United in Silent Self-Cultivation

Lau Yee-ching

                        Not to totalize, not to simplify, not to stop his step, not to fix a trajectory,
                        not to seek some advantage, not to cross things out or get even, and
                        especially not to make calculations, not to appropriate or reappropriate
                        (even if it be through that paradoxical form of manipulating or calculating
                        reappropriation that is called rejection), not to seize what was inappropriable
                        and must remain so.
                        – Jacques Derrida, text from Louis Althusser's funeral 
                           (taken from Tang Siu Wa's Ticklish blog)

From truth
Comes freedom
To serve
You open an umbrella
And I consider this
Some people say that Jesus was a Buddhist monk
A foreign Buddhist monk,
They say he was a Buddhist monk, a foreign Buddhist monk
What does it matter?
As everyone knows
And as everyone doesn't know
He said
Revolution
Is an act of self-cultivation
Understanding other people's goodness
Illuminates one's own virtue
With a head of hair
Or without
What does it matter?
Five loaves and two fishes
Another five loaves and two fishes
Five loaves and two fishes
Open an umbrella
Then another umbrella
Another umbrella
Like a monk walking lonely in a crowd
He said
Enemies and friends
Those who love and those who don't
Revolution
Is an act of self-cultivation
Step
By step

Gold
Gold

Now there is none
In the future there won't ever be any

Revolution
Is a form of
Self-cultivation

Understanding
One's own
Goodness
Illuminates
Other people's
Virtue
And nourishes
The possibility of
Redemption

Like a Buddhist monk
Walking lonely in a crowd
He said

He said to
Himself

Revolution
Is a form of eternally fierce
Continuous struggle to relinquish power

translated from the Chinese by Emily Jones and Sophie Smith

Read the original in Chinese, Traditional

Read the Chinese, Simplified translation

Listen to the poem read in the original Chinese by Franz Mang:

Lau Yee-ching (more commonly known by his pen name, Yam Kong) began writing poetry in the 1970s. He was one of the co-founders of One Ninth, a Hong Kong poetry magazine. His poetry collections include And so you look at the festival lights along the street (1997) and And so, carrying stones, you look at the festival lights along the street (2010).

Emily Jones learnt Chinese at the universities of Cambridge, Ningbo, and Qingdao and was the recipient of a British Centre for Literary Translation mentorship in translation in 2011. Her publications include her translation of He Jiahong's crime novel Black Holes as well as samples, short stories, poetry, fiction and nonfiction for various publishers. She contributed to Asymptote's Sinophone 20 under 40 series and her translation of Zhang Ling's A Woman, at Forty was published as part of the Read Paper Republic initiative in August 2015.

Sophie Smith studied Chinese at Cambridge, Ningbo, and Qingdao universities and completed a masters in Chinese studies at The National Institute for Oriental Languages and Civilizations in Paris. Since then she has worked in arts and heritage as an interpreter,interpreting museum collections and historic buildings rather than languages. She attended the British Centre for Literary Translation Summer School in 2011 and later that year contributed to the translation of the Catalogue raisonné Philippe Hiquily, published by Galerie LOFT. Sophie has written poetry since 2012 and is currently drafting her first novel.