Nicest things about Vancouver · 溫哥華的好處

One of the nicest things about living in Vancouver is the accessibility to all types of nature within a reasonable distance. Within one hour you can be sitting pretty on a vineyard sipping wine, you could be deep within a redwood forest or on the coast indulging in fresh oysters…

生活在溫哥華的好處是, 可以在合理的時間內參與不同類型的大自然活動, 一小時內可以去到一個葡萄園酒莊, 坐著享受好酒, 又可以走入紅木森林區內深處, 又或者在海邊食新鮮生蠔…

岸上的陌生人/Stranger on the Shore III

最後一次回到故居去, 碼頭早已被棄置不用久矣, 在島的另一端建立一個新的建築物, 在裡面等船, 再不用日曬雨淋, 然而再也看不到山光水色, 感覺不到海風徐徐送來, 混雜在等船的人群裡, 沒有一張是認識的臉。

經過這麼多年, 以為自己已經很堅強, 以為自己已經忘了很多人和事, 事實上, 在島上我發現自己回到以前一樣, 好像從來沒有離開過, 只是我環顧四周, 我已認不出任何人, 對這個我生于斯長于斯的地方而言, 我只是一個陌生人…一個過客。

—1995年2月1日發表在加京華報

The last time I returned to the island, that dock was no longer used. On the other end of the island, there’s new terminal, where you can wait inside, out of the sun and the rain. But there’s no longer the view of mountainous islands or the feel of the soft sea breezes. I mingle among the waiting crowd, but there’s not a single face I recognize. In fact, I find I have returned to the same position I was before. It feels as though I’ve never left, and yet I can’t name anyone here. In this island where I born, I’m the stranger… a mere passerby. 

—published in winter 2019, Brick magazine

岸上的陌生人/Stranger on the Shore II

Paris

New York

Amsterdam

因為看書的原故, 愈發覺得眾人言語無味, 島居侷促狹窄, 恨不得快高長大, 遠走高飛, 用鷹的眼光來觀看小島以外的世界。

小島上, 一般年紀的女孩子有好幾十個, 將來的命運也都差不多, 都是等不及長大就結婚生子, 然後留在家裡帶孩子做家務, 做些手作幫補家用, 閒時打麻將說是非, 生命還未開始就完結了, 我對自己說我不要這種生活, 我的將來也不僅止如此, 有一天我會離去, 找尋我理想的生活, 我還年輕, 還有這麼多的事情要學要做, 還有這麼多的地方要去。
現在要找的東西都找到了, 要去的地方都去過了, 在北美洲一個小城安頓下‬來, 做我喜歡的工作, 閒時讀書, 繪畫, 寫作, 聽音樂, 看電影, 做瑜伽, 去旅遊, 過著我童年夢想的生活, 應該感恩才是, 然而....

—1995年2月1日發表在加京華報

Because my reading, I found everyone’s chatter more idiotic, the island more narrow-minded, and I couldn’t wait to grow up, to escape and see the world with the eyes of an eagle.

On the island, dozens of girls my own age shared the same fates. All of them couldn’t wait to grow up and marry and have children, then to stay home with the little ones and the housework, taking on some piecework to bring in something extra, playing mah-jong in the spare hours and going to mass. It’s a life that is over before it’s begun. I told myself, I don’t want that kind of life. That will not be my future. One day I will leave to find it. I’m still young, with things to do and places to go.

Now, all I’ve ever desired, I have. All the cities I wanted to see, I’ve seen. I’ve settled in a small North American city doing the work I was meant to do. My free hours are filled with reading, painting, writing, listening to music, watching movies, doing yoga, travelling, living out the dream life of my childhood. I should appreciate it, and yet…

—published in winter 2019, Brick magazine

岸上的陌生人/Stranger on the Shore I

老是做一個奇怪的夢, 因為故居在一個島上, 到市區去自然要乘船, 夢裡總是氣呼呼趕至碼頭時, 小輪船剛好拉過氣笛, 吐着濃煙冉冉離去, 這個夢的潛意識裡代表是什麼? 弗洛伊德和容格信徒又會作怎樣的心理分析? 準是沒有安全感之故, 怕錯過了, 實在又錯過些什麼? 去了還有下一班, 又趕着去哪兒呢?

而夢境又那麼清晰, 像看一幕電影凝止了的鏡頭, 畫面上一角‪由‬高漸低沉入海的山, 背景是溶在一起的天和水, 前景是空架在水上的碼頭, 小輪船漸行漸遠, 一個女子仍然站在碼頭上, 四裡無人, 只有她和她的瘦長的身影…
還有背景音樂呢, 是比利渥爾用西簫演奏的岸上的陌生人,
我在這兒站着, 看着潮水漸退, 是如此孤寂與落寞…

從小是個孤寂的孩子, 最愛下課後躲在校園一角看書, 在樹影婆娑下, 蟬鳴聲裡看完戰爭與和平, 悲慘世界, 水滸傳, 西遊記, 沉迷在書中的故事裡, 也不知道時日快過, 直至祖母喊叫吃晚飯, 才迷迷糊糊從情節裡走出來, 啊, 書中日月長...

—1995年2月1日發表在加京華報

There's a dream that always comes to me because my home was once an island. So whenever I had to go into the city, of course I had to catch the ferry. In this dream I'm racing to the ferry dock just as the small steamer sounds its whistle and pulls away in a cloud of smoke. What could my subconscious be trying to tell me? What mighta psychological analysis, in the vein of Freud or Jung, reveal? Perhaps I had no sense of security and feared missing everything. Yet what could I have possibly missed? There would be another ferry, and another, and besides, why was I in such a hurry? Where was I going?

The dream is so vivid, as vivid as watching a movie shrunken down, with the corner of the screen crushed into the sea by the immensity of the sky and mountains. In the background, the sky and waves dissolve together, and in the foreground is the empty dock, the ferry puttering off, its path aslant on the waves until it grows fainter and fainter. I see my own figure still standing on that dock, not a soul for miles, only a girl and her skinny shadow. Just as in a film, I hear the strains of Acker Bilk's "Stranger on the Shore" in the background, the words welling up within me: "Here I stand/Watching the tide go out/So all alone and blue/ Just dreaming dream of you...

I was a solitary child. After school, I tucked myself away in some corner of the school yard, under the spreading branches of the shadow trees and the buzzing cicadas, to plunge into War and Peace, Les Misérables, Outlaws of the Marsh, or The Journey to the West, so lost in the story that I didn’t feel the day fly past until my grandmother called me for dinner. I came back out of the story, where the day had felt so long...

—published in winter 2019, Brick magazine