Intersection on Lamma Island

by Jason Lasky

I escaped the gray, massive, neon monster of economic machinations-
the cold concrete, the important-minded-
by wheels, by wings, by wayfaring waves
to an isolated moment of new-found friendship and kindness.

We met by surprise and laughed in the first moment-
I knew there was something of substance-
at this intersection by the corner of Curiosity Boulevard and Innocent Street.

The blonde, brown-eyed beauty and the dark, hazel-eyed escapee-
we solved each other’s problems-
in the water, by the sand, under the moon,
away from and close to Man’s magically misshapened thrust
into the Dark Ages of industrial creation and over-saturated grandeur.

We rinsed the sea away and laid in each others’ souls-
I told you of my moment of nirvana-
showing each other our beastly inclinations.

You toyed with me and shined in the moonlight,
all the while smiling away any worries and doubts you ever had-
this was a Moment-
a minuscule flicker of love in this universe of cosmic bafflings and scriptured forebodings.

I miss you already as I head back to Shanghai by wayfaring waves, by wings, by wheels-
back to the gray and cold-
I’ll see you again (perhaps) at a different intersection
of humanity and timelessness hen we’re just as lost and uncertain of anything except each other.

23:00

by Danielle LeClerc

Slow jazz notes slink over from the bar behind me. Smudged at the margins by stripes-on-paisley beats from other restaurants along the darkened strip. An available taxi cruises lazily up the street in perfect tempo with the singer’s sad, soulful words. Her voice cracks on the chorus, some stuff about a last night together.

The sauvignon blanc is dry and woodish on the roof of my mouth. I swallow, and lick my lips a little longer than is strictly polite. Mosquitoes drift by from time to time, back-lit by candle light, and I draw my legs up onto the chair, crossing them under me to save my bloody ankles. I can already feel the skin beginning to prickle and swell. Headlights catch in my wineglass, drawing my attention. I tip the alcohol against my lips and a single, cold bead of condensation rolls down the stem, curving along the glass base, and plunks on my ankle. I shiver in the wet, ripe heat.

Reach for a cigarette, “Shanghai”: the brand is a boast in red, splashed across a gold box. English on one side, Chinese on the other. It’s etched with images of the Pearl Tower, the World Financial Centre, and Jin Mao. Collectively Lujiazui; the same part of town in which I am now sitting.  This is Pudong, only 15 years old. So much cleaner and more modern than Puxi, on the west side of the Huang Pu river. It still has its wet markets, bicycle delivery men, and watermelon-slash-cell phone-vendors, just fewer of them. Modern is a relative term. But it has none of the twisty lanes crammed mouth to mouth with apartments on top of shops on top of restaurants. None of the surreal bar districts, flaming in regurgitated Koolaid neon shock; no old trees casting leaf patterns on 1930s brick work in the ginger coloured street lamps. No soul. I order more wine. Continue reading…

somewhere an intersection

by lingling

a friday 17:16 – sunny hot. underneath zhongshanbeiyi lu somewhere between hongkou stadium and jing’an temple. one of the busiest intersections between a and b.

elevated roads in shanghai often have different names than the roads running completely parallel and immediately under them. maps only ever show the names of the elevated roads, not the ones beneath, so you can ride down a road everyday for months wondering what it’s called. and if you never ask you’ll just keep on not knowing. Continue reading…

Of Mice and Xiamen

by B.

Things work a little bit differently in Fujian, so it doesn’t surprise me much when a young Chinese guy stops me at the intersection of Hexiang Xi Lu and the old bomb-shelter tunnel to display his vast assortment of porn VCDs: ‘the kind that laowai like’ he assures me. ‘Fair enough’ I think, and good to know for future reference; however, jintian buyao de. I’m on my way down to the waterside to cure my hangover with coffee and sea breeze.

“But I have all sorts of things,” he continues, “all the things laowai likes, big blond tits porn,” he flashes a badly photoshopped cover of a truly big blond girl from the 80s, “japanese sexysexy” more dated covers. All the while he’s sidestepping along next to me, attempting to force me to closer inspect the shabby discs on offer. “Sorry, hai shi bu yao my friend, maybe next time”.

I’ve continued walking into the old tunnel now, where the local taitais offer their vegetables and mysterious little warehouses are visible left and right in the side tunnels, storing what?…corn and carrots? These tunnels are the product of those crazy years in the 70s where for a brief period of time the entire population of Xiamen were mysteriously compelled to dig bomb shelters. The little fellow is still running after me, his voice getting more eager as he keeps trying to find a porn genre to my liking (“Groupfucky? Black man? You like-uh?”). A rat runs across the floor and dives into the carrot storage, and I’m starting to find his porn rant rather surreal in this environment, particularly now that the taitais are also up on their feet, trying to push their vegetables onto me in their unintelligible local dialect. “Bu yao” I tell him again, accompanied this time with the all dismissive hand gesture, head turned away, and he stops his rant, visibly disappointed. I guess he thought I was a sure customer. For a moment I feel sorry for him, this business can’t be easy. As he turns away from me, in one last attempt he says “dongwu A-pian, laowai like.”

I freeze. Really? Animal porn? The kind that laowai like…What kind would that be now? “Yesyes,” he says, “exactly the kind laowai like, girl with the animal, with the horse, with the dog, with the water buffalo”. He’s on a roll now, and embarrassing as I find this he’s caught my attention. Water buffalo sex? That just might cheer me up on a rainy hung-over Sunday afternoon. He has his whole selection out in the open now, and the vegetable taitais are crowding in, commenting loudly on the big blond laowai girls on display, while I haggle on the price for some Sunday afternoon water buffalo flicks, ‘just the way laowai likes it’, as promised. Oddly, the situation seems perfectly normal to everyone involved. Just another case of supply and demand in a forgotten old bomb-shelter tunnel in Southern China. I pay 10 kuai for 3 discs and the taitais all laugh and comment loudly in minanhua on how inept laowai are at bargaining for animal porn. One of them gives me a handful of carrots for free out of sympathy I can only assume.

The little fellow compliments me on my choice and good taste. I’m not sure I agree with him on the good taste part, but it is what it is. Another rat comes strolling out from the carrot storage, sniffing about, and one of the taitais give it a surprisingly skilled kick, sending it off flying back into the carrot pile. They laugh wildly as I turn around toward the exit again with my laowai entertainment.

Home again, I insert the first disc into my DVD player. A three part complete history of the Chinese Communist Party begins to play on the screen. Surprisingly high quality image. Munching on a carrot I watch the Red Army storm the Luding bridge. ‘Shame on me’ I think, and wonder briefly if the little fellow is part of a secret campaign to educate laowai on the essentials of the glorious Long March. With my finger I scrape a piece of rat shit from my carrot and insert disc 2.

Groupthink 6PM – November 7th, 2010

6pm. 6pm. 6pm. Bell Cafe.

topic: it’s genre time again and FANTASY is the name of the game, as always creative rebellion is encouraged, but do try keep it in a Chinese context.

As promised in our last update I was massively hungover on Sunday after a blazingly successful Art Battle. Nonetheless Groupthink Intersection produced some great works. I was reminded of one of our more legendary Groupthinks: The Last Cup of Coffee in Shanghai, an evening that produced at least seven suicides and several homicides (fictionally speaking, thank god). Who would have guessed it? Evidently Intersections is an equally morose topic. Apparently when writers think ‘intersection’ their first thought is: ‘car crash’.

Ginger wRong Chen get’s it wRight as usual, though failing to heed her own advice in Pay Attention to the Signs. Incidentally, Ginger’s work is featured in our upcoming first release of party like it’s 1984 which you can expect to see in December 2010. For more of her melancholy quirkiness check out my personal favorite Revenge of the Butterfly. This one gets me every time.

A bit of the old ultra-WTF from Andy Best: Mantis vs. Phantom.

When you’re done with that maybe you’ll need a light read, in which case you can check out Christine Forte’s charming short story Apart at the Seams.

Expect to see a lot of new stuff on the site this week. Maybe even something from Bjorn and Nate. Watch out for a beautiful poem from J. Lasky and maybe something from birthday girl Sarah if I’m feeling generous.

HAL lost a very dear friend last week to sunny beaches, fruity cocktails, tattoo artistry and lady boys as W.M. Butler headed down to Thailand for some much needed alone time with his facebook page. I hope you two are having fun together Butler. Please come back soon. Bring sun and ladyboys. Despite his absence we were treated to a heartwrenching intersection that you probably won’t see on the site because we’ll be saving it for print. Check out Butler’s other work though: one of my favorites.

On the other hand we were really happy to see new faces. A big phat welcum to Danielle, Stefan and Miller. Hopefully D will email us her piece asap so we can blast it up on the site. Stefan and Miller can now testify to the fact that HAL doesn’t bite. Anxiously awaiting a sci-fi atom bomb from Stefan. Miller…Miller…what exactly do you write? Can’t wait to find out.

Apart at the Seams

by Christine Forte

It was a noisy street corner.  Never a dull moment really. The woman with her baskets of hot buns in the  morning, the pushcart vendor selling plants and flowers stopped there in the afternoon, the man with bushels of pomegranates in the evening, hawking his fruits to the busy workers rushing home. There were the carts with bamboo, building materials, garbage, chickens, vegetables and any other matter known to man swooshing past at all hours of the day and night. The bicycles swerved around them, their drivers unable to break from important errands. Housewives waddled past, dragging their shopping along behind them, screaming children attached to their skirts. Continue reading…

Mantis vs. Phantom

Groupthink “Intersections” contribution from our soft-spoken blogster wordsmith and Shanghai music nerd Andy Best. It’s a laowai revenge fantasy gone sci-fi and awry. Witness the birth of the Mantis.

by Andy Best

I didn’t have a plan. I mean, nothing was planned. But when you look back in time everything falls into a straight line so it makes its own sense. I suppose.

Shanghai. New city, new life. A hectic office at odds with my ideal of travelling the world and bumming around. How can you “bum around” with all that red tape? VISA, medical, police registration, residence papers, work permits, multiple contracts, passport I.D. at the hotel and at the bank, random receipts for tax evasion purposes, compulsory social events. Please, make it stop. Then a guy Colin from our induction training suggested we go to this obscure local sports center he’d found up in the ghetto that was Hong Kou district and learn real Chinese kung fu. That’s original. And why is everyone’s kung fu always the real one? Fine, anything would do at that point. Continue reading…

Please Pay Attention to the Signs

by Ginger wRong Chen

Saturday morning, Sha’r awakes to a peal of thunder. She looks out the window, rain is pouring down. Thrown by the wind, it sweeps in through the open windows, pattering on the floor which is already half wet. She wraps the blanket tighter, responding to the cold air. A flash of lightning strikes down from the sky. She trembles.

“Is this a sign telling me not to go on this trip?”

Sha’r grabs a shawl and approaches the windows with bare feet. Struggling with the window, she says to herself, “Not unless planes can’t take off,” she sneezes. “Five more hours to go.” Continue reading…

Featured H.A.L. Artist: Patrick Wack

About Patrick Wack

A child of suburban Paris, Patrick has been based in Shanghai since 2006. After spending several years in the United States, Sweden and Berlin, he arrived in China with the ambition to become a photographer. Patrick focuses on the human aspect via portraits, reportages and fashion series. His work has appeared in Marie-Claire, Monocle, le Point, Capital, El Pais and Travel & Leisure. His commercial clients include agencies such as BBH and Wieden+Kennedy for Nike, the Shangri-La group, L’Oréal, Novartis, Daimler Benz and GE. Patrick is part of the German photo agency LAIF.

www.patrick-wack.com

SciFi Sessions: Restricted Areas for Aliens in China

by Katrina Hamlin

The first alien showed the second alien the document. The second alien studied the text in silence. As he read, his companion wrapped an enormous hand around the thimble of beer. He delivered the flat liquid to his cavernous mouth in a graceful swoop.

The nervous waitress hovered nearby, trying to decide whether or not these giants could drink more. The first alien held the bottle up to feel its empty weight, caught her eye, and nodded.

She hurried over with a new bottle, and levered the cap from its neck as quickly as she could. Then she backed away to her plastic stool in the shadows.

The second alien reached the end of the page, and looked up. He released a stream of atonal sounds.

The first alien replied in the same unwavering pitch, and poured out two more thimbles of beer. He pushed one across the table for his friend.

The second alien swept yellow hairs from across his forehead, and raised his thimble for a toast. He made a short, sharp noise, and they downed the beers.

The waitress listened, and watched.

When they left the little restaurant for their lodgings along the street, she looked at the paper they had abandoned on the table. The white sheet made her think of their ghostly skin.

She couldn’t understand any of the characters on the paper. But after an evening of listening, and watching, she had started to see that the aliens’ expressions were the same as her own, warped across exaggerated features and thrown into stark relief against their complexions. Like emotions painted on a mask, she thought.

Continue reading…