Homeland was published in Manoa , No. 1, Spring 2000

[The following excerpt from Homeland, an epistolary prose piece is addressed to Kong Jie Sheng in response to the novelist's "Square" article about his experiences and escape from the massacre at Tienanmen Square in June 1989.]

Homeland

Dear Sir,

Was it in Gao Xingjian's home where I first met you? Then in Ma Jian's? Then I saw your article written with your blood on the magazine "Square." I'm hearing the gunfire and seeing the faces of my people again on a quiet lonely night in America .

It's raining in Providence . I'm sitting at the window and writing to you under the lamp. The raindrops on the eaves sound the same. But something is different. It's the heart! That old pain consumes the heart. That person (that heart) is living in America .

I'm touched by your story. Few writers had your "luck" to be on the square during the massacre, then be able to leave the land which is covered with evil and write about it. Few writers are as lucky! That's the only reason I can read your story about the square. It's also the only reason I want to write a long poem composed of night, fire, dreams and bodies.

Many people died, all the essence of the world, just disappeared within a second. Those who are nothing but the garbage and pollution are still alive, laughing at us, at our mourning and thinking. Their existence shows the grotesque side of the world.

Our feet rub the land of America each day, but our hearts hear China at night. We hear machine guns and fire crackers, fires and fireworks, all exploding under one sky. We hear those who speak English but in their blood, there's another language. We see the dead, find ourselves biting our own teeth and walking on an alien land.

Freedom opens his skin and exposes his insides: red and bright. It's the dream of home we have when we sleep under American sky. Our home makes us jump from nightmares, makes us screaming instead of write. It makes us replace our skillful hands with our nerves, and replaces our hatred with forgetfulness.

Sir, this is no longer a letter. There's no greeting. I just don't know what to say or how to say it. I only see your face two years ago and the sadness in your article. They mix together, like our home and America mixed together, and I'm at a loss. No more greetings. Our pens have too many shadows of the dead. Our friends' faces are staring at us, at America , under the Chinese ground. A river is flowing underneath from China to America . The noise of the soil swallowed by the water is the noise of chains. It's the noise from millions of Chinese desperate hearts and souls; together they push the river, their chains shaking and clinking. The dead and alive have the same power. The river is moving in the dark, moving toward the light inch by inch, away from China . I see, I hear the people behind the river. I see the eyes of the dead. They are like a plant which blossoms during the day and dies at night throughout the year. Many evenings, when I pick up my pen and stare at the paper, I hear the river approaching me quietly. I see my poetry become clearer and clearer, just like watching my lover take off her clothing in my imagination.

What is "home?" It's a permanent voice; it rubs your life and provokes your nerves. It carries your childhood into your late years. It tortures you all your life but you happily accept it. It's a drug. It puts you in an awkward situation and calls you someone who walks on a fallen land.

I'm tired. Eyes stare at the words which come out one by one, line by line, all walking in one direction. They exhaust me, drive me crazy. Everything has a destination. How about us? Where are our bodies? Where are our hearts? Our writing is chasing us like a dog gone mad. We are fleeing without caring about where we are going.

But the deceased will ask: "Where are you going?"

XUE DI

Last Updated: May 18, 2004