Bilingual (Occasional)
by Chris Tse
Re-learning a language with a rock
in my mouth—the slow back
.
and forth as I think in different
lives—translation being a taste
.
of the oldest past, further back than
what the first word can contain
.
insomuch as any singular, abandoned
definition is a spark that makes it stick.
.
When, then? In a way it’s the rote that
prevails, syllables in mutual repetition,
.
building blocks compressed into presence.
Then, when a manner of speaking is the
.
fortuitous hook charged with getting me
across the line, repeatedly, volley at
.
the net, I still find myself mumbling
in English as I 拜山 at
.
my grandparents’ graves with well wishes
and requests for guidance.
.
One bow.
Two bows.
Three bows.
.
I only make do with patterns, the far
reach and the distant hand closed
.
around what I can’t find the words for—
far, closed, distant, shut—and so on
.
until I give up trying or someone stops listening
and we go back to watching the news.
.
Four hours ahead in Aotearoa, I watch
the past and the future unravel on television.
~
In Hong Kong the protests are the crack of a
thousand umbrellas calling forth their own storm
.
and it’s clear the language of anger and revolt
is the same wherever there is something
.
to protect. The protestors’ signs make it clear:
Use Cantonese in Hong Kong.
.
My other tongue—the one used for ordering
蝦餃 and asking about the weather—
.
my other tongue has a radical power!? In English,
my name rhymes with peace, but in Chinese
.
it gives thanks. A revolution is the opposite of
peace and thanks—it’s our pleasantries set alight.
.
The radical began with radicalis, radix—
the roots, the basics. That our modern
.
uprisings are rooted in supposedly
dead languages cannot be ignored by
.
lawmakers with gangs on speed dial or
government officials who refuse to listen.
.
I hear every word in the world shift and so
I trade meaning for intent
.
wearing down the rock in my mouth
coating each word with its hardness
.
until there is no longer a switch—just one swift
movement, a brick cast in the middle of a protest.
.
I feel everything colliding 9,424km away in
Wellington, where the storm can’t take my tongue.
.
.
How to cite: Tse, Chris. “Bilingual (Occasional).” Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, 18 Apr. 2021, hkprotesting.com/2021/04/18/bilingual-occasional/.
Chris Tse is the author of two poetry collections published by Auckland University Press, How to be Dead in a Year of Snakes (winner of Best First Book of Poetry at the 2016 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards) and HE’S SO MASC. He is co-editor of Out Here: An Anthology of Takatāpui and LGBTQIA+ Writers From Aotearoa, due to be published later this year. He lives in Wellington, New Zealand. Visit his website for more information.
Hong Kong Protesting 