much so that I
Bargain a pair of gloves,
For a knock-down price.
My Chinese friend is
Miffed when he goes back
The next night but
Can’t do so well.
“How come you sold it
Cheeper to the foreigner?”
He asks and is answered
With a shrug.
I buy a plaque of Mao
But pass over a similar
Memento of Lin Biao -
The official villain of
Modern Chinese history.
It costs 5 times more.
Later that day we
Visit Lin Biao’s
Holiday compound.
Unused for years
It feels like a wealthy
European suburb.
Acres of manicured
Forest with several
Two storied villas
Dotted about.
Delightful in their
Colours and porticoes
But eerie in their emptiness.
Entering one villa we
Go behind the stairs
To find a metal
Blast door and
A passage.
The lights are on.
We descend
Into a network
Of bunkers;
Choose the path
That is lit;
Walk down
Concrete corridors
And through rooms
Clad with iron.
30 million dead,
The price of Mao’s
Great Leap Forward.
Another 20 in the
Cultural Revolution
For which Lin and the rest
Of the Gang of 4
Took the fall.
His last stand
Wasn’t in this bunker
But in an airplane
Lost over Mongolia.
Mao took some blame too.
80% good, 20% bad
Is the official Communist
Party valuation.
The gentle dean of
The department
At my Chinese University
Tells of primary school
When he shouted
To scare birds
Who flew until they
Dropped exhausted
So he could
Jump on them.
Scapegoats for the
Failed harvest.
Miscalculation of a
Horrifying leap
In the dark.
When the path ascends
We find ourselves
In a carpark.
The occupant of the ticket box
Looks perplexed
And doesn’t charge us
For coming the
Wrong way out of
A history that
Isn’t easy to value.
