Notes at the flight/border
Hello everyone! It’s been a while since I last posted anything—finals season got in the way, along with the wave of recent activism on US college campuses.
I’m writing this from a cafe in Reading, England, where I am in transit as I travel the longer half of the globe back home. I wrote these notes on the plane, and on the airport transit bus—consider these snapshots of what I’ve been thinking about in this strange time of the year. More structured essays to come, discussing the recent wave of pro-Palestinian campus protests in the US.
Excerpt 1: AA174, from Raleigh-Durham to London Heathrow. Written 35,000 ft above Newfoundland, Canada. Original in Chinese, English translation follows the original Chinese text.
在学校因为学术压力被压抑在内心深处的很多情绪,在飞伦敦的飞机上突然涌现出来了……闭上眼睛就能看到那些记忆:在愚园路上一边喝酒一边在夕阳中citywalk;在上海图书馆学习完一个下午坐地铁回家;在淮海中路的咖啡厅点一杯冰美式加奶,然后对着电脑屏幕发呆;在全家买饭团,然后站在店门口狼狈地吃完;在夏日走进商场迎面而来的凉风……这些记忆交织在一起,仿佛在询唤我回到那早已远去的历史中,回到那已经不存在的家乡,回到被怀旧美化的日常生活。
我像一个迷失在海洋中,几天没吃饭的水手一样,一遍又一遍地咀嚼着这些已经回放过无数遍的画面。
第一次坐在去旅游的航班上有了下飞机就买回家的票的冲动。
每学年搬进一间新的房间,在那里和朋友们欢笑、哭泣或倾诉,在那里清醒地度过无数个深夜,然后学年结束又搬出那间屋子:在每年初夏将自己的人生打包进帆布袋,然后拖着行李箱再次上路。这样的日子不知道还有多少年,我甚至不知道能不能活到有稳定居所的那一天。还是印证了那句老话:有家回的是外派、度假、旅行,没有家回的是流浪。
这是俄罗斯轮盘赌式的暴力,不知道哪一次会是最后一次。当一个人和家的联系变得岌岌可危,回一次少一次的时候,强烈的归属欲望或许会让人屈服吧。我能理解那样的做法,但是害怕自己成为那样的人,害怕自己成为那个让理想主义者“现实一点”、“理智一点”的大人。我不要那种无知而不自知,傲慢而不自省的现实主义和精致利己主义,我要文学,我要痛苦,我要爱欲,我要我们一起在月光下,透过泪水想象的、看见的未来。在这个盘旋待降的危机时代,在这个不存在国家暴力“外部”的世界中,我们除了相信,别无选择。
Many of the emotions that had been repressed by academic pressures at college suddenly swelled up now, on this flight to London. I close my eyes, and these memories appear: drinking & ‘citywalking’ in the dusk of Yuyuan Road1; taking the subway home after an afternoon study session at Shanghai Library; an Iced Americano with milk in that Mid. Huaihai Road cafe as I stared blankly into the screen; awkwardly eating FamilyMart rice balls in front of the convenient store; the breeze of mall air conditioning in a summer day… These memories melted together, almost interpellating me into the already-distant history, the no-longer-existent homeland, the quotidian of the past, painted in rosy colors by nostalgia.
Like a sailor lost in the deep oceans without food for several days, I chewed over these scenes again and again, after they’ve been replayed in my mind time and again.
This is the first time that I’ve had the impulse to immediately get a flight back home as I’m on a flight to my travel destination.
Every academic year I move into a new room, where I laughed, cried and confessed with friends, where I passed many nights somberly awake. Then, I move out of that room at the end of the school year: every early summer I pack my life into duffle bags, before I travelled onward again with my suitcase. I don’t know for how many years this will last, I don’t even know if I will live to the day I see myself in stable residence. What they say makes sense, after all—if you have a home to go back to, you’re an expat, vacationer or tourist; if you don’t, you’re just a vagrant.
This is a violence akin to Russian Roulettes: you never know which time will be the last. When one’s bond to home is precarious, when each time one travels back is possibly the last time, it’s easy to cower, if only for the desire to belong. I understand how people might act this way, but I’m scared of becoming that person. I’m scared of becoming the adult who lectures idealists to be “realistic” or “rational.” I do not want that unknowingly ignorant and unreflecting arrogant brand of realism and egotism, I want literature, I want pain, I want eros, I want the future we saw together through our tears, under the moon-lit sky. In this era of the holding pattern of crisis2, in this world without an outside to state violence, we have no other choice but to believe.
Excerpt 2: RailAir bus, Heathrow Airport to Reading. Original in English.
It was when I walked into the immigration line at London Heathrow today that I understood why this airport is the backdrop of so many literatures of migration, so many literatures of displacement.3 An officer in police uniform waved around a strange stick as he declared to the oncoming crowd with a distinctly Indian accent: UK, EU, US this way, all other passports that way. UK, EU, US this way, other passports that way. No one seemed to pay any attention to him, everyone was rushing to not get stuck at the end of a 3-hours queue. On the left-hand side, a row of futuristic white e-gates; on the right-hand side, a row of tiny boxes where border officers sat as they received one traveler after the next. Here emerged the second officer (there were many officers around, he was simply the most visible), shouting at the flowing crowd: Hong Kong China BNO4 here, Hong Kong China BNO. I saw people who looked like me, people who stared aimlessly at beyond the checkpoints. The racial divide was almost comical—the white people on one side, brown, black and East Asian in the other, much longer queue.
I got to the window and squeezed out a sleep deprived smile to the officer—“good morning,” I said, as I handed her my passport.
“What brings you to the UK?” She asked.
“Tourism.”
“How long are you staying?”
“Six days.” I wanted to say more, but there was something stopping me from saying more. My English seems to have escaped me.
“Where are you going after the UK?”
“Shanghai.”
“Did you fly in from Shanghai?”
“No, from Raleigh-Durham. Yes, Raleigh-Durham in the States, Ma’am.” I smiled even more, nodding as well—she smiled too now, as if amused by my mannerisms.
“America… do you live there?”
“I study there.”
She flipped across my passport, until she saw my US visa. “Duke University, huh?”
“Yes ma’am.” I was relieved to see her widening smile now, as if she was reassured by the fact that I could live in the US. Forcefully, she stamped in my passport. “Enjoy your visit.” She said. “Next!”
I let out an internal sigh of relief. She handed me my passport, I could not look into her eyes. “Thank you!” I almost whispered, as I hurried away from the booth, almost like I was afraid she’s going to change her mind.
And there I was, holding the passport of a state that claims to represent me, in the busiest airport of the sunsetting imperial core. I was let in.
May 2, at Black Sheep Coffee, Reading, England, UK.
A very picturesque cafe street in downtown Shanghai.
Holding pattern here is a reference to “The Holding Pattern: the ongoing crisis and the class struggles of 2011-2013,” Endnotes 3. Linked here.
I’m thinking here of Abdulrazak Gurnah’s works.
BNO: British Nationals (Overseas). A class of UK nationals designated for Hong Kong residents prior to the handover of Hong Kong, that grants its holders British nationality but no right to abode in Britain.