I Love a Broad Margin to My Life - Maxine Hong Kingston [29]
in my own neighborhood, where the streets curve
around, and I circle and circle. Earll drove
around until he found me. I walked very,
very mindfully into the Grand Canyon,
down the Great Unknown, lost sight
of any person, and did not get lost,
and walked back up to the top. I followed
a deer, who did not run away from me,
and I did not get lost. Maps of China
were made for me by Columbus and Kafka.
The most beautiful thing that Columbus had ever seen
was the land, “gardens,” wholly bright green.
He walked among the trees, which grew 5 kinds
of leaves and fruit branching from one trunk.
The greatest wonder in the new world, he said, was
“diversity.” A man alone in a canoe rowed by;
he was bringing bread from island to island.
Kafka heard from an unknown boatman
that a great wall will be built to box in
the Center, which is itself a series of box mazes,
all contained within the endless outside
wall. Villages, cities, each further maze.
The ruler of the Center has a message for us;
he whispers it into the messenger’s ear, has it
whispered back, nods, then dies.
To get to us, the way goes from innermost
courts, up mountains of staircases
and stiles over walls, down stairs
and more stairs to an outer palace, onward
to the next outer palace, the next, more
courts, more stairs, more mazy
palaces. Years and years go by.
And I am traveling the other way, inward
to the Center. Must not tire, must
not grow old and want to die.
After years and miles of travel and worry,
keeping west, keeping south, I come
to a home-like village in Viet Nam.
All the land from the Yangtze River
to Quang Tri had been Nam Viet / Nan Yue.
The Hung / Hong Bang kings ruled
for 2,621 years.
I was on a boat in the Pearl River delta
(my mother in a boat going the other way,
hiding under a pile of oranges, escaping
from the Japanese, catching the big ship
to meet my father in America), and next
thing I knew, I was in the Red River delta.
The same pearlescent water, changing colors
with the tropical sun, the same red dirt,
and gray dirt and black dirt. Same
as the San Joaquin delta, back home. The farmers
grow rice; they treasure the water
buffalos, name them names like Great Joy.
The people look same-same Chinese.
“The like of the same I feel,
the like of the same in others.…”
But an utterly foreign language chimes out
of their mouths. (Flashback to the first day of
American school: Other children! But
I can’t speak with them. I wanted to say,
“You smell like milk. Your skin
looks like chocolate ice cream. And yours
like strawberry-and-vanilla ice cream.”
And I wanted to ask, “How do you
feel being you?”) I arrived
at the hamlet on a holiday. The hot
breeze, hot even beside the hurrying
river, blew and flew flags, long
banners, tassels, long ribbons. Lots
of red. Not just political red. Red
for health, for beauty, for good luck. Clang
clang clang clang! Bang! Bang!
Ho-o-nk! Qwoooo! Bum! Bum! The musicians
played freestyle no-pattern
free-for-all any old way. Broke
patterns. Broke time. And firecrackers
went off every which way.
Firecrackers like bombs and artillery fire,
and rocket fire. They aren’t afraid,
the bangs setting off P.T.S.D.
No more P.T.S.D. P.T.S.D. over.
War over. War won. They won every war.
The American War, and before that, war
with the French, and before that, the Japanese,
and before that, the Chinese. They
invited me into a tent open
on one side, sat me at the picnic
table, and served me joong. Just like
back home. Untie the string—what
message are these lines and knots telling me
if I could but read? Unwrap the ti
leaves—ti sacred in every country
where it grows. Eat the rice and mung beans,
the pork, and the whole sun of egg yolk.
I partake of joong with the once-enemy.
Does joong mean to them what it means to me?
They are eating peace food with their
twice-enemy, an American, a Chinese.
Chinese invented joong to feed
the dragons in the river where Chu Ping, the peace
martyr, drowned himself. Clang clang!
Kang!