A story so boring you'll want to die
Today was my last day of Chinese class. In honor of that, my teacher brought in this "cute" poem for us read. It's by Huang Chunming (黃春明), who I really like from what I've read of him. The title (一則無聊得要死的故事) can be read two ways (not really, but almost): "A boring-to-death story" or "A boring story about wanting to die." Here it is (warning: not at all cute). I'll amend this post with the Chinese original later on. A grassy mountain on a summer's day
A lizard is on its way home
It uses kung fu1 to bound lightly across the baking-hot asphalt of a little road
A jeep drives by, full of shouts and laughter,
And presses the lower half of the lizard to the ground
Its spinal cord is broken
It doesn't know what happened
And doesn't understand what they found so funny
Or why they stuck the earth onto its body
Its womb contracts-it's time to rush home and guard the eggs
But it can't move forward, and it can't go back
The world is too heavy; the lizard thinks
Moving the earth isn't its job
It doesn't know who to wait for
Even Waiting for Godot2 takes two people
Waiting and waiting, finally it realizes,
It's waiting for another car to come by
Praying to be run over head-first
A long time, a truck3 full of oranges
Unswerving, putters just past the lizard's head
The lizard dreams a dream of almost dying
A grassy mountain on a summer's day
The baking-hot asphalt of a little road on a grassy mountain
A lizard drags the earth
Dragging the earth is a lizard
It dreams an exhilarating dream-besides that,
It can't think of anything it wants to do
I warned you it wasn't cute. Kind of good, though, in a depressing sort of way.
夏日裡的山野
那一隻四腳蛇在回家路上
用輕功橫跨天煎地焙的柏油小路
滿載驚叫和歡笑的吉普路過
將它從下半身壓貼在地面
它的中樞神經也被斷了
它不知道發生何事
更不明白他們撒下笑聲為何
又為何把地球掛在它的腰間
子宮緊縮回家孵卵要緊
但是，走也不是，退也不得
地球是重了些；對四腳蛇來說
搬地球不是它的工作
它不知道該等誰
等待果陀也要兩人
等啊等，終於想到，
它在等待再來一部車子經過
祈望從它的頭上輾壓過去
好久，一部滿載橘子的鐵牛車
不偏不倚地閃過它的頭
四腳蛇做了一個差些死去的夢
夏日裡的山野
山野裡天煎地焙的柏油小路
那一隻四腳蛇拖著地球
那一隻拖著地球的四腳蛇
它做了一個驚險的夢，其他的
已經想不起來它要做什麼了
___________________
1Actually, qing gong, which is the ability to make your body nearly as light as air. In the old days people thought you could learn to do this if you tried hard enough. It's what everyone did in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.
2Samuel Beckett's play about two guys waiting for another guy who never shows up. It's really good. I wrote about it on my AP Lit test in high school.
3Actually, a cart pulled by a motorcycle. Old people always drive them around really slowly picking up trash.
A lizard is on its way home
It uses kung fu1 to bound lightly across the baking-hot asphalt of a little road
A jeep drives by, full of shouts and laughter,
And presses the lower half of the lizard to the ground
Its spinal cord is broken
It doesn't know what happened
And doesn't understand what they found so funny
Or why they stuck the earth onto its body
Its womb contracts-it's time to rush home and guard the eggs
But it can't move forward, and it can't go back
The world is too heavy; the lizard thinks
Moving the earth isn't its job
It doesn't know who to wait for
Even Waiting for Godot2 takes two people
Waiting and waiting, finally it realizes,
It's waiting for another car to come by
Praying to be run over head-first
A long time, a truck3 full of oranges
Unswerving, putters just past the lizard's head
The lizard dreams a dream of almost dying
A grassy mountain on a summer's day
The baking-hot asphalt of a little road on a grassy mountain
A lizard drags the earth
Dragging the earth is a lizard
It dreams an exhilarating dream-besides that,
It can't think of anything it wants to do
I warned you it wasn't cute. Kind of good, though, in a depressing sort of way.
夏日裡的山野
那一隻四腳蛇在回家路上
用輕功橫跨天煎地焙的柏油小路
滿載驚叫和歡笑的吉普路過
將它從下半身壓貼在地面
它的中樞神經也被斷了
它不知道發生何事
更不明白他們撒下笑聲為何
又為何把地球掛在它的腰間
子宮緊縮回家孵卵要緊
但是，走也不是，退也不得
地球是重了些；對四腳蛇來說
搬地球不是它的工作
它不知道該等誰
等待果陀也要兩人
等啊等，終於想到，
它在等待再來一部車子經過
祈望從它的頭上輾壓過去
好久，一部滿載橘子的鐵牛車
不偏不倚地閃過它的頭
四腳蛇做了一個差些死去的夢
夏日裡的山野
山野裡天煎地焙的柏油小路
那一隻四腳蛇拖著地球
那一隻拖著地球的四腳蛇
它做了一個驚險的夢，其他的
已經想不起來它要做什麼了
___________________
1Actually, qing gong, which is the ability to make your body nearly as light as air. In the old days people thought you could learn to do this if you tried hard enough. It's what everyone did in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.
2Samuel Beckett's play about two guys waiting for another guy who never shows up. It's really good. I wrote about it on my AP Lit test in high school.
3Actually, a cart pulled by a motorcycle. Old people always drive them around really slowly picking up trash.