Sino of the Times
By Gary Joseph Cohen
7 September 2008
The China I know and the China I saw on television during the Olympics are not the same person. The China I know and love has a jagged scar running along the northern rim of her grassy forehead, and a foul chimney for a mouth. She smells of exhaust and perfumes the evening with boiled goat meat. In the middle of the hottest summer I've ever experienced, her glass belly rises a few feet a day as her clay shoulders slope closer to the sea. The China I saw on television wears deodorant and applies compound, fishes around her purse for a tissue to blot her glistening neck. I miss the China who, one moment fries squirrel-fish in a tiny kitchen without air conditioning, and the next rattles the screen windows to shoo the magpies. I miss the China who spits in the street. I miss the China who gives me a bear hug, pecks me on the ear and calls me "son."
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