"Who prescribes that with wings spread one must fly high

Low flight is also a flight

With wind rustling like birds’ chirps

And wheels speeding like shooting stars

The meal delivery note attached to a takeout

In clear black and white symbolizes urgency

Like a legal document and a magic incantation"

~Low Flight by Wang Jibing / translated from Chinese by Chen Du & Xisheng Chen. Full poem here. 

These are lines from the title poem of the poetry collection Low Flight by Wang Jibing, which just won China's top literary prize. This BBC news article 'Food delivery rider wins China's top literary prize' drew my attention enough to want to read one of his poems. I am struck by the sentiment that 'low flight is also a flight'... Since childhood upwards we are sort of injected with this belief that we need to aim high in life, we need to achieve more and more, we cannot stagnate or become complacent or be happy with our lot or whatever. We need to keep pushing against real or imaginary limits and race as far ahead of where we started. There is a restlessness that pervades our existence. And this line struck me because for a while now I have been feeling this tension... between wanting to soar higher and wanting to just flow in peace. 

This poem led me down a rabbit hole as I read about Chinese literary awards and I learnt about this autobiographical book 'I Deliver Parcels in Beijing' by a former courier Hu Anyan. Apparently, his book initially started off as a blog, went viral, was published as a book, and became a bestseller. I was of course curious to read a bit of the English version and found the first chapter available online.

There is a certain similar underlying quality to both the poem and the book which I am guessing is coming from the precarity of the gig work, the texture of life surrounding such work, the mix of abjectness, simplicity, and hope, and so on...the poem seems to be a way to make peace with it and the book sounded like it was trying to make sense of it or finding some reprieve via the telling. I learnt that a whole genre of work called 'new workers' literature' (新工人文学) is currently booming in China. 

There's a lot to chew in all this and I suppose I'll be back with more reflections as they strike me...