Sense of Wonder: A Century of Science Fiction (621 page)

Axala of Earth.

‘ENTER’

* * * *

Copyright © 2004 by Andrea Hairston.

(1976– )

Most of the poetry in this book is by folks who are primarily prose writers who also write poetry, but Cathy Park Hong is a poet who also writes prose. While she has written articles for
The Village Voice
,
The Guardian
,
The Christian Science Monitor
,
Salon
, and
The
New York Times Magazine
and she has won a Village Voice Fellowship for Minority Reporters, her poetry has won her far greater acclaim.

Born in Los Angeles, Hong graduated from Oberlin College in 1998 and went on to earn her MFA from the Iowa Writers Workshop. Her first book,
Translating Mo’um (
2002) won a Pushcart Prize.
Dance Dance Revolution
(2007) was chosen for the Barnard Women
’
s Poetry Series. Her poems have also appeared in
A Public Space
,
Paris Review
,
Poetry
,
McSweeney’s
,
Harvard Review
,
Boston Review
,
The Nation
,
American Letters & Commentary
,
Denver Quarterly
,
Web Conjunctions
,
jubilat
, and
Chain
, among other journals. She serves as a poetry editor for
jubilat
magazine. Hong has received a Fulbright Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts grant, and a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship

Hong is an Assistant Professor at Sarah Lawrence College and is regular faculty at the Queens MFA program in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Like Gene Wolfe’s “Seven American Nights,” the poems in Dance Dance Revolution look at how our culture will appear to future observers. We read travel narratives about picturesque places and native customs amid lost glory, but we’re not used to being the subject of those narratives.

Complete book first published in 2007. The excerpt here previously appeared in
ActionYes
, Spring 2006

The language spoken in the Desert is an amalgamation of some 300 languages and dialects imported into this country, a rapidly evolving lingua franca. The language, while borrowing the inner structures of English grammar, also borrows from existing and extinct English dialects and other languages. In the Desert, civilian accents morph so quickly that their accents betray who they talked to that day rather than their cultural roots. Fluency is also a matter of opinion. There is no tuning fork to one
’
s twang. Still, dialects differ greatly depending on region. In the Southern Region, they debate whether they should even call their language English since it has transformed so completely as to be rendered unrecognizable from its origin. Following is an excerpt of a brief conversation overhead at the hotel bar.

1. Dimfo me am him.

Let me tell you about him.

2. Burblim frum im

He said

3. withe Blodhued mout,

With his red mouth (or bloody mouth.)

5. G
’
won now, Shi
’
bal bato

Leave, you homosexual asshole.

6. So din he lip dim clout.

So then he punched him in the mouth.

7. Bar goons kerrim off. Exeunt.

Bar security kicked him out.

You will find that the customer at the bar speaks in a thicker brogue while the guide interviewed for this book has a more expansive vocabulary. I suspect that in the guide
’
s line of work, she gathers slang, idioms, and argot like data, appropriating them from other tour guides and tourists (which does not explain her use of the Middle English.)

Lastly, I
’
ve had difficulty deciding whether to transcribe her words exactly as said or to translate it to a more
“
proper
”
English. I decided on a compromise-preserving her diction in certain sections while translating her words to a proper English when I felt clarification was needed. I must also admit that some of her stories may be inexact due to technical glitches During one unfateful day, I left my cassette tapes out in my patio during a rainstorm. It has not caused irreparable damage but the static has obscured parts of the recording so there may be some lapses to her testimonials. I have marked such lapses with

ellipses.

As you can see, I am something of an amateur linguist. I am also a historian of the Desert, the planned city of renewed wonders, city of state-of-the-art hotels modeled after the world’s greatest capitals, city whose decree is there is difference only in degree. The Desert is the center of elsewhere. But perhaps that is not accurate. As the world shrinks, there is no elsewhere. The Desert is the petri dish of what is to come. It is the city of rest and unrest.

Revolutions used to exist in time capsules. Otherwise, revolutions always happened elsewhere. But we used to register elsewhere as background noise. Kwangju, for example. Kwangju is the provincial capital in the southern part of Korea. After a dictatorial takeover in 1980, the citizens of Kwangju rose up to protest the coup, only to be brutally massacred by the U.S. backed Korean government (friendly dictatorship is what the U.S. called the regime). This uprising is sometimes given global relevance by its comparison to a more major event. Kwangju was Korea
’
s Tiananmen, for example.

The guide interviewed in this book was a part of this uprising. She had a pirated radio station that led thousands into the streets during the uprising.
“
Her radio speeches were pure and hypnotic in its urgency for us to rise up,
”
according to one civilian. She has long since changed.

Revolution
’
s movements have long since changed. No longer the act of propulsion, of anguished, woodcut soldiers marching in cohesion. Now its pulse works in ellipses, in canny acts of sabotage. As it works here in the Desert, a city despite its bright and bold progress, is still riddled by dissatisfied locals. I have come here to mark its movements, to record the frantic changes in its language. I will begin with my interviews with the guide.

This is how the guide presented herself when I slipped out of the airport
’
s sliding doors and squinted in the late afternoon sun. I could not make out any form, only refracted lobes of sunlight and the shadow flittings of tourists who have just arrived. Then she emerged, wearing a ginger colored wig and a navy pinstriped suit, out of an air-conditioned town car and invited me in. I pressed my recorder. On the hour-long ride to the hotel, she was silent until the remains of my tape squealed to its end. She then smiled, clasped my hand and gave me a complementary swim cap. When I puzzled over this gift, she hushed my question. She will give me a tour first. She introduced herself.
“
Chun Sujin, lest name first, first name lest. Allatime known es Moonhead, Jangnim, o zoologist Henrietta wit falsetto slang. But you, you jus
’
call me guide.
”

Roles

.…Opal of opus,

beamy in sotto soot, neon hibiscus bloom,

Behole!
‘
Tan Hawaiian Tanya
’
billboard.she your

lucent Virgil, den I tekkum over es

talky Virgil.want some tea? some pelehuu?

.I tren me talk box to talk yep-pu..as you

Merrikkens say
“
purdy
”
.no goods only phrases,

Betta da phrase,
“
purdier
”
da experience, I tellim

“
Me vocation your vacation
”

Twenty t
’
ousand guides here but I
’
m #1.…

once, Helsinkian comme, I
’
s say
“
I guide I guide
”
but Helsinkian

say
“
no! Too many guide!
”
den I sleepim outside
‘
im door,

‘
im wake, I say calmly
“
I guide
“
y Helsinkian say

“
Goddammunt, ja okay, guide me!
”
.

.a million light bulbs in Desert wit cleanest latrine

for you to crepitate since dis desert no sin.vending

machination of aborigini right here!.each hotel

De McCosm of any city.Bangkok oba here, Paree oba dere.

Hail city o rest y unrest.

I speak sum Han-guk y Finnish, good bit o
’
Latin

y Spanish..sum toto Desert Creole in evachanging dipdong

‘
pendable on me mood.ibid.

…Menny
‘
Merikken dumplings unhinge dim

talk holes y ejaculate
oooh y hot-diggity
. dis

Be de
shee-it
. …but gut ripping done to erect dis Polis,

We expoiting menny aborigini to back tundra county.

But betta to scrape dat fact unda history rug.

so shh.

I usta move around like Innuit lookim for sea pelt.now

I
’
mma double migrant. Ceded from Coreo, ceded from

‘
Merikka, ceded en ceded until now I seizem

dis sizable Mouthpiece role.

St. Petersburg Hotel Series:

1. Services

See radish turrets stuck wit tumor lights around de hotel

like glassblown Russki kestle wit
’
out Pinko plight,

only Epsolute voodka fountains. Gaggle for drink?

Twenty rooboolas, kesh only . Step up y molest

Hammer y chicklets studded in ruby y seppire almost

bling badda bling. Question? No question! Prick ear.

Coroner diagnose hotel as king of hotels
‘
cos

luxury es eberyting. Hear da sound speaker sing
‘
I get laid in

me Escalade/but I first sip gless of Crystal/den I whip out me pistol.
’

No worry. No pistol in hotel, only best surgeon feesh y beluga

bedtime special. Deelicious. But before you tuck in king o
’

water bed, befo you watch papa-view,

Be peripatetic y see snow bears merry on a ball or go

Be roused by molten sauna where Babushkas bap your tush

wit boar bristle switch. No childs allowed here. Mo mo?

De blood rust hes been Windexed to amber shine,

de insurrecta
’
s marauding soul wetted into papa-machetes,

de looted radio back in de propa municipal hands.

Here be city of ebening calm, da fire-rilers gone.

If you want true heestory, go watch tailor

maki magic. He more revolutionary den artist.

If you dream only for Paris, dat is right outside de

atrium, beyond de sand dunes, which form y disappear

like mekkinations of human digestion. Sand swirl

to otherworld land where blankets da weight of human

bodies tatter y pill. No tatting, no pilling here. Da sand will

be in your eye, only sometime.

Notes from the Historian: During orientation, they give new employees a 1994 Fodor’s Guide to St. Petersburg, Ins and Outs of the St. Petersburg Hotel, Rules: What not to say to Tourists, and How To Get Around Trademark Infringement Laws. Asked why she chose to be a guide at the Petersburg Hotel, she replied that it was her calling to work as a guide for the great hotel of St. Petersburg and besides her heritage and the heritage of Russians are similar: they both love the combination of dried fish and very strong liquor.

2. Preparation for Winter in the St. Petersburg Arboretum

Gardenas clip leaves, mow down calla lilies

Wit petrol-gunning motocade, sling slenda pile

O
’
white trumpet lilies ova dim shoulders,

herdim de piddisnip flowas away like blighted demsels.

Now Gardena squad weavil glass y dews en trees.

Icing de trees fo winta
’
s memorialization.

Lika beachwood sheltas
’
wind chimes,

De branch branch clinkity-clank wit ice.

Now sahib, grab un gun. BB down de riving ravens,

de vermin fatted jays, y jade headed mallards who wit

insolence nest in botany ob our #3 prize-winnim plants,

who dare nest in de hearts ob Russkies sculpt in shrubbery.

Me look at me wrist clock, almost Deciembre,

Sap be a bloodgout ooze in fall but in winta,

trees mus
’
be spare like balsam pim peck.

Origini yaar? So we vacuum sap wit a cleva-

Oi, oi! Mifela Gardena! You half bark up a tree

in de wrong location, it be det tree you chop!—

Now sahib, les be avid again. Ah! Seasons chenji,

green turns mint, now, g
’
wan wit de gun.

3. The Fountain Outside the Arboretum

Ahoy! whitening wadder fountain. Drink. Afta cuppa-ful

of H20, yo pissin fang transfomate to puh
’
ly whites

lika Bollywood actress swole in saffron,

Flashim her tarta molar to her coquetry man.

Me drink gallon-a-day.(
bares her teeth
) ssshhhee?

Issshh beautiful, eh? . frum purim H20 wit flouride y

sulfate y tu typical humectant lika xylitol

which supa-boosta Flouride
’
s cavity fightim powa.

So go
’
on miff, you mus
’
drink. Me good-fo-nut
’
ing

fadder once salem to me,
“Ttalim
, you mus
’
habba de whitest

I-ppal
so you catchim holistic hotshot man.
”
Me fadder hed

rat-hole teef, y you have it too wid dim nicotine mold

on packiderm tusk .

Eberyone habba de bes
’
teeth! Shinier den

‘
Merikken Colgates..
’
Cos me molar, me attract lusty lubbas,

But I no likeum if dim have moss sweaters on dim teef