Wrath of the Northerners
If silence is the only history, then anger is the final awakening. Tell the heavens and the earth: the youth and blood of this land should never have been anyone’s stepping stone.
When your homeland is drained dry,
When coal, iron, grain, blood, and youth are hauled away,
Leaving only decaying factories, abandoned mines,
And the shrugging shoulders of "failed transition,"
You should be angry.
When you are called the "ballast" by those with "grand visions"
Who are always ready to jump ship;
When you are treated as a stabilizer, a stepping stone, and a backdrop;
Tasked with holding the bottom, remaining silent, and enduring in the blueprints they draw,
You should be angry.
When your accent is mocked and your diet ridiculed,
Reminded at every turn that you are "rustic," "outdated," and "unpresentable,"
When prejudice is packaged as a joke and a sense of superiority,
You should be angry.
When your diligence is called stupidity,
Your law-abiding nature interpreted as servility,
Your sacrifices taken for granted,
While they call opportunism "cleverness,"
Call the shirking of responsibility "foresight,"
And call deception a "talent,"
You should be angry.
When they tell you with righteous confidence:
"China ought to be exactly like it is where we are,"
Treating their experience as the only path,
And your history as a cautionary tale of failure,
You should be angry.
When your decline is treated as a laughingstock,
Your hardship as a punchline,
When your existence is only remembered when you are needed,
And in your world, distribution, discourse, and dignity have long been absent,
You should be angry.
Your anger does not come from nowhere,
Nor is your hatred without a target;
Anger is the response to slighted dignity,
Hatred is the refusal of "this is how you were meant to be."
This is the Wrath of the Northerners,
The beginning of no longer denying oneself.
Tell the heavens and the earth:
I am here, living free and unconstrained.
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