In Reflections on Exile, Edward Said writes: "Exile is irremediably secular and unbearably historical … like death but without death's ultimate mercy, it has torn millions of people from the nourishment of tradition, family, and geography." I had not been forced to be in exile, but in the US, I too was torn from the nourishment of tradition, family and geography. To make up for this, I desperately longed to fill in the gaps of my knowledge about Asia.
在《流亡的反思》中,愛(ài)德華·賽義德寫道:“流亡是不可挽回的世俗和無(wú)法忍受的歷史……就像死亡,但沒(méi)有死亡的終極仁慈,它撕裂了數(shù)百萬(wàn)人的傳統(tǒng)、家庭和地理的滋養(yǎng)?!蔽覜](méi)有被迫流亡,但在美國(guó),我也失去了傳統(tǒng)、家庭和地理的滋養(yǎng)。為了彌補(bǔ)這一點(diǎn),我非??释钛a(bǔ)我對(duì)亞洲的知識(shí)空白。
I loved hearing stories about China. Whenever I learned about Chinese history in school, I would go home and ask my parents. "No, that's not how it was, this is how it was," they would say. In contrast to what my textbooks said, my parents shared happy stories of the Cultural Revolution – of friends made on the farms, about the brilliance and charisma of my oldest aunt who had a posse of young admirers, about how the Chinese Communist party rewarded my nainaiyeye with medals and pensions for their military service. During my summer vacations, my cousins joked that my yeye paid for my dinners with his wallet from the CCP. And whenever I went back to Hefei, it was to a family that told me this was where I came from, where I would always be welcome and would always have a place.
我喜歡聽(tīng)有關(guān)中國(guó)的故事。每當(dāng)我在學(xué)校學(xué)習(xí)中國(guó)歷史,我都會(huì)回家問(wèn)我的父母?!安?,事情不是這樣的,事情就是這樣的,”他們會(huì)說(shuō)。和我的課本上講的不同,我的父母分享了文化大革命時(shí)期的快樂(lè)故事——在農(nóng)場(chǎng)里結(jié)交的朋友,有關(guān)我那有一群年輕崇拜者的最年長(zhǎng)的阿姨的才華和魅力,有關(guān)中國(guó)共產(chǎn)黨如何用獎(jiǎng)?wù)潞宛B(yǎng)老金獎(jiǎng)勵(lì)我的爺爺奶奶。在我暑假期間,我的堂兄弟們開(kāi)玩笑說(shuō)爺爺用他在共產(chǎn)黨的錢包付了我的飯錢。每當(dāng)我回到合肥,總會(huì)有一個(gè)家庭告訴我這就是我的家鄉(xiāng),在這里我將永遠(yuǎn)受到歡迎,這個(gè)家永遠(yuǎn)都在。
In December 2018, a year and a half before my grandparents passed away, I went to China to collect my family's oral histories. Like many children of immigrants, I had an uneasy feeling of being born out of formlessness, occupying an invisible space in a country that never filled in where exactly I was supposed to fit. I wanted to articulate my family's past, make sense of where we had come from, where I had come from. This was a duty I felt all the more responsible for because of my role in the family as the "writer".
2018年12月,也就是我祖父母去世的前一年半,我去中國(guó)收集了我的家族口述史。像許多移民的孩子一樣,我有一種不自在的感覺(jué),覺(jué)得自己出生時(shí)是無(wú)形的,在一個(gè)國(guó)家里占據(jù)著一個(gè)看不見(jiàn)的空間,而我應(yīng)該在的地方從來(lái)沒(méi)有被填滿。我想要闡明我的家族的過(guò)去,弄清楚我們來(lái)自哪里,我來(lái)自哪里。因?yàn)槲以诩依锏慕巧恰白骷摇?,所以我覺(jué)得這是我更應(yīng)該去承擔(dān)的責(zé)任。
But for a long time I delayed making the trip – because it would be time-consuming, because it would be emotionally exhausting, because my Chinese was not good enough, because I did not know the right questions to ask. Yet my grandparents were getting older and older, and China changed more rapidly by the day. Finally, I knew I couldn't keep putting it off. I bought my ticket and went.
但在很長(zhǎng)一段時(shí)間里,我推遲了這一行程計(jì)劃——因?yàn)樗鼤?huì)很耗時(shí),因?yàn)樗鼤?huì)讓我精疲力竭,因?yàn)槲业闹形牟粔蚝?,因?yàn)槲也恢涝搯?wèn)什么問(wèn)題。但是,我的祖父母年紀(jì)越來(lái)越大,中國(guó)的變化也越來(lái)越快。最后,我知道自己不能再拖延了,于是我買了票就出發(fā)了。