The girl upstairs has packed her
living-room
with would-be disciples or so the thuds
rattling our ceiling indicate. I’m
sure
I can detect them singing a hymn to the tune of
Beethoven’s number 9, this buzzing
of shrill, discordant noise. We’re trying to play
cards, drink vodka, live decadent and
godless
down here (happily close to Hades). Do-it-yourself
congregation of Chinese ESL students,
not
clandestine as one would expect in this ‘secularist’
‘Oriental Tyranny’. These
Evangelicals
imported to the mainland to teach the language
of ‘cultural exchange’ ( =
US$) but instead
converting confused youths en mass. I wonder
whatever happened to the Central
Realm’s
classic opposition to the cancer of religion
predating Communism. Cancer? Opium
may be more apt – but listen to the Alabaman
conducting the chorus of the Saved
upstairs.
She’s meant to be teaching diction, syntax
for fuck’s sake. I grunt. You grin,
discard
your last card and win the game. OK, I’m sorry
to be such an intransigent atheist; but
I just can’t
stomach morons spreading their beliefs, politics
and bad singing with impunity. Did you
know
missionaries like our musical neighbour got
their heads lopped off during the
Boxers’ Uprising?
You sip your vodka-and-orange, deal the cards, laugh
off my bloodlust. I arrange my hand,
realise that
I’ll lose this game too, and wonder what it’d take
to shut the Yank up or to compel the
Chinese
to resume beheading impudent, tone-deaf barbarians.