A CITY WITHOUT NEIGHBORS 沒有鄰居的都市

CONTENTS

	CIRRUS OVER CAPE COD 鱈岬上空的卷雲 By YU Kwang-chung 余光中 Translated by the poet

	AT THE DENTIST’S 牙關 By YU Kwang-chung 余光中 Translated by the poet

	ARCO IRIS By YU Kwang-chung 余光中 Translated by the poet

	TUG OF WAR WITH THE RIVER 水草拔河 By YU Kwang-chung 余光中 Translated by the poet

	GREAT IS A MOTHER’S LOVE—TO A VICTIM ORPHANED BY THE RECENT EARTHQUAKE IN SICHWAN 大哉母愛──給大難不死的孤兒 By YU Kwang-chung 余光中 Translated by the poet

	TO CHRIS ON HIS GOING WEST FROM DENVER 送樓克禮自丹佛西行 By YU Kwang-chung 余光中 Translated by the poet

	AT THE TWILIGHT HOUR 蒼茫時刻 By YU Kwang-chung 余光中 Translated by the poet

	HOW TO MURDER A FAMOUS WRITER? 如何謀殺名作家 By YU Kwang-chung 余光中 Translated by Nancy DU 杜南馨

	A CITY WITHOUT NEIGHBORS 沒有鄰居的都市 By YU Kwang-chung 余光中 Translated by YU Yu-san 余幼珊

	WHO CAN TELL THE WORLD TO STOP FOR THREE SECONDS? 誰能叫世界停止三秒？ By YU Kwang-chung 余光中 Translated by Nancy DU 杜南馨

	I CAN STILL HEAR THE FU BELL RINGING 傅鐘悠悠長在耳 By YU Kwang-chung 余光中 Translated by Michelle M. WU 吳敏嘉

	YI CHIN-JUNG RETURNS 衣錦榮　歸 By CHANG Hsi-kuo 張系國 Translated by Jonathan BARNARD 柏松年

	THE CONTEMPORARY CERAMIC ART OF LIEN PAO-TSAI 連寶猜的現代陶藝 By Max Chi-wei LIU 劉其偉

	COMPASSION AND COMMAND : THE CONSUMMATE CERAMICS OF LIEN PAO- TSAI 連寶猜的妙心與巧手 By CHENG Ching-jung鄭清榮

	A LADY WHO HAS ACQUIRED THE SPIRITUAL CANON 取得「心」經的人 By SUNG Lung-fei 宋龍飛

	THE SPIRITUAL CULTIVATION OF PAO- TSAI 寶猜的靈修 By TUNG Feng-li 董鳳酈

	DEMONS AND DARKNESS, REFLECTED IN LIGHT : THE CERAMICS OF LIEN PAO- TSAI 群魔亂舞的世界 By SUNG Lung-fei 宋龍飛

	THERE ARE CHILDISH DELIGHTS IN POTTERY— TRUE FEELINGS ABIDE IN UNDERSTANDING 陶中有童趣　會心寓真情 By JIANG Jie 姜捷

	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

	THE EDGE OF A WHILPOOL 漩渦邊緣, ceramics, 87 × 70 × 5.5 cm, 1992 .....................Cover

	SEARCHING FOR ELYSIAN SERIES NO. 2— THE EAGLE MOVES HOUSE 尋找桃花源系列之二 / 老鷹搬家, ceramics, 63x123x5cm,2001 ........................................................................Back Cover By LIEN Pao-tsai 連寶猜

YU Kwang-chung 余光中

A CITY WITHOUT NEIGHBORS 沒有鄰居的都市*

translated by YU Yu-san 余幼珊

    Coming back from Hong Kong six years ago, I have since settled down in Kaohsiung. Awake or asleep, I can always vaguely hear the waves breaking in the Strait. My old friends blame me: why did you turn your back on Taipei? And I reply: I did not turn my back on Taipei, but Taipei turned its back on me.
     All these years living in the south, I never easily go up north unless absolutely necessary. Sometimes, when feeling desperate, I would even flatly say to people: “Rejecting Taipei is the beginning of happiness.” I felt desperate because, from trivia to big events—conferences, talks, dinner parties and exhibitions— Taipei has always played host. If I hastily go up north at every beckon of Taipei, life in Kaohsiung would become impossible.
     So it would seem that I am heartless, or even ungrateful. But it isn’t so. It’s not that I have forgotten Taipei that I avoid Taipei, go less to Taipei, and fear Taipei. Quite the contrary. I cannot possibly forget Taipei—my Taipei, the old Taipei. It was a rich and prosperous basin—a basin filled with youthful dreams and memories of one’s prime, containing, within it, the scenes of my first becoming a husband, a father, a writer and a lecturer. Or even earlier—it contains the years when I was still a student, still a son. That was my Taipei—the colorful 50s that have now become black and white. Whether I enter it from the northwest by Kuo Kuang coach, or from the southwest by Tzu Chiang train, or from the northeast by China Airline, I shall never be able to return to that Taipei.
     As to the Taipei that all of a sudden marched into the 90s from the 80s, whether one reads about it in the papers, sees it on TV, or meets it in person on the streets, mostly the city pleases you not. However the prophets or the swindlers interpret it using such terms as “transition,” “multi-dimensional” or “opening up,” it doesn’t make you feel warm. When you walk down Chung Hsiao East Road, the whole of the dazzling and aggressive world is pushing at your elbow, but at the same time everything seems so far away; nothing can be grasped at, nothing can be kept. Just like the hunter in the legend, who, after waking up from a dream, comes down from the mountain and ventures into a strange world—you’re walking on the streets of Taipei.
     The so-called nostalgia, if it is geographical, then an air ticket or a train ticket that brings you to a familiar door will soothe it. If it is, however, temporal, then all roads are one-way, all doors are closed and none can bring you back. After a decade of living in Hong Kong, I became a vagrant of time burdened with a heavy bag of memories. Yet when I reached the door of Taipei, I discovered that I had lost my golden key; I had long locked myself out.
     In my bewilderment and disenchantment, even if the door opened for me, facing me, inside the door, would be a stranger’s face, indifferent and impatient.
     “Then why did you go to Kaohsiung?” my friend asked. “Would Kaohsiung know you?”
     “Kaohsiung doesn’t know me as a young man,” I replied, “and I don’t know the old Kaohsiung. So there is no sense of loss involved, and everything can begin from scratch. But Taipei is different. There’s too much in the background, so one would naturally sense the vicissitudes in life. Taipei basin is my echoing valley; endless echoes surround me and haunt me, gyrating into a whirlpool of memories.”

     That lane on Xiamen Street is, of course, still there. The changes in Taipei have mostly been taking place in the direction of northeast; in the south of the city, the bulldozers have done havoc on a much lesser scale. If Taipei basin is a huge echoing valley, then the lane on Xiamen Street is a small meandering echoing valley ringing with the sound of the footsteps of my old days. My “home lane,” lane 113, which began on Xiamen Street and led to Tung An Street, is certainly still there. Long and narrow, the lane has quite a literary history. In the 50s, the dormitory of Hsin Sheng Daily News was located halfway down the lane, and Peng Ko was often seen there. There was a time when Pan Lei also chose to settle down at the end of the lane. During the era of Literary Magazine, the residence of the publisher Liu Shou-yi, which also served as the magazine’s office, was situated in another narrow lane on Tung An Street which was just opposite the other end of my lane. One often heard, reverberating along the side streets and narrow lanes, the loquacity of Hsia Chi-an and Wu Lucien, and saw the flush brought by excitement in Hsia’s face contrasting with the composure in Wu’s eyes. The old Japanese-style house of Wang Wen-hsing, located right by the river bank where Tung An Street met Shui Yuan Road, was half-sheltered in the shade of old trees. So Wang was also often seen around, going to places within walking distance. And that was of course the days long before he wrote Jia-bian. Later on Huang Yung’s family also moved to Lane 113, just a few houses away from mine; when the wind blew, the tree leaves in the yards of both families would be ruffled.
     Heraclitus has said, “You cannot step into the same river twice, for fresh waters are ever flowing in upon you.” As time flowed through the echoing valley of that long lane, those people that I just mentioned also left. And I, native of Amoy, was the only one remained to keep watch of that secluded lane. It was not until the mid-80s when I handed over the lane—my rootless root, my non-property property—to the care of the late-coming Hong Fan Bookstore and Elite Publishing House.
     Any one of my “faithful readers” would know about Xiamen Street. I spent nearly half of my life there; my mother died there, and my four daughters and 17 books were born there. The place, if not my native land, was at least my marketplace, my neighborhood, my village or my hometown. If I sleepwalk, the policeman would surely find me there.
     During my wakeful hours, though, I would not choose to revisit the place. Although I travel to Taipei every month, I have not the courage to step into that alley, not to mention paying a nostalgic visit to the house. Because, although that narrow lane had been widened and straightened out, yet immediately, parked vehicles took up the two sides of the lane, making it look even narrower. The low walls, which had been half-sheltered in hibiscus and paper flowers, along with the shades of copious and spreading trees, have all but disappeared. Replacing them were stories and piles of apartment buildings and a network of different branches and boughs—television antennas. Once there was the crispy clear sound of wooden getas knocking at the tranquility that filled the lane, drawing nearer and nearer, and then becoming low and faint. Then there was the sharp dinging of bicycles bells that went past outside the house—it was from the newspaper boy in the morning, and the students returning home from school. Mixed with these sounds was that of the pedicabs. Late at night,...

*	From Yu Kwang-chung’s 余光中 collection of essays Jih-pu-lo chia 《日不落家》(A Family on Which the Sun Never Sets), Taipei: Chiuko Publishing, 1998, 127-137.