Shan Hai Jing · Classics of Mountains and Seas

Picture Story

Who chose whom?

Did the night choose me,

or did I choose the night?

When the dark came, they laughed at me together with joy;

they said they were going to bend me;

I took up their fruit-knife,

and in public cut off half a yellow banana —

the severed banana.

Coming down the mountain she asked me why I would not make love with her;

entering the city she asked me whether I was a homosexual;

tonight we became one another's homosexuals;

we called this “love”.

I became a “homosexual”

… because “I” made myself unable to make love with the opposite sex;

at Old Na's dining table I cut off, with my own hand, a “yellow banana”.

Who chose whom?

Did the night choose me,

or did I choose the night?