Years of Poems and Spirits

It is a cold, damp Seattle evening. Red Square is dark and foggy. People in hooded jackets walking in and out of the vast fuzziness around me like figures in paintings.

Still, I was pretty emotional being back on campus after so long. When I first went to the Enchantments, looking at the golden larch trees pitched against intensely blue autumn sky, I was pretty overwhelmed and thought, somehow, I don’t deserve such a moment.

This is not the same environ by any means but the feeling is the same. It is a luxury to be in school. Not that everyone in academia is any different from people I see on the street. But in a classroom, when it comes to learning, everyone has to put on a different face, hide one’s psyche, talks in a certain tongue and thinks in a certain way. In other words, there is certain role-play while in a classroom. And that, is exactly what a Platonic “form” to me.

Tonight’s topic is Xin Jiang. Maybe the emotion carried through but I was in tearful despair when a couple of kids from China spoke passionately in defense of their government. I thought of Yang Lei, the one I know that is closest to being a martyr. But mostly I thought of myself. Of how lonely being is. Maybe Camus is right, Sisyphus must be happy.

At the end of the day, still had to work into late night. It has been very stressful recently. I think I am a little bit on edge now. What is not helpful is an email from Harrison Street. As confusing as it was upsetting. What a shame something this good could turn ugly this quickly. But life is too short to dwell on that.

On more thing -

First time to listen to Prof. Kasaba lecture. He is one that is not very good at giving small talk but very passionate about big arguments. His topic was Turkish reaction during the Urumqi unrest. It is quite fascinating. He was pretty critical as I would, but also saw the irony of Turkish Nationalism: the duality of ethnocentricity and desire for material glory (e.g. the Turkish President just visited China a month before). Turkey was one of the few countries that really fascinated me (as a case study) in Jackson School (students from Turkey are not unlike those from China nowadays but a little bit self-critical). I had so many questions.

Finally finished reading Ian Frazier’s travel journal across Siberia. Loved it.

I liked “Cold Mountain” a lot, even though I usually don’t get excited with this type of romance-tragedy. For example, I know what The English Patient was trying to say, but I just didn’t feel anything afterwards. Cold Mountain, somehow, is different. The connection to “Odysseus” was unmistakable, and if the impact of that ancient epic was dormant before, Cold Mountain certainly awoke it. I was swept away.

Soon I learned that the title was named after 寒山 the poet. Although I don’t know much about Han Shan (and I still don’t. As much as I admire Frazier, I don’t think Han Shan is the same guy to me as he’s to him. So I just didn’t try), it is enough for me to pick out the Asian sentiment in Frazier’s work. And the Siberian journal is another example.

What I read in the journal was a sense of nostalgia, of attachment to the past (and present) being lost and a slight touch of homesickness. I guess for a popular Western literati, you can’t get more Asian than that. But I really appreciate his angle here: there was a parallel in the vastness of the terrain and the infinity of history. What we consider as “history” today is nothing but a narrow and crooked narrative not unlike the barely-maintained highway threading across Siberia.

Reminded me of a trip of my own. I was in Dun Huang a couple of years ago. ZR and I visited an ancient ruin called “锁阳城”. It was one of the frontier posts manned against the desert nomads since Tang Dynasty. At its peak, the walled area housed thousands of people. But when we got there, it was almost buried in sand dunes drifted south from the nearby Gobi Dessert.

A village girl came to greet us. The ruin was so remote and so little known outside of the famous mural caves, she was as lonely as the half-buried ruin in the middle of the dessert. As we walked onto the once teethed castle wall, a gust of wind whipped up. ZR and the girl stayed behind but I pressed on. At the out-most point where I stood, I could see nothing but an endless span of land that touched sky with a blurred line of horizon. Every here and there, a cyclone danced up, drifted for a while, then faded.

To my left, about less than a mile, was a half collapsed kiln-like structure. It was said to be the stupa of a once prominent Buddhist temple complex. Today, except this structure, there was nothing left. All I found after a short walk around was part of a mummified goat lightly covered by sand under a cluster of desert shrub.

Then and there, I thought I was touching the true, pristine history.

For some reason, a 苏东坡 poem popped in my head:
人生到处知何似?应似飞鸿踏雪泥。
泥上偶然留指爪,鸿飞那复计东西。
老僧已死成新塔,坏壁无由见旧题。
往日崎岖还记否,路长人困蹇驴嘶。

前一段突然想起在科大时的一个朋友，叫杨雷。他在89年学运后吃了不少苦。虽然有些人受的打击比他要大，但他们都熬过来了。可杨雷却不幸早逝。

杨雷也是科大的，比我高几届。我们认识得很晚。第一次认识是在一个学习小组会上。那时几个积极分子经常聚在一起，谈论时事和新的思想。有一个朋友知道我在读一本美国史（William Manchester: The Glory and the Dream A Narrative History of America)， 就叫我过去“给大家说说”。

我早听说杨雷是那个小组的发起人之一，见到他时，先头倒是没看出来他是个带头的。整个过程中，他很安静，似乎一直在沉思。直到讨论快结束，要准备以后的活动时，我才感到好像大家的意见都很自然地要经过他。那次我讲得十分的糟糕，越说越没底。我想大家都看出来了。杨雷不仅没怪我，还邀请我继续参加他们的活动。

等学运开始后，我们交往反而少了。我们不在一个校园上，我又经常往北京跑，所以彼此很少见到。只是在北京开枪以后的第二天，我们几个领头的带着大家去合肥钢铁厂组织罢工，轰轰烈烈地折腾了一天。在工厂里游行时，他几乎是个旁观者。我见到他时，他站在路边树荫下。当时，我是full of myself，可杨雷好像还是那么安静。当时的印象是杨雷不是那种举起拳头喊口号的人。

之后的一年是最无聊的：杨雷，龙波和李亚都被抓去上学习班。不知怎么没有我的事。于是我就专心准备出国。我一边考着TOEFL，一边消息传来说不少人受了处分。后来龙波和杨雷都被勒令退学了。当时杨雷还有一年就要毕业了，离开学校，没机会拿到文凭，又没关系出国，他一下子就成了上海上万的待业青年之一了。

我和杨雷谈得最多的一次是我第二次去上海签证的时候。签证批下来了，我知道总算走成了。但不知道为什么要走。1984年是我”coming to age”的一年。当时35周年大庆，又是阅兵又是普天同庆，把我搞成一个热血的国家主义者。似乎我活着的目的是”经世治国“。不到五年，我的世界好像倒了一个个儿。我虽然也愤怒，也漫骂，但心里我知道我走错了路。可是为什么错了，怎么是对的，我一点没有谱。好像又回到了那次在学习小组上发言时的感觉，越想越没底。

我本没想见杨雷。但杨雷对我却十分的热情，拉我去他们家坐。好像他那时已经结婚了。可还没有工作，加上身上背着个诺大的政治包袱，要是我担心还来不及。他倒好，和我谈了好久，说了不少事情，只可惜我已经都不记得了。后来从他们家出来，路过一家小酒吧，他拉我进去了。

那时上海的酒吧和街上的小餐馆差不多。里面放满了桌子，铺着桌布，上面再压块玻璃。虽然是大白天，但里面黑得很，照明靠墙上混合在一起的霓虹灯和点亮的广告牌。我们挑了一张桌子坐下来之后，杨雷问我要些什么，说他请客。我竟然答应了。

我记得我点的是”施格兰冰酒露”，没意识到里面有烈酒。所以一会儿就头晕脑胀。记得好像谈到在来上海以前，我刚在电影院里看了个电影，其中有直升飞机的镜头。我说我当时叫了出来：“这不是运尸体的飞机吗”。我的朋友马上掐住我叫我住嘴。可周围坐得满满的人，没有一个出声。好像我真是在说给我自己听的。

也许酒喝的太多了，我们渐渐地都说不下去了。等从酒吧出来时，竟然仍天光大亮。我们都意识到是分手的时候了，杨雷突然说了一句，“出去吧，这样也好。你在外头见见世面，学些东西，等你回来的时候，好多事情也许会变了。那时正好需要你这样的人。”

我带着这句话离开了中国，带着这希望过起了打工求学的日子。毕业后万幸找到了一个工作。之后又熬啊熬地等到了绿卡。年薪一下涨了一倍。又从一个穷人中的公寓搬到自己家的房子，渐渐地在他乡异地扎下了根。89年，学运，坦克，游行，罢工，都在记忆中淡漠。杨雷的话也渐渐忘了。

过了七八年，有一次下班回家，突然接到龙波从广东打来的电话。告诉我杨雷刚刚去世。我愣了一下，好像一切突然又回到眼前。

20年了。我一直觉得生死之间不过像在悬崖边上往下看：活着的人只要仔细找，总能找到他想找的灵魂。我并没好好找过杨雷，但是20年以来我觉得我有些地方倒是和杨雷无意中越来越像了。我不会再在电影院里叫出声了，更不会去组织罢工了。

前一段，当我想起杨雷的时候，我曾经在Google，Baidu上猛搜索了一把，想找出点蛛丝马迹来证明他的存在。可是一点线索也没找到。这里写下几笔，替他在历史上留个存根。龙波报丧的时候提到杨雷夫妇有一个孩子。也许有一天他的孩子想起父亲，但愿他能找到这篇博客。