No more the acrobats, singers and dancers,
Prostitutes and pimps, criminals and chancers.
…………..A green veil is drawn over all.
…………..Rain drips down in an empty hall.
The sound of hammers shovels and picks,
Drowned out by the river of traffic,
Flowing east past the blind, glassless windows.
…………..A dank hall.
Concrete crumbles. Rubble and rust.
The tower, tallest in town; shrunken, it drags its crippled frame to cower in the corner.
…………..The jazz age. City of sin. Permed hair and silken skin.
…………..A new slogan for a new city. A new book for a new age.
…………..A new book for a new age. Better life, better city; all is merry and bright.
Fathers and mothers of the new age, forced to kneel to their sons and sonβs sons.
Awaiting the orders they can only obey.
Their cries drowned out by a louder voice.
Lumps of flesh, ripped from a carcass.
Scars on scars. A pockmarked land.
Foundation cream, mascara, eyeliner and rouge,
Applied with trowel and spade.
…………..Serve the People!
Chrysler cars and cigarette ads. Neon lights and movie stars.
Movie stars and TV screens. A new car and Prada jeans.
…………..Better city, better life. Faster, higher, stronger.
Paul Bevanβs Introduction: In 2010, China hosted the World Expo in Shanghai. As part of the preparations for this significant event, the city underwent a massive programme of redevelopment, aiming for widespread urban transformation and modernisation. Having observed constant change during my many previous visits to Shanghai, on a trip in January 2009 it was clear to me that transformation was now accelerating rapidly ahead of the Expo. It was as a response to this redevelopment, 15 years ago, that I wrote the poem, “A Great World”. Already by this time, the effects of urban change, could be seen in the wake of Beijingβs hosting of the Olympic Games in 2008. One tragic cost of redevelopment in both cities, was the widespread loss of Chinaβs rich architectural heritage.
How to cite: Bevan, Paul. βA Great World: Poem and Introduction.β Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, 1 May 2024, chajournal.blog/2024/05/01/great-world.
Paul Bevan is a Sinologist, researcher, literary translator, and lecturer. From 2020 to 2023 he was Departmental Lecturer in Modern Chinese Literature and Culture at the University of Oxford and Retained Lecturer in Chinese at Wadham College. From 2018 to 2020 he worked as Christensen Fellow in Chinese Painting at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. He is currently an Associate Member of the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Oxford, and a Research Associate at the School of Oriental and African Studies. His research focuses on popular fiction and the visual arts as they appeared in periodicals and magazines published in Shanghai during the first two decades of the twentieth century. He is also currently researching on guidebooks of nineteenth century Shanghai. Paulβs most recent book is a translation of The Adventures of Ma Suzhen: An Heroic Woman Takes Revenge in Shanghai (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021). Another translation, Murder in the Maloo: A Tale of Old Shanghai is with the publisher, and is in the final stages of preparation. He has written two monographs: A Modern Miscellany: Shanghai Cartoon Artists, Shao Xunmeiβs Circle and the Travels of Jack Chen, 1926-1938 (Brill, 2015), and Intoxicating Shanghai: Modern Art and Literature in Pictorial Magazines during Shanghaiβs Jazz Age (Brill, 2020). John A. Crespiβs review of the latter calls attention to the translations embedded in the book: βFeatured within the bookβs densely informative analyses are translations of four modernist short stories. [These] in themselves contribute significantly to modern Chinese literary studiesβ¦β. [All contributions by Paul Bevan.]
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