英国卫报：中国,我想回来!(3)（在线收听）

In Reflections on Exile, Edward Said writes: "Exile is irremediably secular and unbearably historical … like death but without death's ultimate mercy, it has torn millions of people from the nourishment of tradition, family, and geography."

在《流亡的反思》中，爱德华·赛义德写道：“流亡是不可挽回的世俗和无法忍受的历史……就像死亡，但没有死亡的终极仁慈，它撕裂了数百万人的传统、家庭和地理的滋养。”

I had not been forced to be in exile, but in the US, I too was torn from the nourishment of tradition, family and geography.

我没有被迫流亡，但在美国，我也失去了传统、家庭和地理的滋养。

To make up for this, I desperately longed to fill in the gaps of my knowledge about Asia.

为了弥补这一点，我非常渴望填补我对亚洲的知识空白。

I loved hearing stories about China. Whenever I learned about Chinese history in school, I would go home and ask my parents. "No, that's not how it was, this is how it was," they would say.

我喜欢听有关中国的故事。每当我在学校学习中国历史，我都会回家问我的父母。“不，事情不是这样的，事情就是这样的，”他们会说。

In contrast to what my textbooks said, my parents shared happy stories of the Cultural Revolution – of friends made on the farms,

和我的课本上讲的不同，我的父母分享了文化大革命时期的快乐故事——在农场里结交的朋友，

about the brilliance and charisma of my oldest aunt who had a posse of young admirers, about how the Chinese Communist party rewarded my nainaiyeye with medals and pensions for their military service.

有关我那有一群年轻崇拜者的最年长的阿姨的才华和魅力，有关中国共产党如何用奖章和养老金奖励我的爷爷奶奶。

During my summer vacations, my cousins joked that my yeye paid for my dinners with his wallet from the CCP.

在我暑假期间，我的堂兄弟们开玩笑说爷爷用他在共产党的钱包付了我的饭钱。

And whenever I went back to Hefei, it was to a family that told me this was where I came from, where I would always be welcome and would always have a place.

每当我回到合肥，总会有一个家庭告诉我这就是我的家乡，在这里我将永远受到欢迎，这个家永远都在。

In December 2018, a year and a half before my grandparents passed away, I went to China to collect my family's oral histories.

2018年12月，也就是我祖父母去世的前一年半，我去中国收集了我的家族口述史。

Like many children of immigrants, I had an uneasy feeling of being born out of formlessness, occupying an invisible space in a country that never filled in where exactly I was supposed to fit.

像许多移民的孩子一样，我有一种不自在的感觉，觉得自己出生时是无形的，在一个国家里占据着一个看不见的空间，而我应该在的地方从来没有被填满。

I wanted to articulate my family's past, make sense of where we had come from, where I had come from.

我想要阐明我的家族的过去，弄清楚我们来自哪里，我来自哪里。

This was a duty I felt all the more responsible for because of my role in the family as the "writer".

因为我在家里的角色是“作家”，所以我觉得这是我更应该去承担的责任。

But for a long time I delayed making the trip – because it would be time-consuming, because it would be emotionally exhausting, because my Chinese was not good enough, because I did not know the right questions to ask.

但在很长一段时间里，我推迟了这一行程计划——因为它会很耗时，因为它会让我精疲力竭，因为我的中文不够好，因为我不知道该问什么问题。

Yet my grandparents were getting older and older, and China changed more rapidly by the day.

但是，我的祖父母年纪越来越大，中国的变化也越来越快。

Finally, I knew I couldn't keep putting it off. I bought my ticket and went.

最后，我知道自己不能再拖延了，于是我买了票就出发了。