by Yan Li
(translated by Denis Mair)
Add sugar and cream
Add the Western setting of a coffee shop
Add a hubbub of market indexes and real estate
This discussion in which assets practically come alive
Has become the daily flavor of Chinese life
In the past no need for sugar
No cream
No need for stirring with industrial metal spoons
Through the living quarters of the people
Wafted smells of a brownish-black concoction
Astringency brewed from products of yellow earth
Even the doctors of today cannot deny
Were it not for a fluke of distribution
Chinese medicine from thousands of years ago
Would send forth the aroma of something like coffee
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