A Distant Center Read online

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  For Lisha

  Contents

  Title Page

  Note to Reader

  Dedication

  A SOLITARY TRAVELER

  You Must Not Run in Place

  The Long-Distance Traveler

  The Detached

  Difficulties

  Talent

  Misfortune

  The Choice of Exile

  A 58-Year-Old Painter Leaving for America

  In Saskatchewan

  The Roads I Traveled

  Missing Home

  Cemetery

  MISSED TIME

  Missed Time

  Fire

  Lullaby

  Again, Speaking of Those I Once Loved

  A Visitor

  The One Following You

  Surprise

  An Ideal Life

  Two Images

  April

  HOME ON THE ROAD

  A Snowstorm

  A New Hope

  In the Springtime

  Toads

  A Tug of War

  Copying Characters

  A Small Boat

  Choice of Hometown

  Whether You Like It or Not

  The Lost Moon

  ECHOES FROM FAR AWAY

  The Cage

  All You Have Is a Country

  The Older Generation

  The Last Wish

  A Cabinet

  Concreteness and Clarity

  Incompatible

  Hands

  A Censor’s Talk

  Do Not Start

  If Eating Is a Culture

  Weasels

  O Wind

  My China Dream

  A QUIET CENTER

  Doors

  Acceptance

  Alone

  A Center

  Misunderstanding

  At Least

  Prayer

  Old

  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.

  Keep in mind your talent also includes

  patience and endurance.

  Get up, move quietly, and leave

  all the clamor behind.

  MISFORTUNE

  Misfortune is again descending.

  In what fashion will it appear this time?

  You have seen calamities and deaths

  and have been shaken by shattered families,

  their members scattered everywhere.

  So many times you almost collapsed,

  moaning, “No more — I’m done for!”

  But you picked yourself up

  and set out again, although

  you had to make abrupt turns,

  had to cross new hills and valleys

  learning another kind of staggering.

  Now, misfortune is coming,

  but you don’t tremble anymore,

 
already familiar with its company:

  beneath a ghastly mask are the faces

  of various deities, including Opportunity.

  THE CHOICE OF EXILE

  Although you are almost middle-aged

  you still want to uproot yourself

  and go far away so you can start over.

  You haven’t set out yet, uncertain

  where to put down roots.

  You often wish you could be like that artist

  who bought a little island so that

  he could live freely on his own land.

  He raised vegetables and chickens, did carpentry,

  planted bamboo and fruit trees

  all over the slope beyond his cottage.

  Every season was like spring on his island,

  where he could hear only the tides and birdsong.

  It was beautiful and quiet enough to smother him.

  Don’t forget he chose to kill himself

  and even strangled his wife,

  because he couldn’t see how to continue,

  so crushed was he by madness and fear.

  From the very beginning he should have known

  that if he chose exile he would have no land of his own

  — the desire to depart

  would rise in him again and again —

  he could find no home other than the road.

  Don’t dream of taking root somewhere else.

  Once you start out, you must live like a boat,

  accepting a wandering fate

  drifting from port to port, to port . . .

  A 58-YEAR-OLD PAINTER LEAVING FOR AMERICA

  Tomorrow you will leave Shanghai,

  the city you used to love,

  to look for another life far away.

  “Probably another death,”

  you often joke with a smile these days.

  You have attempted death several times.

  Expel it from your mind.

  No matter how hard life is there,

  you must continue to live.

  As long as you are alive

  there will be miracles.

  Indeed, you have no English

  or youth for starting over,

  only your paintbrush and fortitude.

  In that strange land

  you must live, as always,

  with stubbornness and care.

  You must quit drinking and avoid

  staying up all night.

  Keep in mind the meaning of

  your existence: wherever you land,

  your footprints will become milestones.

  IN SASKATCHEWAN

  Facing a thousand acres for sale,

  your cheeks turn pink, your eyes flashing.

  True, if you pay a hundred thousand dollars,

  this farm will be yours,

  together with the pasture and the farmhouse.

  I know you are a farmer’s granddaughter.

  Your family’s land was confiscated

  by the state during the land reform,

  but in your veins still flows

  the hunger for sowing and harvesting.

  How you long to live like your friend,

  the one from Henan province —

  she put down roots here, raised

  a family, followed daylight

  to go to work and returned to rest,

  busy or relaxing according to the season.

  Your friend’s farm extends to the end of the sky,

  already over ten thousand acres.

  She has her own forest and lake.

  Heavens — this makes me envious, too!

  But don’t forget you are destined to wander.

  Your home is on the road, and on paper.

  You used to say that most property

  was merely extra fat.

  THE ROADS I TRAVELED

  I tried to throw off all the roads I had traveled,

  but by chance I brought a few with me.

  Now, wherever I go, I can feel them

  stretching away under my feet,

  though I have no idea how they continue

  to join or cross new roads.

  But I am already clear about this:

  all the new roads stem from

  the journeys I once made.

  Perhaps someday I can say with pride

  that my old paths have

  led me into new terrains.

  MISSING HOME

  Homesickness is a deep heartache, even

  though you no longer know where home is.

  Home is an existence of another kind —

  once lost, it can’t be recovered

  except in your thought and memory.

  The swirling leaves can make one sad,

  but you are used to the late autumn scene.

  The trees will sprout green next spring.

  There’s no need to feel so blue now.

  Nowadays so many homes rise in your mind,

  all in places you have never been.

  Your dreams of the future and your longing

  for the past are nothing but fantasies

  of how to stop being a stranded traveler.

  CEMETERY

  I have seen the beauty of that cemetery,

  where grassy slopes glow with sunshine

  and the North Atlantic tides lap

  at the pebbles and granite steps.

  Tombstones spread from winding paths,

  where Mexican workers trim flowers.

  It’s so peaceful and sunny everywhere,

  and everything is neatly organized.

  I can see why both of you want to go there

  and even purchased plots for your families

  who have yet to leave our motherland.

  Knowing where to end can help

  to curb your wandering heart

  and stabilize this drifting life.

  In fact, a fine cemetery is a village

  or town of another kind, where

  people can settle afterward.

  I envy your clarity about your journey’s end,

  but I’m still not sure where to go,

  never attached to any place.

  Even after this life, I might continue to roam.

  Missed Time

  MISSED TIME

  after Dai Wangshu

  My notebook has remained blank for months

  thanks to the light you shower

  around me. I have no use

  for my pen, which lies

  languorously without grief.

  Nothing is better than to live

  a storyless life that needs

  no writing for meaning —

  when I am gone, let others say

  they lost a happy man,

  though no one can tell how happy I was.

  FIRE

  They all avoided the smoke.

  Only you, from far away,

  saw the fire smoldering in me.

  Quietly you came over

  and hugged me as if to keep warm,

  saying, “Like this forever.”

  Only you, only you

  can bear the raging fire.

  It’s burning only for you

  so you can live a life of splendor,

  not afraid of cold even in deep winter.

  Every month will pass like a day.

  LULLABY

  Sleep well, sweetheart.

  You were busy the whole day —

  you tidied up our home, went shopping,

  picked up the mail at the post office,

  mended our fence, cooked,

  and paid all the monthly bills.

  Sleep well, sweetheart.

  I’m staying beside you,

  relishing the time we are together.

  The flowers in our yard are blooming

  and the rabbits and groundhogs

  have returned to their burrows.

  Sleep well, sweetheart.

  Beyond the window the moon is large an
d round.

  There are no furious cries

  or fearsome faces here.

  Tonight you must sleep peacefully

  so you will wake to another good day.

  AGAIN, SPEAKING OF THOSE I ONCE LOVED

  They all longed to have a home,

  but I could only promise to try my best

  to let them live comfortably.

  If they were afraid of ice and snow

  we’d go south of the Yangtze.

  If they didn’t like a humid climate

  we would move to a plain or plateau.

  But they all kept an eye on the present,

  eager for an actual home:

  a spacious apartment that had better

  have a shower and a balcony.

  Only you said everything

  didn’t have to come all at once

  as long as we could often be

  together — especially on holidays —

  at least I should be home for the Spring Festival.

  You hoped that uneventful days

  would follow one another without pause.