The Train to Lo Wu (19 page)
Notes
“Revolutions”: The epigraph of this story is taken from an essay attributed to Bodhidharma, “The Twofold Entrance to the Tao,” translated by John C. H. Wu in The Golden Age
of Zen
. The line from the Great Dharani
(shin-myo jang-gu
dae-da-ra-ni)
is taken from the daily liturgy of the Kwan Um School of Zen.
“Heaven Lake”: The story of the fish turning into a bird is taken from the first sentence of the “Free and Easy Wandering” chapter of the
Zhuangzi
(Chuang-tzu), interpreted by the author.
In writing “The American Girl,” I was aided greatly by two oral histories of the Cultural Revolution: Anne Aitken’s
Enemies of the People
and Feng Jicai’s
Voices from the Whirl-wind.
I would like to express my gratitude for their work.
Acknowledgments
This book would not have been possible without the support of the Yale-China Association and the Chinese University of Hong Kong, who made it possible for me to live and work in Hong Kong from 1997 to 1999. Zen Master Dae Kwan (formerly Ven. Hyang Um Sunim) and the sangha of the Su Bong Zen Monastery provided invaluable support during my time there, as did, in different ways, David Bailey, Caroline Ross, Brian Seibert, Yonnie Kwok, Youru Wang, Mimi Ho, and Bill and Chenghui Watkins. Many thanks, also, to Charles Baxter, Nicholas Delbanco, Peter Ho Davies, and Reginald McKnight, and to Sean Norton, Jennifer Metsker, Aaron Matz, and Melanie Conroy-Goldman. Maybelle Hsueh and Christina Thompson provided vital editorial assistance. I’m deeply grateful to Elyse Cheney, my agent, who has worked tirelessly on my behalf, and Susan Kamil, my editor, who has an uncompromising eye and a fierce dedication to literature. My parents, Constance and Clark Row, have been as generous with their support and love as any parents could possibly be. Last, my greatest thanks go to my wife and best friend, Sonya Posmentier, who believed in these stories before I did.
About the Author
Jess Row taught English at the Chinese University of Hong Kong from 1997 to 1999, the two years immediately following the handover of Hong Kong to China. His stories have appeared in
The Best American Short Stories 2001
and
2003
and
The Pushcart Prize XXVI,
and he has received a Whiting Writers’ Award and a fellowship in fiction from the National Endowment for the Arts. He lives in New York City and teaches at Montclair State University.
THE TRAIN TO LO WU
A Dial Press Trade Paperback Book
Published by The Dial Press
A Division of Random House, Inc.
New York, New York
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents
either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used
fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead,
events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
The stories in this collection originally appeared, in different form,
in the following publications and anthologies: “Revolutions” in
Green Mountains Review,
“The Secrets of Bats” and “The Train to Lo
Wu” in
Ploughshares,
“The American Girl” in
Ontario Review,
“The
Ferry” in
Threepenny Review,
“For You” in
Kyoto Journal,
and
“Heaven Lake” in
Harvard Review.
“The Secrets of Bats” appeared in
The Best American Short Stories
2001,
and
The Pushcart Prize XXVI: Best of the Small Presses.
“Heaven
Lake” appeared in
The Best American Short Stories 2003.
All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2005 by Jess Row
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 200456201
The Dial Press and Dial Press Trade Paperbacks are registered
trademarks of Random House, Inc., and the colophon is a
trademark of Random House, Inc.
eISBN: 978-0-307-42339-9
v3.0
