回家 Homecoming

我又回家了。 回到我長大的新竹，住在母親眷村改建的新公寓，離我出生已被拆除的空軍五村只有十分鐘。舊家部分變成了停車場，不久前搭了個牌樓。它一夜間出現，好像UFO。後來有演歌仔戲，聽說還是明華圓的，也有議員來演講。

十八歲離家去台北上大學好像飛出籠的鳥， 萬萬沒想到四十年候我又回到原點，想的還是同樣的問題，我是誰？

我過去二十年住在美國，過去的部落格是用英文寫的。不光是語言文字，我的思考和夢也不是單語的。這一奌就令人抓狂了。用英文寫還是中文寫?我的讀者是誰?著名而且是我崇拜的作家哈金在「他鄉寫作」一書中寫到，＂作家在開始其職業寫作生涯時往往反覆自問亞里斯多德提出的問題：為誰寫?以什麼身分寫?為誰的利益而寫?在這三個問題中，「以什麼身分寫作」最令人困惑，因為涉及到作家的身份認同及傳統，而這兩者往往不以人的意志決定，隨時都在改變。"

所以，身分的問題就留給時間吧。為誰寫和為誰的利益而寫比較好回答?誠實地說，為我自己。但是我希望，由閲讀中你偶而找到自己的答案。

I am back home again, back to Hsinchu, living with my mother, at an apartment 10 minutes from my birth place, an air force compound. Part of it has been converted into a parking lot. Awhile ago, a ceremonial temple-like structure was erected overnight, like an UFO. They invited a Taiwanese opera troup to perform and some politicians gave speech at the show.

When I left home at 18, I was like a bird out of a cage, 40 years later, I am back to where I started, asking the same question - Who am I?

I lived in the United States for the past 20 years. My past blogs were written in English. To write in Chinese or English has been always an issue. Ha Jin, a Chinese writer who writes mostly in English, wrote in his book "The Writer as Migrant" , "When a writer started his writing career he repeatedly asked himself three Aristotlen questions: Writing for whom? Writing from Whom? Writing for
whose benefit? ...Among these three questions, Writing from Whom is the most difficult to answer as it involves the writer's identity and tradition, neither was a matter of will, and it changes with time."

That being said, I will leave the question of identity to time。Whom am I writing for and for whose benefit? Honestly? I am writing for myself, and hopefully once in awhile you find your own answers from reading my writing, like I have done with gratitude from many, many of the writers before me.