Using Bamboo and “Embracing”
the West
Janet Kuypers
2/6/24
Greeted by my male friend at Shanghai International Airport,
he asked if I had grown, I seemed taller ”
it wasn‣t because both of us usually towered over the locals
but because I was now confident & stood tall.
Before going to his apartment, where the pull-out couch bed
he had was so much softer than his mattress,
we picked up huge bottles of Tsingtao to drink at home from
a street vendor. Only 3/$1 ” what a bargain.1
Seeing buildings adorned with Kentucky Fried Chicken and
Starbucks shops with their emblems everywhere,
It seemed China embraced the U.S.‣ commercialism, as well
as our excess building & manufacturing metals
that Americans think costs too much to melt down & reuse...
so, China builds high-rises from our scraps.2
But walking out of a Starbucks after seeing some of the sights
and needing caffeine from an iced mocha
Frappuccino with extra black chocolate (the Chinese didn‣t
have white chocolate, only black, they explained)
we passed multiple construction structures at building fronts,
made not from metal, but bamboo. I hear
that bamboo is really strong, and hey, if they use U.S. steel,
why not use bamboo that grows wild & sways
to the wind on the coast of the East China Sea in Shanghai ”
the way their coastal buildings appear to sway.
1 from the poem “My Brain Was”
2 from the poem “Outsourcing the American Dream”
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