U nedostatku vremena, volje i inspiracije da se napise nesto novo, nema druge nego reciklirati stare stvari.
Pa evo necega sto se izrodilo kada sam sred proslog ljeta, jos jednog nepodnosljivo usijanog, znojnog, ljepljivog, mamurnog wuhanskog popodneva, kada se svi skrivaju pod zastitu klima uredjaja, a oni manje sretni ventilatora, osjetio potrebu da napisem nesto o ovome gradu, koji je na svoj cudan nacin, u ovih par godina uspio postati mnogo vise domom, nego Zagreb u onih desetak do petnaest godina koje sam vise-manje provodio u njemu. A vjerojatno i vise domovinom nego Hrvatska u onih petnaestak godina....ali zanemarimo to sada.
Pisano je na engleskom, pa ce tako biti i ovdje objavljeno, jednostavno stoga sto sam prelijen da prevodim na rvacki.
Kao i obicno, nisam uspio u onome sto sam zelio, ali racimo da je ova pomalo pateticna, nezgrapna oda vjerojatno najblize sto sam do sada dospio u pokusajima da opisem svoje osjecaje prema gradu za kojega kineska spisateljica potekla odavde kaze otprilike: "Wuhan de wenhua, jiu shi, meiyou wenhua". Los i grub prijevod glasio bi otprilike:"wuhanska kultura je upravo u odsustvu kulture". Selo od devet milijuna stanovnika. Mahom prljavih, neobrazovanih i neuljudnih. Ali potpuno autenticnih i nepatvorenih.
Te se, u skladu s time, dogadja da su i stranci koji dolaze ovamo, uglavnom upravo takvi, autenticni i nepatvoreni, te da nemaju bas nikakve veze s ljudima koji dolaze u Sangaj ili Peking, ljudima punim ambicija, od malih nogu zaljubljenih u kineski jezik i kulturu, koji dolaze upiti svaku kapljicu te visetisucljetne magije....govna pretenciozna....u Wuhanu se upija samo svaka kapljica jeftine ducanske pive. I ubrzo potom iznoji. Ovamo dolaze uglavnom ljudi koji su igrom slucaja dobili nekakvu stipendiju za Kinu pa dosli simo niti ne znajuci kamo idu (khm, khm), pa onda prilicno onih koji su netom zavrsili fakultete te nastoje zapiti jos koju godinu zivota predavajuci engleski neukim Kinezima prije nego sto ih ovaj (zivot, ne Kinez) scepa za gusu. A nadje se i pokoji iz ove potonje skupine (a zapravo i iz prve), kojemu se dopalo zapijati zivot na taj nacin, te sad groznicavo krade posljednje trenutke prije no sto postane olinjali starkelja, zestoko nacet od srednjih godina, koji se pretvara da je jos uvijek mlad (khm, khm)....
...and all the fat-skinny people,
and all the tall-short people
and all the nobody people,
and all the somebody people
I never thought I'd need so many people...
...i Čepurni osjeti da umjesto stepe, kuca, hrane i odjece, koje je burzuj stekao za sebe, proleteri na brezuljku imaju jedan drugog, jer svaki covjek mora imati nesto; kad medju ljudima postoji vlasnistvo, oni se mirno trose na brigu o tom vlasnistvu, a kad nemaju nista, pocinju bivati zajedno i stiti jedan drugog od hladnoce u snu."
it’s so hot in here, what are they trying to hatch?
Once upon a time, in aestivating Wuhan, after sitting at the bar for six hours in attempt to finish off all of the beer, tequilla and Bacardi supplies in Vox, occasionally taking my eyes off Dostav’s cock just to check out superhot Filipina chick and a couple of equally hot African chicks, I was relieved to find that the bar stool hasn't grew together with my ass yet. Would be quite inconvenient to walk around like that...although I can’t avoid noticing obvious advantages a bar stool stuck to my ass would present in certain situations.
A lot of da mantou and rou jin have appeased our organisms’s craving for saturated fats, cholesterol and easy digestible carbohydrates and, although I wasn’t completely indifferent to idea of Dostav and me going back to his room together, once again I set off to engage in my favorite threesome. With Shui Niu and a sultry Wuhan night.
I shot the morning in the back with my red wings on
As two of us disturb the first signs of morning; a couple of women in their Sisyphean attempts to keep the streets of Wuhan clean, I’m suddenly becoming aware that it’s waking up. Or falling asleep. At least its night creatures are. That soon, the magic will disappear, the shaokao smoke will clear out, red lights be switched off, and those people playing majiang on the sidewalk in Lumuo lu go to sleep, and darkness and noise of another expletive day will again reveal all the ugliness that starless nights and barbecue smoke manage to strip off and expose the city in all its unexpected beauty. Luckily, the heroes, ‘cos sometimes cities also need heroes, are waking up too: reganmien guys are already up; soon that old lady will wake up her daughter and open the xiaomaibu, although there aren’t many customers this early in the morning, which leaves her enough time to wash the clothes in front of the shop; and the old man will soon put his fruit boxes on a cart and, although his seventy five years old legs don’t hold him as they used to, go out to spend another day on a curb, selling fruit; and the bicycle repairman; and the old lady that fixes shoes and clothes on sewing machine that’s probably older than her, all of them will again, just like every day in a year, set out on that never ending crusade against advancing evil forces of order and uniformity.
Desmond has a barrow in the market place
Just like every other day, quietly wearing out their small, unnoticeable, irrelevant, expendable lives in unconscious attempts to fend off all the Confucianistic pressure to impose order, obedience, authoritarianism, institutionalism, uniformity and cleanness. And although the city appears to be strangled by the gray, steel grip of forces of Order, they will again try to paint it with life, to bring in enough Daoistic disorder, disobedience, individuality, entropy, filth (and yes, those blue worms do seem to thrive in the Wuhan streets’ filth) and chaos to create little isolated islands of living cells in that endless, dusty, sun-scorched, gray corpse. Inspire some soul into that huge, monotonous, uniformed, apparently soulless monster.
got a lust for life
Falling in love with Wuhan is a bit like falling in love with…hm…not particularly attractive woman…person….well, ok, very unattractive woman……hell......it’s like falling in love with the ugliest woman in the world……..amazing! Complete absence of outer beauty relieves one of any doubt that your senses might be blinding and playing games with you. And then there is that peculiar moment when your perception magically changes and the raw, genuine, sincere beauty, very few seem to be able to see, hits you right in the guts and shatters your world to pieces.
good night Irene, I'll get you in my dreams
Time to bid good night to Wuhan, until another red, apocalyptic sunset reveals its brittle beauty once again. Or maybe just hides its ugliness? ‘Till blue worms crawl out of the filth on the streets. Lights dimmed by shaokao smoke shed their reddish light on Ximen. And although cynics would say that falling for ugliest women is what usually happens when one gets too drunk, fuck it, I still wanna drown in those hot, humid, smoky, sweaty, wanton, drunken nights and over and over again fall madly in love with the ugliest city in the world.
dans le port d'Amsterdam
dans le port d'Amsterdam!
As usually, whenever I have to face my frustrating inability to say what I want the way I want, it turns out there are more talented people who already did that much better than I ever could:
sve što volim je daleko, daleko
voli me nežno dok sam još tu
sve što imam je kod mene, kod mene
uzmi me nežno dok sam još tu
rođeni uz neke reke daleke
gledamo nebo koje pada na nas
sve što nemaš vidim bolje i bolje
uzmi me nežno dok sam još tu
tražimo kroz govor azurna jutra
svetlosti nisu dovoljan znak
sve što imam je kod mene, kod mene
reci mi nežno da sam još tu
People who were, in that order, against their will made accomplices in this mendacious farrago: William Shakespeare, David Bowie, Andrei Platonov, Magazine, Tom Waits, Beatles, Boris Vian, Iggy Pop, Huddie Ledbetter, Jacques Brel, VIS Idoli
|
