CHEN LELING
Braving Australia (chuangdang aozhou)
translated by Ouyang Yu
We are a motley lot
Are intellectuals, are workers peasants business people students
soldiers, are cadres below Level 18, are the jobless
We are our own custodians but can’t even look after ourselves
We aim high and far, thoughts filling our mind, and we
can hardly sleep at night
We are restless, we risk dangers, are also dangerous
We are inflammable, explosive, fragile
But must put ourselves upside down, squeezing ourselves
pressurizing ourselves
In sum, we come uninvited and reach the same destination
via different routes
sprinting towards this new continent
We did not use silk or wine or cigarettes to pay Aborigines
as guides
We landed independently, got stranded, blindly shed much
blood
We inhaled oxygen, opening our gills like dry fish, gathering
ourselves together
We went through the bush, entered cities
We wanted to study, wanted to dig for gold, wanted to
realize colorful dreams
In fact, we first wanted to pay the debt
We took ourselves to school for enrolment, escorting
ourselves into classrooms, to open the books
We put books up like bunkers behind which we
dozed away to store energy
When the sun drowned in the sea we crept from
behind the bunkers
Rushing towards every corner of this paradise
We were stragglers and disbanded soldiers but
we could accurately take our bearings
We competed and killed in the cheap labour market,
selling ourselves
Not caring about weight, not caring about pricing
We were covered in stinking sweat with a bundle
of pumped up energy
Bosses liked us from the bottom of their hearts
Our blood and sweat were their fat but even so
We were still in high spirits each time we counted
our pay
We breathed heavily, demanded heavy work
Our waists huge axles and our limbs levers, we
did onerous physical labour
Each sinew as tightly stretched as a clockwork
spring
All our muscles smelling of an enormous sourness
At the end of a day, our bodies weighed tons,
legs hardly supported us
While suffering, we thoroughly rectified our
errors, gained a rebirth and sang the Nirvana of phoenix
We have learnt to be stingy, learnt to be steady,
learnt to be wise
We hid truth from folks at home
(we mainly hid our positions)
We endured in loneliness, bearing patiently,
giving all the glory to the family
We nibbled bread, sending money to the other
shore
Excited with the exchange of one for six:
We put ourselves on the anvil to be hammered away at[1]
Till our shapes changed, our faces became haggard, our
hearts failing
Staggering, ready to fall, we wondered if we were still
ourselves
Still the knowledgeable selves, the professional selves,
the young selves, and
The cheerful selves, the happy selves, the plentiful
selves
After doubt swept across our chests
We even more stubbornly believed that we ourselves were
still wonderful people
We hadn’t turned into things like cows horses pigs and
dogs
Our professors, engineers, artists, journalists
Had to temporarily content themselves with restaurants,
grocery stores, farms and
factories, tirelessly
Brewing their great aspirations and composing a new history
of spring and autumn
We drove bashed cars, smoking cheap cigarettes, lost
in wild memories, allergic to hayfever
We knew we were as intelligent as the whites
But we watched with open eyes how our intelligence went
moldy, shriveled up, wilted
We also knew heaven did not bestow great tasks on us
When we looked haggard and hollow in the body
We also knew how profound and pithy the ancient adage
was
That went, ‘Finding money is like carrying earth with
a needle’
We further knew how deceptively alluring the ancient
adage was that went
‘Only by eating bitterness of bitternesses could one
become person above persons’
Fooled by it, we had tasted all the world’s goldthread
but our price had fallen thousands of meters deep
We have changed our view of the world and of life
Changed all sorts of macro-views and micro-views
We stretched the tortuous and complex road of life pen-straight
So that we could see right to the end and know the result
In China, we hated the guts of Second Aunty Sun[2] with her highwayman drugs
But, here, we simply ate Devilmen’s marijuana
We indulged ourselves, turning ourselves into fallen
lone wolves
We worked by pitfalls till heaven turned dizzy and earth
darkened, till one could hardly tell you and me apart
We became informers, betraying friends, repudiating debts,
scrambling for jobs
And on the side we also became our own enemies, at odds
with ourselves, hating
ourselves
And would often have terrible thoughts of how to get
rid of ourselves
We nearly became broken masts drifting on the Pacific
Ocean
Storm rain lashing the earth like whips
The scorching sun threatening to grill us like BBQ
We remained punctual like hour hands and minute hands
Hoisting ourselves up like cargo to the compartments
going to the cities and suburbs
We shuttled to and fro between winter and autumn,
year after year
Covering a spider web of roads like the lines
on our palms
We established a new interpersonal relationship,
a social network
Far from reports and outlines
All of our end-of-year summaries a tax return
sheet
We increasingly simplified ourselves
The women after our own hearts, to secure their
status
Paid via agreement to become ‘wives’ of the Aussies
On nights of black moon and high wind
We worried, feeling no peace at meals or in bed
A sinister sensation creeping into our hearts,
like a dark cloud
Even when there was something untoward, we had
to swallow our anger
Biting our teeth till they broke, shafting it
down the throat
Keeping the seed of hatred from ever budding
We became even colder and crueler
We no longer were tender
No longer sentimental
No longer seeking hundreds of times thousands
of times for something rare
No longer pacing up and down every few kilometers
Our two-place letters were to evolve into divorce
documents
We easily broke our families
Drifting like Robinson Crusoe, fighting with
the northerly, being heroes
Assuming there was no concern
But often bumping into our wives and kids full
in the face in our dreams
We were solitary, being this half of ourselves
We would occasionally take ourselves into a whorehouse
Acting as the women’s half, stubbornly proving
we were still men enough
When this broken boat was anchored in a quiet
harbour
We thought to ourselves: Forget it! Go home and
find a docile wife to lead a life
Stop ruining ourselves
But, as soon as we went outdoors, we smelt the
gunpowder in the air again
And again rushed into the wilderness with our
spears, fighting with fate, for a hundred rounds
We wouldn’t want to sink into this degradation,
we persisted and we obstinately thought
That there was a brilliant future awaiting us,
so we kept
Buying Kenos, fighting poker machines all night
with intelligence, with the result
That even the smallest winning went past us scraping
our shoulders
And the biggest winning would always dodge us
from a distance
Our hopes always left to tomorrow the day after
tomorrow next year the year after next year, to a hundred million years….
From childhood onwards, we learnt characters
like big small much little up down come go gold wood water fire earth and
a character like
has eight strokes
We were fluent in understanding speaking reading
and writing the Chinese language
Now, we were forced to struggle through a forest
of English
To become dizzy, half-deaf, half-mute, to become
losers
We were determined to run Chinese newspapers
Chinese magazines
To allow Chinese culture to charge forward in
an alien country
Flowering and exploding like dumdum bullets
We, the stragglers and disbanded soldiers, unified
in a stronghold of will
Calling out to each other from east west north
and south, hearing each other’s drums from on the mountain tops
We acted as our own throats, our own spokespersons
Erecting the big character 
in the courts the parliaments and in front of the city councils
We in our inferior positions dared not forget
our country
However bitter our lives were, our hearts were
attached to home affairs state affairs world affairs
Thinking ourselves bright-eyed bright-hearted,
wise to things and reasonable
Thinking ourselves children of the Yellow Emperor,
carriers of Huaxia tradition
Filling ourselves with fury at the sight of people
looking down on the Chinese
Using our own small, fragile bodies as defenders
of this great country
Once we won we would hold our heads high walking
into the factories burying our heads at work
We were rendered illegal and might as well work
illegally
We concealed our identity, had no fixed residence,
disappeared from our circle of friends
We hid by day and appeared by night, hidden from
the sun, hidden from democracy and freedom
Learning from Xu Yunfeng[3], putting a vase of flowers
on the window-sill, saving fellow sufferers
Even when we were asleep at night our ears remained
vigilant
We were forgotten by many except the bosses who
never forgot us, because
We saved tax
We knelt at the window in the middle of the night,
taking out the hidden money of
sweat and blood, counting it again and
again
Counting countless happinesses and sadnesses
Lonely, we held up cups towards the moon, drinking
till one person became three
Drinking till the beautiful Australia was a total
blur
However drunken, we remained clear-hearted as
we weren’t muddle-headed
We were still men of iron bones
Never would we let Irish dogs tear the crotch
of our trousers
We were labourers, creators of wealth, underground
guerillas, spars of fire
We vowed to be deeply rooted here like nails
That would break if you pulled us up
In China we were never the Four Elements or the
Five Elements[4]
But in here we were put in categories like 815,
816 and others
Waiting for investigation, form completion, re-examination,
ruling
Or else we were packaged and transported onto
the planes or we stayed
We were still yelling for PR and we went on hunger
strike solemnly and tragically
Till we were so hungry our life had no hope in
it
Forcing this suspicious country to give us hope
Forcing it to produce the deadly locked quota
Our categories were so persistent and dauntless, so world-shaking
We were a bundle of powerful dynamite
We’d erupt at a mere touch, unmanageable
We’d never intended to get our necks stuck at the crack
between the foreign doors and their frames
We were our own saviours, resolutely wanting to be our
own masters
We maintained our houses, our cars, our kids
Two jobs twisted us by turn
Everyday we climbed the Snow Mountain, crossed
the Chishui River, reached
Wayaobao,[5]
with heavy tasks and a long way to go
We were diligent, working hard,
not complaining, we did not want to be unemployed
or interrupt the principal and interest
We wanted to be the bank’s reassuring
clients, Five-good Households, Advanced
Households
We also wanted to be owners of many millions
We ran around, analyzing the market, doing a
comprehensive investigation
Boldly investing with an aspiration that reaches
heavens, using up all lifetime savings
Successfully or semi-successfully running our
fish & chips
We worked as bosses, hiring ourselves to work
Combating and killing in our inch-large places
Directing ourselves to wash to cut to press to
mince to stir-fry to stew to roast
We were tops, whipped spinning like flying by
ourselves
Our fingers were yellowing, eyes sunken, chins
sharpened, faces dark black
We calculated the cost, the profit, and we calculated
how many hours we could sleep per night
When we were faint and weak, breathing our last
We again determined to stop half way through,
to say goodbye to the dream of making a fortune
Then we went back to work again
To be a proud proletarian
We have not changed our original intentions,
we still stay on our chosen course
–surviving first, engaging in a profession next
(How can we possibly give up on the heart-blood
spent at the ten-year cold window)
But jobbing is a pair of red shoes that tightly
ties us together
We can’t stop or rest in spite of ourselves
As long as we are alive we keep spinning without
stop, and so
We first try to survive, then try to survive,
and keep trying to survive, till
We kill our professions in tears
Automatically removing the titles of PhD, MA
and BA degrees
To go back to the beginnings
Our good brothers and sisters have stepped onto
the road to the nether world before their time
Felled by the ruthless life
They’ve said goodbye to their loved ones in their
homeland and to the jobbing career like a raging fire
Alone in the cold wilderness, remaining solitary
We cling to their memory of sad and ghastly features
Covering their remains with our true feelings
that still somehow haven’t died out
We wipe our tears, jobbing and mourning, continuing
to brave it
We job as we study
Moistening wisdom with our sweat and haunting
the sacred hall of knowledge
Our collars are soon to turn white
Our yellow skins appear on the posts in organizations,
schools and hospitals, and
We seep into the solemn world of law
We squeeze ourselves into real estate
Screening silver from the land of Australia like
a winnowing fan
We open shops, taking up the market
Hanging signs with Chinese characters in large
metropolis
We successfully become successful people
We for a long time sustain injuries from falls
fractures contusions and strains and probably won’t even last till 65, the
age of pension
When we finish paying the mortgage and for our
kids’ education we may have to quietly issue ourselves certificates of retirement
To become the Five-Guarantees Household, to eat
subsidized food, to practice Taichi and Qigong, in order to recuperate our
wasted bodies
Or perhaps we’ll be more determined in our old
age
To learn from Yang Bailao,[6] to become a long-term
hired hand, bending over backwards for it
Enjoying family happiness with kids and grandkids
on holiday or
Painfully telling them of revolutionary family
histories, forcing them to make a determined effort, to continue committing
to memory the ancient adages carried down from generation to generation
Keeping the Han tradition and the ethnic integrity
as inheritors of the Dragon
We walk in halting steps to the sea, to see the
beach where we once landed
We see dots of our blood congealed and blackened
We see our dead youth hanging from tall gum trees
Our far-reaching aspirations replaced with our
head-full silvery hair
Our bodies punctuated with hundreds of holes
and thousands of scars, our vitality drained
With only one shred of flickering air and never-say-die
confidence
Australia still remains so vast
We turn suddenly around to see a road of no return
stretching endlessly behind us
We listen with our old ears in the cool wind,
to the clear sound of the night
We hear the long-sky wild swans crying in the
frosty morning moon, the frosty morning moon
The horse-hooves broken, the bugle sobbing[7]