Eduard Baranovski
Saturday. Everyone went outside to cling to the hot asphalt. The street vendors lounge apathetically among T-shirts, fake Rolexes, plaster statuettes, paper-shade lamps, and more T-shirts. It's amazing how much kitsch tourists can buy. I squeeze through the commercial chaos and enter an alley, three small tables and six red stools rest in the shade, the aroma of fish, shellfish, and soy oil drifts through the air. In the corner, a small altar holds smoldering incense and garlands of white flowers gradually dry. Home.
Gheorghiță Mircea
First Lee and Lin opened their teahouse. Then with Jin and Xio the restaurant opened. Then the relatives came. Minimarkets multiplied. Because Chinese women did not suffer from headaches, because they had Vietnamese ointment for migraines, kindergartens appeared. The minority is growing and at the city`s enterance are bilingual signs 唐人街 1. If you were leaving the city, the next one was a 唐人街 2. The Mao Party wins the majority and the president is Bruce Lee, the last Dacian after his father, Goguță. Then the Vietnamese ointments disappeared. And the Dacians.
Pompilian Tofilescu
I returned after many years. The last time I was there was for her funeral. After that, the house was left empty. The fence was rotting away, barely holding on to the acacia trunks. The apple tree in front of the house dried-up, the vine arch fallen, the cemetery full of spiders, the yard overgrown with weeds. I entered the house with a heavy heart, not knowing what to expect. In the living room, the glass display case with a mirror behind it housing my mother's porcelain trinkets. Although dusty, they were all still there. China Town, I used to tease her in the old days.
(Translated by Eliza Radu / University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, MTTLC, year I / Corrected by Silvia Petrescu, coordinator of the translations)
Versiunea în română a acestui text se poate citi aici, în rubrica Ficțiuni Reale.