Chapter 20 no man is an island

Twenty-three years ago, a young poet with budding talent yearned for the future and the distance, and wrote a Utopian fairy tale poem for adults.That poem was called "1980", and the author, Yi Xian, was only twenty-five years old at the time.The first two stanzas of the poem are as follows: The jokes at that time have come to us now, and this is already 1980.For some reason, I often think of this rare work by Yan Xian recently.Over the past twenty years, Taiwan has changed a lot, the whole world has changed, and even Australia, which the poet yearns for, has also changed a lot.Yan Xian, did not immigrate to Australia, and obviously will not move south in the future.Over the years, he has been to the United States, Europe, India, and Southeast Asia, but he has never been to Australia.

On the contrary, I have been to Australia for two months, and I have visited all the big cities in Bibang. As for the red-roofed huts on the grass slopes, I seem to have seen some.Eight years ago today, I was in Sydney.If the twenty-five-year-old Yi Xian suddenly appeared in front of me and asked me what the place was like, I would say: "Of course it is very good, not only the mother kangaroo and the baby bear are fun, but even the Second World War seems to be far away. Not only that, the Taipei Basin is extremely hot, and water conservation needs to be divided into different areas, but there is a cool world, and the penguin gentlemen are all well-dressed, attending the seaside meeting. However, if I were you, I would not rush to move there There, I would rather stay in Taiwan."

One man's dream, another's nightmare.The paradise in the heart of the young Yanxian is not so beautiful in the eyes of the "Aussies".Monks from afar can recite sutras, and the sutras from far away seem to be easier to recite, but in fact, it is not easy to recite sutras from every family. Australia is not all grasslands, on the contrary, the vast interior is full of deserts, dry and hot, nothing to look at.I once stayed overnight in Alice Springs, in the heart of the desert.There is only one street in that small town, and walking from one end to the other is only a cup of tea away. There is only a gray road outside the street with sparse tree shadows, which does not lead to the ancient deserted sand.The coasts on both sides of the north and south are 1,000 kilometers away, and the nearest metropolis is 1,500 kilometers away. It is really a secluded village.It's just that at night, the sounds of people are still and the sounds of nature are silent. It's like lying in a broken clock, listening horizontally and vertically, but there is no sound.It's hard to believe I'd survive civilization if I didn't have a return ticket in my pocket.

I have met almost all the famous Australian poets. In the book that AD Hope gave me, the first poem is his famous work "Australia". The "heart-dead" mainland shocked me greatly.Australia's universities are not recruiting enough students. Firstly, the population is sparse, and secondly, it is easy to find a job after graduating from high school.The university professor complained to me, saying that more than 40% of a month's salary was paid in taxes.There are also many bandits on the streets of Sydney, night walkers should still be careful.In the Canberra park, some New Guinea natives camped and sat there to demonstrate the independence movement, embarrassing the Australian friends who walked with me.Off the northeast coast, the French are testing a nuclear bomb near the island of New Caledonia, sparking angry demonstrations by young Australians.Who says mushroom clouds can't be seen in the southern hemisphere?

If anyone still has fantasies about that "paradise", he might as well watch the Australian-made series "The Female Prisoner".This set of TV series lasted for 30 episodes, and the main scene was a prison in Australia dedicated to female prisoners.The stories of each female prisoner, how they broke the law at the beginning, how they went to jail, how they served their sentences, how they appealed, how their grievances were cleared up, and how they were released are all vividly and vividly described.Of course, the ending of the female prisoner is not always to walk out of the prison door happily.There are also a group of unfortunate people who either died in prison or were not tolerated by society after being released. They felt that the world is narrow but the prison is wide. .Australia was originally the place where the British exiled criminals in ancient times. Humorous Australian friends also admit that they are descendants of desperadoes and vagabonds.It's no wonder that their TV industry can release such a realistic masterpiece of life behind bars.

Yi Xian's "1980" is still a lovely and good poem, but after all, it was written more than twenty years ago. I dare say that the author's youthful feelings are no longer there.At that time, Taiwan's new poetry was popular with exotic flavors, not only some rare works by Yi Xian, but also the works of native Ye Shan, Chen Jinbiao, Chen Dongyang and others.The love of exoticism was originally a manifestation of the idealism of young people.At the same time, Taiwan's culture, society, and politics were not as open as they are now, and everything was not as advanced as it is now. Young writers have a little "autism", so yearning for the outside world is also an understandable reason. Mood, you don't have to say "worshiping foreigners" at every turn.After more than 20 years, the mood of my generation has been completely opposite: we used to imagine that the paradise was far away in the sky, but now everyone has realized that the so-called paradise is the land under our feet, the most beautiful place in the world. islands?In principle, Australia is as big as an island.But between Australia and Taiwan, today's choice is of course to choose his home island.Today, the younger generation embraces this piece of land and this society enthusiastically, and recognizes the country, which has become popular for a while, which is indeed very gratifying.

The trend of studying abroad for more than 20 years seems to have faded.From traveling abroad to dedicating to the homeland, the change in the attitude of the youth is an opportunity for the salvation of the nation and the rebirth of the culture.People's demands and contributions to society should be directly proportional: the higher the demands, the more they should contribute;It is foolish loyalty to only contribute to society without demanding it to become more reasonable and progressive. "Don't ask about the harvest" is wrong.Conversely, it is arrogance and selfishness to only demand and not contribute to society.However, the tide of studying abroad is not without positive meaning, because we have at least learned about the West, and understanding the strengths and weaknesses of the West is precisely the reason to understand China and the similarities and differences between China and the West. "The heart will never die until the Yellow River", but many international students "will not die until the New York".At the same time, there is also a difference between body and mind when traveling overseas.Some people are far away physically and mentally, and it is easy to be a foreigner from now on.Some people live overseas but keep their hearts in the homeland. Although the land is remote but the heart is not far away, this is still a positive number, not a negative number.But such people can be divided into two categories.The first type of "heart-to-heart" approach is just to make demands on the local society, even demanding, such as "why Taiwan is not like the United States", etc., but forgets that he has not contributed anything.The second type of "heart-keeping" way is to give, no matter whether it has been given, is being given, or is about to be given.Although this kind of dedication is separated by geography, it is due to culture.For example, although Chopin lived far away in France, he dedicated his music to Poland. However, Chopin in France is an extension of Poland, not a reduction of Poland. The "positive number" of overseas students can be regarded as an "extension of Taiwan".

Yi Xian also studied abroad twice, but in 1980, he did not settle in a foreign country as predicted in his early poems.From faraway to homecoming, it is the process of Yixian's generation to identify with Taiwan, and this process is very important.Today, it is very clear who is a passer-by and who is a returnee.For writers of his generation, Taiwan provided them with a writing environment, writing companions, published their works, and gave them a group of readers and some critics, which other societies cannot provide.Yi Xian belongs to Henan, but he seems to belong to Taiwan, and of course he belongs to China.The so-called family should not only refer to a piece of land inherited from the ancestors, but also include the fields cultivated by oneself.For writers who grew up in Taiwan, Taiwan is naturally their home.This may not be the "right of birth", but it must be the "right of contribution". "The right to contribute" is exactly the meaning of "land to the tiller". There are two lines at the end of the poem "1980":

There is quite a psychological basis for this.When I immigrated to Australia, I came to the imaginary paradise, but the days in heaven are actually very boring, and "tomorrow" is meaningless in heaven, because there is no need to fight for it.I think that although the life here is happy, if I had to choose, I would rather follow Zhuge Liang to fight in Xishu, because Zhuge Liang must strive for tomorrow, but tomorrow is meaningless to the people in Taoyuan. I know that quite a few of my friends feel isolated and discouraged when Taiwan is an island. I have also heard people say that Taiwan is limited by geography, and it is difficult to see great courage in literature.I am not convinced by this.Napoleon was born and died on the island, but he influenced a generation of continental Europe.Speaking of literature, Lesbos, where Savoy was born, and Sicily, where Shoclidus was born, are both islands, and it is said that Homer was also born on the island of Caios.Needless to say, Japan and the United Kingdom, even in terms of Ireland, there are Swift, Wilde, Shaw, Yeats, Joyce, and Beckett?

Su Shi should be the first great poet in our country to write on the island.His wisdom should always deserve our attention. Volume 4 of "Su Hai Shi Yu" has such a passage: "Dongpo was in Dan'er, and because he tried his handwriting, he said in a book: 'I started to Hainan, looked around the endless sky and water, and said sadly: When will I get this island? Thinking about it, heaven and earth are in stagnant water, Kyushu is in the Great Ocean, and China is in the Sea of ​​Shao, which one is not living on the island? The water in the basin is on the ground, the mustard is floating in the water, and the ants are attached to the mustard. I don’t know what to do. When the water dries up in Shaoyan, the ants go straight away. When they see their kind, they burst into tears and say, "I will never see you again! Do you know that there is a square path between the pitch and the sky? You can laugh when you read this. Wuyin September On the twelfth, I drank thin wine with my guests and got drunk, and wrote this paper with a pen.'”

Dongpo is really worthy of the great writers of the past. Although he claims to write with a letter, he is open-minded after all, and does not take the island as a limit, but he said, "Who is alive who is not on the island?"Ransu's geographical concepts at that time were actually consistent with today's reality.Isn’t the Australia that Yixian was going to be a very large island?The three continents of Asia, Africa, and Europe are nothing more than a giant island.Thinking about it, isn't our green and white ball of water and land just a space island in the eyes of the astronauts? However, Su Shi’s words of self-forgiveness, to comfort us to accept, are only geographical limitations, not psychological self-concealment. "There is a square track leading to the road between pitching and pitching", he has already made it clear at the end of the article.His famous sentence "I don't know the true face of Lushan Mountain, only because I am in this mountain", also points out the importance of objective viewpoint.Islands are only objective existences. If we emphasize the regionalism of islands subjectively, overly exclusive emotionally, or even break away from the great tradition of Chinese culture in consciousness, it is geographical limitations combined with psychological self-concealment. This trend is unhealthy.A sermon by the poet Deng John, which is also the title of a novel by Hemingway, might as well be read together with Su Shi's essay: "No man is an island, self-sufficient; everyone is a part of the continent, a fragment of the whole. If A piece of earth is washed away by the waves, and Europe is lost, as a cape is washed away, your friend's farm or your own. Whoever dies, I lose, because I am related to mankind. So Send no one to ask for whom the knell is tolling. For you the knell is tolling."