Alison Wong

Alison Wong grew up in Hawke’s Bay, Aotearoa New Zealand, and has lived most of her life in Wellington where she studied at Victoria University and once worked in IT. In the 1980s and 90s she spent several years in Xiamen and Shanghai, in 2002 she was the Robert Burns Fellow at the University of Otago, and she now lives in Geelong, Australia.

Her poetry collection, Cup, was shortlisted for Best First Book for Poetry at the 2007 Montana New Zealand Book Awards, and her novel, As the Earth Turns Silver, won the 2010 New Zealand Post Book Award for Fiction and was shortlisted for the 2010 Australian Prime Minister’s Literary Awards. 

           

A lesson in Chinese history

My mother is practised in the tools
of persuasion — she would hide pieces
of carrot under our potato. 
Have a taste, she would say, then slowly,
surely, you will learn how to like them.

Faithfully I ate my carrots, yet
still have severe myopia.  My
sister found excellent excuses,
even a man who dislikes carrots.
Her vision is this close to perfect.

My mother grows older.  My sister
laughs, Just wait till you’re old enough, she
says, I’ll feed you boiled carrots — carrots
sautéed, mashed and raw — there is nothing
I cannot do with the odd carrot.

When I was ten years old we would go

after rain to pick worm bodies from

the hot concrete.  Hold out your hands, I’d

tell my sister, and together we’d

send communities back to the soil.

When I was eleven my mother,

expert with the Chinese cleaver, would

chop earthworms into wriggly pieces —

each a live reproduction, exact

in its sacrifice to my goldfish.

My sister is still six years younger.

She lives in a house in Whitby twice

the size of mine. Each weekend she digs

in the garden, throwing her hands in

the air when she slices an earthworm.

My mother has arthritis.  This is

a disease that only vertebrates

suffer.  Suddenly in her sixties

she confesses a phobia—Don’t

tell your sister (about worms), she says.

*When I was young I tried to save the world and its worms without understanding. My sister, like my mother, does not like worms.

there’s always things to come back to the kitchen for

a bowl of plain steamed rice

a piece of bitter dark chocolate

a slice of crisp peeled pear

a mother or father who understands

the kitchen is the centre of the universe

children who sail out on long elliptical orbits

and always come back, sometimes like comets, sometimes like moons

            

        

Dandelions 


My son says they are

wishing spider sticks.

You make a wish and

blow wishing spiders

all over the world.

I wonder what he

wishes for – a mother

and a father who

are happy? We have

so many wishes

growing all over

the spontaneous

lawn. See how many

moments of happiness

there are waiting for

a boy alone in

the garden holding

a soft green stick.

The river bears our name

As the sun eases red over Pauatahanui
You stand alone at the Huangpu River
Layers of dust catch in our throat
The water is brown with years of misuse

You stand alone at the Huangpu River
Your card lies still open on the table beside me
The water is brown with years of misuse
I write out your name stroke upon stroke

Your card lies still open on the table beside me

A white ocean breeze slaps at my face

I write out your name stroke upon stroke

My hand is deliberate like that of a child

A white ocean breeze slaps at my face

You are more fluent in a foreigner’s tongue

My hand is deliberate like that of a child

I lick the sweet envelope, seal up my word

You are more fluent in a foreigner’s tongue

The heat of exhaust swallows your breath

I lick the sweet envelope, seal up my word

I know you will tear it, one trace of your eyes

The heat of exhaust swallows your breath

Layers of dust catch in our throat

I know you will tear it, one trace of your eyes

As the sun eases red over Pauatahanui



* Pauatahanui is a suburb of Porirua city in Wellington. The Huangpu River, also known as the Bund, runs through Shanghai. Huang is my surname in Mandarin pinyin romanisation.

Light

he moves his hand

down the dip of her back

over her buttocks

then up again

each stroke

the sound of a wave

over shingle

it's like your skin has a grain he says

like the scales of a fish

oh she says feeling the world turn

liquid

she turns and there

it is—a touch

of rainbow in her skin

as he catches her

in the right

light

After

lovers are light

on the earth

they do not understand

gravity

yet

as I lie

draped over you with nothing

not a molecule

between us

I feel like a soft wet leaf

a piece of news

paper wet with the love of you —

we are both

draped over this paper

maché world

and nothing can

separate us

the mix of our

bodies, our words

all the world’s

affairs

being recreated

softly

Round Hill

Leslie leads the way through miro, supplejack and mamaku.

Everywhere the crush of leaves underfoot,

the sound and smell of water. Fantails

spread white and black feathers

and peep peep in the hush

of muted greens and browns. We walk

beside stone walls that line the banks

and water races,

past sluices, dams and mine shafts

where once five hundred Chinese miners

lived and worked. Leslie lifts a tin drum lid

from one fork of a race to the other. This

is how we divert

water. We watch it rush

over the bank,

pass old camp sites with their broken

brandy bottles and celadon bowls,

stones arranged like a memorial

or a grave.

Possums lie close to the path, stripped

back to pale flesh. This one reminds me

of the dogs hanging in the markets of Canton

their jaws wide open.

You can come around here quietly now, Leslie says,

his small 83-year-old body moving lightly.



* Leslie McKay, who died in 2008, owned and maintained a goldmining area at Round Hill near Riverton, New Zealand. Here hundreds of Chinese laboured in the early 1880s. Leslie conducted tours and kept a museum of artefacts found onsite.

Chinese settlement, Arrowtown

Christmas Eve 2002

Walk from the township through the police camp

not far from the river where the purple and pink

lupins and yellow broom flower. See the poplars

shed sticky white seeds through the air,

on branches and leaves, over the dry ground

like fresh wool caught on fences

like dreams of a foreign (white) Christmas.

Here, Ah Gee was found hanging,

Old Tom pitched forward

burned black in his fireplace,

Kong Kai, excellent cook and blind of one eye,

found up Eight Mile Creek, his clothes

spread over his bones, £70 in his pocket.

Now only relics of chimneys, a huge depression

where Su Sing’s store once stood, a few huts

and rock shelters, restored/reconstructed

or not. A sign points the way to the cemetery.

At each of the doorways, a woman

has left white roses.

cup

this is what we form

what we hold in our hands

ten thousand blessings

the colour of air

and the sound of hunger

hot or cold, everything

comes to the same end

we hold out

more than we hold in



* In Chinese, ten thousand signifies a huge or infinite number.

Reflection on a proposal of marriage

after sharing a 2 for 1 voucher to an exhibition

I was married once, briefly,

to a man I met at the ticketing desk

of the Christchurch Art Gallery.

We kept falling

into each other before

the shadowy figures of

Giacometti. Hello,

we said in thin voices —

a Standing Woman, a Man

Walking away. We parted

only to find each other at

The Glade, The Forest and City Square.

We were a Group of Three Men —

my husband and I and our

marriage — each of us turning

away. Before we finally

separated, I offered

my name. Graham, he said.

Thank you. We shook hands.

He never gave me a ring.

*The italicised words are names of bronze sculptures as displayed at the Giacometti exhibition.

Tongariro Crossing

Mangatepopo car park

commuters disembark

in every language —

we find our space

in the eight hour day

Mangatepopo Valley

we are aliens here —

pale green brain

lichen spilt over black rock

South Crater

if we had a broom, if we moved

these broken (rock) stars

this would be the pitch — and not

even Cairns could reach the boundary

Red Crater

let us create our own cave

this red rock, this black

feel the colours on my skin

the simple lines

of a horse

for you

Emerald Lakes

the earth is a long-boiled egg —

how the air tastes of it

Central Crater

orange moon suits —

a Japanese couple stride

into dust

another universe

near Ketetahi Springs

life is small here —

water slips

warm through our fingers

harebells, daisies, Coriaria

every shade of

white

to Ketetahi car park

bellbirds, blow

flies break into wet

exuberant green

Ketetahi car park

we lie back

and wait

for the old

life to take us

Meditation on Yangzhou

he sweeps morning

and night enters his pores

as he might over

a breath

taking book

or simply

a map of this

location — if only

they were

in English

he walks and loses

himself

with all this good

Chinese food

and language oh

Wei he says

over the line

she is used

to Crikey

My foot is giving me

gyp

* Wei is the greeting used when answering the phone in Mandarin.

A Chinese ghost story

Tsim Sha Tsui

I take your reluctant hand

as we walk the starry promenade.

A fortune-teller asks us

to choose colours, numbers

tells us we’ll be happy

(do I see hope in your eyes?)

then takes me aside.

People take advantage, he says.

Not your family.

We walk past the handprints

of Chow Yun Fat, Michelle Yeoh,

Tony Leung, Maggie Cheung...

You do not understand Chinese

love stories.

Cheung Chau

We overlook a tree-lined parade,

striped awnings, a harbour that

reminds me of Rita Angus’

Boats, Island Bay.

The boys drink Olympic Delicious Happiness—

everything sounds beautiful in Chinese.

I sip Indian rose soda, you

Blue Girl beer.

All night in Delicious Apartments

flakes of white plaster fall,

cling to our bare skin.

The EXIT sign above the door glows.

Did she weep when you left her?

Yangshuo

You look at me and say,

In China a woman is old

at 35. Student waitresses

gather round you

as to their professor.

They see your son, my son,

they see the look in your eyes.

Are you family? they ask.

* Coca Cola™ was a major sponsor of the Beijing Olympics, and at the time, cans of coke

displayed the Olympic rings. When the Chinese create new words they either select characters

to signify the meaning or transliterate from the sound in the original language. The drink, Coca 

Cola™, is transliterated in Mandarin as Kekou Kele, literally delicious happiness. And the

apartments where we stayed on Cheung Chau Island, Hong Kong, although pronounced

differently in Cantonese, used the same Chinese characters for delicious.

All © Alison Wong

Poems 1-9 were collected in Cup (Steele Roberts, 2006).
The river bears our name first appeared in Printout No.11, 1996. 

Reflection on a proposal of marriage appeared in JAAM 25 and Best New Zealand Poems 2007.

Meditation on Yangzhou was published in The International Literary Quarterly Issue 12, 2010.

A Chinese Ghost Story was first published in Landfall 217, 2009 but this updated version was published in 99 Ways into New Zealand Poetry, 2010.