Tuesday, noon
"Crossing Borders, Crossing Boundaries," a panel with Wang Ping and Linda Hogan.
From the introduction to Wang Ping: "Somehow she manages to teach and still publish a book every two years...."
From the introduction to Linda Hogan: "Her work is about longing and survival and places broken in the earth, about our place in the world...."
This panel was to be a conversation between Wang Ping and Linda Hogan, and with all of us.
Linda: "Once you take on the language of that world, go home and say those words and see how the people look at you. After you learn those system [the western way of thinking], leave them; go back and re-learn your own culture and the old understandings...."
Linda: "We live in parallel worlds that sometimes come together...."
Linda: "What is your Indian name?" someone asked her. "Linda," she said. "Does that mean you don't have one?" "If I did, I wouldn't tell you. That's not how we do things...."
Linda: "There are larger struggles we need to look at...."
Linda: "I work with indigeneous sciences.... We know many things from western science, but there are other kinds of knowledge...."
Linda: "Everything has its story to tell...."
Linda: "We live in a time when power is out of control.... We live in a time of increasing dictatorship...."
Linda: "You can believe anything you want. That doesn't make it true...."
Wang: "I've been going back to China for three years.... I see that the peasants can no longer make a living in the old ways. They want more, so they go to the city...."
Wang: "We have hundreds of dialects - we don't understand each other...." She told the story of a man photographed jumping naked to his death from a billboard in the city. "Jump, jump, jump, we want to see a swan dive," the people on the ground said. The man had despaired: he had come to the city to find his wife; he had been robbed repeatedly; no one would help him. There was nothing left for him to do. "Jump, jump, jump...."
Wang: "In the global economy, workers are being exploited. Many of them are teenagers. They are cheap labor, cheap, cheap labor. You pay $2.25 for a whole body massage.... Victimization? They are not passive victims; they are willing do to anything, for very little money...."
Wang: "In China, there are unions, but they can only be organized by officials, for instance the director of the factory...."
Wang: "The new immigrants - they are crossing borders, crossing barriers...."
Wang writes in English as well as Chinese: "My Chinese poetry follows the 5000 years of Chinese tradition.... My mother tongue is a wagging finger telling me what to see, what to think.... In English every word is like a toy for me, like a treasure. I cannot take words for granted anymore...."
Wang: Entering two traditions is like "entering two rivers at the same time; it helps me open a new path, helps me go on a path I would never have taken...."
Wang: "The work of the poet - rediscovering the mother tongue."
Wang: "For poets, learning a new language and starting with translation is a good apprenticeship."
Wang: "And I met Gary Snyder and all those big shots...."
Wang: "Translation itself is barrier-crossing. You build bridges."
Q. Once you cross a border/barrier, how do you return?
Linda: "Could you ask that in other words?"
Linda: "I would have the advantage of knowing in both ways, from both cultures...."
Linda: "You have two ways of knowing and they're very different. Knowing both is what is significant, looking from both and creating a new whole."
Q. Some people can engage in a new culture and not go back....
Linda: "It happens everywhere...."
Q. This is stolen land, land that has not been paid for.... It's a pleasure to hear from other perspectives.... mostly here what I hear is Euro-centric, western."
Q. Story - "Is there anything else you need?" "Yes, I need hope."
Linda: "Millions of dollars is worth more than religion??"
Linda: "You have to be constantly vigilant."
Linda: "Every day I make it a point to write two political letters."
Wang: She brought a poet from one of the Chinese minorities for a visit to the Twin Cities; he had only one request: "I want to meet a Native American person." "He had a blood connection with those people."
Wang: "Crossing barriers and borders has been going on for a long time.... The flow of time and space is not a flat line.... In Chinese, a noun is a verb is an adjective is an adverb, depending on context.... English is very ordered, directed; you cannot go in reverse, which is not true in Chinese...."
Wang: "I was shocked that in this country you can buy and sell people's names...."
Comments