“a perpetual stranger
am I to the world
I don't understand its language
my silence it can't comprehend”

— Bei Dao

"A perpetual stranger...", p. 110
Variant translation:
In the world I am
Always a stranger
I do not understand its language
It does not understand my silence
The August Sleepwalker (1990)

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Bei Dao 6

contemporary Chinese (PRC) avant garde poet 1949

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