China Beats
China beats to its own tune. She throbs to her own chords. Galloping ahead, dust, smoke, coal, trail her footsteps, charging to the finish line, racing to be Number One.
Duk duk duk Tsang! China sings her own song. She pitches high, tremors low. Guzzling oil, petrol, benzine. Gargling water, concrete and spitting out candy-coloured paint before launching into her next sonata.
A sonata of the old country. The symphony slows down, the pace is measured and the instruments are changed, the cymbals and horns replaced by cellos and flutes.
The crowd ambushes, eager to get close, to conquer her beauty, but China twirls and fantasizes, her imagination floating with the rhapsodies of spring. Her voice gentle, soft, as she awaits the thunder of the baritone. She is a romantic at heart, the orchestra attempts to serenade her as she bangs on her plastic guitar.
China beats to its own tune, she dances to her own steps. And when she is tired, tired of the noise, tired of the heat, tired of the race, tired of the calculations in her head, she will eat. She will eat till her belly is full. She will lick her fingers, of succulent grease, of salt, of chillies.
Her children will come home and China will read them a story. A story of potential, a story of hope, a story of success. When they sleep, she will dress up. Dress up to perform, dress up to to pull the strings of her guitar once again.
Duk duk duk Tsang! China will fight. China will play. China will sing her own song. Till the hall is full and the audience is ready, silent to hear her sonata once again.
