Lungs - Chien Swee-Teng

Zhou returned to the village last week. We were sitting outside a tavern that was closed too early - like all the taverns in the world, he said. Zhou was drinking a jar of wine, a fat clay jar. I was sipping a bowl of plum juice. He asked me a direct but difficult question. For me, it was more difficult to answer than why banditry is axiomatic. A scholar he encountered in the city said to him, sometimes we simply like our job, we enjoy our task. Zhou asked, so is alienation or exploitation still applicable in this case? Intuitively, I said it is merely ideological, false consciousness, I used examples such as those in the assembly line, the producers are seldom the owners, and deviated to the peasants and landlords, personal preference would not change anything, the feudal structure. But I know it was not clear. He did not ask any further. I am not sure if he was perplexed or thinking. He looked away and gazed at a young lady walking by. Although I have the image of him dozing off or distracted by a new pimple on his face during class reading, I know he would be able to understand if it was clearer. I was thinking about the rice fields of the other provinces, although I have never seen or stepped into a rice field before. I was thinking about the slogan Ne travzaillez jamais! Perhaps that was the only thing I could remember. Perhaps it was because of the nightly heavy drinking. Then we both heard the cymbal, it was the middle of third watch. Then I told him a prostitute who loves her job because she is a nympho would not change the fact that the body is used or abused. Instead of seeing it as countering the notion of exploitation, it should be read as an instance of double exploitation. First, the body is abused by the brothel, and then, the body is used by herself, for pleasure. I could elaborate further until I contradict myself, but I didn’t. I was a little disappointed that I only know how to use vulgar examples to elucidate a point. Then he turned back to look at me and grinned and then began to laugh, the laughter was at once idiotic, mischievous, and drunk, his trademark laughter, it was a deep laughter, I could hear his lungs. It reminded me of a teacher who is studying the movement of ants. Then we moved on to eradicate this binary between holy and profane, introduced Agamben into the discussion, about proper use, friendship, marriage as a contract to use each other’s organ, about the notion of profanation, and its relation to Catholicism, the Romans or Greeks.