六十年，彈指一揮間

                                                     郴維鱗 

 

  我的家鄉在中國浙江省，在我還很的小時候我們家就搬到上海，所以我對上海很熟悉，可以說是半個上海人，其實我基本上把上海當作老家。

 

  當我還是十六、七歲的時候，就參加了那時候的國民黨軍隊，成為一位當時十分有名的將領的部下。由於所在的部隊走南闖北，我因而到過不少地方。抗日戰爭時期，我們到了廣西、雲南一帶。後來部隊要挑選一小隊人到反法西斯盟軍設在南亞的一個軍事機械培訓班去學習，我也被派去了。我們學的是軍車、坦克的修理技術。那時候坦克在中國的軍隊中還不多見，故可以說，我們是最早被派到國外去接觸坦克修理這一撬門的一批中國人。以後，我便成為坦克機械技術員，並在上世紀三十年代下旬經南亞來到了英國；後來又從軍人恢複為平民身份。當時，要想在英國尋找一份修理機械的工作是極不容易的，更何況剛出來時我連一句英語也不會說。那時旅居在英國的中國人並不多。為了生存，我隻好打雜謀生：先是做飯堂的廚工，後到東倫敦的船塢當搬運工人。那時位於倫敦‘狗島’區的船塢碼頭十分繁忙，遠洋輪船進進出出。做搬運的工作是十分繁重，但那時我還年輕，氣力還不錯，搬運這玩意兒還是吃得消的。盡管如此我還是遇到很多這樣那樣的困難，首先不懂英語就無法與人溝通。所以開頭幾年我活得極不如意。既然在英的華人不多，女的就更是風毛麟角。我經幾番周折好不容易才終於找到一位本地姑娘，與她成親數年後我們有了兩個孩子。人們都說好景不長，果真我們終於還是分了手。這次分手使我感到很苦惱，我曾經極力維持這段婚姻，對方卻不依，非要一刀兩斷不可。

 

幾年後，我又一次成了家，而且也不止一次地轉行，到過好幾個城鎮打工。但轉來轉去，大都是一些粗重的活兒。後來慢慢地我有了一些積儲，便開始搞了一個小小的飯館。那時的中式飯館很單調，不像現在的那麽堂皇，菜譜更是單調得可憐。不過在本地人當中，真正吃過中國菜的畢竟不多，沒幾個人味道上提出什麽樣的質問。另一方麵，那時根本很少見到新鮮的中國蔬菜，廚房用的都是罐頭，即使你有好廚藝，好的菜還是不易做。好婦難為無米之炊嘛。其實搞飯館生意也不是等閑的，風險很大。由於生意冷淡，我曾經被迫關閉過飯館去替人打工，一段日子後又搬遷到新的地方去，從新開張做生意。這樣跑炮停停的，生活就像接力賽一樣。我先後在英格蘭的西北、中部的城鎮呆過，活得非很自在。在英國的數十年中，我很少到別的國家去。二十年前我退休後，才有機會到外邊去走走。自九十年代起，隻要條件許可，我便回中國去看看，探訪那邊的親朋戚友。我從小離家，一轉眼幾十年，家鄉有的親人還把我當作為富翁，頭幾次回家他們都向我要錢。其實我兩袖清風，至今每天兩頓飯還得靠政府的退休金。

 

我的兩個孩子現都成了中年人了，各自有自己的家室，而且他們住在英格蘭中部，我們並沒有經常來往。逢年遇節，我的女兒或許給我掛個電話問安。他們不懂中文，他們的孩子更不用說了。在台灣，我還有一個弟弟，他是四十年代末期到那邊去的。象我一樣，他在那邊挨了一輩子，到現在還是一無所有。我們自幾十年前分手後至今一直未曾見麵重逢，有幾次夜深人靜時他給我打來電話，兩個老人百感交集，互相聽得見對方抽泣的聲音。

 

我近來身體大不如前，走起路來腿很容易生痛。前些時每逢天氣暖和時，我便會自個兒公園裏去溜達，現在連這樣的基本享受也不是經常做得到。倫敦的華人社區大多數人說廣東話，而我隻會說英語、上海話和普通話，跟那裏的老人們溝通也不容易。所以我也沒有經常參加社區的活動，心裏頭倒是很悶，很孤獨。有時我想，不如回老家去度過剩下的日子吧。但一想所需要的經費，又不得不取消這種念頭。

 

Sixty Years in A Dream

 

 My real hometown is in Zhejiang Province, China. But we moved to Shanghai when I was small. For this reason I know Shanghai quite well; so I like to think myself as half a native Shanghai. Indeed I more or less see Shanghai as my hometown.

 

When I was about 15 or16 years old, I joined the Guomingdang army, and became a soldier under the wings of a then very well known general. Because our battalion kept moving around all the time, I got the chance to travel to lots of places. During the war against the Japanese invasion, we moved to the Guangxi, Yunnan region. Later because a small team of soldiers had to be sent for tank mechanics training in a field training camp set up by the Allied Forces in South Asia, I was chosen as one of the trainees as well. During those days, tanks were not actually very common in Chinese armies. So in a way we were the first Chinese soldiers to be trained abroad for this kind of skills. As a result, I became a tank mechanic, and later in the late1930s found myself landed in England where I was a migrant of sort. At that time, in England, finding work that allowed me to use my newly acquired skills was not easy at all, let alone I did not speak English when I first arrived. But then at the time there weren’t many Chinese around either. In order to survive, I had to work as a labourer, a kitchen worker, and then a porter in East London’s docklands. London’s East Docklands were a very busy port then, lots of big ships coming in and out all the time. My job as a porter was a hard one too. Luckily, I was young and quite strong, able to cope with all the hardship that came along. But still I had lots of problems: First since I did not speak English very well, I was not able to communicate easily with people around me. So for me the first few years here were not entirely a happy experience. Since there weren’t many Chinese anyway, finding a Chinese girl was almost impossible. After some setbacks I was able wed a local girl; and the marriage later brought us two children after some years. But good things don’t always last. Before long we separated. The separation caused me lots of headaches. I had done all I could to save the marriage but failed. Objection came from the other side.

 

I few years later I married again. I swapped between jobs and worked in a number of different places. But even so my work was always manual. Later I started a small catering business, thanks to the savings I had previously accumulated from my wages. Chinese restaurants then were very basic, very different from what you see today, and what was known as menu was even more basic. But since few people had ever had authentic Chinese food, we did not always have lots of people complaining about the tastes. What’s more, since there weren’t many Chinese vegetables then, we had to use tinned food for the dishes. Basically it is always impossible to prepare an authentic cuisine, regardless of the cook’s skill, if you haven’t got the stuff for it. Having said that, running a restaurant isn’t a plain-sailing business, there are always risks to take. Time and again I had to close down because of poor business, and then moved to some other place to start things from scratch. It was on and off like this that I survived through the years, a bit like a relay race. I have lived in various places in northwest England and the Midlands, but always in a hurry and facing some difficulty. I had lived in the UK for many years yet hardly had time to visit the European Continent. It was only until my retirement over 20 years ago that I began to take a break. Since the late 1980s, I began to visit my friends and relatives back in China whenever I had the means to do so. Since I left my hometown at a very young age, and since it had been such a long time ever since, some of my relatives back home like to think that I have money. So every time I visit them they would expect me to bring them something. What they never realize is that I don’t lots of savings. In fact I reply on my pensions for survival.

 

My two children are now middle-aged and each has their own family. They live in the north of England so we don’t get together very much. Occasionally during festival seasons my daughter would give me a call to check if I am alright. They don’t speak Chinese, let alone their children. I also have a younger brother in Taiwan, who moved there in the late 1940s. Like me, he remains basically a poor guy, after all these years. We have never met since parting decades ago. On a number of occasions, in the dead of night, he called me by phone. As we picked up the phone, all sorts of feelings welled in our hearts, and we both heard sobbing at the other end of the line.

 

My health is getting worse those days. I feel pain in my legs when I walk. Not long ago whenever the weather was fine, I would take a walk in the park, but now it has become difficulty as the result of the worsening situation. And since most older people in the Chinese community centres speak Cantonese, whereas I speak only English, Mandarin and the Shanghai dialect, communication with them can be a problem. So I don’t always join them there. As a result I feel rather lonely these days. Sometimes I would say to myself: Why not spend the rest of my life in Shanghai with my relatives. But when I realize that I must have lots of money to do this, I would quickly abandon the idea altogether.

 

                                                 (Wei Lin Chen)