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Jean Kwok

Fan Zhongyan

Katrina Otuonye

Zhang Xian

Xiaolu Guo

Li Zhiyi

A Yi

China

The Confucius Institute and School of East Asian Studies at the University of Sheffield& Litro Magazine Flash Fiction Award

Wordstake you Further...Win a cash prize and see your writing published.

• The competition is open to all. • Submissions open on 20th September.• The theme is “China”.• Each entrant is limited to just one story.• Your story must be no more than 300 words.• Winners will be announced 13th November • 1st place: £200 cash prize, publication online in Litro Magazine, and the chance to attend a short course in Chinese language at the Sheffield Confucius Institute.• 2nd place - £100• 3rd place - £50

Competition closes 3rd October All entries should be sent to competition@litro.co.uk

School of East Asian Studies

Litro Magazine 118 The Chinese issue

Editorial

China is impossible to describe. An ancient civilization, a vast nation, the largest population in the world. All true, but what is it actually like? How can we attempt to understand a country with 1.3 billion people? What could possibly be representative? At times it feels like The Great Wall — so vast it can be seen from space — is a mental as well as physical barrier.

China’s official image gives a carefully considered answer: a modern political powerhouse opening up to the world; successful, disciplined and happy. But critics such as Ai Weiwei point to the cost of such Con-fucian perfection; an unsettling disregard for the individual’s rights compared to the needs of the state. To quote a well-known yet still deeply illustrative example, at the 2008 Olympics opening ceremony in Beijing, two girls were used for the solo recital — one for her voice, the other for her face.

Perhaps China has two faces, a face to the world and the faces of its people, sometimes celebrated, sometimes hidden. But in these short stories we have discovered the individual voices from inside and outside this country, voices of protest and ambition, love and frustration, hope and confusion, all the richness of the human expe-rience. We invite you to listen.

* * *

We would also like to thank Chatto & Windus for allowing us to repro-duce ‘Then The Games Begin’ by Xiaolu Guo, and also many thanks to Eric Abrahamsen at Paper Republic for his help in reaching out to writers based in China and the editors of Pathlight magazine — an excellent publication for Chinese short stories, by the way — for allow-ing us to reproduce A Yi’s ‘Common People’.

Durham University’s Oriental Museum is the only museum in Northern Britain devoted entirely to the art and archaeology of the Ori-ent. Founded in 1960 to support teaching and research at Durham University, it is now open to everyone and welcomes thousands of tourists and local visitors each year. Learn-ing remains central to its role however, and the museum and its collections continue to be used to support research and teaching at uni-versity level, as well as being a hugely popular destination for the region’s schools.

The museum is home to an extraordinary selection of artworks and archaeological arte-facts from Ancient Egypt, the Ancient Near East, the whole continent of Asia and the Islamic cultures of North Africa and the Near and Middle East. The collections contain more than 23,500 objects, including over 6,700 from Ancient Egypt and in excess of 10,000 from China. The date range covered by the museum stretches from prehistory to the present day. Visitors can see finely carved Egyptian stone vessels dating back to the 3rd millennium BC, headhunting swords from Bor-neo and contemporary Japanese graphic art.

The museum is currently part way through a major redevelopment project.

This started in 2009 with the creation of the first of two new Ancient Egypt galleries, designed to provide an appropriate setting for the display of the highlights of the Egyptian collection. In 2011 the second Egyptian gal-lery opened, this time with a strong emphasis on supporting our work with schools and engaging with visiting families. Two new Chi-nese galleries have followed.

Marvels of China offers visitors an introduc-tion to this amazing culture through thematic displays exploring topics ranging from symbol-ism in Chinese art to festivals, scholarship and agriculture. The newest display space is the Malcolm MacDonald gallery, which focuses on the museum’s internationally important Chinese ceramic and jade collections in more detail, providing detailed information for those with a specialist interest as well as the general visitor.

China has also been the theme chosen by young people working in the museum this year as part of Stories of the World, a Lon-don 2012 Cultural Olympiad project. As their contribution to the Cultural Olympiad these young people, aged 15 to 25, curated the exhibition ‘Made in China: exports and expe-riences’. This exhibition explored relations between Britain and China over the last 500 years, drawing both on historic collections and on the real-life experiences of members of the North East’s vibrant Chinese community.

The young curators chose to use not just the Chinese collections housed at the Oriental Museum, but also the local history archives housed in Durham University’s Palace Green Library and ceramics exported from China in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and subsequently discovered during the course of archaeological excavations conducted in Durham’s historic core. In this way the exhi-bition explored local links to China, the kind of Chinese objects that were owned by local families in the North East of England in the past and how these objects were used.

C O N T E N T S

Fan ZhongyanAUTUMNAL ABSENCES translated by Julian Farmer with Liang Yujing

Jean KwokDISGUISES © Mark Kohn

Katrina Otuonye

Zhang Xian

Xiaolu Guo

Li Zhiyi

05

13

14

18

19

26

THE YORK BAR

BREAKING OFF IN MAYtranslated by Julian Farmer with Liang Yujing

THEN THE GAME BEGINS

RIVER SONG translated by Julian Farmer

A Yi

Events

27

36

COMMON PEOPLEtranslated by Julia Lovell

Julian Farmer

Julian Farmer

Liang Yujing

5

Jean KwokOn the night Mrs. Chen got lost, she was wearing a golden amulet of the goddess Kuan Yin underneath her clothes, for protection. She took the subway home from the factory in Chinatown. Sitting on the long seat with her feet lightly grazing the floor, she felt the weight of sleep drag her head forward, her permed curls sinking towards the small neat hands cupped politely in her lap. As the half-empty subway car lurched through the tunnel, its movement sporadically flung her head upward. She caught herself from sleep in those moments, look-ing about her, alarmed, only to have exhaustion fall over her again like a blanket. The swaying of the subway threw her back and forth against the hard seat, the thin fabric of her flowered pants brushed against the shopping bag full of sewing.

One... two... she had to take the subway fourteen stops to get home. The conductor’s voice in English was a river of sound in her ear, noise following noise like the falling of water over rocks. Three... four...

Mrs. Chen lifted her heavy head. Five... six... the door opened and her factory supervisor strode out of the elevator with her polyester skirt flicking about her legs, stepping quickly and fastidiously, as though the clumps of fabric dust on the sewing room floor dirtied her high-heeled shoes. As she walked, she waved one wide hand in front of her mouth to clear away the dust in the air — the other gripped a wadded piece of clothing. The supervisor only came into the work area when there was a problem; otherwise, she stayed in the air conditioned offices upstairs. Mrs. Chen could feel the supervisor’s presence passing through the rows of silent women bent over their Singer sewing machines; no one dared look up, their needles racing, piercing the fabric.

The supervisor threaded her way through the pack of women, bright in her silver-toned suit; its light gray material stretched across her fat stomach like the skin of a snake. She stopped next to Mrs. Chen and with fingers thick with rings of jade, snapped open the garment she had been holding — a skirt. Mrs. Chen, knowing it was not her place to meet the supervisor’s eyes, cautiously raised her gaze to the round collar of her shirt, while everyone about her seemed to busy them-selves with their work.

“Your seams are crooked,” the supervisor announced, wrenching her mouth around the crisp Cantonese words. “This is not accept-able.” She always attempted to speak Cantonese, one of the so-called

“sophisticated” dialects, although her accent was painfully rural. She told everyone that she had been born in Hong Kong where the clean-est Cantonese is spoken, but, Mrs. Chen thought, her peasant roots shone clearly through her words.

D I S G U I S E S

13

FAN ZHONGYAN 989-1052

To the tune of Sumuzhe (Praying for Heavy Snow)

A green, cloudy sky; and yellow leaves covering the ground —

there are even autumn colours in the waves.

Over the waves, there hangs an emerald green mist.

Mountains catch the setting sun; sky and water fuse.

The fragrant grasses are heartless,

but move further, now, beyond the setting sun.

There’s homesickness and wanderlust.

When each night comes,

only happy dreams afford me sleep.

With the bright moon, on the balcony, I’m not to be alone!

The wine poured in my worry-guts

transforms itself to lovesick tears.

Translation: Julian Farmer with Liang Yujing

Julian Farmer is a poet and translator from several languages, espe-cially French, Classical Greek, Latin, Russian and Classical Chinese. His poems and translations have been published in Acumen, Staple, Stand, The London Magazine, Epiphany, The Shop and Modern Poetry in Translation.

Liang Yujing was born in Changde, China, and completed an MA in American Literature at Wuhan University in 2007. Now a lecturer at Hunan University of Commerce, he writes in both English and Chinese. His poems in English have recently appeared in Tipton Poetry Journal, Portland Review Online, Zouch Magazine and Wasafiri.

A U T U M N A L A B S E N C E S

14

Katrina Otuonye

“You want to know why they call me Sugar Daddy?”

A slender Chinese man with a pinstripe fedora angled on his head sidles up to Miranda and me, and a few of our friends, holding a few beers that look suspiciously unfamiliar. Miranda switches from her native Chinese to English easily, but runs her hands through her mass of curls at a loss for words. We shoot Miranda surprised and awkward glances as “Sugar Daddy” lets loose some rapid-fire Chinese and wrenches the caps off the bottles. We don’t spend much time in Hankou, the nicer part of Wuhan. Miranda drove us there in her red Buick, with a deftness that only comes with a lack of driving instruc-tion. She often assumes the role of unofficial translator, so she leans over and says, “That’s the owner of the pub.”

As Sugar Daddy nods at her translation, we exchange sly smiles. This man is clearly interested in foreigners, and foreign friends receive free gifts. He settles in the chair next to me and grins to show off crooked teeth that move around like a series of zippers in his wide gums.

As we eye the bottles, I inwardly groan at the idea of drinking more fake beer. The “Shanghaiist,” a popular Chinese weblog and news site, once described the fake Tsingtao as a beer “steeped in nicotine wrappers and death,” and after a few nights out, drinking nothing but Tsingtao, I had to agree. The owner hands us bottles of Tsingtao and peels at the wrapper. It comes off with difficulty, while most other beers have wrappers flapping in the wind.

China sends out whatever goods they can, Sugar Daddy explains. Most people in the country will drink whatever is sold to them. The cheapest beer is called Snow, and for 5 kuai, is the US version of a Natty Light. We used to gather at outside street vendors with some fresh lo mian and suck down half-litre bottles of Snow. Once people are drunk enough, they’ll buy anything; they’ll drink anything. It’s good for business. We never get Sugar Daddy to admit what’s in the fake beer. A distribu-tor sends him the real Tsingtao that usually gets shipped out of the country. We’ve taken to drinking “formaldehyde-laced Snow” when out at bars because of our lack of options. On those nights, we hover in the alcoholic stupor, as carboxyls and teeny hydrogen molecules release and eat at our insides.

The York Bar sits in the middle of a busy street in Hankou, the gen-trified section of the three smaller cities that now make up Wuhan. Hankou comes complete with its own Soho, budding Chinese clubs and faux French restaurants just in front of half-demolished apart-ment buildings. There’s a Howard Johnson’s with a large sun sphere like the 1984 World’s Fair creation down the expansive street, which

T H E Y O R K B A R

18

ZHANG XIAN 990-1078

To the tune of Qianqiusui (A Thousand Autumns Old)

The frequent sound of the cuckoo

again proclaims the meadow flowers’ passing.

I enjoyed the spring, so pick its last blooms, even more.

There’s scant rain and cruel wind,

while yet the plums remain unripe.

The Yongfeng Willow

stands alone all day, its snowflake-catkins flying.

No plucking of my pipa’s highest string.

I hate it, for it speaks feebly.

Heaven won’t age, which makes love hard to break.

My heart is like a double silk net

with thousands of knots at its core.

Night is over.

My one lamp, in the eastern window, was put out, at first light.

Translation: Julian Farmer with Liang Yujing

BREAK IN G OFF IN MA Y

19

Xiaolu GuoThe man who invented Mah Jong is a hero. Yeah, definitely a hero. He saves people’s lives, people like me who have nothing good to count on at night. You know I used to think that playing Mah Jong was only for grandparents, and a young woman like me would have better things to do. But now I know this game is for everyone, for all the people in China. I wonder what Chairman Mao thought of Mah Jong during the Cultural Revolution, maybe he tried to stamp it out. Very unwise I think.

I feel a much stronger person since I started playing Mah Jong. And you know what’s more, it has brought about an affair.

Let me explain to you why I like gambling — and now gambling with my marriage as well. For the last three years I have spent every day answering telephones in my office in a perfect polite voice, answer-ing every query with a smile, and every evening cooking dinner in an empty home, waiting for my husband Hui to walk through the door. God, how boring my life sounds — don’t you think? So by the time he arrives home the dinner I have laboured over for him is cold and unappealing, so I almost always eat alone. Then I watch crappy TV on our crappy television set until Hui opens the door, weary as always. He seems to have put on weight recently, I wonder whether he’s been drinking too much beer after work with his colleagues, or perhaps his cheap shirt is just too tight? You know he is not that handsome or spe-cial, after all. He is just an ordinary man, now I realise, disappointing or not, that’s the truth.

You know I haven’t made a single friend in this city of eighteen million people. And why is that? I used to think I was one of the many victims of old Confucius’ rules — he says the good virtue of a woman is to belong to her husband; the rest is not worth consideration. I thought I was such a modern woman — pah! What did I know? What stupid-ity! You know, I started to ask myself why I was even living in this big city with my plastic modern flat, my tired and absent husband. There is a whole city full of possibilities out there, and I was sat here at home watching cheap soap operas day after day. My body was getting old and tired and flabby, my mind loose and lazy — I needed something to shock me into living, really living.

Then one night, I stayed up late listening to a new CD, an album by Nick Cave. There is this one song called ‘Nobody’s Baby Now’. The lyrics go like this: ‘This is her dress that I loved best, with the blue violets across the breast. And these are my many letters torn to pieces by her long-fingered hand, I was her cruel-hearted man…’ when I heard those lines, my tears flowed out freely. I played the song again and again that night, as if on a constant loop. Then I dried my eyes and made

THEN THE GAME BEGINS

26

LI ZHIYI 1035-1117

To the tune of Busuanzi (Calculating the Future)

I live at the head of the long Yangtze.

He lives in its furthest reaches.

I think of him, each day, but we never meet.

The drink we share is the Yangtze water.

When will these waters come to rest,

or my regrets finally end?

I only hope his heart’s like mine.

Surely, we won’t betray our longings!

Translation: Julian Farmer

RIVER SONG

27

A Yi

Imagine — if you will — that you are a large bird, hovering over the town of Jujiu on 20 April 1998. You would have seen the county’s dep-uty-mayor, Li Yaojun, getting unexpectedly promoted to legal-political commissar; Chen Mingyi, a secondary school teacher, smashing his head on the ground outside a department store; Li Xilan’s husband heading off (and not for the first time) to Beijing to get his impo-tence treated; a team of migrant workers digging a pit in the road outside the park; and Feng Botao — accountant at the Linye Hostel — suggesting a game of chess to Ho Lao’er, a security guard in the local building society. And if you had been asked to arrange these dispa-rate pieces of information in order of importance, you would probably have placed the final fact at the bottom of the pile.

Feng Botao trailed behind, as he always did. Ho walked in front, both hands behind his back. He puckered his lips sardonically when he encountered someone he knew, as if to say: “Pathetic, isn’t he?” I thought this was okay; I can’t think of a way round it. The townspeo-ple of Jujiu understood the dynamic between Feng and Ho perfectly: it was as the moon is to the earth, or the earth to the sun. Today, though, there was something unsettling about the sight of the two of them together. There was a strange, bladelike glitter to Feng’s eyes

— as if he were escorting Ho down to the underworld. But no-one could tell Ho he was about to die, just like you can’t tell a driver that he’s about to have an accident.

So all passers-by passed by, and Feng and Ho made their way to the lakeside. Ho settled his corpulent form on a stool, while Feng poured a plastic bag of chess pieces onto a stone chess board and care-fully set them out. This was Ho’s last chance to read the expression on Feng’s face, but he saw only humility. He told Feng to start, and his opponent dutifully moved his cannon out. Feng had lost count of how many times he had tried this opening and of how many times he had sworn to abandon it. A sense of solemn finality overwhelmed him; the presentiment that today was the last time he would play it. Fuck you, he suddenly thought. Ho responded by moving his knight forward, as usual. After a few more moves, Feng drifted into a daydream: he was walking silently through a crowd of people asking him whether he had won. He looked to Ho for an answer; his opponent gave only a knowing smile. Its flash of contempt brought a flush to Feng’s face.

After a few brisk exchanges, Feng played the move that he had rehearsed the previous evening: As Ho’s hand paused over the board, Feng set his face into an expression of magnanimous victory. “Come on,” he hurried his opponent. Ho glanced at him and gave a strange, unnerving laugh — the sound of scissors skittering over sheet iron.

COMMON PEOPLE

SEPTEMBEREVENTSTHIS

St. James Theatre, London’s newest theatre, opensSt. James Theatre, September 2012St. James Theatre, the first newly built theatre complex in central London in 30 years, will open to the public in September 2012. Rising from the site of the former Westminster Theatre at 12 Palace Street, in the heart of Victo-ria, the space will include a 312 seat theatre, a studio space, brasserie and bar. David Gilmore, Artistic Director, and James Albrecht, Assistant Artistic Director, will produce a varied programme to include musicals, comedies and classic revivals as well as offering a London venue to touring and regional productions. For more information visit www.stjamestheatre.co.uk

London Design Festival - 10th anniversaryLondon, 14 – 23 September 2012September 2012 sees the London Design Festival, one of the most impor-tant events on the global design calendar, mark its 10th anniversary. This year, when the global spotlight is firmly on London, the Festival will present a programme that will more than equal the quality, imagination and innova-tion that it has demonstrated for the last decade. London Design Festival is launching the inaugural Global Design Forum (18 September) at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design. The Forum will be a stimulating and inten-sive one-day event to set the global agenda for design. Townhouse is another new feature of this year's festival – located in a Georgian house in Belgra-via, Townhouse will see a rich diversity of contemporary design curated by Jan Withers. Other key London Design Festival locations include: Trafalgar Square, Victoria & Albert Museum as well as up to 250 smaller exhibitions, installations, talks and events. www.londondesignfestival.com .

Be Open Sound Portal, London Design Festival 2012Trafalgar Square project, 19 - 23 September 2012This year, Be Open, the new global initiative to foster creativity and innova-tion, and the London Design Festival are co-producing a project in Trafalgar Square that focuses on the idea of ‘design you can’t see’. Taking as its basis the idea of sound as a means of conveying memory and evoking emotion, the Be Open Sound Portal will be an immersive space in the centre of the square that will take visitors on an intriguing journey. The Portal will transport visitors to inaccessible places and remote environments through a series of three-dimensional soundscapes created by leading musicians and sound designers. For more information visit www.beopenfuture.com.

South PlaceCity of London, September 2012South Place is an 80-bedroom, design-focused property, due to open in September 2012. The hotel's rooftop terrace will offer 7th-floor views of the City of London. South Place aims to bring something different to the hotel scene in London. Combining the buzz of D&D London’s restaurants, Conran-designed interiors and specially commissioned work by contem-porary London artists, South Place looks set to be ‘more meet than sleep’ than most London hotels. Handy for Liverpool Street commuters will be the two restaurants, including a brasserie on the ground floor, plus bars from hotel owner the D&D London group, which owns restaurants includ-ing London's Bluebird and Coq d'Argent. www.southplacehotel.com.

SEPTEMBER

Private PeacefulTheatre Royal Haymarket, 18 – 29 September 2012Michael Morpurgo’s Private Peaceful plays for a strictly limited 16 per-formances at the Theatre Royal Haymarket from 18 September 2012. Directed and adapted for the stage by Simon Reade, Private Peaceful, Private Tommo Peaceful is a young First World War soldier awaiting the firing squad at dawn. During the night he looks back at his short but joyful past growing up in rural Devon; and the battles and injustices of war that brought him to the front line. For more information visit www.trh.co.uk

The Tiger Lillies perform HamletQueen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre, 18 – 21 September 2012Eccentric three piece band The Tiger Lillies come to Southbank Centre with the UK premiere of their new show, The Tiger Lillies perform Hamlet. Co-produced by Southbank Centre and Danish theatre company Repub-lique, the show combines new music, circus acts, giant puppets and video projections to give a macabre twist to Shakespeare’s classic tale of the Danish prince. For more information visit www.southbankcentre.co.uk.

Jazz Nights in the Cafe in the CryptSt Martin-in-the-Fields, Wednesdays through September 2012Café in the Crypt St Martin-in-the-Fields plays host through September to some of the UK’s top jazz musicians and singers. Get ready for jazz, swing, ska and rock and roll. Zena James’ heartfelt, unpretentiousness and lustrous vocals giving a fresh interpretation to soul-laden jazz and Santi, a bright-toned and nimble trumpeter performing world-class improvisation. For more information visit www.smitf.org.

Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Avant-GardeTate Britain, 12 September – 13 January 2013Combining rebellion and revivalism, scientific precision and imaginative gran-deur, the Pre-Raphaelites constitute Britain’s first modern art movement. This exhibition will bring together over 150 works in different media, including painting, sculpture, photography and the applied arts, revealing the Pre-Raphaelites to be advanced in their approach to every genre. Led by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (PRB) rebelled against the art establishment of the mid-nineteenth century, taking inspiration from early Renaissance painting.

Art of ChangeThe Hayward Gallery's new exhibition brings together some of China's most innovative artists from the 1980s to the present including Chen Zhen, Yingmei Duan, Gu Dexin, Liang Shaoji and Wang Jianwei. It show-cases some outstanding early examples from each artist, alongside more recent works and commissions. The acceptance that everything is sub-ject to change is deeply-rooted in Eastern philosophy, and the artworks deal with themes of transformation, instability and discontinuity. The works on display all alter their appearance over time, or otherwise con-vey a powerful sense of volatility.

SEPT.EVENTSTHIS

Everything was moving: photography from the 60s and 70sBarbican Art Gallery, 13 September 2012 – 13 January 2013This major photography exhibition surveys the medium from an interna-tional perspective, and includes renowned photographers from across the globe, all working during two of the most memorable decades of the 20th Century. everything was moving: photography from the 60s and 70s tells a history of photography, through the photography of history. It brings together over 350 works, some rarely seen, others recently dis-covered and many shown in the UK for the first time. everything was moving opens at Barbican Art Gallery on 13 September 2012.

The Book Show LIVE!, www.thebookshow.co.uk, 22nd SeptemberThe Book Show 2012 is a show for authors and publishers. This full-day event will be held on the 22nd September 2012 over three floors at The Hat Factory in Luton, Bedfordshire. Being overseen by the UK’s leading digital publisher, Andrews UK, The Book Show brings authors and publishers together in one space to talk, network and build relationships with one another.

Come along and take part in a full day’s worth of panels with both authors and publishers; ask questions to digital and traditional publish-ers; meet other authors and like-minded individuals and find out about getting your work out there, whether through a publisher or going it alone with self-publishing; hear from people talking about their experi-ences of self-publishing and make up your own mind. With talks on PR and marketing, there's a chance to hear the professionals explain how they do what they do and to speak to experts about the impact of social networking and other media

SEPT.

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LITRO IS BROUGHT TO YOU BYEDITOR IN CHIEF AND PUBLISHER: ERIC AKOTO

eric@oceanmediauk.comEDITORS: MOHSEN SHAH & ALEX GOODWIN

editor@litro.co.ukCONTRIBUTING EDITOR: KATY DARBY

katy@litro.co.ukCONTRIBUTING EDITOR: SOPHIE LEWIS

sophie@litro.co.ukEVENTS EDITOR: ALEX JAMES

events@litro.co.ukPOETRY EDITOR: IAN PARKS

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CREATIVE DIRECTOR: KWAKUCREATIVE ASSISTANT: JAMES HOLLIDAY

design@litro.co.ukPUBLICITY & PRESS: BENEDETTA PETROZZI

press@litro.co.ukCHAIR WOMAN: CATHY GALVIN

Twitter:@cathygalvin1LITERARY ADVISORY BOARD: KRISTY ALLISON

INTERN: LAURA HANNUM, LYDIA SMITH & ANGIE WANGSHA

A r tist s’L a b or a t o r y 05 Hughie O’Donoghue RA

Until 14 October 2012www.royalacademy.org.uk

Supported by the Friends of the Royal Academy

Hughie O’Donoghue RA, Road (detail), ‘The Skeleton Town of Cassino’, 2011–12. Oil and transparent photographic prints on prepared plywood panel, with pages of the Gramina Britannica. 36 panels, each 36 x 56cm. Image courtesy of the artist.

Now open

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LITRO | 118

“Your seams are crooked,” thesupervisor announced, wrenchingher mouth around the crispCantonese words. “This is notacceptable.” She always attemptedto speak Cantonese, one of theso-called “sophisticated” dialects,although her accent was painfullyrural. She told everyone that she hadbeen born in Hong Kong where thecleanest Cantonese is spoken, but,Mrs. Chen thought, her peasant rootsshone clearly through her words. Mrs.Chen stood up. “I am so sorry,” shesaid, her pronunciation flawless. Sheknew the supervisor resented her for the breeding that meant so little in thiscountry. She could see the skirt wasone she had labored over at night,sewing between the soft breaths ofher sleeping family.

Disguises by Jean Kwok

www.litro.co.uk

ISBN 978-0-9554245-5-7

Cover Art by: Wu YiqiangHai Gallery, London

China