活出萬語千言
語言即存在，不能被語言描述的生活即為不存在。於是，我們為了存在而寫作。
《成長是孩子自己的旅程》是我多年來為《財新周刊》所寫的專欄文章合集。《財新周刊》文化專欄的作者以各行業的專家學者為主。我才疏學淺，從未奢望過能成為一個專欄作者。我跟《財新》的淵源，始於當初他們還有小說專欄的時候。當年我投稿了兩個短篇，從而結識了編輯徐曉。我的短篇都是與孩子在北美的成長有關，徐曉就建議我給《財新》寫一個以孩子成長為主題的專欄。按她的設想，這個專欄以講故事為特色。我起初有點猶豫，因為我的故事還想留著以後寫小說用呢。徐曉說：“你寫小說時再用一遍，沒關係。”我說：“可是讀者會對我印象不好，覺得這個人生活積累太少，一條素材反複用。”徐曉說：“這是好事兒呀，說明讀者能記得你。”
於是，我就開始了這個以講故事為主的專欄。在我開始寫作的時候，我的女兒14歲，兒子9歲。兩個都是反叛的年紀。每到交稿的時候，我都要搜腸刮肚苦思冥想：這個月我又對他們進行了哪些教育？回憶的閘門打開，失敗的點滴洶湧而來。我在教育方麵實在是沒有作為，看到別人家的孩子都是家長讓幹什麽就幹什麽，我就想：可能我遇到了世界上最不聽話的孩子。那麽，我就寫寫他們怎麽不聽話，我怎麽無能為力吧。我的專欄經常像是自我辯護：這倆孩子實在是不可雕也，我盡力了。
而另一方麵，我的孩子對我極度不滿。他們最反感的一點，就是我在他們成長過程中頻繁搬家。我曾經偷看過我女兒和她好朋友的對話。她的好朋友安慰她說：“每個家長都有不講理的地方。你媽媽的問題就在於她總是拿不定主意到底在哪裏生活最好。其實吧，這個算是比較輕的毛病。”
在我寫孩子們的故事的時候，我女兒也在寫我。她在八年級的時候寫過一篇作文，是她的英語老師給我看的。記得是在家長會上。我看到結尾一段，當場哭了出來。老師安慰我說：“Don't worry. Vanessa has a big heart."
一轉眼，七年過去了，我女兒已經上大學三年級了。我們之間曾有過的激烈爭吵，我們一起經曆過的艱難時刻，現在回頭看，那些事件本身都無足輕重。然而，正是因為無足輕重，寫下來，才算是經曆過，猶如在似水年華中拋下了一根錨，為無情的歲月留下了見證。今天翻出我女兒八年級時寫的一篇作文，看到最後一段，仍然流下淚來，就和當初第一次讀時一樣。
這篇作文的結尾是這樣寫的：”我改變很多。現在我知道世界上確實有很多需要了解的東西，而我永遠無法窮盡。我也開始承認：我真地不知道自己將去往何方。如今我能做的隻是安穩地坐好，享受旅程，而不是試圖去駕駛、掌控。我不再懼怕黑暗，因為我已經接受了未知。“
（附上我女兒的英文原文和我的翻譯）
My Path to Now
Vanessa Tian
“We’re going back to China” my mom said, over the phone. She sounded like she decided this quite a while ago, and just remembered to tell me now. That was probably the case, since she was in California, and I was in Vancouver.
“Why?” I asked her calmly. You’d probably expect me react differently, but I wasn’t surprised. You see, I’ve never really stayed at the same school for more than a year or two. On top of that, for the last month or two, I’ve sort of been staying home alone. My mom pays my best friend to sleep over in my house and her mom to feed me once in a while. I didn’t think this could last long. I’ve been expecting the end of the story for quite a while.
“The way we’ve been living… We need to go back,” my Mom explained. I wondered why she had to think of these things just as I was settling into a school. Every single time just as I settle into life, she has to tear me away like ripping off a band aid.
“When?” I asked. This ringing noise vibrated in my ears, and I had to hold my breath to not cry in front of her. Even though I expected this, I was still hoping for it not to happen. Like that test you took, knew you did horribly in, but still hoped for a good grade.
“In a month or so I guess… We have to remem-” I hung up before she could finish her sentence. My heart felt like it dropped to my feet, rolled out the door, and got ran over by a drunken truck driver. My vision turned blurry and I realized I was pacing back and forth. I slid down to the floor and the thoughts started flooding in. The last time I was in Beijing, the second I stepped off the plane I couldn’t stop coughing because of the pollution, got stuck in traffic for two hours on the way home from the airport, and spent the rest of the time trying to piece together what was going on in Canada with the bits and pieces of information Facebook emailed me saying things like “Sophia checked in at pizza hut with Vivian and Jessica”, and “You have 5 new friend requests”
I used to be so big headed. I never tried new things because I thought that I knew everything worth knowing. I thought that I could do anything. I thought I had my whole future planned out. In a way, ignorance was bliss.
And here I was, in Beijing.
Even though I assumed I was going to lock myself in my room until my parents agreed to let me go back to Canada, I adapted very quickly. The new school wasn’t THIS[i]. The best way I could describe it is a Chinese private school for rich kids. I loved it in ways I could never even think of loving my old one. The new school was so much more relaxed and free, and no one really took anything too seriously. Class was filled with people doing random things, including eating, sleeping, jump roping and, last but not least, reading comic books. Nights in the dorm were spent having contests where we would try to be the last one awake. I fell in love with the way they didn’t think about the future, not even the next day. Life just seemed so easy. So, when my mom brought up THIS, I didn’t take her very seriously.
“I’ve been looking at some schools” She said. That didn’t surprise me very much. She was always looking at schools. What surprised me was the tone of her voice. It sounded like she was trying not to set off a bomb.
“So?” I asked, thinking that she’ll forget this very soon.
“I really like one of them, and it’s a real international school too!” She was referring to the fact that the school I was going to called itself an international school, but half the people didn’t understand a thing the foreign teachers said.
“I’m not going, okay?”I answered. I didn’t love my school too much but the thought of being anywhere else was unbearable.
“Just take the entry test, and if you don’t like the school, you don’t have to go, okay?” Her logic was inescapable, I had to say yes. There really was no harm in taking the entry test.
“Fine, but I’m not going to that school next year.” I decided.
The day I went for the test, I was less nervous than I was when I decided on coke at McDonald’s instead of orange soda. I knew that I wasn’t going to go there anyways, who cared about if I got in or not?
The test went a little like this; “What is Timmy doing?” The guy who was testing me asked and pointed at a picture of a boy painting.
“Painting” I answered, and rolled my eyes a little.
“And what color is he using?” He asked patiently.
“Uh, blue?”
“Good!” He said, the way you’d talk to a kindergartener who learned to spell their own name.
My little brother was extremely nervous though. My mom got him with the whole better for your future talk. He thought he’d grow up to be a hobo if he didn’t get in. He literally cried for a whole hour after he found out I got in and not him. I almost did too for the opposite reason, but I burst out laughing at the irony of it. It’s a good thing they gave him a second chance the next month.
That night, my mom gave me the good for your future lecture too. It kept me up all night.
The more I thought about, the more I knew that my future isn’t going anywhere at my current school. Hula hooped during history, got the whole class to stay up all night and then sleep all day in class the next day, and helped at least six people pass the English final exam by shouting out all of the multiple choice answers aren’t exactly the most impressive things to put on my college application.
By the next morning, I knew that I had to suck it up for my future. Before I could regret it, I told my mom wire the money for next year.
Looking back on my path to now, I can see how twisted it was. Parts of it were so narrow and dark I wandered off into the woods. I just hope that I’m on the right path now. I guess that if I was in Canada, this would be my first year of high school[ii]. I would be walking to 7-11 for slurpees after school instead of getting squashed by strangers on the subway. Instead of Chinese class, we’d have French class, and pollution would be this far away concept buried in the back of my mind.
I’ve changed so much too. Now I know that there’s so much to know in the world before I knew it all. I now admit that I really have no idea where I’m going, and I should really just sit back and enjoy the ride instead of trying to control it all. I am no longer afraid of the dark, because I have accepted the unknown.
[i] THIS: The acronym for Tsinghua International School. This article, “My Path to Now”, was a homework assigned by a English teacher at THIS asking the students to describe their lives before entering THIS.
[ii] This article was written when the author is in 8th grade, the freshman year of high school in Canada.
迄今為止
田雨
我媽媽在電話裏告訴我：“我們要回中國去”。聽她的口氣，仿佛她做出這個決定已經有一段相當長的時間了，隻是剛剛想起來通知我。不過這也許是實情，因為說這話時她在美國的加利福尼亞，而我在加拿大的溫哥華。
“為什麽？”我平靜地問道。你也許會期待我作出別的反應，但事實卻是：我並不吃驚。迄今為止我從未在同一個學校呆過兩年。更何侃，過去的一、兩個月，我基本上是獨自在家。我媽媽付錢給我的朋友。我朋友住在我家裏，她的媽媽時不時給我做頓飯。我並不認為這種狀況能夠持續下去。我早已經猜到故事會有這樣的結局。
“我們這樣生活實在是不行……嗯，我們必須回去。”我媽媽解釋道。我實在納悶為什麽每當我剛剛適應一個新學校，她就開始產生這樣的想法。每一次，當我剛剛融入生活，她就動手把我拉走，就像撕下一塊創可貼。
“什麽時候？”我問。一種噪聲開始在我耳朵裏嗡嗡作響，我屏住呼吸，不能在她麵前哭。盡管我早已經猜到了結局，我仍然希望它並不真正發生。就像在一場考試過後，明知自己考得不怎麽樣，但總還是希望分數能高一點兒。
“一個月吧，差不多吧……我們還得……”沒等她說完，我就把電話掛了。我覺得自己的心掉到了地上，一溜小跑滾出門外，又被一個醉駕司機碾了一下。我的視線模糊起來，我在屋裏來回地走。然後我坐到地上，思緒如潮水一般湧來。我想起去年在北京渡假的經曆。下了飛機之後的第一秒就開始咳嗽。汽車在高速路上爬行，從機場到家竟然開了兩個小時。整個假期都隻能接收到來自回加拿大的信息碎片，然後自己再努力複原那邊到底發生了什麽。“索菲亞和維維安去了必勝客”，“臉書上有五個人想加你為好友”。等等。
我曾經是那麽地自負。我從不嚐試新事物，因為我認為值得了解的東西我都已經了解了。我相信我能勝任任何工作。我也以為我規劃好了自己的未來。在某種程度上，無知可真是福份。
而現在，我來到了這裏，北京。
起初我認為我可以把自己鎖在房間裏抗議，直到我父母同意送我回加拿大。不過，我很快就適應了。新學校並不是THIS（譯者注：THIS是清華國際學校的簡稱。這篇文章是作者來到THIS後應英語老師要求寫的一篇作文。老師要求每個學生描述他們在進入THIS之前的生活以及為什麽選擇這所學校），對它最恰如其分的定義是：一所給中國富裕孩子開辦的私立學校。我竟然愛上了它，當然是基於一種前所未有的理由。這裏有意想不到的自由和放鬆。這裏的人不會嚴肅認真地對待任何事情。學生們在課上可以做的事情五花八門，包括吃東西、睡覺、跳繩，以及讀漫畫書。宿舍裏的生活內容主要是比賽誰睡得更晚。我喜歡他們這種不為未來—甚至不為明天—憂慮的思想狀態。生活如此之輕鬆，以至我媽媽提起THIS的時候，我連想都沒想就拒絕了。
“我最近一直在考察學校”，她說。這話一點也不讓我吃驚。多年來她一直都在做這件事。讓我吃驚的是她的語調。聽起來她很小心，好像我是一顆炸彈，她得留神別把它引爆了。
“是嗎？”我問，心想過幾天她就會把這事兒忘了。
“我真地很喜歡其中一所。那是一所真正的國際學校！”她強調“真正的”，意思是我現在的學校號稱“國際學校”，實際上一半同學聽不懂外國老師在講什麽。
“我不去，好吧？”我說。我並不那麽喜歡我當時所在的學校。我不能忍受的是再次轉學這樣想法。
“就去考一次試，如果你不喜歡，你當然可以不去。好嗎？”她的邏輯似乎無可反駁，我隻能說好。考試本身似乎並無害處。
考試那天我很放鬆。選擇題十分容易，比要我決定是喝一杯可樂還是一杯橙汁更容易。我反正不會去這所學校，我才不關心到底考得怎麽樣呢。我的弟弟倒是十分緊張，因為我媽媽事先向他做了長篇演說，關於這個考試如何關係到他的未來。這讓他覺得他如果考試失敗，長大後有可能無家可歸。考試結束後，當他發現他沒考上而我居然考上了的時候，他哭了整整一個小時（譯者注：此處不符合事實。作者的弟弟確實第一次沒有考上，但並沒有哭一個小時，而是化悲痛為力量，在一個月後的第二次考試中取得成功。）
那天晚上，我媽媽又向我發表了一次長篇演說，害得我整晚都沒睡著。
我想來想去，確實也覺得我在當時那個學校再呆下去是沒有前途的。在曆史課上玩呼拉圈，逗得同學們整晚不睡第二天上課時呼呼大睡，通過大聲喊出多重選擇題的答案而幫助至少六個同學通過英語考試，這些都不能作為“領袖才能”的證據寫進大學申請文書裏。
一夜無眠，直到天亮，我意識到為了未來我隻能咬牙忍耐。於是，在反悔之前，我告訴我媽媽：去匯款交學費吧。
回望所來路，我能看出這是一條多麽扭曲的道路，就像密林中的小路一樣，很多地段都是如此黑暗、狹窄。設想如果我現在在加拿大，這就是我高中生活的開始（譯者注：加拿大的學製是7+5，小學7年，中學5年。作者寫作此文時是8年級，正好是加拿大中學一年級）。放了學我會走路到“711”買一杯“斯樂皮”，而不是在地鐵上被陌生人擠得喘不過氣來；外語課我會學法語，而不是學中文；至於汙染，更是被埋藏在大腦深處的一個遙遠的概念。
但是，我改變很多。現在我知道世界上確實有很多需要了解的東西，而我永遠無法窮盡。我也開始承認：我真地不知道自己將去往何方。如今我能做的隻是安穩地坐好，享受旅程，而不是試圖去駕駛、掌控。我不再懼怕黑暗，因為我已經接受了未知。
