The Eye in the Palm:
Four Seasons on the Changjiang River

Keywords:
Chinese queer love, experimental writing, tenderness, femininity, intimacy, memory

I can, with my left hand, feel my right hand as it touches an object, the right hand as an object is not the right hand as it touches: the first is a system of bones, muscles, and flesh brought down at a point of space, the second shoots through space like a rocket to reveal the external object in its place.

In Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology, "the hand as subject and object" refers to its two inseparable states: as active "body-subject", the site where perception occurs; and as a disciplined "object in the world", to be observed and analyzed. I wonder if these states are reversible and fluid. Through water, clay, and the female body, one reawakens the hand as subject, letting it feel, desire, leave traces, and in the ephemerality of fingertips "always empty," refuse to be possessed.

Humans are born from water and grow while immersed in. Taken from the amniotic fluid by hands, they are cradled and raised in the mother river (Changjiang: Yangtze River). In Western mythology, God created the world in seven days; in Chinese mythology, humans were shaped by the hands of Nüwa, using earth and water, who then bestowed upon humanity the hands capable of perceiving and creating. In traditional Chinese narratives, Nü ren si shui (women like water: water symbolizes femininity), tender and gentle. Women are portrayed and conditioned to be obedient and tender as water. When a woman uses her hand to pleasure herself, to express love, it goes unseen. And so, the hand becomes invisible.

My hand touches a woman's body, carrying heat within the air around. My fingertips wrap around passion and desire; a warmth begins to bloom within you. I become me. You become you. Through our hands, we merge and stretch into one another, together our bodies, through temporality of hands, wonder between the becoming of the present. What does the hand become into when a woman's hands function only to sustain herself and grow aroused to pleasure another woman; when water becomes her very being, rather than a resource to be extracted. Queerness acknowledges the hand as a sexual organ, not to release animal lust, but to transmit emotion, desire, and love. A pair of hands, using the water within our bodies as a medium, connect two women's bodies, minds, and souls. Through the ephemerality, distance, and the fluidity of water, two bodies become the existence in the presence.

[This text is an introduction and a beginning. Letting the blank become the negative space written by that hand, letting love become the beginning of love. Words are the absence of the body, yet they describe the desire born from imagination within the body. The negative spaces between the characters are where language and metaphor cannot reach. My hand touches the keyboard, grasping toward the threshold of you.]

Two women's hands flow across each other's bodies, from Chun fen (spring equinox) to Xia zhi (summer solstice), and from Qiu shi (autumn harvest) to Dong zhi (winter solstice). The distance between them translates into words. Screens separate yet connect them. Changjiang (long river: Yangtze River) reflects their story, the current connects the forbidden bodies, in distance.

Water has no shape. The hand can only briefly shape it, which then slips through the fingers and leaves behind a damp trace. Like your body that was shaped by my hand, then gone, carrying away the ambiguous residue left behind. I always linger to this ephemerality, and my fingertips always retain your touch, your shape. And yet, they are always empty.
I wander between the present slipping through us, the presence that exists only in its passing.

You often walk behind me, so I can only hear your voice from the back.
In the sleepless foreign land, listening to your voice through shou ji (hand-machine: phone), my body could almost feel the lingering warmth of your hand. My hand tried to grasp your breath, so I walked behind you, watching your back and your spine, and not too far away from you, I drowned in the air you left behind. And later, I realized that I’ve drowned in my own tears.

Your image appeared on the interface with your voice, but my hand reaches toward myself.
From illusion and imagination, the vine of desire sprouted and spiraled, and turned it into the touch of my hand that craves for my own skin. Compared to vision, I often prefer hearing. But I now know that the aphasia of touch is the most ruthless.

I once considered the world my enemy, imagining the exquisite bodies of two women intertwined, and projecting this free and contextualized romantic perspective onto myself to rebel against tradition and reality. When a woman's hand, the erotic hand, climbs onto another woman's body, it becomes forbidden, and the body transforms into the secular fruit of taboo. I don't know what I am trying so hard to prove, and who I am proving to. But, when I touched the spine lying upon mine, I forgot the world, I forgot time, I forgot the idea of romance, I forgot the illusion. I didn't even know if this is touch anymore. So, I forget the taboo, and I forget the existence of gender.

By the riverside of the Changjiang in Chongqing, the layers of landscape painted onto the water. Changjiang is a settled river. The brush strokes on the river surface were swaying along with my eyes. Beneath the cement bridge across, our bodies became silhouettes. I stared at the cars running on top of us, everything seemed so distant from me, even myself. There was a moment when my thoughts drowned into the deep time of the river. The tears shed on my face were as calm as the water surface. The traces of tears seemed like my search for my reflection in this world. Unlike my reflection on the riverbank, your fingertips interrupted those two lines of tears.
But still I didn't know why I cried. I didn’t know where the tears came from.

My soul was touched by you. No words were needed, for words were transformed into a profound physical sensation, turned into tears, flowing down my jaw and neck, seeping into my skin and blood. My tears on your fingertips were like shards of glass seen in the grass at dawn, filled in the passing of presence. Shi zhi lian xin (Ten fingers connect the heart), blood flows in the palms. A fortune teller who is an expert in palmistry says that if the knuckles of the thumb form an oval shape resembling an eye, it indicates that the person possesses spirituality and psychic abilities. So, on the night by the river when you cut off my tears, my tears also flowed in the veins and lines of your hand; my teardrops were the pupils of that eye in your palm. In that moment, you saw and possessed my emotions, my past, and my connection to the world through the eye in your hand.

I jumped into the still river; water filled my ear canals and my mouth. I closed my eyes. In those few seconds of sinking, before the water lifts me back up, the river floods my body, my perception, and my senses, a chaotic and restless body.

In the dim light, a body eagerly approached. I didn't know how to respond, so I squinted my eyes and lowered my jaw, answering your touch only with the sounds my body makes. You slowly ran your hands across my upper body, leaving tremor that filled in the space between our skin. Between one shiver and the next, the hand gripping on the bedsheet started to reach for you, intertwining its fingers with yours. You always say that my hands are cold. Traditional Chinese doctors say my qi and blood are deficient, my yang energy is weak. But unlike mine, your hands were always flushed with warmth. They were always warmer than mine. So, you always warm my hands with the heat of your blood. You said that in those moments, the blood flowing from your heart to your fingertips weave together our heartbeat.

You were a good cook. I was very hungry once, and you appeared in the kitchen carrying fresh shrimp from the market. The shrimps jumped in the bag, spasming in the small amount of water inside, irregular water droplets splashed on the floor. You grabbed them out of the bag one by one, preparing each one of them. The trace of the water left on the countertop. You said you would make Chongqing-style tomato flavored shrimp. The sizzling tomato sauce paired with bright red chili peppers and shrimp must be a perfect match; I greedily swallowed the liquid in my mouth. Through the half-open glass door, I saw a plump, moist shrimp in your pale, soft palm. It sat quietly in your hand. Its shell was hard and pointed, encasing its delicate, juicy body. Beneath the hard shell lay the tender shrimp meat; the shell itself had been formed to protect itself. I was afraid that your delicate, bare hand would get pricked, but thankfully, the ingredient seemed to be obedient, as if it longed for your skillful handling of the food. Water dripped softly from between your fingers into the metal basin, making a faint echo. You pried open its smooth head, tilted your head, and bent down to carefully remove the shrimp vein. The shrimp, held in your palm, slid into the reflective stainless-steel bowl filled with clear water, like a perfect sacrifice. Shrimp oil steamed, releasing an enticing aroma. Under the intense heat, its body curled up, its color changing from grayish to a bright and delicious orange-red tone. I couldn't wait.

I gazed into the reflection on the river water of Changjiang. By the river, I see the shadows of people who have stopped and walked past here. Under the moonlight, I also saw my own shadow, then the reflection of the river water in my pupils formed into tears, reflecting the light of memories. At that moment, I was in the present, and I saw the past that is in the future.

I stand in the present, filling the gaps between us with imagination; I stand between the past and the future, using water as ink and my hand as a pen to trace our memories. A hand touches a bubble floating in the wet air, its rounded shape shatters instantly, so imperceptibly, falling into the earth.

/

Regarding life
I think about the title
before its content.

Regarding this autumn
It is the next farewell
And the re-encounter.

When will that apple tree bear fruit?
When will the ginkgo leaves fall in Beijing?

Regarding us,
I seem also to think of the title first
then the vague content.

I'm afraid.
I'm afraid that the content will make the title irrelevant
making the content itself inappropriate.

I know I shouldn't make assumption
or even following an outline.
Yet, where is the vessel for this content?

That night by the riverside
I seemed to see the harvesting of autumn.
I saw
in my mind
two shapes of bodies became just like ours
kissing each other
I don't know if it was my desire or a conception
So
In the minute that followed
I possessed the impulse to kiss someone
For the first time.

Now
That I have possessed more
I am Waiting
for autumn to arrive
waiting
to escape the daze that doesn't need rationality to pull me back to reality.
When will that fruit be harvested?

/

Helen Jiayu Zhang

Projects/Works

Writings/Texts

Experimental Writings, Essays, and Poetry
2018-2026

The Eye in the Palm:
Four Seasons on the Changjiang River

Helen Jiayu Zhang

Projects/Works

Writings/Texts

Experimental Writings, Essays, and Poetry 2018-2026

The Eye in the Palm:Four Seasons on the Changjiang River

Experimental Writings, Essays, and Poetry
2018-2026

The Eye in the Palm:
Four Seasons on the Changjiang River