01 歸鄉(一)

歸鄉（一）

吳孟洲

【編者吳孟智按】孟洲和文淑，1983年離開台灣，遠赴美東求學深造；沒想到就此落地生根，一住就是30年。如今將屆退休之際，決定回歸故里，然重啟離情，卻又近鄉情怯！回想數十年間的種種，令人感懷。茲節錄孟洲在臉書上的文字，與諸位西格瑪共享！

一、2013年7月28日

1983年七月，在遲疑多年之後，我終於辭別父母，滿懷心焦赴美留學。那天是我的生日。我飛到紐約，正信良碧夫婦從維吉尼亞來此相會，明蘅從波士頓開車下來把我們接回他的MIT宿舍。子夜未過，還是我的生日。明蘅說，剛好有人送了壽桃。就蒸了幾個為我慶生。那天來美的第一餐吃了什麼，我已不記得。壽桃可是記著。

二、2013年7月28日

儘管女兒她們說，回去，不管住多久，就在那邊好好地過日子；然而，提兩口皮箱回去的那種心情，還是一直糾纏著。

三、2013年7月28日

在取捨的書中，有這樣的一首詩：

Was it a thousand

years ago or only

yesterday we parted?

Even now, on my shoulder,

I feel your friendly hand.

(translated by S. Hamill and K. Matsui Gibson)

原文是這樣的：

きのふをば

千とせの前の

世とも思ひ

御手なほ肩に

有りとも思ふ

（与謝野晶子）

是千年之前

抑是昨日

我感覺

依然

你的手在我肩頭

四、2013年7月30日

在明蘅那裡待了將近一個禮拜，我就跟著正信良碧回到Williamsburg 的College of William and Mary，他們幫我安頓好之後才搬到弗羅里達繼續正信的博士學位。

八個月後，文淑才帶著兩個年幼的女兒來此與我相聚。然後我就一直在威廉斯堡，畢業之後也沒離開，一住三十年。三十年，同一個郵遞區號，同一個電話號碼。（多年失去連絡的朋友，來到此地，打個電話試試，竟然還可以找到我。）我想到，自己的出生地瑞芳，也只不過住了完整的十五年，將來我會以什麼樣的心情來回憶威廉斯堡這個所在？

五、2013年8月6日

1984。文淑來時三月初，北美時序仍屬季冬。放眼望去，樹木槎枒。街路杳無行人，堪說一片淒清。我租得一間11坪的小屋，這是我們一家四口來美起基的所在。此屋乃是天賜！

之前，我為尋找一家棲所到處走闖。那時最便宜的公寓也要三百五，我薪水的60％。我只好求助於系裡的大秘書，她說，我再看看。隔幾天，中秘書度假回來，找我去，說她有個小房子，年輕的女房客只住了兩個月，突然搬走。她說，你來看看，不過你有小孩，恐怕太小。我一看，屋雖小，也有兩房，廚廁俱全。最主要，房租只要一百五。喜出望外，天賜此之謂也！

短短的一條街，我們這邊就八九個房子，具屬於房東費寧家。對面則屬另一家族。當中幾家長年租屋的房客。安祥的小社區。冬去春來，我們在這條街生活了六年半。又添一女。小孩子在此成長上學。終於沒回台灣。街名Mimosa，委婉輕喟，如何能忘！

六、2013年8月27日

Sweet Gum Rapids — 楓仔瀨

這是九年前寫的，中文應題為《楓仔瀨》。楓仔瀨是地名，位於北台灣的瑞芳與暖暖之間，是否因楓得名，殆不可考。行文純粹是我的想像。台灣楓，一名楓香，學名Liquidambar Formosana，冷冷的學名，聽來卻是如此美麗，如文中所說，變成一句真言咒語，引我回到何其思念的故郷。近郷又何止情怯！此文或可聊表回台前那樣複雜的情懷。 — 癸巳盛夏

Sweet Gum Rapids

I had never seen a sweet gum tree before I came to the United States twenty some years ago. Neither had I thought seriously about whether this kind of tree existed in Taiwan. I suppose I simply assumed it didn’t.

Without having ever seen the real trees, I had learned the Chinese character for the sweet gum in school from the classical poems. Actually the character also refers to the maple and as a result there have always been confusions in Chinese literature about the sweet gum and the maple. I didn’t know the differences either. However, I knew there were two Taiwanese pronunciations for that particular Chinese character—One is closer to the modern Chinese pronunciation and the other, I believe, retains the archaic sound.

About ten years ago I read an article about the confusions of the names for both trees. I went to look the word up in a Taiwanese-English dictionary, compiled by a Presbyterian missionary more than a hundred years ago. I found, “Png”—the one with the archaic pronunciation— “a high tree with deeply indented leaves, which take beautiful colours in the fall; the Liquidambar Formosana.” Also, “png-lui, its fruit (useless).” I had never heard of png-lui before. But I knew “lui” in Chinese shared the same character with “the water mine.” While I was imagining the shape of png-lui, suddenly I jumped up and exclaimed, “Those gum balls outside in the yard are png-lui!” Yes, png was the sweet gum and png-lui, the gum ball.

Later I learned that the Latin name of the North American sweet gum was Liquidambar Styraciflua, closely related to Liquidambar Formosana. Holding a gum ball and a leaf in my hand, I tried to imagine the sweet gum that I had never encountered in Taiwan. As I was repeating to myself its name, Liquidambar Formosana, the phrase became a mantra that brought me back to my homeland, which I had missed so much.

II.

The reason I knew the archaic pronunciation png was that, as a boy, I had known of a place called Png-a-lua. It was actually the name of a bus stop between my home town and the middle school that I went to forty years ago.

My middle school was about seven miles away from home. I commuted everyday by train with a monthly pass. If it was raining, there were no after-school activities and the students could go home earlier. However, I still had to wait two hours for the same train. Only once in a while did I dare to spend the extra money to take the bus home. The bus took a different route than the train did, on the opposite side of the river along the valley.

Past the boundary of the city where my school was, the bus stopped less often, but there were still quite a few stops in the rural area. They all bore names that were strange to me. Between the bus stops, the road was always narrow. Outside the bus window, the subtropical evergreens, the huge ferns, and the long sword grass were heavy and damp, and so my feelings were inescapably the same. That half hour seemed to be a long journey. When I was on the bus, reading the signs of the stops and memorizing their names became a ritual. Png-a-lua was one in the middle of the sequence of names.

It seemed to be a stop at nowhere. There was only a small cottage, actually a general store, beside the sign. The river made a sharp turn here and the valley became wider, so that there was a better view of the distant mountains. Even though the mountains were dark and gray on rainy days, the view was still a relief. I was always happier if the rain stopped. The mountains would become dark blue, with some of them touched by the clouds. The greens were lighter and crisper even in the low light.

On the sign, Png-a-lua was written in Chinese characters. I could read them in Mandarin. However, I learned their Taiwanese pronunciation from the conductor of the bus—In the old days on the bus, besides the driver, there was always a female conductor, normally a young girl selling tickets and opening the door for the passengers—I loved the name of the place, the sound of the name, and the magic of the sound. And from that place I could see the tops of the mountains, below which lay my hometown, and then I would be comfortably sure that soon I would be home.

Now the name, Png, Liquidambar Formosana brought me back to Png-a-lua, the place that I had long forgotten. But how could I forget?

III.

I have been here for hundreds of years, probably since the last major quake occurred, says the rock. And then he came and he grew so tall.

And I came and I grew so tall, says the sweet gum.

And I am under his shade, which is pleasant and a relief for sometimes the sun beats me so hard and I become so hot. Because of his cool shade, the moss grows on my body, upon my head, and the skittish shrimps build their nests under me, and the swift fish come to nibble around me.

Well, not just my cool shade but also the steady rock and the swirling water make it so that the shrimps can settle and the fish can nibble.

Yes, I love the water swirling around me. So comfortable, says the rock.

Yeah, I love to swirl around the rock, adds the water, and to run over the small ones. So I change from deep to shallow and from shallow to deep. And together, the rock and I form the rapids.

The water changes from black to white and from white to black, agrees the rock, and together we form the rapids.

Sometimes a leaf falls. It falls on my head and stays, says the rock.

Once in a while, on the rock’s head, I drop a leaf, which stays, or, on the water’s face, another one, which he carries away.

I love to hold a leaf and carry it away. The fish love to run with me under the leaf, like hurrying schoolgirls squeezing under an umbrella. But if I slow down, the fish follow, like lovers sharing a parasol at a slow wobbly pace.

The autumn comes and all the magnificent leaves fall.

Yes, I drop them one and all.

Piece by piece, he covers me up with these colorful leaves. I will tuck a few pieces under me for shrimps to build nests in the next spring.

And he showers me with the flamboyant, dazzling leaves, more than I can carry at once. No more am I balck and white; the colors are floating and swirling.

People passing are awed by the stunning scene. They can’t help but stop and watch. Even in the old days, the poor peasants, who were too busy to stop, would turn their heads to give us a look, and sigh with a temporary relief. Eventually they decided to give us a name. They called us the Sweet Gum Rapids.

We, all together, are called the Sweet Gum Rapids. Year after year, we are here. And from here, we sent the water carrying the sweet gum leaves down the stream.

I carry the leaves and loudly and joyfully I sing, along the valley, and through the mountain. People living out there hear the song and know…once upon a time, there was a place called the Sweet Gum Rapids, and still there it is.

IV.

And I believe it is still there, Png-a-lua, the Sweet Gum Rapids.

(Written in the winter of 2004)