四 (Sì)

The 5th stage of FIDE Women’s Grand Prix 2011–12 has kicked off on July 16 in Jermuk, a most attractive spa town in southern Armenia. No question, Asian Queen 侯逸凡 (Hóu Yìfán) must have crossed her fingers after grabbing number four at the drawing of lots! Photos: FIDE Women’s Grand Prix 2011–12.

洪星 (Hóng Xīng) has a sad face, I would like to tell him that he does not have to grieve for me, but I cannot, and then I am irritated with him, for the other day he told me that in Chinese there is the same word for “death” and for the number “four”. The same word: Sì. The white-haired girl glues to the wall the paper figurines which her lover cut out with scissors for her, for the New Years’s festival. 谢娥 (Xiè’é) sings: “the north wind blows, the snow falls”. She has a high-pitched voice, but there is a secret pain in the voice of every Chinese girl, in the joy of every Chinese girl. No girl, no young people forgot the long, terrible misery, the long hunger, the long struggle, no one, not even the boy who studied geometry under the lamppost in front of the hospital door, the son of the poor soy milk vendor, a glass of soy milk costs only two cents of 元 (yuán), only five lire, it is the poor people’s milk. Workers going to work in the morning stop in front of the stand of the soy milk vendor. Soy milk vendors are amongst the poorest people in the world, but today they can send their son to middle school, and then to university. There are no longer closed doors to the poors, in China, no way is barred, there are no closed roads. A same word to say “death” and to say “four”. The word “sì”. Pronounced with sweetness, leaning the tip of the tongue against the teeth, as if the “ì” were mute. Curzio Malaparte, “Io, in Russia e in Cina”