Fuqing
EAST COKER
(№ 2 of ‘Four Quartets’)
T.S. Eliot
“In my beginning is my end. In succession
Houses rise and fall, crumble, are extended,
Are removed, destroyed, restored, or in their place
Is an open field, or a factory, or a by-pass….”
My parents’ visit to Hong Kong ended as their hands waved goodbye in the rear window.
A rickety jingle of the Nissan Cedric, red, white roof, pulled around the corner out of Sai Ying Pun.
Returned to my first floor flat and put on the electric kettle.
Here. I have started drinking hot water.
Why have cold water when the body is already hot? They say. I don’t know if it’s a placebo effect, but it does fill me with a warm running stream, circulating heat in blood and bone.
Sipped hot water. Phone ding-dinged. A text.From my father.
A link to a poem by Derek Mahon entitled ‘Chinatown’. A short poem about the relationship between father and son. Epigram of the poem — a line written in the 3rd century by Hsiang Ch’u:
“The wind of the common people whirls from lanes and alleys, poking rubbish and stirring up the dust…”
He references two Chinese poets. The second: Mao Zedong. Known for his savage brutality and his iconic, narcissistic cult of personality. But he was also a poet.
“Where the broom fails to reach, the dust won’t clear of its own accord”
Fresh in our minds: our own father-son odyssey. Two days previous. A 36 hours of whirling wind in Fuqing in the Fujian province.
Oi Derek, this is the real deal!
WAFT OF MAYNOOTH
From my younger years and onwards to the recent past, from my beginning: I laboured in a warehouse in Maynooth, Co. Kildare. A purveyor of sporting goods where my Dad works. Their products made in the factories of Fuqing.
Fuqing everywhere. On containers. On boxes. On documents.
Reads ruder than it sounds. Pronounced Fu-shing. North, a two-hour flight from Hong Kong along the coast towards Shanghai.
A pilgrimage:
A personal beginning and a personal end.
Maynooth to Fuqing.
In Maynooth on hot summer days I would label gumshields, tennis grips or floral baseball caps.
Fill boxes — empty boxes.
The more intensive, hands-on work would be the days of the 40ft containers. Arrive full — from somewhere — leave empty.
Repeat.
Boxes hauled.
In and out.
In and out.
Articulated lorries would come and go. Pick up and collect. Containers full to a buxom brim with boxes from far off. Their source a stranger. Rusted from the sea, bolt clanked shut with iron. The air inside foreign, clammy, distant. A dumb loitering stench of crowded cardboard. The forklift would raise me in and I would begin emptying.Eating away into the wall of brown. Box after brown box. The end would never be visible until it was.
I remember I was in there alone one time. The container almost empty. A fat, plump-bellied mosquito floated towards the oxygen. Approaching me, hungry. I slapped it hard onto the corrugated bump on the wall. Squelch caused a tremor along the inner container that echoed accordingly in the devoid vacuum.
Where had this mosquito come from? Had I saved the country from a potential bout of a disease carried in its snout? Green mush stained the wall. Shut up in here for a long time. Slow flapping with tiredness — its freedom — met with my palm. I feel bad about it now. Unless he was carrying a contagion, then I feel relatively proud of my decision of aggression.
Now I know where this chap travelled from.
I went and I saw and I breathed in the waft that he had — a waft transported to Maynooth each and every summer.
INTO CHINA
In the clouds above Fuzhou we ate sugar pork-gunk-buns wrapped in foil, the condensation made it moist and sweaty from the fire of the Dragon Air microwave. The Millenium Hotel in Fuqing — where we stayed — was all black faux-marble with expansive collonades and cacophonous chandeliers worthy of an Ancien Régime Parisian palace.
It was raining through the grey pollution. A huge model of what Fuqing will look like in years to come was in the spacious lobby. Lit up and ambitious.
In fact during the entire trip we were shown about five models of cities or townscapes, of what will be. This place is looking forward, that is abundantly evident. Yellow cranes building buildings for the coming age of globalisation: of investment and mass movement, the shrinking of the globe. The hotel had a Louvre Pyramid tribute act, surrounded by fountains and paved courtyard. I. M. Pei architect of the Louvre Pyramid died aged 102 on the 16th May 2019. He was born in Suzhou, north of the Fujian province, bordering Shanghai. A genius. Pictured with a museum for ants:
Our hosts were incredibly good to us. We had no idea what was going to happen. We thought it was a simple visit to a number of factories. Instead it was more. Much more.
At every turn there was a new surprise, a new angst, a new suspense.
The itinerary for our visit
SASHIMI BANQUET
Arrival.
Welcoming committee. Not too much English spoken. Nods and handshakes all round, breaking the language barrier. Sashimi Banquet at the hotel: a cuisine traditional to Japan. But it appears there isn’t much resentment in China towards Japan’s invasion of Manchuria in 1931 and the establishment of the puppet state of Manchukuo. At least in the cuisine department, anyway. Slippery, velvety on a bed of ice. Steam hosed out of a fish’s wide, dead blubbing lips and a spinning disco ball spun. Clinked glasses in the air-con-cool outdoor seating area. Fortune cookies were given out. No one ever eats the cookies. Snapped open. The literature on the thin rolled paper read:
“The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones”
A line of Confucius from ‘The Analects’. The same can be said of the process of emptying a 40ft container: it begins by carrying away small boxes. Onwards to a factory.
FACTORY HALL OF COMPRESSED AIR
Across the Longjiang river that runs to the Strait of Taiwan. Shallow reeds at the banks suck fumes from chugging machinery. Warm bubble of air kept the heat overhanging. Luggage. Metal on metal sheets and nut and bolts and nails fastened with a compressed air gun. Phrump and constant clunk. Warmed plastic squished into a mould — out of nothing — rose a suitcase. Like magic! Abra-ke-bag-ra! 500 bags a day. Huge, spanning halls, loud noises and dizziness-inducing smells of glue.
Onwards to another factory.
FACTORY HALL OF VELCRO AND PATTERNED CLOTH
To begin with the raw material.
To begin with a rip of Velcro.
To the needle stitch thumping the weaved cloth. Automatic. Hung up on the wall in the foyer was a poem by Mao entitled ‘Snow’. It dominated the room. One wall. Scrawled in his own writing, wipes of wispy calligraphy, hard to follow. For the implementation of Maoist ideology, China had to start again. Mao had a strong belief in the futility of the past: To start from a year zero. To press the proverbial big red reset button on China’s past. A past dominated by exploitative colonialism and factionalised warlordism.
The fast-flow of the Yellow River continued to pump through history, alluvial ink sketching the new with a swift calligraphy quill. As it scratches, the past behind is smudged by its forever following stream. Ink-drowned and forgotten.
‘Snow’ looks back to Genghis Khan, whose nomad stallions reached and ran from Mongolia through the plains of Central Asia threatening the borders of Europe. But for the poet: Genghis Khan is a figure of the past. An ephemeral hero. Every modernity has its own modernity. Now is the time.
The poem concludes:
All are past and gone!
For truly great men
Look to this age alone.
For Mao, his new China was to start fresh and modernise aggressively. The Great Leap Forward (1958–1962) was the plan to industrialise China, to transform it from an agrarian society and modernise. All in a rapid process that was to last five years.
The Great Leap Forward was a disaster. Soviet methods of cultivation and collectivisation were catastrophic and the movement of people disturbed and ruined the earth. Mao encouraged his people to smelt steel and iron in their state-issued back yard furnaces. In order to meet quota, people were burning practical everyday items like pots and pans just to get over the line.
Mass movement, urbanisation, the high population and of course, the damage inflicted on agriculture resulted in the Great Famine. At least 20 million died in the famine. This is the lowest number, some accounts rise up to 46 million. The official number given by the Chinese government is 14 million. China’s official stance on Mao is: 70% good. 30% bad.
TWO GANGS OF FOUR EQUALS ONE GANG OF EIGHT
One:
Jiang Qing, Zhang Chungaio, Yao Wenyuan and Wang Hongwen
The Gang of Four was a subdivision of the Chinese Communist Party. They were outlawed for their role in the Cultural Revolution (1966–76), blamed for an apparent coup and then tried and executed. One of the four, Jiang Qing was Mao’s last wife, disgraced after his death.
*This Gang of Four is not to be confused with:
Two:
Jon King, Andy Gill, Dave Allen and Hugo Burnham.
Original members of the post-punk Leeds group, Gang of Four, who named their band after theGang of Four. While on tour the band came upon a newspaper article on the topic of an intra-party coup. The appropriately named Gang of Four (of Yorkshire) succinctly described the attempted Great Leap:
Two steps forward
(Six steps back)
(Six steps back)
(Six steps back)
(Six steps back)
The Cultural Revolution aimed to retrace the steps and faults and start fresh, destroying the culture, rebuilding from zero. After the death of Mao in 1976, after Zhou Enlai’s brief leadership, Deng Xiaoping took over in 1978. Xiaoping opened China’s borders to foreign businesses. An Open Door Policy. New Special Economic Zones set up in 1980. Coastal towns on the South China Sea like Shenzen, Xiamen and Fuzhou became import and export hubs. With their close proximity to Hong Kong the potential for economic development was massive. This put China on the road to being classed as ‘The World’s Factory’. Opening the door meant China leapt forward at an astonishing pace. No longer in isolation, now willing to spread its influence with the broom, sweeping the dust out across the globe.
The rapid industrialisation of the last forty years is basically what other developed countries did in 150 years. ‘Capitalism’ juiced up on the purest form of anabolic steroids. Foreign companies now look at China with all its potential. It simply cannot be ignored. Peter Frankopan, in his book The New Silk Roads, discusses the business decisions made by Starbucks in China. The peddler of stink-burnt coffee.
“In 2017 the company announced that it would open 2000 stores in China by 2021 or the equivalent of one new Starbuck coffee shop every fifteen hours.”
The opportunities for lucrative returns are gigantic. The East is becoming the centre for trade. Setting trends, tastes and appetites.
“According to World Bank and OECD data not one of the ten fastest growing economies of 2017 is located in the Western Hemisphere nor has one been for the last decade.”
Shifting. A new centre? Is the sun rising in the East and setting on the West?
Onwards to the dining room for din din.
LAZY SUSAN AND THE CUISINE OF SLIME
Mahogany Lazy Susan spun. Outstretched fingers slowly-smoothly-sliding like a ticking metronome. Dishes appear and disappear. After this meal, I can eat anything. Components of meal:
Jellyfish with a cartilage crunch. What I imagine it is like to chew on someone’s ear.
Good for the skin, they say.
Raw sea slugs were diaphanous and slippy like a mucous tongue. Centre had a disconcerting chaw of gastropod.
Good for the skin, they say.
Rubbery sea cucumber. Pneumatic and phallic and alien with small wobbling knubs.
Chewing.
Chewing.
Chewing.
Good for the skin, they say.
Tankards of carrot juice with clouds of pulp toasting big business, arms outstretch and bow. Meal ending. A moment of sufficient silence warranted a question from my dad. A fatal inquiry:
“Has anyone heard of Boyzone?
Charlie just went to see them in Kowloon.”
Murmurs around the table:
Boyzone?
Boyzone?
Boyzone?
In an instant a Chinese woman says:
Ro…..
nan…
Kee…
Keating….?
Wait. What. Face became hot. Aware of my cheeks. Fuck. Shy, she sang:
When…
you….
say noth
ing
at
all
The hangman’s noose tightened around my throat. A polyphonic instrumental came out of her Huawei phone speaker. Spoon mic. For the group around the wide disk of a table, I sang.
Without saying a word
You can light up the dark…
I exiled myself from the Motherland for one reason: To escape the smooth vice-grip of Ronan. Yet, since the beginning of my continental distancing I have stared into his eyes in Kowloon and sang his magnus opus to Chinese factory owners and workers and hoteliers. Despite initial red faced fear, it went well. They clapped in awe and whooped and wopped. I reminded them of a young Mick Jagger. Their words.
Onwards to The Spa.
MASSAGE PARLOUR AND THE DISAPPEARANCE OF TIME
After a heavy dinner we were then given a gift of a foot rub in The Spa of the hotel. In the bowels of. Three lifts down. Dim lit hall after hall of men in gold robes smoking and slurping, relaxed, well-oiled. Before going in for the rub, we were told actually it is a full body massage. Ah fantastic, a treat.
Wait, what does that entail?
How long is it?
Neither question was answered.
A crack in the ajar door: a massage table and face hole awaiting my face. House rules: All must wear the golden silk shorts and a loose fitted top. A petite masseuse entered. Spoke only mandarin. Squished my head through the hole. Eyes adjusted to the obscured light arriving through hanging towels. An object that can only be described as a warm soothing leaf blower was blown onto the feet. Lay face down staring at a pot plant for a period of time I could not define. The pot plant melted like time in a Dalì landscape, brain’s existence was in a foreign continuum of comforting mush.
With every prod my synapses turned to hot butter. I felt as a sea slug. The stretched elastic band holding turgid the past and the future snapped and there was only the present: Started at a year zero.
Meshed within and transfixed upon an unfurling lotus flower under my nose-tip. Hot rocks were rubbed on my back, warm oil on the skin. Cracking, poking and slapping. It was entirely lucid, entirely loopy. When I turned over, the masseuse was different, half-time substitution, didn’t realise. Even when I turned I couldn’t see a clock.
Time still escaped me.
A hot custard-like substance was poured onto the belly. Had I agreed to a waxing? Limbs wrapped in cling-film, like an Egyptian mummified sandwich. The masseuse kept saying things to me over and over and in reply, I nodded along, not knowing what she was saying. What was I agreeing to? What is all this strangely pleasurable satanic prodding? Maybe I was only supposed to be in here for 20 minutes but I just kept extending it, saying yes.
To the custard
To the rubbing of rocks
To the skin-scraping-strigil
To the cling-film.
At one stage she requested me to stand up. Circulation and poking. Stood up. She gasped at my height. Laughing and pointing.
Giant!
Giant!
Giant!
Up to my elbow. She took out her phone and took a selfie of me and her. Right this minute, there is a bare-chested photo of me in skimpy gold silks circulating in China. Staring at that lotus flower, entering another dimension I realised the truth, as Hegel observed, was in that hole. Left alone to ponder with a cup of jasmine tea, due back on planet earth. To the room, floating.
Onwards to bed.
THE POETRY OF QUALITY CONTROL
Morning next. Vast factory complex: Large furnaces heated metals to magma to be used as zips. Red hot nippers dipped in copper pots of water like a branding iron. Piles of silver reflecting, worthy of a room in a contemporary art gallery.Like Tracey Emin’s garden shed.
The tension test: mechanical tug-o-war pulls and pressure is exerted on a bag-strap until it snaps. 40 kilos the average. A spectator sport. Mould of a carry-on cabin case thrown to the cement and a queue of jumpers jumped on it. Attempting to crush. Slightly caved in but would pop back to the original shape. No real damage. A Honda Elysion Prestige entered and drove over it. Front and Rear tire slow. Crushing. Torturing the baggage.The suitcase held out. Thumbs up.
Quality.
Control.
Bags ready to be shipped. Next time they would be outdoors would be in County Kildare. Lifted boxes that I lift in Maynooth.
“In my beginning is my end.”
THE ORIGIN OF THE TOOTH-SHATTERING FUQING COOKIE
After the quality control, we had a hot pot lunch, a broth that has meats and fish and noodles constantly added to it as it continually boils. At the end you drink the soup, an amalgam of all the swirling contents plopped in. A delicacy to finish: a Fuqing cookie. Consists of a rock hard sesame seed spattered bun stuffed with pork belly lard. Inedible.
In 1562 the Japanese invaded the Fujian province. General Qi Jiguang led the charge to drive the invaders out. Not wanting to waste any time or slow down the speed of the march so he invented this cookie. Ring-shaped like a donut so the soldiers could hang them around a string on their neck. A savoury piece of jewellery. After driving the invaders out the cult cookie became popular and spread around the province.
The hole in the middle got filled in. Alas, poor Hegel. The truth is no longer in the hole. The General drove out the Japanese and has his hat in the ring for the inventor of the doughnut. We toasted our flutes full of passion fruit and exchanged gifts. They gave us a portrait of Confucius cross-legged scribbling on a scroll under a Ginkgo tree by a trickling rockpool, home to Koi. We gifted them some Classic Irish Fudge.
Onwards to the Equestrian Centre.
ANCESTRAL CALLING AT THE EQUESTRIAN CENTRE
We had agreed to everything. They loved us for that. We had been court jesters, been the massaged, the indulged, the diners of avant-garde cuisine. The factories, the schools and the shops were all owned by this one man.
“The Man”.
Out with the warlord, in with the capitalist. Throughout the trip they kept saying:
“You like horse?”
Dad would say:
“Oh we love horse!”
I thought we were going to be offered horse meat to eat. Wouldn’t surprise, wondering was I going to have to eat some. I was growing anxious and bothered as each time they mentioned, I thought it was next up on the menu.
“You like horse?”
“The Man” asked enthusiastically & mimed holding the reins and galloping.
Whipppah.
Whipppah.
Whipppah.
Slowly it dawned on me that we were agreeing to ride these horses. “The Man” owned an Equestrian Centre. A black thunder shower appeared. Passed an outlet centre. Owned by him. Prada. Gucci. Versace et al. Rain ceased. The evening became pink and splendid.
Fuck, we’re gonna have to ride a horse, aren’t we
My fears were on the nose. They stood holding gear for us. A padded vest. A helmet. A horse.
Le Chef d’Équipe: a man named Ginger. Who unlike myself hadn’t a hint of ginger about him. Perhaps it was Jinja but I like the idea it is Ginger. A man in tight slacks. A man buckled up in boots. Showed us around.
An albino horse and an albino foal popped their heads through a window to say hello. A bag of Connolly’s Red Mills was on the turf. From Goresbridge, County Kilkenny. Ginger told us all the horses are fed on it:
Precision Nutrition — At Connolly’s RED MILLS we provide scientifically advanced nutrition and healthcare solutions for animal health, well-being and performance.
Whispered to my dad:
“I’m not getting on a fuckin’ horse”
But. In my mind. A calling came to me from my ancestors. An echo of some fortune cookie literature that I had read flowed down from the steep wooded hills:
To forget one’s ancestors is to be a brook without a source, a tree without root.
What would my horse riding ancestors of Cork say now? Black and white photo on the table in the kitchen. Ancestors astride horses, staring. Disappointed in their gene pool. What would they say? What would they think? ‘Neigh’ they neighed Argh-fuck-it.
I’ll get on that fuckin’ horse. My horse, my horse, my lovely, lovely horse: a Ginger horse called Red Lining. The stirrups were too high. My knees touched my ears. They laughed. All that was missing was Nelson Muntz giving a trademark haha. The stirrups were adjusted accordingly.
A horse from Turkmenistan. Fine horses, Ginger assured us. Gervaise Markham, Master of Horse to James I of England (reigned 1567–1603) watched Turkoman horses race in and commented:
“They desire to amble, and, which is most strange, their trot is full of pride and gracefulness.”
We ambled along full of initial fear that turned to grace and pride.Grew accustomed to the fair beast beneath me along the hillside. Lean back riding down hills. I was an Irish man with a bellyful of South Chinese sea cucumber on a Turkoman horse with a bellyful of Connolly’s Red Mills riding through the hills of Fuqing.
A GLOBULAR MIDRIFF UNDER STRESS
Simultaneous to our Fuqing trot time: a conference was taking place in Beijing:
The Second Belt and Road Forum For International Cooperation
2013: Xi Jinping announced the Economic Belt during a speech in Kazakhstan. Xi Jinping announced the Maritime Road during a speech in Indonesia. Strangely the Road is the sea route and the Beltis on land. The Belt squeezing the midriff of the globe, putting arteries and veins under pressure. Stress and compression. A new era of globalisation: onwards to the next loop hole and the next one after that. All with the idea of speeding up the movement of goods into China and out. A vast network of corridors. Like the Marshall Plan for post-war Europe, the Belt and Road Initiative is neo-colonialism, that through direct funding an interdependence will develop and the influence of the financier will grow and impact the areas it touches. In the thirteenth century, an invading force looked West. Genghis Khan eyed the Khwarezmid Empire, which included modern day Turkmenistan, on the banks of the Caspian Sea. The Mongol wanted the unification of all people in felt tents. Genghis Khan sent a message to ruler of the Khwarezmid Empire.
I am Khan of the lands of the rising sun while you are sultan of those of the setting sun. Let us conclude a firm agreement of friendship and peace.
Seems like a threat. A warrant for submission. Unification under Genghis Khan’s hot rising sun. No need for a good fence around the felt tents. Then again, they do make good neighbours, as Robert Frost observed. Fifteenth century globalisation: Columbus and Vasco da Gama put Europe at the centre of world trade for the first time. Now: a reversal in roles. The global centre of trade is shifting east once more. Asia and the Silk Roads are rising.
As Peter Frankopan writes:
“Asia’s rise is closely linked with the developed economies of the US, Europe and beyond. The demands and needs for resources, goods, services and skills in the latter have stimulated growth in the former and serving as a catalyst for change. The success of one part of the world is connected to that of the other, rather than coming at its expense. The sun rising in the east does not mean it is setting on the west, not yet at least.”
Like Genghis Khan’s rising and setting sun, even now the symbiotic relationship between East and West is still pendulously in the balance. Trumpian isolationism is putting America and its interests first. China were isolationist for most of the 20thcentury. Opened the borders in 1978. Industrialised and modernised rapidly since. The swooping broom of which Mao spoke sweeps more dust, extending its reach. You missed a spot.
Expanding and linking economically. This is their Marshall Plan: Investment leads to influence. China’s interest in these countries are carefully selected for strategic gain:
Oil refineries. Factories. Power plants. Fuel hubs. Pipelines. Railroads, By-passes. Deep-sea ports. Fibre optic networks. 5G.
All to make it easier for the world to trade with China. Speeding up the spin of the globalisation. Turkmenistan and the other Central Asian Countries around the Caspian sea are regions rich in gas reserves, as well as being a hop-skotch skip into Europe. Win-win, they say in Beijing. Along the old Silk Road was interwoven divvied up depots. Now, cynical eyes of the West are scrutinising the Initiative. Are China just using this investment to set up economic vassal states? The initiative involves 65% of the world’s population. One-third of the global GDP and aims to move around a quarter of all its goods and services.
In Fuzhou everywhere we went was under construction. Buildings rising up. Seven of the top ten construction companies in the world are Chinese. Building from Fuzhou to Africa to Turkmentistan to Pakistan. The String of Pearls Theory drawn up by the US government predicts that China will use investment to gain military and naval superiority in the Indian Ocean with ports in:
Sudan — Djibouti — Pakistan — Maldives — Bangladesh — Myanmar — Cambodia — Hong Kong.
Hong Kong will go under the Chinese political system in 2049 and preparations for it have been slowly, steadily gathering pace since the handover in 1997. Five minutes from my flat: King George V Memorial Park. Roots of an overhanging tree are slowly shadowing over the plaque dedicated to the King. A perfect analogy for the dying influence of a colony and the incoming shroud, slowly covering the region. Hongkongers see it as the end of “One Country — Two systems”. The disappearing of democracy.
Hong Kong will be a pivotal part of a new technological hub: The Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area — “International Innovation and Technology Hub”
Area with a population of 70 million. Set up to rival Silicone Valley. The new Tech Cold War is dominating the geopolitical chessboard with tech-power being the new atomic bomb. Knowledge and espionage through data.
China is spreading its technology, industry and influence to countries that are debt risks. Analysts think China sweeping other nations floors with their big broom means they will require some sweeping in return. Countries deep in debt, without the money to pay back, instead trade in the currency of influence and access. China have leased deep water ports in Sri Lanka and Pakistan. The ports stretch in a connect the dots from the Horn Vasco da Gama rounded to the South China Sea.
On the mainland, Turkmenistan and the other Central Asian Countries around the Caspian sea are regions rich in gas reserves, as well as being a hop-skotch skip into mainland Europe. Tom Miller, author of a book about the scheme called China’s Asian Dream, said many governments in central and South-east Asia are in favour of the Belt and Road Initiative. For many of the Central Asian Republics — the ‘Stans’ — it is literally keeping the lights on. This was in relation to the major Chinese power projects there set up in the land-locked nations.
The USA cowers behind its own nativist curtain, shutting them out. China puffs its chest out, ready to whirl the wheel of Globalisation. The sun is a pendulum at the point of inflection.
Where will the sun set?
Is it destined to swing one way?
Time will tell. I strayed from the main narrative here:
I was on a horse ambling gracefully through the hills of Fuqing. The beast under me and myself, as a double act, were the embodiment of this new, shrinking era. I felt I could be its mascot. Surely there is no one else that will take that role away from me.
A BALLAD TO A DEAD GIANT
An ode to the tall man:
On the Stork Tower
Wang Zhihuan:
“The sun beyond the mountains glows;
The Yellow River seawards flows.
You can enjoy a grander sight,
By climbing to a greater height.”
Two school girls stopped me in the street in Fuqing. Stared from my feet to my hair and back and gasped and pointed and pissed themselves laughing at me.
Is it the height?
The pants?
The hair?
The height?
I presumed it was the height. Like the masseuse snapping a photo of me I felt like a circus performer on show for these people. Speaking of circus performers:
A man born in Fuzhou.
Name: Zhan Shichai. Toured the world.
Stage name: ‘Chang Woo Gow’.
Born in the 1840s, he grew to over 8ft tall.
Giant!
Giant!
Giant!
Maybe he left to escape the giggling school girls and papping masseuses.
He left for London in 1865. The tall man could speak 10 languages. Zhin Woo, his wife, died in 1871. She had accompanied him from China. Then. He fell in love with a Liverpudlian called Catherine Santley. Two children: Edwin and Ernest. In 1878 he bowed for the last time on stage. A giant in the literal and metaphorical sense. Settled down in Bournemouth where he opened a Chinese teahouse with trinkets and imports. Four months after his wife died in 1883, he died. Of a broken heart. His coffin was 8ft 6inches.
A broken heart. A giant in exile. On the Bournemouth coast.
Imagine his dreams longing of the flowing Min river, folk tales and opera, pork floss, poetry and the upturned thimble green mountains, the air of South China, spurting in his head the poetry of his people:
On the Mountain Holiday Thinking of My Brothers in Shandong
Wang Wei
“All alone in a foreign land,
I am twice as homesick on this day
When brothers carry dogwood up the mountain,
Each of them a branch — and my branch missing.”
I was an Irishman, on a ginger horse from Turkmenistan, riding through the hills of Southern China. I am here — the perfect analogy — the human representative of the Belt and Road Initiative and the new era of globalisation.
But I open it to you reader, who will be your mascot?
The continent spanning analogous auburn horseman
OR
the polyglot giant of Fuzhou who died in seaside Bournemouth?
Roads are paved.
Paved over and paved again.
An open field becomes a factory.
Factories pump and plume.
By-pass tightens the belt.
I lift the box.
I empty the box.
I fill the box.
A Sisyphean task.
All these boxes.
All the time:
EAST COKER
(№ 2 of ‘Four Quartets’)
T.S. Eliot
“In my beginning is my end. In succession
Houses rise and fall, crumble, are extended,
Are removed, destroyed, restored, or in their place
Is an open field, or a factory, or a by-pass….”