Sophia Lui
Elegy to the Motherland
Third Place, Category 1: Ages 13-18
On July 1, 2021, the Chinese Communist Party, the sole governing party of the People’s Republic of China, celebrated its 100th anniversary.
Mythological opening: man in black. Children in white.
Red chairs, red flag, red ground, red past.
There he is again: the martyr, the savior, the god.
Five-star red flags are fluttering in the wind…
Fifteen fighter jets gild the sky with exit wounds. The sky: a mother.
This country: an orphan.
When it was easier and wai gong bought
a slab of pork on a good day, I would have expected to grow up sequentially.
Instead I interweave two histories masquerading as the truth. Instead when
I bleed, I bleed only secondary colors. A liquid magenta, perfumed olive.
How clear and bright…
Tiananmen Square still tastes like the ghosts of 32 years ago
when a man faced a line of tanks after shopping;
Nai nai’s apartment, its walls blemished with my crayoned handprints, still sings
the aftermath of Red Guard wreckage.
Over the turbulent Yellow and Yangtze rivers…
So many good girls share my last name. Their teal skirts smile
in the wind, their mouths an oblivious orange.
I want to believe that in pandemonium, my mother could recognize me as her daughter. That she
would not tap the shoulder of a black-haired seed and
let her sprout into my shadow.
I need to believe that I am good enough to be her daughter.
The heroic people have stood up…
A strong heart is innocent
but an idle body is not.
What do red and red make?
Color in a meaningless sky? Sun vanished, I pivot
to the man who claims to take its place.
The heroic people have stood up…
I put the hammer on trial. Anyone could be a hero if they say they are enough times.
One house.
One face. Two faces. Five faces. Ten. A hundred. A thousand.
The stench of history is too rotten to varnish.
I know there are more to be counted.
Singing for our beloved….
I crack my head and spill blood on the Great Wall of steel.
Our beloved motherland…
I write a paean for the unremembered.
Beloved motherland.
O martyr, O savior, O god:
teach me how to distill tragedy.
“Elegy to the Motherland” also reflects the blatant disregard for human rights in present-day China. China has transformed into the mirror image of George Orwell’s 1984, with all political dissent abolished, heavy censorship of anything foreign, and invasive surveillance. In July 2021, China commemorated the centennial of the Chinese Communist Party, the sole governing party of China since 1949. Watching the centennial was so eerie and frightening. The lack of freedom Chinese citizens experience was carefully camouflaged with the sheep-like singing of the song “歌唱祖國,” which translates to “Ode to the Motherland,” art performances, and deceitful speeches by political leaders. I often think and question who I would be if my parents did not emigrate from China, if I would be one of those children singing cluelessly for a country that represses their expression. “Elegy to the Motherland” is my take on “Ode to the Motherland.”
Sophia Liu lives in Long Island, New York. Her poems and artwork appear or are forthcoming in Muzzle Magazine, Rattle, DIALOGIST, Storm Cellar, Superstition Review, A Velvet Giant, Underblong, and elsewhere. She loves Ziwe and Chicken Shop Date.
