回fide | 悖離母語的 Yiyun Li

2020 年 8 月 11 日

Dear fide,

我讀了你給我推薦的兩篇文章。Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life 和 To speak is to Blunder But I Venture.

YiYun Li徹底悖離，甚至棄絕了母語。不想亦不願解釋意圖。且不準作品被母語染指。如此決絕。

Over the years, my brain has banished Chinese. I dream in English. I talk to myself in English. And memories—not only those about America but also those about China; not only those carried with me but also those archived with the wish to forget—are sorted in English. To be orphaned from my native language felt, and still feels, like a crucial decision.

It’s the absoluteness of my abandonment of Chinese, undertaken with such determination that it is a kind of suicide.

——To speak is to Blunder But I Venture

母語對她而言究竟是什麼？是過去？是時間？

悖離棄絕母語後的自己，又（可以）是什麼？

16.
I had this notion, when I first started it, that this essay would be a way to test—to assay—thoughts about time. There was even a vision of an after, when my confusions would be sorted out.

Assays in science are part of an endless exploration: one question leads to another; what follows confirms or disconfirms what comes before. To assay one's ideas about time while time remains unsettled and elusive feels futile: just as one is about to understand one facet of time, it presents another to undermine one's reasoning.
To write about a struggle amidst the struggling: one must hope that this muddling will end someday.

Before and After 判然二分。而她卡在其間，在掙扎中寫作，在恍惚中前行。

悖離、棄絕母語時，她殺死一部分的自己，也抹去別人。那過程極其痛苦。可她不得不那麼做。悖離或棄絕的理由是極其私人的。不是有意隱瞞。她說。

My abandonment of my first language is personal, so deeply personal that I resist any interpretation—political or historical or ethnographical. This, I know, is what my husband was questioning years ago: was I prepared to be turned into a symbol by well-intentioned or hostile minds?

費力描述亦是徒勞。說了我們也不會懂。

不是所有的謎底都有謎題。或是

謎題還沒有出來謎底就已經先拆。

是我自以為是。一廂情願的對號入座。

是的，讀Li 真誠懇切的文字，我想起言叔夏的<辯術之城>。

當時手抄了一些言的文字。現在和Yiyun Li的文字一起讀。

我已經唸了太久的書。而且厭倦這些。像是看了太久的魔術表演那樣你會知道他們不是真的吞火。真正的火過來的時候你會燒傷。會痛。會哭出聲來。日子久了會做惡夢。

很痛很痛。不是魔術表演。有時我們真的吞火。

我很想說所謂符號也不過就是盾牌。你真的被燒過炸過燙過你就壓根不會想要碰。根本不會特別想要讓誰懂。你們不懂只是因為，你們沒有比我更在其中。我書寫不是為了我表演，又或者是我表演罷，是因為我不願直視那傷口。

可~~不在其中的~~別人只會覺得她有所隱瞞。

秘密是最好的釣餌。永遠有人會走過來說：我需要知道。我需要。（他永遠也不會知道他釣到的是一隻魚或者雨鞋。）

5.

I've been asked throughout my life: what are you hiding? The question baffles me because I don't know what I'm hiding, and the more I try to deny it, the less trustworthy people find me. My mother used to comment on my stealthiness to our guests. A woman in charge of admission at the public bathhouse often confronted me, asking what I was hiding from her; nothing, I said, and she would say she could tell from my eyes that I was lying.

One hides an affair if one is unfaithful in a marriage; one hides a misdeed—people hide to make things not difficult for themselves. But reticence is a natural state; it is not hiding. People don't show themselves easily and equally to all.

There is a distance that comes with being reserved, but it does not make one feel lonely the way hiding does. Still, that distance must be hard for other people: it can invalidate the importance of others; hiding, however minor, can be blamed on the one who hides.

但別人（如我）怎麼會甘於待在千里之外呢。~~你不妨對我掏心掏肺。你怎麼可以不相信我。~~

相信的意思是：交予心而不交予身體。

但身體也就是邊界，我們如何交談關於相信的話題？痛楚那樣真實地來過，每一步每一步都紮紮實實踩在我們的傷口。

「很痛很痛。」但必須緘默。「你還可以嗎？」「我還可以。」痛的時候就感覺存在。不會幻滅。存在的圍欄。存在原來要用疼痛交換。

6 
There are five time zones in China, but the nation uses a unified time—Beijing time. When the hour turns, all radio stations sound six beeps, followed by a solemn announcement: “At the last beep, it is Beijing time seven o’clock sharp.” This memory is reliable because it does not belong to me but generations of Chinese, millions of us: at seven o’clock, the beeping and announcement were amplified through loudspeakers in every people’s commune, school, army camp, and apartment complex.

But underneath this steadfastness, time is both intrusive and elusive. It does not leave us alone even in our most private moments: in every thought and feeling about life time claims a space. When we speak of indecision, it’s an internal deadline that we’re afraid of both meeting and not meeting. When we speak of moving on—what a triumphant phrase—it’s what we pack up so we can carry on. And if one seeks kindness from time, it slips away tauntingly, or worse, indifferently. How many among us have said that to others or to ourselves: if only I had a bit more time . . .

7
One hides something for two reasons: that one feels protective of it, or one feels ashamed by it; and then it’s not always the case that one can separate the two possibilities. If my relationship with time is difficult, if time is intrusive and elusive, could it be that I am only hiding myself from time?

中國橫跨了五個時區。五個時區的時間都是北京的時間。整齊劃一。時針指向7時，時間透過大氣電波大聲公知會好幾代的人："it is Beijing time seven o’clock sharp."

I resist any interpretation, she said.

時間不可捉摸不仁不義對任何人都一視同仁鉅細靡遺。

時間無處不在。

It does not leave us alone even in our most private moments: in every thought and feeling about life time claims a space.

猶豫不決也有個時限。moving on是 triumphant phrase. Time is linear.

If Time was linear, 她為何要思量如何躲避時間？

太初首先是氣。書上說。

另一個人發言：太初首先應該是分離……。

I don't wonder what my life would've been had I stayed in China: not leaving had never felt like an option since elementary school. For a decade there had been a concrete after ingrained in everything I did: the day I arrived in America I would become a new person.

But there is the possibility that I might never have taken up writing. Had I stayed a scientist, would I have turned out differently: calmer, less troubled, more sensible? Would I have stopped hiding, or become better at it?

原來 Li 小學時 就已立定志向。現在 | 自殺未遂後回首過去，明白了——除了離開，她別無選擇。

於是她離開。此後在美國成為一個新人。這此後二字，她用了10年鑄成。

成為一個新人後，Li自問：要是不寫作，我會不會成為一個更穩定的人。不再躲躲藏藏。或因而更善於此道？

鋒利的辯術在城市裡流竄，有時像是紙張的邊緣，軟的刀子，切進身體盜走一些什麼器官真是不留情面。車刀紙刀這樣流血。這樣流血以後會喊痛。會哭。然後再度相信謊。殘缺過的終究還會再長，心和身體各自承擔。

Yet language is capable of sinking a mind. One's thoughts are slavishly bound to language. I used to think that an abyss is a moment of despair becoming interminable; but any moment, even the direst, is bound to end. What's abysmal is that one's erratic language closes in on one like quicksand: "You are nothing. You must do anything you can to get rid of this nothingness." We can kill time, but language kills us.

語言的辯術如刀。進入我們。留下大的小的傷口。殘缺過的終究還會再長。如此輪迴不斷。

但你知道嗎？終有一天，語言會殺了我們的。

做自己的母親

English is my private language. Every word has to be pondered before it becomes a word. I have no doubt—can this be an illusion?—that the conversation I have with myself, however linguistically flawed, is the conversation that I have always wanted, in the exact way I want it to be.

In my relationship with English, in this relationship with the intrinsic distance between a nonnative speaker and an adopted language that makes people look askance, I feel invisible but not estranged. It is the position I believe I always want in life.

英文是Li的private language，她選擇用英文來寫作。她從頭開始，一字一句地斟酌用詞，思考用詞的貼切與否，撿拾自己，寫出不自然的文句。和自己進行一場又一場真誠無偽的對話。

If you can be articulate about your thoughts, why can’t you articulate your feelings? the doctor asked.

It took me a year to figure out the answer. It is hard to feel in an adopted language, yet it is impossible in my native language.

一年。Li足足用了一年來想通自己為何無法言說。第二語言未足以副。母語呢？更不可能。

讀了上面那段文字，我更了解 Li 為何要悖離母語。

她要絕「聖」棄「智」，將母語乃至母語的影響通通拋卻。用英文寫作，是打掉重來，換一套新的語言，把自己生出來。套句 @iago 的話，就是做自己的母親。

第二語言讓她重生。她用英文來修辭立誠，寫出一己之真實。英文讓她隱身其中卻又不抽離自我。可她選擇英文作為寫作語言，卻是隨機的。

English is to me as random a choice as any other language. What one goes toward is less definitive than that from which one turns away.

比起選擇用什麼語言寫作，逃離本來熟悉的語言才是關鍵。因此

過去用母語寫下的一切，Li 選擇銷毀。

Before I left China, I destroyed the journal that I had kept for years and most of the letters written to me, those same letters I had once watched out for, lest my mother discover them. What I could not bring myself to destroy I sealed up and brought with me to America, though I will never open them again. My letters to others I would have destroyed, too, had I had them. These records, of the days I had lived time and time over, became intolerable now that my time in China was over. But this violent desire to erase a life in a native language is only wishful thinking. One’s relationship with the native language is similar to that with the past. Rarely does a story start where we wish it had, or end where we wish it would.

可母語讓人過不去。從前那種習焉不察，運用自如以至欺人自欺的語言讓她深深困惑。

Once, in high school, I entered an oratory contest. Onstage, I saw that many of the listeners were moved to tears by the poetic and insincere lies I had made up; I moved myself to tears, too. It crossed my mind that I could become a successful propaganda writer. I was disturbed by this. A young person wants to be true to herself and to the world. But it did not occur to me to ask: Can one’s intelligence rely entirely on the public language; can one form a precise thought, recall an accurate memory, or even feel a genuine feeling, with only the public language?

母語讓她失去了本來面目。讓她戴著面具去面對這世界。擁有這語言，這話術意味着什麼？

擁有不是一件容易的事，連掌紋也有它自己的路要走。鞋是那麼容易被腳帶到遙遠的沙灘，可沙灘也終究是要翻覆的。有時舉手也是困難的，投足也是困難的。沙灘上的鞋印就是我們的卦象，一排左腳通到明天，一排右腳通往昨日，但我們也不一定就是現存。

與其說她擁有了母語，不如說母語as a public language擁有了她。於是她悖離母語。

此後用private language寫作。

A private language, however, defies any confinement. Death alone can take it away.

可死亡無處不在。

In the summer and autumn of 2012, I was hospitalized in California and in New York for suicide attempts, the first time for a few days, and the second time for three weeks. During those months, my dreams often took me back to Beijing......Waking up, I would list in my journal images that did not appear in my dreams

死不去時夢引她回到北京。夢遺漏的景物，她寫在日記上。她用private language記下缺席夢境的影像。

二度尋死後，她冷靜的寫出住院的經歷和思考。她瘋狂的讀Mansfield。

There were diagnoses to grapple with, medications to take, protocols to implement, hospital staff to report to, but they were there only to eliminate an option. What to replace it with I could not see, but I knew it was not within anyone’s capacity to answer that. Not having the exact language for the bleakness I felt, I devoured Mansfield’s words like thirst-quenching poison. Is it possible that one can be held hostage by someone else’s words? What I underlined and reread: Are they her thoughts or mine?

There is nought to do but WORK, but how can I work when this awful weakness makes even the pen like a walking stick?

There is something profound & terrible in this eternal desire to establish contact.

It is astonishing how violently a big branch shakes when a silly little bird has left it. I expect the bird knows it and feels immensely arrogant.
One only wants to feel sure of another. That's all.

I realise my faults better than anyone else could realise them. I know exactly where I fail.

Have people, apart from those far away people, ever existed for me? Or have they always failed me, and faded because I denied them reality? Supposing I were to die, as I sit at this table, playing with my indian paper knife—what would be the difference. No difference at all. Then why don't I commit suicide?

住院的日常是診斷，吃藥，跑程序，見醫者。身體活了下來。心呢？也活下來了嗎？

身體尋尋覓覓。身體佇立良久。

安慰來得如此遲緩。

悖離是為了抵抗吧

回到麻煩的時間。

Recently someone pointed me out onstage as an example of the American dream. Certainly I have done that too, putting myself on a poster of before and after. The transformation, however, is as superficial and deceitful as an ad placed on the back of a bus.

Time will tell, people say, as though time always has the last word. Perhaps I’m only resisting that notion as I’ve resisted those who want the power to have the last word about others.

她悖離母語是為了抵抗成見吧。時間的。語言的。母親的。過去的。簡單粗暴的。手握權力的。她棄絕母語是為了抵抗麻木吧。

她用英文寫作。不代表誰也不被誰代表。No one has the last word. 就算是時間也不行。

彼語寂滅者，往而不返。徇生執有者，物而不化。

以言乎失道則均焉。

In an ideal world, I would prefer to have my mind reserved for thinking, and thinking alone. I dread the moment when a thought trails off and a feeling starts, when one faces the eternal challenge of eluding the void for which one does not have words. To speak when one cannot is to blunder. I have spoken by having written—this piece or any piece—for myself and against myself. The solace is with the language I chose. The grief, to have spoken at all.