We are Girls from the East

By Paromita Talukder & Priscilla Guo

The poem speaks to our shared history as Asian-American women, emphasizing a colonial past in China and India, our liberation, and the formation of new rituals between generations all through the lens of tea.

I. we are girls from the East

the Buddha's eyelids drop to the floor 
        or a leaf blows into the Emperor's cup1 
so goes, the beginning of a 5,000 year sojourn 
                                                                     down the Yangtze, across the Ganges.
drink in all the yin2 
        clear the humours 
                a daily ritual spent in tonnes.

from the fields to the drawing rooms3
        to sate that peckish feeling 
                in the afternoon.
 
our exotic medicine transformed 
         for consumption in fancy China far away from the China man. 

a history that is darker than the brew
         steeping until the water takes our color,

We are girls from the East.

II. our Oppression  ≠  their Oppression

they took Tomahawks to the ships4 
         our oppression was their oppression, 
                                                                         so they said.
         our oppression was a distraction5
like a spill from the same cup,
quickly, they slap
using the flimsiest chiffon—treaties and diplomas and deeds and Deeds,
         the white papers browned and yellowed 
                                         yet the spill seeped through. 
blindly the Men of Commonwealth try to give shape 
to the elephant carrying Ashoka's wheel
         here lies Pakistan and here India
         a Partition, blind.
yet, even the elephants with stars and stripes have lost their eyes 
         and clumsily, they charge in stampedes into the house they call home, 

drinking the tea, made from tobacco leaves and petrol
         a slow poison,

too late to finally see the elephant6

III. a drink for the Leopards 

a 3000 B.C. Ayurvedic remedy trails
         trading hands
                hands
                        and hands 
wherever we go

fissure on the shell, carved with black gold 
stolen from the gardens of Assam
        crackle, sizzle, pop 
followed by the emancipation of an aroma
that exhilarates the wind and invites guests:  
an excuse for a discussion
an excuse that cannot be refused.

sip 
stay alert during long court hours, the Emperor Ashoka said, 
                        it came
                                         down the Yangtze, across the Ganges
bitter as it left its home 
         cursed China in cursed China.

the Angrezi, the gwailou,7 
         invite us to drink
to accept brings a different death 
than to refuse and frown.

blood from the kettle tainted the soil
as the Red Coats trampled a path through the brown man’s garden, 
         and men from the Middle Kingdom swam in poppy tears. 

Leopards keep breaking into the temple for a drink,8
once in the morning 
        a soft pearly brown to open the sky
once in the evening
        when it's absorbed the day’s light, 

the asperities of our porcelain cup dissolve
         in stygian waters.

We are girls from the East.
         we write to
                remember the temples before the leopards came 
                           before blind men were led by blind elephants
                 for the plants without roots to hear 
                to hear,
                         wails of long gone shadows 
                         chanted in the waves of the Indian Sea9
                         held in the march of the Children of Troubled Times,10
 
                        carried on the back of tomorrow's wind is
                                 the story of
                                         how we regained our independence on foreign soil. 

¹ The origin stories of how we came to have tea spoke of a tea plant springing up from the fallen eyelids of the Buddha, which he had torn off upon breaking a vow of meditation, and the happenstance of Emperor Shen-Nung. 

² Bodies are made of a balance between yin and yang elements. When there is too much yang, traditional Chinese medicine advises drinking more yin, like tea. 

³ A drawing room was a parlor used by English court ladies for entertaining. It was a term widely used in India and Pakistan, dating from colonial days. 

⁴ The Tomahawk is a type of axe-like tool used by Native Americans. They were used by the American Revolutionaries in the Boston Tea Party to feign their identities as Indigenous peoples.

⁵ During the War of 1812 between Great Britain and European colonists, the English were predominantly occupied with their colonies in South and East Asia. The American Revolution was merely one battle within a larger world-wide conflict with France, Spain and India. Thus, Britain was forced to use military resources elsewhere instead of America.

⁶ Seeing the elephant is an Americanism of the Wild West that alludes to journeys and experiences that came at a significant cost.

⁷ Angrezi and gwailou were names for the British in India and China.

⁸ “Leop­ards break in­to the tem­ple and drink all the sac­ri­fi­cial ves­sels dry; it keeps hap­pen­ing; in the end, it can be cal­cu­lat­ed in ad­vance and is in­cor­po­rat­ed in­to the rit­ual.” – Franz Kafka, “Leopards in the Temple.”

⁹ This phrase is taken from the Indian national anthem titled “Jana Gana Mana,” written by polymath Rabindranath Tagore.

¹⁰ The “March of the Volunteers,” the National Anthem of the People’s Republic of China written by Tian Han in 1934 during the Japanese Invasion of China, was first featured in the Chinese film Children of Troubled Times.

Performance

Process

We were inspired by common practices within our distinct cultures—Chinese and Indian. After a few discussions we agreed on the topic of tea, “cha” or “chai,” which has profound historical roots in both China and India connected by colonial British enterprises. We wanted to work with the idea of history being passed down from generation to generation and emphasize the commonality of hardships faced by both of our ancestors. We also tried implementing our current American identity and America’s general role during the colonization time period and now. We were inspired by poets, such as Franz Kafka, Rabindranath Tagore, and playwright Tian Han, and quoted them throughout the poem.