Cup of Cha
This is China

Oh Beijing, why do you torture me so? Isn’t our love pure, and true? And yet you find the need to pretend your are someone else, as soon as we have guests. You are ashamed of your smoke-filled restaurants, buses and even taxis, so you ban smoking in public places during the Olympics. Do you really think you can pretend to be someone else? Deep down we both know the real you.

You fight back against your spittle-crusted charm. But haven’t we had some good times on your phlegm-filled sidewalks. Remember that time that man spit a giant wad on me as I biked past? Deep down I know you felt it too: that warm sensation all over. Mostly on my leg actually, but you know what I mean. Why do you hate yourself so, when you are so beautiful, so gray?

And your succulent, thick air, which drips through my lungs, intertwining our fates into one gorgeous black soup of zhou. You say you will close your factories and ignore the real you, but once all the visitors leave, and it is once again just you and I, will you not open them, and let us play together. Black air, and white man. A testament to what we can achieve, if only we see past our differences.

Your beautiful BBC-free internets tubes will be blighted by the racket of clever journalists who can turn a phrase like no other. Why subject yourself to their nasty barbs?

Oh, Beijing! They don’t love you like I do! Keep their slanderous words at bay, and let us only read the words about how bad Steven Spielberg and Mia Farrow are. Keep these fools in the 1970s, where someone might believe the filth that they spew! Only let us know about the benevolent giant in Darfur that is China!

Even our ballet of cars, jammed onto the 2nd Ring Road because cab drivers are blissfully unaware that there exist other paths in Beijing to many destinations, even these will be cleared. And for what? For a few days of clear sky? To show off to your new friends? They don’t love you the way I do. They only come here to use you for your medals, and temporarily abundant pornography.

Sure they will love you for a few weeks. But will they be there in the tough times? Like when the city runs out of water, or the CCTV Tower collapses?

You hide behind this opera mask of fear and shyness, worried that the world might not like what it sees. It is a mistake. For all of your vomit-filled ally ways, and stinky hutong toilets, you are beautiful because you are not ashamed. When grown men nap on concrete sidewalks, and women go grocery shopping in pajamas, you are bold and proud. When June 4th comes around and you litter Tiananmen with plain-clothed policemen, you stand proud…enough.

Oh Beijing, you beautiful bastard, why do you hate yourself so? One day, not that far in the future, there will just be you and me. And no matter how much grass you spay-paint onto your parks, or how many homeless people you ship to the countryside, you can’t pretend with me. For we know each other too well, mostly from that listening device you put in my chandelier.

In the end, it is just the two of us. And once we lie together naked, dripping sweat in your sticky summer heat, for all the world to see, I will still love you. No matter how much you hide your true nature from the peering masses trying to catch a glimpse of your grotesque inside, you will never fool me, and I will always love you. You will always be my beautiful bitch.

Tags: pollution, spielberg, spit, traffic
Follow Comments via RSS Feed
You can leave a response or trackback from your site.