Citizens in Uproar Over Howard Dogs

I couldn’t get the guy in the cafe to give me his newspaper, so I had to copy the article out by hand. --E.M.

Translation:

Taiwan Howard Dogs’ Breeding Season Has Begun: Careful You Don’t Get Bitten
May 29, 2015

by Mei De-Lin

From April to August each year, the Taiwan Howard Dog, Taipei City’s civic animal, enters its breeding season. This year, however, the number of reports from citizens attacked by the dogs is higher than usual.

Linda Lee, a spokesperson for the conservation branch of the Taipei City Animal Protection Bureau, says that already 2015 has had many more citizens’ complaints than usual, most of them about incidents in areas around Taipei Da-An Forest Park and the 228 Memorial Park.

Since the Taiwan Howard Dog is an endangered species, Ms. Lee says, it is improper to approach or harass the dogs during their mating.

Ms. Lee explained that during mating season, in order to protect the female dogs, male Howard Dogs will sometimes approach passersby from behind and bite them, causing citizens to be injured or their clothes to be torn.

Further, given that during last year’s mating season the male Howard Dogs were observed to be particularly fierce toward the females, causing a large number of female Howard Dogs to book flights to Malaysia to escape Taiwan, this year’s number of available females is smaller, resulting in even more aggressive behavior from the males. (Airlines do not allow male Howard Dogs to book flights.)

The Animal Protection Bureau is thus planning to post warning signs in areas where incidents are more likely, and reminds citizens to be aware at all times of the Howard Dogs’ behavior, so as to avoid getting bitten during this difficult season.

***

The following week the newspaper’s English edition contained a few pages of citizen reaction. Here:

In response to last week’s article on the Howard Dogs above and their threatening behavior when breeding (5.29.2015), we received an almost record number of letters from concerned readers. We are publishing some here. --Ed.

[NB: Again, being that these students are nearly all teenage boys, some of the letters needed to be edited for inappropriate content. It’s too bad I had to edit Duku’s letter, because it was really very Duku, which usually means: hilarious. --E.M.]

Dear Editor: I believe it’s important to protect endangered animals, but this Howard Dog situation is really out of control. Like many people, I have had problems with Howard Dogs.

Recently a Howard Dog in my neighborhood has been breaking into my house while I’m at work. It’s eaten nearly all the food in my refrigerator and urinated on my TV, my computer and all around the house. Also, when outdoors, these dogs are often found in places with many cockroaches and maggots and are known to wallow in their own excrement. This makes me even angrier to know one of these dogs is dirtying my house.

Do citizens really have to put up with this kind of thing just to protect one species? I strongly believe Taiwan’s government should rid the country of these animals.

Sincerely,

Allen 1

Dear Editor:

Many of Taiwan’s species are endangered, and it’s important to protect them. But the Howard Dogs? They don’t seem endangered to me. I see them everywhere, and their behavior is becoming a serious problem.

Two nights ago, coming home from my job, I saw one of these f***ing Howard Dogs in my lane. It was obviously very angry and very yellow. It was sexing with my neighbor’s tree. I’ve also seen them sexing with parked bikes or school bags that students leave on the ground. When this one saw me, it stopped sexing the tree and started to drool in my direction. I was disgusted. I was afraid the dog might choose me over the tree, so I ran to the nearby police station, but when I arrived there I found the police officers busy cleaning themselves off from being licked and harassed by Howard Dogs during the day.

Finally when I got home, an hour later, the dog was gone, but when I turned on my TV, half the news reports were about yellow things Howard Dogs had done around Taipei.

I believe these dogs are a health hazard. The government needs to do something about them.

Sincerely,

Tony

Dear Editor:

Is protecting Howard Dogs more important than protecting people? That’s the question I’d like to ask our Animal Protection Bureau.

Last week I saw one of the “protected animals” in our park. There was a young woman walking through the park, wearing a short skirt, and the Howard Dog pounced on her and knocked her over. It then tried to lick between her legs in a way that made the woman scream. It was an obscene sight--right in our neighborhood park! A mother there with her child had to cover the child’s eyes.

I think city authorities should capture all the Howard Dogs and put them in a big detention center. Let them attack and lick each other, not innocent people walking on the streets!

Sincerely,

Victor

Dear Editor:

Though many species in Taiwan are endangered and need protection, I strongly believe it’s a mistake for our government to continue protecting the Taiwan Howard Dogs.

I have a pet dog myself, a female golden retriever, and unfortunately she was mounted by a Howard Dog three years ago while on a leash down by the entry to my building. She had a litter of retriever/Howard Dog puppies, and these puppies have grown into terrible creatures. For one thing, they bite everyone who comes near them, including myself. Also, they bark all night, so that the neighbors complain and want me to kill them. I would kill them too, but the police say they are “protected” because they are basically “Howard Dogs”. It’s ridiculous.

We need to round up all these Howard Dogs and keep them in a place where they will see no bitches. It’s the only solution.

Sincerely,

Hank

Dear Editor:

Taiwan has many endangered animals, it’s true, but I think it’s time that the government recognize the Howard Dog is different. If they are endangered, why are there so many of them? Their constant barking at night keeps the people of Taipei awake and makes many tired at work the next day. Also, as everyone knows, during breeding season the Howard Dogs breed everywhere in the city and cause disturbances. But the recent phenomenon, where the Howard Dogs are starting to evolve into Howards, is the worst. How many men will be killed and how many women raped by these half-dog, half-human monsters? I’ve heard reports about these murders and rapes already, but the government tries to cover it up. I have one of these Howards who sits near me in my English class, and it’s scary. The city authorities must protect us from this threat.

Sincerely,

Allen 2

Dear Editor:

Why are so many Taipei citizens on TV and in the news complaining about the Taiwan Howard Dogs? These animals are rightly protected by our government, and are an important part of the island’s ecology. I find them beautiful and brave animals. They should be the national symbol of Taiwan.

Meanwhile people are ignoring a serious threat. I mean, of course, the Eric Monkeys that we’re starting to see around the city.

First, it is very unusual to see a monkey taking a subway and even standing there reading a book like it was a person. Second, I’ve heard that these monkeys, when they get into people’s houses, will eat all the food in the refrigerator and destroy the furniture. I’ve heard more than twenty reports of this from people who are stupid enough to invite the monkey to parties. Finally, when Eric Monkeys appear in public, they often have female monkeys with them, and because they are monkeys and aren’t civilized, they start to have sex in public.

It’s wrong to let this situation continue.

Sincerely,

Howard

Dear Editor:

Of course we must protect endangered species around the world, and in Taiwan we have species we need to protect too. But the Howard Dog situation is out of control.

One day. Another f**king day. On my way to school I saw a Howard Dog licking [censored].

What a f**king morning. You know that. You see that scene. You just want to go to hell.

So we must kill them all.

Sincerely,

Duku

Dear Editor:

Like many Taipei citizens, I am outraged at the government’s continued insistence on the “protected” status of the Taiwan Howard Dogs.

A couple days ago on my way home from work, I saw one of these dogs on the sidewalk watching all the passers-by. It had that look in its eye that Howard Dogs always have when they are going to do something evil. I watched it, waiting to see what it would do. Sure enough, when a junior high school girl with a skirt walked by, the Howard Dog began to follow her. It was trying to look up her skirt and lick at her legs. The girl cried out and dropped her bag. The Howard Dog then looked in the bag and took out a packet of Airwaves. The dog didn’t even open the packet, but just started chewing the whole thing. A dense smell of mint spread over the street and people walking by all frowned in annoyance.

I’m not sure, but maybe it was the same Howard Dog that howled through most of the night near my building. In the morning I was ready to go out and kill some of these pests.

I’ve always been a good citizen, giving to charity and even donating money to protect Taiwan’s forests. But please, this is one species we don’t need. Kill ALL of them before this problem gets any worse.

Sincerely,

Anthony

Dear Editor:

Protecting our environment and the many species that live in Taiwan is important for our future. But sometimes we must recognize when a species becomes a public nuisance.

The Howard Dogs are a nuisance worse than rats.

Have you ever been to the public toilets at Da-An Park? Howard Dogs have been hanging around them for months now, throwing cherry bombs and fireworks into the toilet stalls when people are inside. Nobody dares use the toilets any more.

Also consider what the Howard Dogs eat. They’re often seen digging through garbage cans looking for moldy cheeseburgers, fried chicken trash and other garbage. The meat already has maggots on it, and the dogs make a terrible mess when eating it. Near my house this happens near the Ubike stands, so that when you take a bike you have to cover your nose. I’ve even seen maggots in bike baskets. I guess the Howard Dogs think it’s funny to throw their trash in Ubike baskets instead of back into the garbage cans.

And what is this attraction Howard Dogs have for expensive bags? Many women in Taipei have had this experience. If they carrying a Louis Vuitton or a Hermes bag, the Howard Dog will follow them and try to get the bag away. Recently the dogs have learned a new trick. After stealing the bag, the dog will scratch an “H” into the front of the bag and pee all over it. I suppose they think the bag is then theirs.

All male dogs sometimes hump things, it’s natural, but it seems these Howard Dogs never stop humping. I’ve seen them trying to hump helmets, plastic ducks, parked motorcycles, etc. What’s worse, they often smoke after they hump things. What kind of animals species is this that learned how to smoke? After smoking in Da-An Park, they will toss their cigarette butts into the pond, which ruins the ecosystem for the night herons and other animals.

We do not need signs around the city warning people to avoid Howard Dogs. What we need is swift action from the government to get rid of them.

Sincerely,

Claire Fan-Chiang

What is the future of the Howard Dogs? And what of that other problem of the Eric Monkeys? We will keep readers informed as this debate continues. --Ed.

***

55 other important public service announcements can be found in my new book Idiocy, Ltd. Don't hesitate. Protect you and your loved ones today!

My Porn

If you live in a foreign country for any number of years, you are certain to offend people. And the more distant the culture is from yours, the more frequent your offenses will be. There’s really no getting round this. You can use your own language, their language, or a mix of both, but every couple months, in one context or other, you’ll set someone to muttering curses at you under their breath.

Just today, here in Taipei where I live and teach as an expat, I ran into Daniel, a student I’d taught five years ago when he was a senior in high school. I was waiting for a traffic light, and noticed a young man on the sidewalk a few paces away, staring at me gravely but not moving. I finally recognized it was my ex-student. I said Hi to him, he loosened up a bit, and told me he’d just graduated with a degree in finance. I wished him well on his job hunt, but explained that I had to run as I was late for my class. As I stepped away from him to cross the street, I couldn’t help chuckling to myself, wondering if he still remembered the terrible insult I'd delivered him when he was my student.

Given his initial glare as we waited for the light, I was guessing he did remember.

The insult, as usual, was an accident, actually more his fault than mine.

Back in the days when I taught him, Daniel was known in our school for two things. First, he was obsessed with magic. Rather than prepare for exams or finish homework, he spent free time before class performing magic tricks for the other students (who then likewise couldn’t finish their homework). I’d come into the classroom and Daniel would be at the front, in the middle of some trick.

“Uh, sorry,” he’d say, and sit down.

Second, Daniel was hopelessly smitten by a classmate at his high school, a girl who rejected his love and now and then left him visibly on the verge of tears. When Daniel had no one to watch his magic tricks, he could often be found sitting in a funk, staring at the floor or wringing his hands. None of us at our English institute knew who this mystery girl was; we only knew she was ruining his life.

In short, I knew Daniel as a budding teenage magician whose tricks did nothing to sway the unknown beauty he loved and whose picture he refused to show us.

How then did the insult happen?

One day after class, Daniel came up to me at the front of the room to show me a copy of a copy-shop printed magazine. He opened it to a certain page and pointed at a simple line drawing of a girl in a miniskirt on a park bench, sitting in what was supposed to be a seductive pose. There were some lines in Chinese next to the drawing.

“Teacher, this is my porn,” Daniel announced weirdly, pointing at the page.

I thought the drawing wasn’t very good, and as for porn, it didn’t even count. But Daniel was waiting for my reaction.

“Hm,” I said after looking at it for awhile. “That’s pretty bad porn. I feel sorry for you.”

I remember that his face went red at these words, and he clenched his fist, ready to punch me. But since the students had been raucous during class, and Daniel was something of a performer, I thought he was just joking, so I laughed and walked away.

Ten minutes later, after Daniel left for the night, my colleague Erica was putting away papers next to my desk.

“Poor Daniel,” she said. “He’s really totally in love with that girl. He thinks about nothing else.”

“Nothing else except magic,” I said. “Anyhow, suffering is good for art, so maybe he’ll end up being a great magician.”

“Did he show you his poem?” she asked.

And then it hit me. What Daniel had tried to show me wasn’t the lame line drawing of the girl, but the Chinese lines next to it, which I hadn’t bothered to read, and which were obviously a love poem he’d written. And the book he’d shown me must have been his school’s literary magazine, in which he was declaring to the world his true love for the girl. And when Daniel had said to me “This is my porn,” what he really was trying to say was “This is my poem.” So that, from Daniel’s point of view, our brief exchange had gone like this:

“Teacher, this is my poem [which I wrote for that girl I love].”

Teacher reads through poem, says: “Hm, that’s a pretty bad poem. I feel sorry for you.”

Student is mortally insulted, wants to stand up for himself and his love, wonders if he should punch teacher.

But before he makes up his mind, the teacher laughs in his face in front of the whole class, and walks away.

It was all so sad. I knew I’d have to explain to Daniel what had really happened the next time he came to class. But in fact, that night was the last time he ever came. It was end of semester, and he wasn’t taking summer classes.

Though this particular insult was mostly the fault of Daniel's poor pronunciation, I know for a fact I’ve also offended more than a few people thanks my faulty Chinese pronunciation. Any Westerner who lives here is fated to say at least a handful of outrageous things in public per annum. It comes from the fact that Mandarin is a tonal language, and if you get the intonation a little wrong, if you sing the words a bit off key, the words become entirely different words.

I knew one Canadian who, when he first got here, wanted to get some aspirin for his cold symptoms. He went into a pharmacy.

“Uhh . . . I have a problem,” he said to the woman behind the counter.

“Yes? What is the problem?” she asked.

“Mm . . . Uhh . . . I fuck cats.”

The pharmacist stepped back from the counter, and the other people present all turned to look at him.

What my Canadian friend had meant to say was: “Mm . . . Uhh . . . I have a cold.” But get the tones wrong, and “have a cold” quickly becomes “fuck cats”.

This is only one of thousands of possible slip ups given the slipperiness of tonal languages like Mandarin. I once left a coffee shop with all the counter girls laughing aloud at me. I’d wanted them to help me grind the beans I’d just bought and couldn’t figure out what was so funny. Later I figured it out. What I’d been saying was: “Excuse me. Do you think you could help stroke me?”

Often enough I leave people laughing or frowning, but still, later on, can’t figure out what I’d actually said.

With more Westerners in Taiwan now, the locals have grown used to these mishaps. It makes for good comedy. But still a basic rule applies: If you’re a man who makes it a decade in a country this foreign without getting punched, you’re already doing pretty well.

E.M.
Taipei

My new book Idiocy, Ltd. is now available at Amazon.

Poem

A poem is a blank sheet that has made decisions
Sat folded in a notebook
Like the crisp sheet of another's bed
On which first-time lovers fatally fall
And scrawl their lines for next day's perusal
Sweeter than the morning papers by far
Changing the course of events

Check my new book Idiocy, Ltd. at Amazon.

Who's the Idiot?

It is a rare privilege to recognize just how one is idiotic, how idiotic one is, the howness of this state and how it’s interwoven with anything one might call one’s intelligence.--Eric Mader
Idiocy, Ltd. is now available. You do need a copy.

Some readers:

Whether its smoking giraffes, Florida-style rehabilitation, or the oddities of a whole cast of characters in Taipei, Eric Mader shows a sure hand in balancing satire, spoof, and twilight-zone weird, revealing hints of Kafka, Borges, and other worthies, but with a spirit all his own. With its riotous absurdity, its jarring changes of register, and its underlying critical but humane tone, Idiocy, Ltd. will make you laugh and, more important, make you think. --Duncan Chesney, Professor of Comparative Literature,
National Taiwan University
Unpredictability is Mader’s stock in trade . . . an endlessly fascinating eccentric. --Bradley Winterton
The best of these poems surprise us not with a flashy detail, but an image or an abstraction we somehow knew was right around the corner. In the most imaginative moments, where the poems are surprised by translation across language and culture, we are playfully and seriously moved to open our eyes wider and our ears to hear the delight of words. --John Poch, author of Fix Quiet and winner
of the 2014 New Criterion Poetry Prize
More:

BOOKISH ASIA has posted a review by Prof. Hugh Hochman of Reed College. A scholar of 20th-century literature, Hochman raises some of the questions that most interest me, especially that of genre.

Idiocy, Ltd. is now available in a Chinese edition published by Comma Books. See: 白痴有限公司 Launch Party.

Also of interest may be Letter to a Young Prose Poet, on the roles Max Jacob and Daniil Kharms played in getting me into this fix. See also: Idiocy, Ltd. / 白痴有限公司 and Why I Love the Prose Poem.

Check out Idiocy, Ltd. Dryest damn prose in the West.

The Dangers of Marriage

A few weeks ago I taught one of my classes of Taipei teens a deliciously idiotic text by American prose poet Russell Edson, “The Automobile”. The piece opens like this:

     A man had just married an automobile.

     But I mean to say, said his father, that the automobile is not a person because it is something different.
     For instance, compare it to your mother. Do you see how it is different from your mother? Somehow it seems wider, doesn’t it? And besides, your mother wears her hair differently.
     You ought to try to find something in the world that looks like mother.

     I have mother, isn’t that enough of a thing that looks like mother? Do I have to gather more mothers?
     . . .

Then after we’d finished the reading, I gave them a half hour to come up with their own short text about either a man or woman marrying some inanimate object. Predictably, some of their tales were obscene. Flora and Angel wrote the best of them, below.

(As for Russell Edson, whose work is precious to me, the best collection available is The Tunnel: Selected Poems. For those of you who may be curious.)

E.M.

But here are Flora and Angel.

The Dangers of Marriage

by Flora Zheng 鄭佳峰

A man decided to marry the sun.

He liked to sunbathe in his yard, and was fascinated by the beauty of sunrise and sunset.

In order not to have to share his wife with others, he broadcast through the media that nobody could be shone on by her. They were not to go outside, but just do indoor activities.

The announcement spread quickly. Everyone had a different opinion.

Mr. Smith: “That’s crazy! The sun belongs to nobody. It’s nature’s creation.”

His parents: “OK! We must all respect our son’s decision. He has many challenges ahead and we should help him. It isn’t easy keeping such a marriage together.”

Of course, opposed by most, the marriage was finally not allowed. But the man was determined. He even began researching how to make an environment on the sun in which a human could live.

As global warming got worse, the man began to argue that it was his wife, she was angry, she wanted to be alone with him.

“Once the earth is finished, you will have to find a new planet for yourselves!”


The Dangers of Marriage

by Angel Zheng 鄭安婕

There was a young Taipei woman who loved shopping even more than most women. She shopped every day. One day she told her parents that she wanted to get married to a department store.

“Are you crazy?” said her father.

“No, I’m not,” she said. “I think he is strong and tall. And besides, he is rich. You should be happy.”

“What’s his name?” asked her mother.

“His name is Taipei 101.”

“But how can I get a grandchild?” asked her father.

“Don’t worry, Dad,” the woman said. “You’ll have new grandchildren all the time: the new bags, shoes and clothes I’ll bring home!”

“New bags?” said her mother. “Alright, you can marry him. But he has to get me what I want too!”

“No problem, Mom!” the young woman said.

Her father thought the two women were crazy.

The marriage happened and the young woman and her mother were very happy.

But three months later they were no longer so happy, and the father was yelling all the time, because there was no more room in the house for all the “grandchildren”.

And not only that, but the young woman’s new husband, Taipei 101, was discovered to be having an affair with a famous Taipei actress. The wife knew nothing about it until her husband was photographed by paparazzi one night in a pub with the actress. The photos showed up in Next Magazine. And there were other photos of the actress out biking with a tall building--her husband!

When she saw the news, she cried and was very angry. She slapped her husband and yelled at him. In the end, she divorced him and had to bring up the children by herself.

But her mother helps her a lot.

How I was born

As my English students here in Taipei loved Daniil Kharms’ zany narrative of how he was born three times, I set them a challenge. Write a short tale about their own birth, but in some fantastic register: in short, a myth or legend of how they came into the world. The following are some of the better ones--or at least those I had time to type up.

E.M.

How I was born

by Ryan

Ryan, showing typical Ryan face
If you are one of the dummies like me, you may have wondered why I have the incredible Indian accent which Indians can’t even imitate. I often tell that it is just a horrible joke, but it’s actually a terrific joke. Let me tell you about it.

As some of you know, my father’s pet cat loves Indian food. So my parents and their cat went on a trip to India. After filling a whole suitcase with cans of Indian curry beef cat food, they were ready for the way back home. They had their lunch in the airport, but the food in the airport McDonald’s was terrible, especially the curry-flavored smoothie. It was so disgusting that they threw it away after trying it. But just as my father tossed the nasty cup into the trash bin, he saw a cute infant dancing in it. The infant looked Taiwanese.

“Holy shit!” he said. “Why is there a cute boy smashing my dear smoothie?”

“Shit? I love shit! I want one of those spicy ones!” I’m told I said in perfect Taiwanese.

My parents thought I was so dumb, so they took me home.

Two months later I was jogging on Xin-Yi Road when I saw a strange Indian obasan who loves Taiwanese culture. She asked me if I could teach her my famous Indian accent that even people in India can’t imitate.

“What will you give me?” I said.

She said she would give me a curry-like object she found on the street.

To get more shit, I said: “Fair trade!”

My Indian accent is very good to use. When I see a ghost, a vampire or some other grim specter, they’ll think I’m an Indian math professor, which makes them scared and run away.

If you dummies want this benefit, I can share some of my Indian accent with you. But remember: Bring something to exchange!

How I was born

by Tommy

In 1999, tensions were roused between Taiwan and China owing to Taiwan’s first presidential election. Many people were afraid we would be attacked by China. My father was one of them, so he decided to try to hack into Chinese government computers to find out what the Chinese plans were. If he found some possible plan for attacking Taiwan, he would do his utmost to stop it.

One day he discovered a message that said a Chinese official was going to send a “surprise” to Taiwan, and it would arrive at Taoyuan airport the following Sunday.

My father hurried to Taoyuan that day. He carefully seized all packages people carried out from the airport and inspected everything. People protested, but my father insisted he was doing it for national security.

Suddenly someone screamed inside the airport and chaos broke out. He rushed toward the commotion and grabbed the object around which a crowd had formed.

“It’s alright! Everything is in my control,” he declared, quickly weaving through the crowd toward the exit.

“Sir! Is that baby yours?” a police officer asked as he tried to get through the exit.

He looked at the object he held. It was actually a baby.

My father was stunned, but with the police officer glaring sternly at him, he saw he had no choice but to take the baby home.

This is the story of my birth. Actually, it was not so much a birth as an incident. On the other hand, my father still doesn’t know what the “surprise” was that China sent to Taiwan that day.

How I was born

by Claire Fan-Chiang

If you’ve listened to the gossiping of the women in the local market, you might have caught a few rumors about my birth. And since it’s become quite a taxing thing to explain the truth seven times a day, I’ve decided to write it down, explaining my birth once and for all.

Storks are real. The scientists and biology textbooks might tell you that babies are born after nine months of pregnancy, but actually my mother knew what I was going to be like before she gave birth to me.

The STORKS is a worldwide organization that delivers children to mothers. It used to be a wealthy baby-delivering organization, but as medical technology has gotten better and better, and the amount of hospitals has increased yearly, people now get their babies through birth rather than stork delivery. This has led people to forget about the STORKS, and it’s caused a lot of storks to lose their jobs.

It started one day when my mother saw a stork on our balcony, holding a package in its beak. My mother, although surprised by the fact that the stork had managed to squeeze through the iron bars of the windows, was more worried about the sanitary problems and told the stork to leave.

The stork, however, had set its mind on finishing the mission no matter what the cost. So it told my mother that she could buy the baby half price. My mother rejected. She already had my sister then, and needed no more babies.

After that day, however, the stork continued to come for nine months, when my mother finally agreed to take the baby. Half moved at the stork’s dedication and half exasperated, she offered the stork 1NT. Though the price was the lowest possible, the stork’s eyes filled with tears when it saw the coin. It left the balcony then, whistling, which my mother said sounded like a cat dying.

My father didn’t say anything when he saw me that night. He just nodded and went to bed. And this is the story of how I was bought for 1NT.

How I was born

by Jenny Xu 許嘉瑜

Jenny Xu. Watch this girl. She's here for a reason.
I’ll never forget the night I was born. It was a full-moon night. My father went home with his heavy steps as usual. When he got home, my three-year-old brother was playing on the floor.

“Daddy! Welcome back!” my brother said.

“Hey, my boy, did you behave well today?”

“Dinner is ready,” my mother said, stepping out of the kitchen. “How was your day?”

“Alright,” my father answered. “But on my way home, earlier, something strange happened.”

“What?”

“Come here and I’ll show you.”

My parents stepped away from the table over to the balcony.

“Look at the moon,” my father said. “Don’t you think it’s somehow bigger today?”

“Yes . . . It seems that it’s getting bigger . . . and . . .”

My mother stared at the moon, didn’t say anything more. Suddenly a mysterious light flashed into her womb and something began growing there.

That’s right! It was me!

A few hours later, amazingly, I was born. Although my parents had no idea what was going on, and still don’t understand it today, they brought me up as a normal child.

People may doubt that I can remember clearly how I came into the world. But I can. And I will always remember my mission, which is secret for now, but which you will learn about some day.

How I was born

by Angela

One day my mother was chatting with her friends. They were talking about babies and how hard it was to go through pregnancy. None of them wanted to have a baby by herself. They started talking about a post on the Internet: “Healthy babies available. Call 2368-5925.” My mom actually thought it might be a good idea. The others thought she was joking.

That night she discussed it with my father. After a few days, they decided to order one. The delivery date would be October 31, 1995.

When I got to my house, I remember how they all cried. They cried with joy because many people said manufactured babies were ugly, but I was adorable!

At first my parents had some trouble studying the information included about how to raise me. I had been manufactured in Korea, and the manual was in Korean.

I believe this is why I now love Korea so much.

How I was born

by Benson

It was a sunny day, but my mother was in pain. I kept hitting and kicking her inside. So my father finally took her to the hospital to see the doctor. Together with the doctor they decided that they could induce birth a little early. My mother couldn’t bear the pain any more.

After many hours, I came into the new world successfully. My parents were so happy they couldn’t say anything. They wished me health forever.

How I was born

by Yvonne

A handsome man that a woman meets after marriage is sometimes dangerous. For my mother, one such hot man gave her me as a gift.

It happened back in 1995, the year before I was born. Since my parents already had my brother, they didn’t think of having any more children. One day, when my mother was out window-shopping, suddenly she ran into a man more handsome than any she’d seen in her entire life. There were sparkles in both their eyes, and my mother tells me she even felt a kind of electricity running through her body.

The man came forward and said: “Hello, young lady. Free now?”

His voice was too charming. My mother fainted.

When she awoke, a week had passed. And soon she learned she was pregnant! She could only remember that soon after she’d fainted, as she was in a taxi with the man, that he had told her his name: Zeus.

Surprisingly, my father wasn’t angry and never even questioned my mother about her pregnancy. He was just thankful to God for bringing him this child.

Later, in July 1996, I was born. I grew up normally except for one thing. My first word was neither “Mama” nor “Dada”, but “Hey, young lady. Free now?”

Only my mother understood what it meant.

How I was born

by David

It was a cold night in April, 1995. My parents and my brother were walking in a park near their house.

“Look! There’s a comet in the sky!” my brother said.

But my parents didn’t take it seriously because they knew my brother was a fan of Godzilla and Ultraman.

Minutes later, the comet slammed into the side of the building where their apartment was, then bounced down to the ground.

The next day, as my mother was cleaning the living room, she noticed a part of the comet stuck in the sofa. No matter how hard they tried, they couldn’t pull it out. So they gave up, sat next to the piece of comet and started watching TV.

A few minutes later, as the news was playing, a strange gas came out of the comet.

“Sorry. I had to fart.”

The Triple Birth of Daniil Kharms

Daniil Kharms
If you are one who frequents some of the same Leningrad haunts I do, you may at one time or other have heard the strange rumors about my birth. I’m often asked if the story is actually true, and since I’m getting tired of talking about it, I’ve decided to clear things up once and for all. So here’s how it really happened.

As some of you know, my father at that time was working in geophysical science and was quite respected in his field. Though a man of science, he in fact was quite superstitious, and still held to a prediction about me that he’d learned from a gypsy fortune teller during his years in the navy.

“Your first son is destined to be a great man, a genius!” the blind old woman had told him. “He will be born on the first of the year.”

So after my father married my mother, in the fall of 1902, he was careful not to consummate the marriage right away. Rather, though he didn’t explain it to my mother, he decided to wait until April 1, 1903, in that way ensuring that I’d be born on the first of January, 1904 and so could fulfill the prophecy about my birth.

When April 1st finally came round, my father approached my mother and said: “I think it’s time we finally play that game, you know, that can cause a child to come about.”

My mother had been wondering for all the intervening months what her husband was waiting for, and so she said: “Okay, let’s.”

But my father had a sense of humor that sometimes got him in trouble, so he said “April Fool’s!”

Not surprisingly, my mother was very offended by this, and so, even after he explained to her that no, it wasn’t really an April Fool’s joke, that he actually intended that day to climb into bed with her, she angrily refused him.

“You are a moron!” she said, and wouldn’t let him touch her.

So my father had no choice but to wait until April 1st the following year.

But when the following April 1st came, my mother was still so angry about the previous April that she wouldn’t accede to his wishes and again called him a moron. All his pleading did him no good, she wouldn’t get into bed with him.

My father saw no hope but to wait and try again the following year.

And in fact after another year had passed, my mother had forgiven him his joke of 1903 and decided to accede to his wish. So it was that on April 1st, 1905, my parents’ marriage was finally consummated and I was conceived. Finally, my father thought, the prophecy would be fulfilled and he would go down in history as father of a great genius who benefited Russia with his brilliance and brought renown to the family name.

But things didn’t quite turn out that way. My mother went into labor prematurely, and I was delivered by an army surgeon who lived upstairs from us in mid-October, 1905.

The labor was a difficult one. The surgeon administered drugs to my mother which caused her to drift in and out of consciousness during the delivery. When I was finally born, according to those attending, I in fact showed signs of great genius by immediately upbraiding the attending doctor.

“What the hell is this all about?!” I’m told I said in perfect Russian. “I was in the middle of contemplating a very difficult problem in Kant.”

I then allegedly glared at the doctor with such withering contempt that that he didn’t know how to reply.

My father arrived home just after I uttered these words, and he was so angry to have missed my first utterance, and so upset besides that I had been born almost three months early, that he demanded I be put back into my mother’s womb until the New Year.

The army surgeon, and the midwife who was also there, claimed that it was impossible to do such a thing, but as my father threatened violence, the surgeon finally did his best and managed to get me back inside.

When my mother got over the effects of the drugs, she said: “Where is it? Where is my baby?”

But the surgeon and my father both claimed that she hadn’t actually given birth, that she was ill with fever, that the delivery was all a hallucination. She pointed to the blood and the obvious preparations for a birth, but they wouldn’t give in to her and finally, still cloudy from the drugs, she lay back her head and passed out.

The trick was no good, however, because a couple weeks later my mother went into labor once more. And this time no drugs were required and I was born premature, for the second time, on November 1st.

Again my father was so angry he started to demand I be put back in. But this time there was no fooling my mother, so he opted instead for the plan of keeping me in an incubator for the following two months until the New Year.

What’s more, the two births had apparently traumatized me so much that I’d forgotten everything I knew about philosophy and could no longer even speak.

I still remember the incubator well. It was very warm, very clean, and I lay on a soft bed of cotton until January 1st, 1906, when they took me out into the world. Thus it is that I was born for the third time. And this story also probably explains something about the nature of my somewhat broken genius which allows me to write these tales you all complain so much about.

* * *
Daniil Kharms was a Russian writer of the pre-World War II period whose hilarious absurdist short texts and theater pieces are among the most cherished remains of the short-lived avant-garde movement OBERIU (“Association for Real Art”). The best-known collection in English of Kharms’ work so far is Today I Wrote Nothing: The Selected Writings of Daniil Kharms. The above piece is a very free adaptation of a Kharms text that can be found in “I Am a Phenomenon Quite Out of the Ordinary”, a recent translation of Kharms’ surviving journals and letters. (I did this adaptation as a creative writing prompt for my students in Taiwan, where I teach English.) Like many writers of his generation, Kharms fell foul of the Soviet authorities. Arrested in 1941, he was confined to a psychiatric prison, where he eventually died, presumably of starvation, during the brutal Nazi siege of Leningrad. --E.M.