Jonathan B. Chan is an undergraduate at the University of Cambridge reading English. Born to a Malaysian father and Korean mother in the United States, Jonathan was raised in Singapore and sees his cultural tapestry manifest in his writing. He has recently been moved by the writing of Marilynne Robinson, Joan Didion, and Shusaku Endo.  He is preoccupied with questions of theology, love, and human expression.

 

hồ chí minh

 

motorcycles weave

like flotsam in a slipstream

anxious swarms nudging

through gaps, I twist

to avoid their brusque advance

as epaulette-bearing shophouse

guards glance furtively from

their stools. the humidity

is swift and familiar, local cacophony

splashed with tonal colour, food

painted with colonial hues-

the city whispers

“I’m not some war torn country.”

 

I slurp pho in a 6-villa compound;

I nod guiltily at limbless beggars.

a tremulous emotional current

envelops me at the war museum: the

claymore that’s accompanied me

for months rests indignantly in a glass

case. the trenches, jungle marches,

rifles held above crossed water:

I quiver with sympathy

for the vietcong

 

the new face of vietnam

is global: the young

bury their dead, epithets in

museum displays and lacquer

rendered with expressionist

technique. scars are masked

by korean cosmetics, echoes

drowned by the zing of

fast food (I am told today’s

youth could not fit in the cu

chi tunnels), moans and cries

swallowed in the optimistic

motorbike hum- it is more

fastidious to march to this beat.

 

market vendors jockey for

attention, food stalls wave

their laminated menus, old

cyclo peddlers grunt at

the chaos in the junctions,

acrobats leap on bamboo to

remember the pulse of

village life, I stand with unease

in the facsimile of a gangnam

department store.

 

the only

locals are

in uniform.

 

~

mahjong

 

after psle*

my tuition teacher

turned her center

into a mahjong den

“you deserve a break,”

she’d chortle,

teaching us to fling

thick tiles, eye one

another amidst

the click-clack of

washing, stack

tile walls as if to

guard state secrets.

we’d bet on things like

school postings and

scores, things so

important to a 12-year old

but inconsequential

in a game of mahjong.

we never did play again; our

teacher wary after they

complained, “teach our kids

to score, not gamble,” and

the humdrum of

secondary school

encroached on our aptitudes

the clicking of tiles a

coda resounding in

emptied chambers.

 

 

* Primary School Leaving Examination

 

~

boyhood

 

harbinger: starched fabric rests on

shoulders, the auditorium a

formidable patchwork of stern and

naive, a song resounds- the

lyrics wrestle on your tongue

 

arborescence: nurturing gentlemen is

like pruning bonsai- every red stroke

a snip, every reprimand a shear,

pressure toughens the bark, but can

trees water themselves?

 

supine: there’s a compulsion to let

the winds bowl you over- you’ll learn

to say no after calling it quits too

many nights, red retinas tracing

the reasons not to get out of bed

 

epoch: a young man has clear

milestones- graduation, enlistment,

parades. we are not empires that wax

and wane, we look on zeitgeists with

face-grabbing bemusement

 

denouement: typing poems in an

empty bunk, ignoring the thought of

arrested development, cautiously

contemplating what comes next,

short answer- more of the same