The basis of life is unsophisticated,
Bare to the innocent eye.
The bottom of your feet,
serves as well as a car.
The strength of your legs surprises you as you discover the true conversion of a Calorie to vertical miles.
The soil you walk upon
is all that your body is made of.

The ducks swim next to the routed paths
The chickens run, fearless of danger
A pig would sit on a rock on the top of hill and munch on its lunch
And you would do the same--all the same.

Your feet will swim in puddles of raindrops, fishing for stepping stones underneath
You could run wild in the mountains, recognizing you are invincible
Picnic where it's isolated, secretly spying on the yaks grazing in the pasture
All that remains important are the thoughts you have in your head.
The rest of the material you own, are the things you can pick up off the ground.

The powerful people of academia,
Those who lecture with authority as if they are immortal with knowledge,
Your privilege is to hear the first version of their lecture on Oreo cookies.
Between your favourite orange juice and figuring out the best way to hike up a trail,
You realize, in their minds, they too think of silly little things.

I thought my research was a difficult task
So my faculty led me by the hand
I entered the world of ethnographic interviews
And realized I was chitchatting with a funny little old man
At a funeral home, hardly twenty feet from the deceased.
But everybody were drinking away, talking about their merry lives.
It never offended me to be so close to all the people I hardly know--living or dead.

Its hard to imagine, that
Such a small place as Yangjuan
Where there is so little to do, with so much time to spare,
Is a place where memories last the longest,
Where relaxation and excitement occur concurrently with work,
A research discovery found in a little place, and applies to the world at large.
Theories we read in books, only seem so surreal,
Until you see for yourself, where these ideas became facts,
And words turned into books.
Joanne Ho

LATE SUMMER IN YANGJUAN
Green skins crack and peel.
Turning black,
The rind melts to mush.
A walnut comes to light,
Tan and innocent,
Lying in Fagen's outstretched hand.
Its young shell cracks between my teeth.
And inside
Are soft white meats
Protected by bitter brown sheaths.
I peel each piece
Flinging the sticky skin
Into the fire.
The nut crunches between my teeth.
Flavors
Aromatic and green --
Perfect with sour apples.
Victoria Poling