Ten Thousand Waves: Poems

By Ping Wang and Ruthann Godollei

Looking at a wide swath of Chinese history and literature, this collection examines various issues stemming from immigration to America. Wang Ping conveys the voices of centuries of farmers and factory laborers, revolutionaries, writers, artists, and craftsmen. She has a unique gift for telling small stories with powerful emotional effects. The titular poem, "Ten Thousand Waves," was inspired by a tragedy that occurred on February 5, 2004. More than 20 Chinese laborers drowned in Morecambe Bay, England, when they were caught by an incoming tide. They were collecting cockles late in the evening, having been misinformed about the tidal times. The victims were undocumented immigrants, mainly from Fujian Province, China. In 2006, English filmmaker Nick Broomfield directed and produced Ghosts, a dramatic film based on the tragedy at Morecambe Bay. Not long after that, another filmmaker, Isaac Julien, commissioned Ping to write a narrative script for his film on global immigration, Small Boats. When he saw the finished poem, Julien decided to make a film installation specifically on Chinese immigration, which he entitled Ten Thousand Waves, after Ping's poem. Ten Thousand Waves has been featured at the Pace Foundation galleries in San Antonio, Texas, and at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Independent Publishers Group
• Release date: Apr 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781609403515

Ping Wang

Professor Wang received his Doctor's degree in railway engineering in 1998 from the Southwest Jiaotong University. He has been engaged in teaching and scientific research work on high speed railway track structure for nearly 20 years

Book preview

I.

BARGAIN

A Hakka Man Farms Rare Earth in South China

First of all, it’s not rare nor earth, as they call it.

The metal lies under our feet, sparkling in the soil we farm,

Red, green, yellow, blue, purple, sky of grass

And buffalos, patches of rice, bamboos, sweet yams.

We came here as guests—Hakka—fleeing from angry

Lords. Year after year, we bent over the earth

Feet and hands in the neon soil, our sweat

Fertilized the fields, children, ancestors’ graves

Our stove cooked the fragrance from the sun and moon.

Now we dig, deep in the mud, our boots

Rotting in the rainbow sludge … Dig, and we dig

Hoes, pickaxes, guns, explosives, acid wash

Ten yuan a sac, this red dirt speckled with

Blue and yellow. Home, we cry,

A small haven painted with green.

Now the mountains are lifted.

Deep crates in the fields, blood and pus

In streams and rivers … all because the world

Wants this earth—Vitamins for I-pods

Plasma TVs, wind turbines, guided missiles—

Things that make the world

Cleaner and more beautiful, as they say

And here we are, in the waist-deep sludge

A sac of mud—a tail of greed

Leaching in our stove.

Fire licks my wife’s slender hands

Acid fumes in her lungs, liver, stomach

Till she can no longer sip porridge laced

With the thousand-year-old egg.

In our cooking woks, we exhume

Dysprosium, Neodymium, Promethium

All the names of Gods, they say.

If gods have eyes, would they see us

Slaves on this earth that no longer holds us?

In the distance, a mushroom of dust—

Boss and his Prius, powered by the sludge

That chokes my eyes, ears, nose … One Rich Field

twenty-five pounds of metal, ten-thousand sacs of earth

Ripped under our feet. We’re slipping,

Our chests soaked in blood, backs broken

Digging, pulling, no food or water.

Our quota still short, the boss will be mad,

But no matter. I light a cigarette, each puff

Is the last. Tomorrow is gone, like our village.

Here and far away, where horses ran wild

Under the sky, where we, children of

Genghis Khan, return every night in our dream,

which is gone, too, they say. Mongolia,

Our origin, now a rare earth pit for the world.

Oh, Hakka, Hakka, forever a guest

Wandering on this bare earth.

Dust Angels

stars, diamonds, tears of hearts

sand and cut, cut and sand

shrouded in silicon fog

we string beauty with cornhusking hands

bracelets, necklaces, rings

day and night, night and day

we bend over screeching wheels

making trinkets for the U.S.A.

saints, gods, Buddha

rush down the belt at a dizzying speed

a quarter cent a piece—the price

of our hands, a nation’s pride,

a civilization eating us alive

opal, malachite, topaz

stones from deep in earth—sold cheap at Walmart

our lungs harden from quartz crystals

our lives weigh less than dust

we cough and wheeze

walking half a block we gasp for air

they say we fake our sickness

have never worked in their factories

they hire lawyers to erase our names, ban our union

Marx and Mao are history, they claim

only freedom of market economy

the golden path toward democracy

no money to go home

no face to see parents, wives, husbands, children

all bridges collapsed—

we loiter in hospitals, courts

we pray not to die in this strange land

dust angels, dust angels

who wears the stars and hearts strung with our tears?

who makes a fortune from our wretched breath?

who will see us—

of all the Buddhas and saints

carved out of our bodies

all the eyes of Mary and Jesus

painted in our blood

Bargain

This is a pair of handmade shoes

Awkward and lovely like the maiden behind the stand

Gold peonies bloom unabashed on red corduroy tops

White soles are made of layered cloth

Pasted on a door with flour

A slow air dry in the moonlight

Stitches lined up neatly

like terra-cotta soldiers on battle grounds

This is a pair of shoes

I’ve been seeking for years

The craft my grandma tried to pass on

Before I left home for good

Without trying them on, I know

They would comfort my calloused soles

Let me run like a whirlwind

Make me feel like

A sword drawn out of its sheath

And we start the bargain.

Ten, she says, "for the sake of fate

That brought you to this desert town."

Five, I say without thinking,

a trick from my American partner.

Good joke, Big Sister, she laughs,

deep creases flashing across her frostbitten face.

I blush for no reason.

Six then, I say, avoiding her hands

that bring back Grandma,

her flickering shadow on the wall threading a needle.

Come on, Sister, have some respect.

"Okay, seven. Can’t go up any more.

Respect has to be mutual, don’t you think?"

Barely enough to pay for the materials, Sis,

her voice low, wet like the drizzle.

No mercy, I repeat the mantra drilled into

Reviews for Ten Thousand Waves

[johnsonroniam · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Not only getting to meet this extraordinary author,yet to hear her read a passage of the thought provoking book Ten Thousand Waves, I am captivated by many feelings the poems and story of a people only wanting to earn a meager living,and how nature has its own mission and man who has a skewed mission can only place money over life..you can experience the voices,the chill,the night of deep darkness, the suddenness of life being so harshness taken way..Along with the poems of the life of immigrants, Ping patiently points the struggle laughter,the tears of those who work hard and have hope for a better life and questions the existence of those who govern them..
A tremendous collection of poems that is a must buy and read.

[OliverStJoliver · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book is just great. I love the style -- it's like a poetry of journalism.

You read this kind of poetry, and you realize: This is the way to learn about the world, and this is the only way these stories can really be told. The poetry's so beautiful because it so well tells these stories of working to death in Chinese factories, doubting one's ability to support his family suffering misfortune after misfortune, trying to survive in a wildly changing country, hoping not to be left behind, having to flee, not being able to flee...

These are people so often characterized by their suffering, it's easy to forget they're real people. This is where poetry, like Wang Ping's can triumph where news journalism cannot. Wang Ping tells these stories so we can meet these people through her poems and understand they're real people and the suffering is real. The focus, like all of Wang's work, is on the people themselves.

I love the collage style she uses, mixing first-person narratives with statistics with images. It's a really beautiful book, and you should read it.

[JamesPriestley · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Wang Ping is a force of Nature, a surprising event sprung upon us. Behold, and be glad. And if you have a taste for poetry, read Ten Thousand Waves. Ping brings us to the brink of our actual being and invites us to get drunk on spring water in cupped hands, and to notice what a rare privilege that has become. She is a prophet of what is, attentive and revelatory. Reading her poems will remind you of your own courage and dignity. She invites you to remember to be alive.

[LiuyuChen · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

If you want to know China, you have to read Wang Ping.

Wang Ping stands by and speaks for the powerless with her startling story telling fueled with first-hand, precise and detailed images manifesting the fate of Chinese migrant workers impacted by urbanization and globalization. Wang Ping, herself as a Chinese immigrant arriving at NYC with $26 in her pocket in 1986, now a creative writing professor at Macalester College in Saint Paul, Minnesota, has transformed her role as a journalist, humanitarian, friend and listener when she travels about different landscapes to investigate Chinese migration issues, researching, interviewing, observing, digging, and writing, giving birth to each story with a unique form, rhythm, tone, voice and spirit coming alive through her truthful and creative narration.