Russian translation

"Going to Hell" has been published in Russian translation by Sergey Katukov.

No one ever seemed to want books.

"No one ever seemed to want books."

~~ from How I Became a North Korean by Krys Lee

I felt tugging

“Head down, I did my best to avoid Xi’an, China’s searing sun and the men selling socks on blankets over pavement. They were partly protected by the thin branches of small trees but still exposed to the heat. As I strode ahead, my mind bounced backwards two or three decades. I was wandering in a busy shopping area off the beaten tourist track in France. I remember it as near Les Halles, but not Les Halles; at the time, I didn’t know precisely where I was. An Algerian busser, one of my coworkers, had sent me to buy my uniform—a white shirt with black plants and bowtie. This was in Paris—or I should say on the outskirts of Paris. Les Banlieues, or not les banlieues? The shopping square was wide and packed tight with brown and pale Arabs. There were Tunisians, Moroccans, Algerians, and others. They were thin and poor, yes, but doing better than they would be back home. It was crowded—we were moving within inches of each other, even rubbing shoulders, as we walked up the wide boulevard. No cars but too many pedestrians. 

“I felt something behind me. I felt tugging . . .”

~~ from “Chinese Sun” by Alex Kudera

"Chinese Sun"

My most recent publication, "Chinese Sun," begins on page 139 of Meniscus, Volume 12, Issue 2; the journal is the creation of the Australasian Association of Writing Programs (AAWP). I'm quite proud of this piece, so I hope you give it a go.

No one was in my life

"Adjunct survival led me to a bird that flew into my apartment only this past year while teaching abroad in Suzhou, China. Not dead yet and employed overseas again, I’d chased contract work to 'the Venice of the Far East'—a mainland city of man-made lakes and narrow canals—but I was alone. I had no friends. Gardens bloomed throughout the city, but there was no housing bulletin board at an American church. I had people in the program—teachers, students, staff—that I would exchange pleasantries with or occasional chitchat, but there was no one I was close to. I wasn’t going to stay up all night discussing politics, literature, or anything else. No one was in my life, and talking all about it no longer appealed to me."

~~ from "An Old Friend Called" by Alex Kudera

a primitive way

"My strength was nearly depleted when Avi stopped pressing hard against me; at last, I could see he was no threat to attack. I didn’t see anything we could win by furthering this contest, and I recognized that Avi’s theft was the initiation of the physical encounter, if not the first act of aggression. In hindsight, it’s hard to remember another time when anything I was involved with was settled in such a primitive way."

no conversion required

"Whereas Avi wanted me to know who I could become, the boy already knew who I was. An identification, no conversion required.

"He appointed me as his countryman, but he didn’t stop and give me time to pledge allegiance."

Peter Hessler returns

In the January 3 & 10 print issue of The New Yorker, Peter Hessler writes about correspondence and visits with middle-aged Chinese we first met as 1990s college students in his classic River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze. Despite being only a tiny slither of mainland experience, this update on his students' lives does a remarkable job of capturing the entire country's changes and development over the past few decades. It's highly recommended reading.

disappeared

 America is better at ignoring its poets.

Letter from Chengdu

Peter Hessler returns to Sichuan Province, China.


Documenting China

Great short film on "Chinese Dreamers" a window into the young and restless. I was glad to write the intro http://t.co/SXTwpWlom1 @ChinaFile
— Evan Osnos (@eosnos) August 12, 2014

MT: "You can't learn anything by repeating the same thing everyday." http://t.co/ih6E0kGqLn #China #Education #ChineseDream #Documentary
— Alex Kudera (@kudera) August 12, 2014

MT: "It's like a war. The slowest runner will get shot." http://t.co/ih6E0kGqLn #China #War #Film #documentary
— Alex Kudera (@kudera) August 12, 2014

MT: "#Knowledge is #fate." http://t.co/ih6E0kGqLn #China #Beijing #Megacity
— Alex Kudera (@kudera) August 12, 2014

MT: "They just mean it's a good job for a #Woman." http://t.co/ih6E0kGqLn #Women #China
— Alex Kudera (@kudera) August 12, 2014

Wuhan, China

Reading Little White Duck: A Childhood in China led me to Wuhan, China, a large sprawling city dissected by a huge river that Chairman Mao is said to have swum across. Further online searches led me to the Wuhan Mikado, an intriguing structure that appears to have trees and grass on multiple levels.

vintage selfie

Colin Powell took time to post a vintage selfie, and it reminded me of my dad's efforts at such from the 1970s.

Below my father's photo rests his college copy of The Sun Also Rises, which I enjoyed rereading in Suzhou, China in May of 2012. The book, as in the copy depicted (originally posted two years ago), figures prominently in "My Old Man," a story included here, about visiting my father when he had only forty dollars in his pocket but was happily living by the beach, writing poetry, and soon to return to the world of work as a cashier at a local gas station's convenience store. That was twenty years ago when I first plucked it off Jay's shelf near St. Augustine, Florida, began reading, and took it back with me to Philly (not my first time through that novel, but my first time through my father's copy).

In Suzhou, among other places, I read from it in a faux Italian gelato cafe in a small shopping mall near my daughter's four-year-old kindergarten. Alas, I'd feel I was dissembling if I didn't also confess to doing much of my editing and proofreading at a McDonald's in the same "retail environment."

Letter from China

I'm happy to report that Contemporary Literary Horizon has included "Letter from China," published online as "First Impressions of Xi'an, China," in its 2013 print anthology of poetry and prose from around the world. As always, I'm wishing Dr. Daniel D. Peaceman the best this year.

capitalist immigration

Australia sings give me your tired, your hungry, your rich for investment, and in return receive a "millionaire visa." And, of course, even as millionaire investors are welcome with open visas, part-time employment is surging in Australian academia. Indeed, these trends are global, and yeah, what else is new?

Just a week later, on February 12, 2014, I read that Canada is cancelling a similar program with a less expensive "entry fee," citing many immigrant investors were not making a firm enough commitment to Canada. The article includes information on comparable visas to additional countries such as the United States, Greece, and Portugal.

So many Chinese want to leave their closed society and its crowded cities, yet from an outsider's perspective it seems there are plenty of reasons to stick around.

Xi'an, China

We're back from Xi'an, China, where at the beginning of a two-month stay I posted these first impressions. One of Xi'an's most famous landmarks is the Da Yan Pagoda (Wild Goose Pagoda):