Chapter 14 Taiwan Edition Postscript

In October 1992, I was invited by Taipei Fine Arts Museum and "United Daily News" to conduct my first academic visit to Taiwan. After all, Taiwan is Taiwan. Before leaving, I settled down and thought about it carefully.They are all Chinese, knocking on the door for the first time, you should bring some gifts, what should you bring?The most worrying thing in the world is choosing a gift for an undecided object, but books soon come to mind.At that time, my "Cultural Journey" was very popular in the mainland reading circles. I didn't know the reasons for the popularity, and I didn't know whether this popularity was a good thing or a bad thing.Those articles are nothing more than the soliloquy of a long-distance traveller. In order to relieve loneliness, I want to find a few fellow travelers to talk about my feelings along the way, that's all.Unexpectedly, this kind of conversation suddenly became a large-scale report meeting. The mountains and trees disappeared, the flowing clouds disappeared, and the mud path disappeared. I only saw countless pairs of eager, hopeful, or doubtful eyes. flashing.This kind of situation is similar to a public display, which is more ominous than good.Run away quickly, I still want to find a path to travel alone, or a few travel companions who can make daily routines at will.This trip to Taiwan is my solo trip again. When I go there, maybe a few people will listen to my gossip about Chinese landscape and Chinese culture as usual?Neither too lively nor too lonely, this is exactly the way I am looking for.So I stuffed a few stacks of the mainland version of "Cultural Journey" into my suitcase and set off for Taiwan.

Unexpectedly, this solo trip was really difficult.It doesn’t matter if you have to transfer to Hong Kong when you arrive in Taiwan. You have been to Hong Kong many times, but the Hong Kong Immigration Bureau puts the mainland people’s transit procedures in Luohu, so you can’t fly to Hong Kong. You can only stay in Shenzhen overnight. Exit the customs, walk across the Luohu Bridge, and then look for a place to go through formalities.This is logically tolerable. The problem is that I am carrying a box full of books. The weight of the books can be imagined. Although the box has small wheels, the ground at Luohu Port is so uneven, and it has to go up and down. There are many steps, and when I got to the formalities, I was so tired that I could only breathe.I remember a cleaning lady trying to move my suitcase, only to hear a squeak, but no success.The procedures at Luohu Port took a full six hours. There were not many people and the procedures were not complicated. Why it took so long, I still haven't figured it out.My worry is that the academic conference in Taipei will be held tomorrow. With such a delay, can I still buy a ticket to Taipei that day when I arrive in Hong Kong?What's more troublesome is that it is said that you must first go to a Benda building to go through Taiwan's immigration procedures.Where is the Benda Building?How can I get there?I was not informed of all this in advance. I could only ask strangers around me, and finally figured out that I should take the train first, then change to the subway, get off at Admiralty Station, and then look for Benda Building.I remember that batch after batch of scientists and film artists who visited Taiwan later complained about the extreme trouble when transiting through Hong Kong. I laughed and thought to myself, if you go out in groups, the trouble is always limited. I am alone, carrying an extremely heavy book It is impossible to even go to the toilet and ask a partner to take care of the box, and that is the real trouble.

After many twists and turns, I finally found the Benda Building, but this building has many high granite steps from the street to the foyer. I was already sweating profusely and exhausted. How about going up?I wondered, could I take a risk and leave the box on the street and go upstairs to get it after finishing the formalities, or, if I was so cruel, I would not want this box of books?I really checked the place where the box was thrown, but then I thought, if this suspicious box is finally opened by the police, and there are so many books with my name printed on it, the result will be a bit embarrassing.The only way is to grit your teeth and get up step by step.In the busy traffic, it was more difficult for me than crawling on the top of Mount Tai and the wilderness in northern Saibei.This climb, which almost consumed me to the end of my life, ended with the following dialogue:

Today is Saturday, no office in the afternoon. Then tomorrow? Tomorrow is Sunday. Can it only be the day after tomorrow? No.The day after tomorrow is a public holiday and I don't go to work. But tomorrow there is a meeting in Taipei, I have to get there I can't help it, I'm the gatekeeper here. I am sitting on the stone steps of the Benda Building, holding a box in one hand, which contains "Cultural Journey". Walked on a dead end all of a sudden, there are no thorns, no dangerous valleys, no steep slopes, but it is a real dead end.A box full of gossip, a box full of whispers, all about us, a race of people who are as breathless and exhausted as I am, trying to find an interlocutor on the other side of the sea, but people and words are stuck , I sit on the stone steps, the sea is wide and the waves are high.

It wasn't until the sky was getting dark and the stone steps were getting cooler that I came back to my senses and considered what to do.I had to find a hotel to stay and try to contact Taiwan, but there was no taxi stop as far as I could see.Call to find a friend in Hong Kong?But I didn't think about staying in Hong Kong during this trip at all, and I didn't draw the business cards of my friends in Hong Kong before the trip.Sometimes a Lone Ranger urgently needs an acquaintance, even an acquaintance who has only nodded once, but the more urgently needed, the more in vain.Suddenly, I touched a small piece of paper in my jacket pocket, took it out, and saw a few scribbled numbers hidden in the scribbles. I remembered that it was a casual talk with a friend from my hometown not long ago about a trip in my hometown. , He said the names and phone numbers of a few villagers who worked in Hong Kong, and said that if he had the opportunity to come to Hong Kong, he could get together, but I didn't know those villagers at all, so I wrote it down and forgot it.As if I had found a treasure, I remembered that there was a coin-operated phone at a nearby subway station, so I carried my suitcase and went down step by step. First, I changed a lot of coins in a small shop and started to use the coin-operated phone.My fellow countrymen who have never met, once the phone is connected, what language should I use to ask you for help?Will you come rushing to help me just because of such a self-introduction from Yuyao people?In this world full of scams and deceptions, even if I call you in authentic Yuyao dialect, how much trust will I have?Fortunately, I didn't encounter embarrassment. I don't know if the phone number was wrong or the fellow villagers all went to spend the weekend. The phone rings all empty, empty and desolate.

But in the end I was rescued.When the phone rang in vain, I suddenly saw the instructions posted on the phone, that coin-operated international calls can also be made, so I called the reception unit in Taiwan. They were worried about me and asked me to call again in half an hour. After listening to the results of their discussion, I got a number that could rescue me. I laughed when I heard the names. They were old friends for many years, Dr. Yang Shipeng and his wife, Ms. Han Weiquan.With friends, everything can be solved. In the next two days, we will play and chat together, and then send them on the plane.At Taiwan Taoyuan Airport, in addition to being greeted by a few very capable friends from the reception unit, I also saw Ms. Yao Baifang holding flowers. She said that she came to pick me up on behalf of Mr. Bai Xianyong.When I arrived in downtown Taipei, the closing ceremony of the academic conference was already underway. They knew that I had arrived, and they were all waiting for me. I was unkempt and had no time to tidy up. I went straight to the rostrum to report the journey, and the conference ended amidst laughter and sighs. .Then I had no business to do, visited the Palace Museum, gave a public lecture at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, and met batch after batch of old and new friends.Among the new friends was Mr. Yindi, who sat kindly and elegantly in the coffee seat of the hotel where I stayed, and gave people a great sense of trust as soon as they met.This writer and publisher has already become interested in the book in my box, and Mr. Bai Xianyong recommended it to him repeatedly.He trusted Mr. Bai, so he also trusted me, trusted my soliloquy when I was trekking in the hinterland of China, and trusted the simple gift I brought to my friends on this island in such a state of embarrassment.

It's Mr. Bai Xianyong again!I don't know what words to use to describe this outstanding Chinese writer who lives far away in the beautiful and peaceful Santa Barbara.Many years ago, Mr. Hu Weimin, a famous director in Shanghai, directed his "A Dream in the Garden" and invited me to be a literary consultant, and then met him in Guangzhou. I have read all his novels by heart, and his speech and behavior let me see An elegant style that brings together the exquisite life of the East and the West.From the very beginning, he enthusiastically introduced me to newspapers and publishing houses in Taiwan. At that time, this kind of introduction was accompanied by a series of annoying technical labor. He first took my manuscript from the United States to Shanghai, and then sent it to Taiwan. In Taiwan, he took care of all the complicated affairs, and all the remuneration and royalties from Taiwan were sent to him, and he personally remitted it to me.Whenever I receive a remittance check in both Chinese and English from the post office, I always feel deeply guilty.When I came this time, he happened to be visiting relatives in Taiwan, and he was specially entrusted by the "China Times" to have a late-night conversation with me on a wide range of topics, which was really pleasant.

Thanks to the efforts of Mr. Bai Xianyong and Mr. Yindi, "Cultural Journey" was quickly spread in Taiwan, and many unbelievable things happened here, and I also received letters from Taiwanese readers from time to time.I read all the relevant evaluation articles in Taiwan newspapers and magazines one by one, and the one who moved me the most was Ms. Ouyang Zi.I have carefully read the articles and monographs on Bai Xianyong's novels that she wrote carefully back then, and I already knew that she had poor eyesight. How can I imagine that she has read all the chapters of "Cultural Journey" and wrote such exquisitely written words? Detailed long-form reviews.Reading her comments, I feel like entering a ritual, with the thrill of being understood and the joy of being dissected.I've been wanting to write her a letter, but I don't know how.To a person who understands you too well, saying anything seems superfluous.The only thing to do is to keep writing, to answer all good intentions with works.This is the origin of the eleven chapters of "Shan Dwelling Notes".In the past two years, not only did I not write a letter to Ms. Ouyang Zi, I even rarely wrote to Mr. Bai Xianyong, who used to correspond frequently. I also did not reply to many letters from Taiwanese readers.But I am writing letters almost every day. That is the writing of "Notes of a Mountain Dwelling".Now that I have had such in-depth communication with you, it is inevitable that I will go further and want to chat with you on a more complicated level.

I started writing this book in my mountain residence at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.Obviously, I don't care whether what I write is prose or not. I just want to use the dialogue that "Cultural Journey" has started to lead the content to bigger and more depressing historical problems.When you first meet a friend, you might as well talk a little more relaxedly, but when you get to know your heart, you want to express the pain that is deeply buried in your heart. Everything you confide may make your friend frown, but this is the obligation of a friend and the price of intimacy.Even readers who are used to the expression style of "Cultural Journey" may not be used to "Notes on Mountain Dwelling". I'm so sorry for getting up to enjoy the cold wind and fallen leaves.

I remember meeting Mr. Yu Guangzhong on the mountain road of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. I gave him a copy of "Cultural Journey" just sent from Taiwan, and asked him to correct it. Mr. Yu wrote to me the next day, thanking me The combination of intellectual and emotional aspects of the article, this award, later appeared in his long report at an international prose seminar.I was afraid in my heart: "Notes on a Mountain Dwelling" in my hand might be a marginal experiment on the ratio of intellect and sensibility. Will this experiment disgust Mr. Yu?No matter how many viewers there are when a person does something and composes, there will not be many people who are anxiously afraid of.For me, several of these objects are in Taiwan, and Mr. Yu Guangzhong bears the brunt.

Although the eleven articles of "Notes on Mountain Dwelling" have not been published in mainland China, they have been serialized in "Harvest" magazine edited by Mr. Ba Jin for two years. In terms of social response, they are stronger than "Cultural Journey". The importance of touching on issues and how these issues echo Chinese realities is relevant.Of course, as some friends already know, after the publication of articles such as "Su Dongpo's Breakthrough", "The Distant Absolute Sound" and "The Dark Corner of History", some people somehow offended some people, speculated or accused me of alluding to real people, Then they used all kinds of weird articles to form a siege to me.This made my friends and students very angry, but I urged them not to fight back.In today's chaotic world, who would really take the nagging of literati seriously?My article actually aroused such a response, which is really an unexpected surprise. It proves that I have achieved results in picking up the slag that still has heat in ancient waste mines, and I should be grateful. Many friends wrote to me and asked me what I planned to write after "Notes on a Mountain Dwelling". My answer was to stop writing for the time being, to read and think more; , I am most afraid of repetition, whether it is content or form.Therefore, if a friend is angry: How amazing are all Chinese prose written in this way!I said: I will never write it like this, not even myself. Perhaps there is only one point of continuation: in the future, I will still travel hard or live in the mountains, and I don't want to sink into the hustle and bustle of the city.Even if my name is mixed in the noise, my heart is only floating in the distance, misty and misty. On the night of June 8, 1995 in Shanghai