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Poetry

Home Town

By Yan Bin
Translated from Chinese by Berlin Fang

No matter how rich, how famous you are
No matter how many people who used to know you
Can no longer recognize you
Look, if you are still son of a mom from the country
If you still want to return home
You will always see the earth
You will always see the lopsided buildings
Those crowded old buses
Carry you home
Your dining tables have no fancy tablecloths
No paper flowers

Yet here is your home
Far behind the time
Every morning
You wake up to the winged clock called rooster

Your train has gone
To many other home towns
Of black, red and yellow earth

By arrangement with the authors. Translations copyright 2008 by Berlin Fang. All rights reserved.

English

No matter how rich, how famous you are
No matter how many people who used to know you
Can no longer recognize you
Look, if you are still son of a mom from the country
If you still want to return home
You will always see the earth
You will always see the lopsided buildings
Those crowded old buses
Carry you home
Your dining tables have no fancy tablecloths
No paper flowers

Yet here is your home
Far behind the time
Every morning
You wake up to the winged clock called rooster

Your train has gone
To many other home towns
Of black, red and yellow earth

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