Autumn 2006
 
 

CONTENTS

 
  WATER’S SOURCE 水的歸屬
   By Wu Sheng 吳晟
   Translated by David van der Peet 范德培
 
  TIES THAT BIND 牽繫
   By LIN Tai Man 林黛嫚
   Translated by May Li-ming TANG 湯麗明
 
  A CULTURAL HEIRLOOM DEMOLISHED— CONTEMPLATING THE FUTURE OF THE CHINESE SCRIPT 被糟蹋了的文化瑰寶── 中華文字如何去從?
   By YEN Minju 顏敏如
   Translated by Chris Wen-Chao LI 李文肇
 
  WE WERE THERE THAT YEAR, AT THE FRONT IN KINMEN 那年,我們在金門前線
   By Husluman‧Vava 霍斯陸曼‧伐伐
   Translated by David van der Peet 范德培
 
  WHOOPING CRANE 鳴鶴
   By Hsia Ching 夏菁
   Translated by John J. S. BALCOM 陶忘機
 
  I ALWAYS WANT TO LET LOOSE 常常想放縱
   By Hsia Ching 夏菁
   Translated by John J. S. BALCOM 陶忘機
 
  WE ARE LAKES 我們是湖
   By Hsia Ching 夏菁
   Translated by John J. S. BALCOM 陶忘機
 
  TERRORIST ORGANIZATION 恐怖組織
   By Bai Ling 白靈
   Translated by John J. S. BALCOM 陶忘機
 
  LOOKING BACK AT DULAN MOUNTAIN FROM A DUGOUT CANOE 獨木舟上回頭看都蘭山
   By Bai Ling 白靈
   Translated by John J. S. BALCOM 陶忘機
 
  PORTRAIT OF A CAFÉ PUZZLE 咖啡館拼圖
   By FONG Ming 方明
   Translated by Yanwing LEUNG 梁欣榮
 
  THE TRAVELS AND LOVER OF A JUNIOR HIGH GIRL 國中女生的旅行與情人
   By Nina Wen-yin CHUNG 鍾文音
   Translated by Jonathan R. BARNARD 柏松年
 
  CITY OF DESIRE, DREAMS ALOFT—THE ART OF HUANG MING-CHE 慾望城市,夢想飛行── 藝術創作者黃銘哲
   By KUO Li-chuan 郭麗娟
   Translated by Paul FRANK
 
  HUANG MING-CHE : FROM CONSTRUCTION TO DECONSTRUCTION AND BACK TO CONSTRUCTION 從結構、解構,再結構的黃銘哲
   By Joseph WANG 王哲雄
 
  HUANG MING-CHE: A CHRONOLOGY 黃銘哲年表
   Translated by May Li-ming TANG 湯麗明
 
  NEWS & EVENTS 文化活動
   Compiled by Sarah Jen-hui HSIANG 項人慧
 
  NOTES ON AUTHORS AND TRANSLATORS
作者與譯者簡介
 
  APPENDIX: CHINESE ORIGINALS
附錄:中文原著
 
  DIALOGUE 對話, stove-enameled sheet metal,
.240 × 210 × 70 cm × 2, 1996-97...............COVER
 
  FACING REALITY SERIES 面對現實系列,
metal and oil on canvas
180 × 180 cm, 2003-04
..............................................................BACK COVER
   By QUO Ying Sheng 郭英聲

 


Nina Wen-yin CHUNG 鍾文音

THE TRAVELS AND LOVER OF A JUNIOR HIGH GIRL
國中女生的旅行與情人*

Translated by Jonathan R. BARNARD 柏松年


    There was someone I wanted to go see: Chen Yu-cheng, an author whom my mother, a writer herself, secretly admired.
    I hatched a plan to leave home during winter vacation. Fooling my family that I was going winter camping with the Girl Scouts, I furtively boarded a train. I wanted to travel alone, to see how well I could get along by myself away from home.
    I knew Chen wouldn’t refuse me—that the greater the challenge to prevailing social mores, the more his interest would be piqued. A young girl coming on her own would appeal to his iconoclastic streak. I was sure of it.
    He lived on Taiwan’s East Coast, on the shores of the Pacific. . . . You, Chen, were the lusty, elegant savage that I longed to track down and turn into; I wanted you to tell me the secrets of traveling great distances alone, to teach me how to leave home safely and survive.
    The Pacific’s surf was up and rough. Inside, I wanted to scream across the ocean toward the opposite bank, believing that only by so doing could I release my power, push myself across the sea, and find the strength to climb up and walk across the land.
    Hualien. Time’s mysteries hold dreams in the waves of the Pacific Ocean.
    When I was a child, my whole family came here to whalewatch. When I was younger still, the four of us went on a trip to Australia and New Zealand. Over time, the only images of that trip I could recall were of dolphins and whales—and sheep, getting branded and waiting to be sheared. Or perhaps they were lambs, sacrificial substitutes, bowing their heads and grazing in their pastures, always eating grass or staring dumbly off into the distance, gentle sheep, so easily startled, unaware of the danger so close at hand.
    When the dolphins appeared, the water in my range of vision was stained purple by their blood. The whales, their bodies bearing red blooms from the whalers’ strikes, would make deep calls. The way to get a mother was to get her child first. Mothers feel a natural duty to protect their children. But when it comes to humans, nature’s maternal instinct must be learned. Take my mother: there she was in a Dior suit and high-heeled Valentinos that cost NT$30,000. Crammed into a small boat with us, her visage wore the expression of a person suffering. When we went diving, my father, older brother and I were decked out like frogmen—or maybe frog children. My mother, meanwhile, stood on shore, clutching her Chanel bag and worrying that we couldn’t see the little diamonds on her red shoes catching the sunlight. She made an effort to shake her head. She was not going in the water.
    Her sense of maternal duty had long been wavering. If a whaler had caught me, her trendy clothes, which limited her freedom of movement and desperately required protection, would surely have restrained her. Still a child, I looked at her and suddenly felt hurt: In her eyes I was not nearly so attractive as her tightly clutched purse or the finery she feared would get splashed. I was not the equal of the clothes on her back. Her name-brand possessions had come between us.
    Poor Mommy’s emotional world had been shattered, but she still had her fashion empire. I believe that my father was just her ATM, and that we were just the happy family photo she could show to the outside world.
    I suppose I’m being too harsh. But I can’t restrain that attitude, that side of me prone to mockery. I want to join the circus. This life of mine that I’d like so much to avoid is well suited to the clownish prankster.
    Once, when we were traveling in Australia, we went for a walk along a riverbed near our hotel and came across a circus camp. A woman, still half asleep, came out of one of the big circus trucks. The early morning sun lit up her disheveled blond hair. She held a steel cup and brushed her teeth as she walked down to the river. Alongside the truck were lions, tigers and elephants. To me it looked like a marvelous life.
    I tugged at my father’s hand to convey my desire to go over and talk to the blond woman. Perhaps she thought it amusing to come across an oriental child. She splashed some cold water on her face and then turned to speak to me. The strange language struck me as funny, and I laughed and laughed. My father told me that she said she was a tightrope walker.
    When we walked to the side of the truck, we saw a poster in which she was wearing white angel wings and perched on swing. In another poster she walked the high wire as tigers and lions paced below.
    It was in the midst of this memory that my train pulled into the station.
    After I got off, I phoned Chen Yu-cheng. My name was Lin Tang-shuang, I said, describing myself as that nu-jen (literally “female person”) who had asked for your autograph and phone number. Perhaps you remember? I put special emphasis on the word nu-jen, thinking that it didn’t refer to any specific age. He said he remembered me but responded with a question of his own: What do you want, kid?
    I said that I had taken the train to Hualien and was at the station.
    Alone?
    Uh, could I come and see you. I don’t have anywhere else to go. I came especially for you.
    O.K. . . . in that case get on a bus in front of the train station and tell the driver that you want to get off at Jingpu Elementary School.
    Jingtu—clean earth—elementary?
    No, Jingpu. It’s the jing in “peaceful” and the pu that’s the first Chinese character in Urashima Taro, the Japanese fairy tale.
    Oh, all right, I’ll call you when I get there.
    That was the extent of our phone conversation. It was like we were old friends and there was no need for explanations. Why had I come? Why was I alone? Why did I want to see him? There weren’t any whys. I think he must have known that starting sans questions would be a marvelous beginning for me. Or perhaps his cool nonchalance was a disguise,....


From Chen Fang-ming 陳芳明ed. Chiu-shih-san nien san-wen hsuan《九十三年散文選》(Collected Essays 2004),Taipei: Chiu Ko Publishing, 2005.


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