[中国人的孩子，有些被归类成中产阶级，这是个被发明出来的词汇。最后才发现，我们和所有人都一样。什么都想是，什么都不是。
I’m a Chinese guy, some of us are classified as middle class, a term invented by society. In the end, we realize that we are all the same. We want to be everything and none at all]
I
I am astonished by the tidy minds of the middle class children,
still handcuffed by disciplinarians behind milling machines
posed like an airplane,
bent over,
body at a ninety-degree angle, arms thrown straight back.
Their precision has reached its limit,
some on medical parole, some out on bail, some on probation.
Their parents have paid their dues in death and taxes, but
the rights they held were missing in the beginning,
and must be stripped away again,
justified like Confuciusism
They see “knowing” and “knowledge” as the same
No one needs to know.
They are merely machines that can fuck.
Nothing keeps them from becoming
Laplace’s demon, omniscient and omnipotent,
seeing every atom’s trajectory in the universe and declaring:
“Its all fucking nothing.”
Time is like pirated porn downloaded by countless hands,
someone labels it “sister-in-law,”
someone in Vietnam uploads it in Vietnamese,
someone titles “college student,” someone “co-worker,”
someone “friend’s wife”—top-tier MILF.
They collide with these spawning endless questions.
They have many rights - battered, awaiting delivery,
parcels that sit at collection points;
They all have great potential,
all waiting for demolition and relocation,
all indefinitely postponed,
all applying for permits
to raze their cocoon of information,
their minds haunted by songs and memes
made by humans with upgraded brains.
They are surprised to find they can sing every shrill internet noise.
Then, the Senior official proposed a toast,
and the director toasts:
“These dwellings will not hold you.”
All rise,
announce to society in line,
with permits, dates, and prices clear.
But it must rain. Don’t demolish yet.
Sometimes in rain their forms shift.
Sometimes face recognition fails.
After rain, arthropods emerge everywhere.
How much better can it be outside?
Everywhere you go;
scan your face, pay with your image, enter street blocks
Their brown chitinous shells
reflect only streetlight spots
antennae extended,
eight compound eyes fixed on cameras,
yet they endure.
Praised for survival and adaptability.
They are not colonial vanguards nor Young Pioneers
nor construction brigades nor sanitation crews.
They are just very weary.
Later, the Hebei Provincial Department of Water Resources
and the Hebei Provincial Meteorological Bureau
jointly issue a disaster warning.
After the rain, they crawl across the mountains and plains.
Dreams writhe from burrows and grass heaps.
They search with their asses in the air, holding flashlights.
Some collect dreams that sell for one yuan each.
They seize them with all their might.
Once compensation standards and resettlement plans are set,
they eagerly begin to be packed into suitcases, wearing anxious looks.
They don't open the sunroof or the windows.
They don't let any smoke escape the car.
They adhere to vigorous industrial development feeding agriculture,
combined with environmentalism and sustainability.
See those great smokestacks,
factories and workshops.
A cloud of inert gas hangs over their heads.
They use border collies to herd cattle,
driving the gas into sunscreen bottles,
preparing to ship and sell.
They list these sunscreens on second-hand trading platforms.
This is this month's quota.
This stuff matters.
They buy it, spray themselves, stand outside.
This is the job they've been assigned,
bearing UV burden for humanity.
This method avoids the friction of unemployment.
Cyclical careers.
As long as the sun is shining.
They hold bright rice bowls. Wear anti-scalding gloves.
Later they all go abroad,
applying for visas, Fujian excluded.
They trade in ideology.
They learn of their naivety,
Then they learn what in themselves can be sold.
There they search every pocket,
regretting they sold all those dreams they caught.
Where dreams exist, big money can be made; what else remains?
Sell ideology, earn money,; also free their left hand.
Others among overseas Chinese curse them,
calling them traitors.
They do not blame them—they have lived little.
They say if the nation faces disaster they all donate.
Yet they look like the kind of men who let the girl pay for the hotel room,
and pocket the deposit on their way out.
They aren't bad at heart:
The rise and fall of the nation
is the concern of every common man.
Illegal and temporary structures
will not be compensated.
Those who lived lawfully
If they sign,here can be compensation for demolition.
Holding the money, not knowing which city to go to.
They continue to learn,
to seek knowing or knowledge,
more and more,Masters and PhDs,
they'll earn millions in the future.
Back then they signed the papers,
unless their new apartment building is also left unfinished.
This new house feels like an interrogation room.
Why is it like this?
they ask.
Free to ask: yes, but must first register.
Register: yes, but must fill forms.
Forms: yes, but must answer questions:
What stance does your speech represent?
Do you understand its implications?
Are you aware of its gist?
Do you grasp its thought?
Do you perceive its reflections?
Do you support its stance?
Do you participate in discussion?
Do you hold a clear attitude toward related statements?
How do you define the problem?
What are your views on this?
Are your views based on speculation?
Are they grounded in evidence?
Do you have solid data supporting your argument?
Are your views aligned with collective values?
II
A bottle of Brave the World is eight yuan, he said.
He finished it, swapped a second for a Snow, five yuan.
He said Tianya was sold out, then fetched two bottles of Big Green Stick.
I can see the fridge full of Tianya.
I can see his literary flair, writing with flowing grace about the
ignorant middle class children,
claiming impotence to rebel against the world.
He just wants to save a few yuan.
I know what that feels like.
Security checks are unusually strict, yet someone still makes noise in the silent carriage.
Society needs a third child; you need sleep; children are louder.
I can see these children, powerless before the world,
yet treated humanely by the greatest slave-owner.
We loathe our former selves, inward and outward.
Sour scent; rotten condoms in ashtrays;
nothing but air-conditioning. A smell like dead children.
I know what that feels like.
I can see the clumsy Beatniks on the internet sharing their sex lives,
Finding niche topics to substitute talent.
Best not to do it on a rooftop,
Lest you run into a pioneer exactly like yourself,
making things pretty awkward.
Imperialist devils swarm over the mountains, coming again and again, planes whistling, only one platoon left on our position, defend the hilltop to the death.
I can see the dandruff flying from dense rows of hair on the subway, in the mall, in the park,
people look at me but strafing their gazes.
I recoil.
Want to dive into a trench, I need supplies.
And warriors standing alone against hundreds still envision the future before death,
and modernity.
I don't know what that feels like.
Walking campus, reading the finest “-isms.”
Weekends finishing drafts; house-mates all writing novels,
going on dates armed with literary magazines,
recalling the beloved twentieth century’s eighties.
I want to know what that feels like.
I can see Chinese populists debating the future of the world. I try to return to simplicity,
treading shallow, then deep
on piles of flamboyant trash, looking down on most people.
And yet "culture is of the masses, and therefore democratic."
I don't know what that feels like.
I don't know what that feels like.
I only see what I want to see. I only know what I already know. I only like what I’m good at. I only resent what I resist. I only support what I endorse. I only indulge in passion. I only crave what I aspire to.
I feel awake, yet spiritless.
I am both colloquial and taciturn,
I read hate as unrequited love,
I brandish indulgence as anti-Confucian revolt.
I classify extreme weather as ideological issue,
I interpret madness as social skill.
I vanish in intimacy, knowing only avoidance.
I hold objectivity with humanistic care,
I attack ugliness while seeking beauty,
I am the moralist embracing change,
I am the self-admiring plagiarist,
I am the smog of holiday resorts.
I want to live this way.
Even aliens cannot stop me,
until I no longer recognise the character “I.”
Is it I who knows myself better,
or you who understands yourselves better?
I know what that feels like.
Because we are all ignorant middle class children of this generation.