Gunshots

Abstract

Gunshots Xu Jiang (bio) Translated by Ming Di and Frank Stewart Nowadays in my countrypeople wouldn’t recognize real gunshots.Today’s writers only take on subjectssafe to write about: the crueltyof the past, not the present.It’s the same with screenwriters.Occasionally, songwriters are braver,but songs of that kind are never popular. For example, tonightat the market near my houseI saw three vintage pistols for sale.One hundred eighteen. One hundred sixteen.“Do they make a loud noise?”I was dumb enough to ask.“These aren’t real,”the seller replied, “they’re cigarette lighters.” City lights are set on dim.But wait, I almost forgot.Three months ago a taxi guy told methat in another district a gunfight broke outbetween the police and gangsters.Newspapers would of course never report it.People fall asleep after work.Gunshots are censored from the news. But I have heard real gunshots,startling as firecrackers.It was over ten years ago.I think about it from time to time—the fear has faded, along with other thingsthat you don’t want to relive. Better to forget them. But the forgetting has created its own fears in me. 2001 [End Page 163] Xu Jiang Xu Jiang was born in Tianjin in 1967. He graduated from Beijing Normal University in 1989 and in 1991 cofounded the poetry journal Kui (Sun Flower) with other Tianjin poets. He is a journalist and literary editor. Copyright © 2019 University of Hawai‘i Press