Zuccotti Park: Dismantled Democracies Lyrics

Real commentary from the Chinese Internet in flash fiction story form. Translations from chinaSMACK.

"ZUCCOTTI PARK: DISMANTLED DEMOCRACIES"

“Strange how they looks so well dressed right? Dapper.” Bao leant in over Lily’s neck. His breath smelt of undefined nastiness. She didn’t like the way he smirked at the countless images flooding her computer screen of enraged Americans on the streets of New York. “Supposed to be the poor over there? Sure about that?” His dry tongue gave out a click as he dumped himself on the sofa. Lily swiveled her chair to face him. “Are you serious, idiot? You look at an image of police beating innocent people and you comment on the clothes that their blood is dripping on? Idiot.” Bao smiled. “You called me an idiot twice just then.” Lily threw a book at him, Bao swerves. “Shit! Calm down sister, what’s your problem!” Lily stands, sidesteps Bao’s half-eaten box of yumi, and places her hand on the cold glass of her sixth-story apartment window.

Ever since that Thursday she had felt bars on every window, cracks in every mirror, everything that was once clear was now a grey murk. Fogged. He heard his voice from behind her.“All I said was that that brother looks good for a homeless person. He has no work, party affiliation and he’s poor and hungry and he’s protesting because he’s poor and hungry right? But his khaki’s look fucking cool. That’s all I’m saying.” Bao sipped his cola and shrugged, “incongruous!” he said waving his cigarette at the screen. Lily stopped herself from telling him to shut the hell up. Instead, rising on her toes she peered down at the street below; a river of halogen veins criss-crossing people, heads down, ambling along unaware of history happening.

“Poor people are poor, always poor wherever they are,” Lily turns now and faces Bao. He was just supposed to be casual friend and he’d been expending his cool increasingly in recent months. “Okay Mother Theresa, what do you see when you see those pictures? A bunch of beggars?” Lily looks over at the picture of a man, red faced, mouth open, a row of helmets holding back the line. “No, but at least when they’re pissed off they do something about it, unlike us.” Bao snorts and has a look at the picture. “Hmm, I recall reading about a disgruntled rabble, pitched tents, making all sorts of unreasonable demands in 1989.”  He said.
“Yeah exactly and look what happened to them!” Lily crossed her arms. Bao crossed his legs the other way and puffed his cigarette. “Lily, you listen to too much American music. Too much Bono. I’m not going to feel sorry for first world problems okay? The police were clearing them out of their because of bad sanitation and drug-dealing. Have you seen those guys? Rape and drug-dealing must be happening all over that place. NYPD should teach these counter-revolutionaries a lesson. Nightsticks won’t do.” Lily’s eyes widened,  “Oh? And what would you propose? AK47′s and tanks?” Bao made that sarcastic grunt that misogynists make when they feel their women were being hysterical. “No Lily, gas the fuckers right? Of course not, but we have our own problems, yeah? There are 1.4 billion Chinese but if there’s an issue we don’t go disturb public property.” Lily sat down at her computer.
“Maybe we should.” She said. Bao gave out a laugh.
“Okay sure, go ahead. I’ll be right behind you!”

Lily began to click through the images. There was a picture of an officer, his helmet and megaphone an inch away from a man’s face, the man unflinching, a mass of people zipped up, huddled, against the Manhattan winter, another of a young girl, hands tied behind her back at the feet of some officer, and there was another with a boy, an American Chinese – maybe Nepali – squeezing what looked like milk into the eyes of another who had been pepper sprayed. She scrolled down the page and her eyes fixed on a comment:

Zhou_21: Dear USA, caught the news of angry faces among your dismantled democracy. Are you surprised that the images of your children’s fists came this way East? Lols and winks. At least yours can shout, ours can only cheer. #occupy

Her lips parted. She read it again. “…at least yours can shout, ours can only cheer.” She found her eyes re-tread the bright poetry of that line:  “...ours can only cheer.”  She sat back, took a breath. Felt like she had been hit by an empty bus. "You’re wrong Bao.” she said finally, “the difference is just... expectation. They have one, some, we don’t. Ever.” She read the line again. #occupy. “In places with just, even basic human rights, people find courage to express their demands and, even in the face of police, have no fear. Why? Because they know the result. Whereas if the results cannot be predicted, they wouldn’t dare go occupy anything.” Lily turned and looked at Bao. “Americans can say no.” Bao sat upright now.
“We can say no too." He said, "I say no all the time.”

Lily smiles and leans forward, “Once, twice maybe. Depends what you’re saying  no  to right? But at least Americans can say no and expect to be arrested.  Expect  to be released.  Expect  to go back and say no one more time and do it all over if they wanted. For us? It’s not so certain. Would they have us sign a confession? House arrest? Re-education? Imprisonment for decades? No trial. If I broke one of those window bars would I be beaten black and blue?  Freedom is the right to say no and listen to others who say no and even meet others who also say it.” Her voice stopped saying words.

For the first time she looked at Bao and saw that he was listening. With a poise that seemed out of character for him, Bao gently set his cigarette aside. He reached down to pick up the book that was thrown at him earlier in anger, read the title and author, smirked. “Whoever this Noam Chomsky brother is, you’ve been reading too much of him.” Lily stared hard at Bao. She took a short breath. “Bao, listen, I think we should see other people.”

From Chinese Dissonance

How to Format Lyrics:

  • Type out all lyrics, even repeating song parts like the chorus
  • Lyrics should be broken down into individual lines
  • Use section headers above different song parts like [Verse], [Chorus], etc.
  • Use italics (<i>lyric</i>) and bold (<b>lyric</b>) to distinguish between different vocalists in the same song part
  • If you don’t understand a lyric, use [?]

To learn more, check out our transcription guide or visit our transcribers forum

About

Genius Annotation

http://www.flickr.com/photos/98053062@N06/9141562660/

Chinese Dissonance is a set of 10 flash fiction stories inspired by real life memes from the Chinese Internet.

Each story takes comments found on Chinese internet streams such as NetEase and Weibo and uses them as dialogue for fictional characters.

Zuccotti Park: Dismantled Democracies is the first of these stories.

Translations are from chinaSMACK

Author:

Guy Gunaratne is the CCO of Storygami.co and is a writer and documentary filmmaker.

Chinese Dissonance is currently looking for publishers.

@guygunaratne

Q&A

Find answers to frequently asked questions about the song and explore its deeper meaning

Comments