China (March)

Schools have campuses in China: students go on the long march. We drink tea from Wedgwood cups. At our school China did not exist. No one flew there, only diplomats and spies. China was not official, unless it was Taiwan. Cup is replaced in saucer. No one knew if China was the enemy, but raffish boys wore Mao badges, provocatively, little knowing the Cultural Revolution would’ve sent thinking boys into banishment. The Chairman died in the Year of the Dragon, Wedgwood in the Year of the Ox.  We conjecture on the origins of the expression ‘a slow boat to China’.