为什么写作？Why do I keep writing?

        一年前的今天，2012年10月31日，我在美国洛杉矶。在实习机构的百乐餐结束后，我与朋友们一道前往西荷里活，参加一年一度的万圣节游行。朋友们爱死了我做的鸡翅，但它们并未得到美国同事的青睐，听说美国人不喜欢啃鸡翅。在前往西荷里活的公共汽车上，人们盛装打扮。大家都好奇地问我们，你们为什么穿着普通？在一群船长、蜜蜂、战士和美少女之中，我们成为了异类。不知道是谁带的头，大家开始一首歌接着一个首歌地唱起来，车厢充溢着派对的欢乐。我和朋友们坐在欢腾的派对车上，却无法加入合唱。这时，车厢后座有人大喊，你们唱的为什么都是白人的歌啊？我们这才意识到，无法加入合唱的人不仅是我们。

        在异文化中进行自我定位，是一项挑战。我需要先走出自己的舒适区，继而进入“他者的世界”。更多的时候，我选择通过写作的方式来记录我的观察和思考，写作让我对现实保持一段警醒的距离。但这种刻意的“保持距离”让我很迷失，就像是一种逃避，使我成为了一位局外人。

        2012年12月，我在美国东岸独自旅行。在这一个月里，我一边行走，一边记录。我将我的文章发给在费城读书的朋友永佳。永佳的回复让我十分惊喜，他告诉我他看了我的文章之后，对每座城市都有了新的认识。他说：“你是巧妙地把每一座城市不为人知的美通过自己的历程而展现出来。我很享受阅读你的每一篇文章。感觉即使不是跟你一起旅游，也有让你带着我旅游的感觉。” 我突然意识到，文字是有力量的。更重要的是，我的文字可以把别人带进我的世界，而不是把我推向一个局外的境地。

        就这样，写作便开始成为我生命中不可或缺的一部分了。

One year ago, right on October 31, 2012, I was in Los Angeles, United Sates. After the holiday potluck lunch held by my internship site, I joined a few friends to the West Hollywood for the annual Halloween parade. It seemed that my chicken wings just lost their market in the potluck lunch, but friends darn loved them and ate them up on our way to the parade. Later, I was told that Americans just didn’t like chicken wings. We jumped on a party bus heading for West Hollywood. Everyone on the bus had a costume and some of them came to us and wondered why we didn’t dress up like everyone else did. Among Captain Hook, Superman, Bubble Bee and Sailor Moon, we became the outcast. Soon, people began to sing together, louder and louder. It seemed like we were in a chorus but couldn’t joined in. Suddenly, someone yelled from the back “why you are all singing white guys’ songs!” We then realized we were not the only ones that had trouble in fitting in.

To identify myself in a different culture is a challenge. I need to step out of my comfort zone and then enter “others’ world”. Most of the time, I use writing as away to observe and think. Writing has helped me to keep a distance from the reality, warily, but at the same time, this kind of “keep a distance” confuses me, as if I were an outsider.

In December, 2012, I unfolded my one-month journey on the east coast in the States by myself. As I was traveling, I kept writing. I sent some of my pieces to Scott, a friend who went to college in Philadelphia. His response was a pleasant surprise. He said although he had been to several of the places I went to, he gained new knowledge of each city after reading my articles. He stated, “you expose the unknown beauty of each city subtly through your own experience. I enjoy reading every piece from you. I feel like even though I am not traveling with you, you are taking me to travel. ” At that moment, I realize words have power. Moreover, my words can take others into my world, rather than push me to an outsider’s world.

Thus, writing has become  part of my life unanswerably.

 

为什么写城市？Why do I start writing about cities?   

        至于为什么写城市。

        过去几年，我一直离家在广州读大学。广州仿佛是一个磁场，一开始就把我吸引住了。每个周末，我都会到不同的地方游览。我发现，广州的大叔大妈说话总爱夹杂一些“语气词”。刚开始，我很怕他们，尽量避免与他们对话。慢慢地，我意识到这是他们率真的表达方式。到后来，我甚至爱上了听他们这种没完没了的抱怨。

        广州是一座自由开放的城市。这里有我的母校中山大学，在此任教达20年的史学大师陈寅恪先生曾说过“独立之精神，自由之思想”。我的老师笑称，中大可能是中国最自由的大学。广州有开放的传统，即使在清朝实行闭关锁国政策的日子里，这座城市仍然保持对外开放的状态，广州十三行是当时中国唯一的对外贸易通商口岸。

        在广州，我开始领悟城市的精神与魅力。

        在一些机缘之下，我在四川三沟村、湖南桑植县、美国洛杉矶分别生活过一段时间。这些经历让我看到了每个地方都有其独到的文化，人类学称之为“地方性知识”。通过对比城市和乡村，以及中国城市和美国城市，我在跨文化的视野下去理解城市发展的逻辑，并逐渐意识到城市是有生命。

        在中国的语境下，这一生命有其特殊性。中国的户籍制度将人们分为了“农业人口”和“非农业人口”，他们在身份上存在着差异。1975年宪法将“中华人民共和国公民有居住和迁徙的自由”从1954年宪法中删去，这很可能意味着，人们在城乡间自由居住和迁徙是有难度的。自1978年改革开放以来，中国的城市化发展加快，人口流动不断加速。为了通过售卖更多的土地资源以增加财政收入，当地政府通过加快城市化发展的方法，不断将“非城市用地”变为“城市用地”。在这一动力之下，城市化发展无法停止奔跑，伴随而来的人口流动也推动了公众对户籍制度改革的关注。

        我不仅关心中国的城市，我也关注世界各地城市。因此，我邀请了居住在不同城市的朋友与我一起写作，共同分享。

        “时光城分|Sitytime”就是在这样的背景下诞生的。

So why am I writing on cities?

In the past years, I left my hometown to attend Sun Yat-Sen University in Guangzhou. Guangzhou was like a magnet and it attracted me on the first day. Every weekend, I went to different interesting places. I found that people in Guangzhou get used to “foul language”. At first, I was afraid of them and tried not to talk to them directly. Gradually, I realized this was the way they expressed their emotions and it was fun if you paid enough attention to what they were complaining about. After a while, I even started to enjoy listening to this kind of endless complaints.

Guangzhou is a free and open city. My school Sun Yat-Sen University is here. Chen Yinque, a legendary Chinese historian, who taught here for 20 years, said “independent spirit, free thought”.  My teacher once said with a smile that Sun Yat-Sen University might be the most free university in the whole country. Guangzhou has its tradition in openness. Even in the Qing Dynasty, when the central government implemented the close-door policy, this city was still open to the world; Guangzhou Shisanhang (also known as “the thirteen factories of Canton”) was the only trade port open to the world during that time.

It is in Guangzhou that I begin to experience the spirit and charisma of a city.

Fortunately for me, apart from Guangzhou, I also had the experience to live in Sangou Village in Sichuan Province, Sangzhi County in Hunan Province and Los Angeles in United States for some time. These experiences have exposed me to different cultures and each culture has its uniqueness. In anthropology, we call it “local knowledge”. By comparing cities and villages, Chinese cities and American cities, I tried to understand the logic of urban development across culture and gradually realized that every city has its own life.

In Chinese context, this kind of life has its specific characteristics. The Hukou System (household registration) in China divides people into “agriculture population” and “non-agriculture population”, two distinctly different identities. The Constitution of the People’s Republic of China (1975 version) has deleted the term “the citizen of P.R.China has the freedom to settle and move” from the 1954 version. With the opening-up policy since 1978, the urbanization is gaining speed and the population mobility is also on the climb. In order to sell more land for fiscal income, local governments have to keep the speed of urbanization and what they must do is to shift the “non-urban land” to “urban land”. Under such incentives, the urbanization will never stop, which concerns the public on the Hukou Policy reform because of the increasing population mobility.

My focus is not only on Chinese cities, I also focus on cities in the whole world. For that reason, I have invited friends from different cities to write with me and share our experiences together, in both Chinese and English.

That is how “时光城分|Sitytime” was born.

 

时光城份是什么？What is Sitytime?

        时光城分是一个关注城市的写作社区。从纵向来说，时光城分关注城市的历史、现状、发展和未来；从横向来看，时光城分关注构成城市的物质条件，包括建筑、基础设施、公共场所、社会机构、制度，同时也关注城市的精神，包括市民气质、城市文化等等。我希望我的朋友能和我一起，通过理性的观察思考和感性的个人经验，从各自专业的角度来理解城市的逻辑，并通过文字的形式记录下来。这里的“专业”指我们各自的工作和学科。

        通过这样的实践，我希望唤起更多人对城市生活的反思，以及对社会发展的思考。

Sitytime is a writing community focusing on cities. Longitudinally, we will explore the history, development and future of a city. Horizontally, we will focus on the materials that structure a city such as infrastructure, public spaces and social sectors; at the same time, we wish to understand the spirit and culture of each city. I hope my friends can join with me and write down your understanding of a city, from your perspectives, via rational reflection and perceptual feeling.

By this kind of practice, I hope to inspire more people to reflect on their city lives and their thinking towards social development.

 

        就这样，在一年后的今天，2013年10月31日，我正式创立了时光城分|Sitytime， http://www.sitytime.com。

Thus, one year after the West Hollywood night, Oct 31 2013, 时光城分|Sitytime www.sitytime.com came online.

 

张思璐

2013年10月31日 

ZHANG Silu

October 31, 2013