Status Updates From And The Rain My Drink

‘Within the sombre jungle—regularity existed—also in the other, the man-made forest of rubber—acres of trees equidistant from each other—dripping with fantastic monotony—white rain of latex. Ah Pak was of a race whose poetry was an explanation of existence, of living. Whenever anyone brought into the jungle a newspaper, Ah Pak would turn to page eight—blank verse—sonnets—stories written by Chinese children of Malaya’

‘Today I asked him to give me some Tiger Balm—He is popular because he sings scraps of opera. ‘I’ll send her off to England, she could study there. Otherwise she’ll run away to the jungle.’ The eucalyptus trees had come to an end, & beyond—gnarled rubber—Yes, some do give in. But the good ones, they never—her face was all the passionate violence which I would never see again—the widows spoke, ‘Laki t’ada’ (no man)’

‘‘Oh how I love you, Rose Rose I love you.’ A tune started in—Shanghai—now in Spanish in Manila, in Japanese in Tokyo, & in six languages in Malaya. Ah K translated into Malay to D, then switched to Cantonese dialect for this story. They were the usual rubber tappers, going in a lorry to the rubber trees. It rained—road was slippery—jungle people. R told her in Teochew—not to be silly. ‘We are between fire & water.’’