Naples｜Those who leave will come back

Naples is the southernmost place on our trip, a two-hour train ride from Rome to the center of the city. My rough imagination of this city only comes from Ferrante’s novels, the Neapolitan Quartet. She describes too much violence, both tangible and intangible, that happened here. The seven days I stayed here were connected by passages from the novel and the filming locations of the series. (Thanks to Liang Er for sharing the map he compiled, I was able to visit many places where Lenon and Lila stayed.) I went to the city where they grew up, a half-hour walk from the train station, and passed through a desolate and abandoned highland. The building is like a version of the Central Financial Center without the flow of people and traffic. There are also a lot of dried dog poop along the road. We wanted to take the bus, but we couldn't find the bus stop sign provided by Google Maps. We couldn't walk on the return trip and had to wait for a long time for the bus. Google Maps originally asked us to walk one kilometer to the tram stop to wait for the tram, but when we arrived, we discovered that there was none. As the tram passed by, the dilapidation of that neighborhood was clearly visible. It doesn't even have fields. I saw idle old men chatting in the shade of the trees, a middle-aged woman washing clothes on the street, and newborn diapers and small clothes hanging outside the windows of some buildings. These were the only live elements in this place. They used their loudspeakers to shout at the cars selling fruits and vegetables passing by, but otherwise everything was silent, as if their mouths were covered and no sound could be made. I even feel that the 1950s and 1960s in the book were much more lively than they are now. It was the second day of my menstrual period. We smelled a smell of chicken shit in the scorching sun. I felt a lot of blood bleeding between my legs. I just wanted to get out of there quickly, but later I found out that it was my imagination. There wasn't a lot of menstrual blood coming out, but it took me a long time to get over the ordeal I was in there. This is where they grew up. There is the sea three kilometers away. I feel sad beyond words.

In Naples, I often thought of a concept that appears in novels - "the disappearance of boundaries". It definitely has a different interpretation in the lives of Lila and Lenon. Lila was forced to stay where she was and experienced different forms of violence. Violence bridged the borders, and life was hopeless. Ugly and hypocritical faces appeared everywhere she went. Lenon broke out of his native city, and the disappearance of borders meant geographical location. The changes, the jump in class, and the sight of the sea are easy. For me, my physical body briefly escaped from Hong Kong, which seemed to have crossed a border. Before departure, I thought that I was avoiding Hong Kong in the past few months, but from time to time, some daily occurrences seemed to remind me of some experiences. It will leave an eternal mark, and the boundaries will become blurred. Long-distance travel is all about living life more.

On the day I went to Ischia, I was still standing on the pier and thinking that there seemed to be nothing new about going to the outlying islands. In Hong Kong, you can usually reach nearby islands by taking a fast boat for an hour from Central. When the boat sailed to the middle of the sea, I received a reply from inside the stone wall. To be precise, Maomao took it home from the mailbox downstairs and took a picture of it for me to see. The echo of being thrown into the black hole made me happy and sad at the same time. I was sitting on a floating boat reading that letter, and it ended with a lyrics that has been overused in my city: "I wish you peace in the turbulent currents." There is nothing outside the window, only the line between the sky and the sea. I squinted my eyes, letting my eyelids coincide with that line, and imagined that I was traveling to Cheung Chau/Lamma Island. I still lived in Kowloon, and during some normal holidays, I took a boat to eat satay beef rice on the island. Pass. The simplest daily life is recreated in Naples.

We rented a car on the island and passed some large and small beaches along the way, as well as a free hot spring. I still don’t understand why there are hot springs on the beach. I wonder if it’s because of the volcano on the island. In the hot spring, I leaned against the stone and half of my body was immersed in the warm sea water. I just closed my eyes and let time flow away with the sea water. I felt the sea water flowing through my touch. I was attacked by the scalding water a few times. I screamed and quickly bounced away. The water temperature suddenly returned to the right temperature. After returning to the city, K went to buy a bikini. There were many women wearing bikinis on the beach. They were so beautiful, and the sun shone on their large skins. But this is not common in Hong Kong, and we can’t help complaining that Hong Kong people are sometimes as conservative as if they came from the Qing Dynasty.

There were some adventures in Naples, but they were all with men. The left-wing students, the old man who plays saxophone on the street, and the artistic white man who opens a vintage shop may also indicate that Naples does not welcome women to show up in these fields. On the first day I wandered around, I met Luca who was delivering newspapers. There was a huge headline on the newspaper, which translated into Chinese was "China is close at hand". He was a member of a left-wing party organization and had come all the way from Rome to support the local branch, which had just been established for a week. We used broken English to confirm each other's general position, and he invited me to watch their meeting the next day. Ferrante's novels also describe Zuo Nan, who is extremely good at political propaganda, with a grand vocabulary and a classroom podium off the ground. Luca's invitation aroused my curiosity about Bai Zuo, so I arrived at their conference room on time the next day. , I was so scared when I walked in, they were all men! Luca was sitting in the front row having a heated discussion with two middle-aged men. I bit the bullet and chatted with a white man studying in Naples for ten minutes. I could briefly understand what an emerging party branch would do-distribute food packages. , unite the working class. At the end he asked me if I was a communist, and I said awkwardly, "I can't firmly say that I am a communist. I still use an iPhone... but I am a feminist." I'm not sure if he listened. You know what I'm talking about, but at that moment I was extremely irritable and just wanted to end the conversation and run away. I asked him what your purpose is, and he said to unite workers all over the world, who follow Lenin, and then showed me Lenin's books and posters. K and I looked at each other and knew that we had countless things to say to each other. If it weren't for my poor English and my fear of making too many mistakes on the other side's territory, I would just like to ask, do you think your weekly all-male meeting can understand the difficult situation of workers around the world? At this time, Luca also came over, with an amiable smile on his face. He said that he could donate to their organization, but I declined. Before I left, I asked one last question: Do you actually have women in your organization? He said yes, but he didn't come today. K said that he thought of a slogan he saw in the restaurant where he had lunch: "In a calm sea, everyone is a pilot. When there is no problem, everyone is brave."

Mario is the old man who danced swing dance with me. He is a bachelor who lives in a nearby village. He comes to Naples by train every Sunday just to perform on the streets with his friends. His usual daily routine is farming. He said that he eats Growing your own vegetables is a wonderful thing. At that time, their band was singing a jam (I noticed that there were two women - the lead singer and the double bass player). I was taking small steps and swaying slightly. I don't know how he saw that I could swing dance. That song Not long after he started playing, he put down his saxophone and walked towards me. He gave me a feeling of kindness like a grandpa, and all his actions and words were warm. Antony is the owner of a vintage shop. We found his shop while wandering around. There was a "Merry Christmas on the Battlefield" movie poster posted on the door. I was attracted by a blue skirt and asked him how much it cost. He said that he would use a scale to weigh it and that he would sell it by the kilogram. The final price was 9 euros. You can’t buy such a good quality and cheap skirt in any shabby vintage store in Mong Kok! I'll pay right away. When he talks about Hong Kong movies, he mentions Wong Kar-wai, and when he talks about Chinese movies, he mentions Zhang Yimou. He even took out a sticky note and wrote down Tsai Ming-liang's name. He is a complete literary man. We originally guessed that he was gay based on his appearance, but when we walked out of the store, I told K that people who like Zhang Yimou would not be gay. On the last day of wandering around Naples, we went to his store again to find some good clothes. After looking around carefully, I found that only the skirt I bought was the most beautiful. The old literary man couldn't help but share the poems he wrote. Fortunately, he gave us free red wine. Fortunately, he read the poems in a language I couldn't understand. I think the conversation using Google Translate is very rhythmic and a little more troublesome, but the process of waiting for the translation software makes people look forward to it, and there is no awkward atmosphere of pause in the air.

While wandering around, I saw the same piece of paper with RIP written on it at the door of some shops. On the day before we left, I remembered to check the local news and found out that the victim of the shooting that occurred in the Municipal Square on August 31st was a jazz musician. On the day we arrived, a memorial service was held for him. Delayed observation of a violent incident in this city also corresponds to various plots in Ferrante's novels. The eruption of a volcano is by no means a moment. The first time Lila felt that "the boundaries were disappearing" was on the last night of 1958. "She felt something fly by her ear, and then heard a gunshot. They no longer set off firecrackers and fireworks, but fired guns. , Rino yelled at the place that glowed with yellow fire, all very obscene words, which were unbearable... On the night of celebrating the New Year, for the first time, she felt that everything around her had become strange, and she felt that the whole world had become strange. Breaking its boundaries and showing its horrific nature made her very uneasy."

I like Naples, but I won’t know what I like about her until the day I leave. I was still unconscious on the train, but as soon as I landed in Florence and walked around the cathedral, I couldn't help but miss the streets of Naples. Those streets with almost no blank walls are so vivid and dilapidated, filled with Italian words, illustrations, and Maradona that I can’t understand. I often feel that I have lost my curiosity about life and there is nothing new to impress me anymore. But in Naples I got that feeling back.

We hardly visited any attractions. Rather than visiting the ancient city submerged by the volcano, we wanted to sit in the square and spend the afternoon in a daze. K said, “This journey is about learning to accept meaninglessness, or giving up on finding the meaning of grand things.”