Category Archives: récits

快到中午的时候，我的另一个表亲也到表哥家来看我。是个跟我同岁的姑娘。身体结实而丰满，浑身都是青春活力，一双眼睛亮闪闪的，笑起来让人忍不住跟着她笑。

在这以前，我知道自己有一个女表亲，知道去洛阳要见到她。可我当时心理上根本没有准备好。对我来说表姐只是个概念而已。谁会想到表姐居然会是一个热得跟太阳一样的年轻女子，会是个人一出场，就把你心里原有的东西全都弄得颠三倒四的女子
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1. Little Devils and Knuckle Raps Growing up, we had no idea our mother was Hakka; we didn’t even know she was Cantonese, from the Province of Canton. We were aware that her looks weren’t exactly like those of the people around us, and that her speech wasn’t exactly like everyone else’s at the hospitalContinueContinue reading “Growing Up Hakka in Non-Hakka Land”

那时候，我们一家住在萨默维尔。有课的日子，坐高地街的公交，到戴维斯换乘地铁红线进城。第一天进城去上课，站在戴维斯地铁站台上等车时，忽然瞅见脚下那些铺地的红砖上刻着字。我感觉好奇，便慢慢后退，一便退，一边识读刻在红砖地上字。不知情的人，以为我不小心掉了个小镍币，在站台上来回找。只不过，我找的不是硬币，而是字。一个词认出来了，又认出一个；一行连起来了，又是一行。没多久，我意识到，自己是在读一首刻在地上的诗。

I’m nobody; are you nobody too?
Then there’s a pair of us.
Hush! Or they’ll banish us, you know.

我是个普通人；你也是吗？
那就有一对了。
嘘！别吱声，不然会被赶出去。
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I was in Boston in 1997, just out of grad school, with no book titles under my belt and little teaching experience. All I had was a terminal degree, which every Jack and Jill in the shared office for adjunct faculty seemed to have. I was, to put it another way, a nobody. I alsoContinueContinue reading “My Run-in with Emily”

你今晚好吗？你的脸好苍白。真希望我能为你做点什么。也许，总有一天，我会找到一个办法，把你从我记忆这间暗房里放出来。到那一天，你终于有了自由，像一只蝴蝶，轻轻试着拍动你那双许久未用透明的翅膀。与光明隔绝那么多年，再一次看见阳光，你一定很高兴吧！我也为你高兴，但也很难过。因为我知道，到那个时候，我就只能站在那里，无能为力地望着你，看着你举翅，轻轻飞起，越飞越远，最后消失在远方，再也不回来
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写这篇文章的时候，意外了解到另有几首同名的《Tal Nutag》，其中有乌仁娜（Urna Chahar-Tugchi）的版本，1995德国发行的，据说名气很大。我有些好奇，找来听了一下。不死不活的，听不下去。我在TikTok 上撞见的无名氏的弹唱，还有安达组合的演唱，都能带给我nutug，带给我那片故乡。在乌仁娜那里，没有。也许，这世上真的有所谓“为音乐而音乐”的音乐，只是我始终没有学会那样去听音乐。给一首歌取名叫故乡，里面却既没有故，也没有乡。也许吧。
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1 There are days when, for a few moments, you would appear before my mind’s eye. Just your face—so clear and vivid it felt as though I could reach out and touch you. The rest of the scene was a blur. It looked as if you were buried beneath ruins, like a survivor in theContinueContinue reading “How Are You Tonight?”

Tarag idegen-u amta niEejiin süünii shimteiTaliin jergelgen miraljagsanEejiin süünii shimtei 1 I once came across a little video on TikTok. In it, a pen in someone’s hand moved steadily across the page, writing a script from top to bottom and from right to left. Though I knew nothing about the language, I recognized the scriptContinueContinue reading “Nutug”

1 Years ago, I read a book called Events and Their Names. Says weddings, explosions, the killing of Caesar by Brutus, my being thrown for a loop, and your being a pain in my ass all morning—these are events. Says that there was a wedding, that there was an explosion, that Caesar was killed byContinueContinue reading “The Fate of an Event”

a house on Ursulines Avenuephoto © kat stromquist 1. The Times-Picayune The local newspaper in New Orleans is The Times-Picayune. For many years, I thought the title was chosen to convey a philosophy of time, and of our life in it: that every story reported in the newspaper was like a picayune—a small, insignificant thingContinueContinue reading “Time’s Picayune”