A Distant Center - Ha Jin

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If Eating Is a Culture

      12  Weasels

      13  O Wind

      14  My China Dream

       A QUIET CENTER

      1  Doors

      2  Acceptance

      3  Alone

      4  A Center

      5  Misunderstanding

      6  At Least

      7  Prayer

      8  Old

      9  Paper

        About the Author

        Also by Ha Jin

        Acknowledgments

        Copyright

        Special thanks

      A Solitary Traveler

      YOU MUST NOT RUN IN PLACE

      Don’t say since life is short and precarious,

      you want to live effortlessly.

      Don’t brag you will try to outsmart time —

      every day you’ll watch movies and eat dim sum

      while chatting idly with friends.

      Better keep busy like the others

      who work for a sack of rice or a set of clothes.

      See how steady those footsteps are on the wharf,

      look at the ships leaving the port —

      heavy, they are still going far.

      THE LONG-DISTANCE TRAVELER

      Keep going: the farther you go,

      the smaller you grow

      in the eyes of those

      who can’t walk anymore, until one day they can

      no longer see you. Then

      they will declare that you

      have disappeared, that

      your foolish choice will reduce you

      to a lonely ghost in the wilderness.

      Keep going, don’t turn to look back.

      Always carry enough food and water

      and follow no one’s map

      but your own. May you have

      fresh excitement every day, but don’t

      linger at any charming site for long. If you are

      blazing a path, do not expect to meet

      a fellow traveler. If by chance

      you go astray, you will still

      have the sun and stars.

      THE DETACHED

      Still I praise those who are detached

      from any land, who, since birth,

      have been determined to travel far in search

      of home. They get their bearings

      by stars, their roots growing at the end

      of the imagined sky.

      For them, life is a tortuous journey

      and every stop a new departure. They

      know they will disappear on the road,

      but as long as they are living,

      death keeps them company

      to the destination they have envisioned,

      though they have no idea

      whose maps their footprints might update.

      DIFFICULTIES

      Don’t mention your loss again.

      Indeed, you’ve lost so many things:

      home, jobs, family, a country.

      You landed in such a place

      where everything is strange,

      where you must start all over.

      Sometimes you are like a child

      who has just begun to talk,

      sometimes you are like an old woman,

      confused, unable to collect yourself.

      These years you have lived

      from loss to loss to loss,

      surrounded by difficulties.

      But whose life, if meaningful,

      is not rooted in a predicament

      and made of difficulties?

      Stop talking about suffering.

      Sufferings are never equal —

      compared to billions of people,

      you ought to feel fortunate

      that you can start again.

      TALENT

      How many people wish you were mediocre

      so as to prove you are the same as they?

      Now that you want to stand out,

      you will have to endure pain and injury —

      surely there will be fists that all at once

      hit you from different directions.

      But even if a whole gang attacks you

      you mustn’t fight back, because

      they mean to sidetrack you

      and watch you rolling in mud.

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