Richmond

Victoria

Nelson

Who am I thought I might sayin Barkerville I mark my time in sluice Might say Nomad slow unreadable Yet repeatable. FW

Canada

Full or parsed moon with tearsOne hundred years ago Twenty eight villages homes Elegance in tune How you landed where Scattered ashes orbit FW

His uniform representsThe Eye of the whale This is a secret Charley's from Kamloops Charley's going to Foo Let's village A little money for the family there FW

Everywhere and Nowhere

Lillooet could sound like jadeYour cousin was a cook Nor does the Queen look Chinese FW

Pacific Rim

Truck farm inchBy inch the earth Stuff of life itself You only get the seed If you buy The Fertilizer FW

In nineteen forties winterA farmer's future Sitting on a hill remember FW

Vancouver

Now and then Yangs CuisineAnd won't forget the Iron Wok Never seen no Blue Ginger Down at the Chinatown market And Shanghai City's really far away But Saigon Kitchen's further from the coal FW

MADE IN CHINA  I needed a son, so I had to get a wife. Who is he, this uncle All smiles, suit, and tie Coming through the front door of the café, eyeing Foo Let behind the counter, shaking his hand? Never seen him before. Not in any café in Trail or Nelson. They laugh and talk Chinese as Foo Let grabs a coffee then steers him to a booth near the back. They deal. There are papers and money on the table. Foo Let signs something and then licks an envelope. They go into the kitchen loud talking and laughter behind the swinging doors. Can this be the infamous Charley Chim Chong Say Wong Liu Chung He is a China Even over here Full of his own China-ness Minding his own business And busy he is Back and forth Whose center cannot hold the mind Just when he thought he knew his heart The world huffed! It’s a trick Still China after all He turns around Goes back to village Pacific Ocean’s the real boss He’s China to the root The sons are mortgaged To the future’s money Though  Charley’s from Kamloops. Charley’s going back to China. But only once. Charley’s going to get a wife. Charley’s going to Foo Let’s village A little money for the family there. Then Charley buys some jade in Hong Kong. Charley comes back in a year. China is so far away. GATES The gates to the kitchen are the same gates inside out. Any waitress worth her tips knows it. If you lift someone else’s tip when you’re cleaning tables, you’ll get the gate.  Look out! Coming through! You mucka hi! Hinges sprung, springing.  In mah-jong the Chief casts two dice to open the gate. When the Kampus Kings play Playmor Junction at New Years, we split the gate and then cut out past Beasley Bluffs along the snow-blown roads back to town. Slip and slide through the gate of another year. Gung hey fa choy!  They swing and they turn, gate of to and gate of from, entrance and exit, the flow, the discharge, the access, the egress, the Mountains of the Blest, the winds of ch’i, mouth of Yin and eye of Yang,  The Liver, the Stomach, the core and the surface, the rock and the lake. These are the gates and you can either kick them open or walk through in silence. Same dif. All dressed up and clean-shaven with no where to go, a troublemaker, that one, a yellow peril, an Amor de Cosmos Pariah, a Celestial, a John A. Macdonald mongrel, an Onderdonk question mark, a Royal Commission cuckoo, an Asiatic Exclusion League problem, a huckster, a leper, a depraved opium addict, a slant-eyed devil, a Mongolian, a heathen, bone-scraping ghoul, a pest, a wanton cyprian, a chinkie-chinkie Chinaman, a nignog, an Ishmaelite, a cooley, a yellow belly — just another hungry ghost, just another last spike. That head tax’s just a rusty nail Not the apple of John A’s greedy eye But that brown nail’s been here forever The real last spike is yet to be driven. Now and then Yang's Cuisine And won’t forget the Iron Wok  Never seen no Blue Ginger Down at the Chinatown market And Shanghai City’s really far away But Saigon Kitchen’s further from the coal