文───林欣怡
一、話頭
旁白：董福祺 [1]
地點：社寮島（和平島）蕃字洞
2015年1月，《三島》拍攝告一段落進入剪接後製期，我開始尋找適合的主旁白敘事者。關於旁白（voice-over），當時決定的對象是「沖繩男性，年紀約莫四十歲，聲音低沈」。這樣的條件其實沒有任何想像或者閾隙可言，甚至，它恰是我對「標準話語」強烈排斥的直接抵觸。我十分清楚，標準話語聲體無法回應影像的不確定性，它只能確認歷史在場性，並提供一種含糊但可辨識的證詞。換言之，它太政治正確。然這或許是我面對《三島》拍攝時的某些歷史現場所能給予微弱但無奈的唯一回應。
經由友人的輾轉介紹，我找到黑島真洋（Masahiro Kuroshima）先生，一位長居於臺灣的沖繩人，專業配音員。我在從綠島拍攝後的回程中將事先（由臺灣人）翻譯好的文字檔案寄給黑島先生，電話中他表示，那長達十頁的日文翻譯並不是「正確的」（中文原稿太繞口，翻譯者直翻為中式日文）日文，需要再重新翻譯，因為翻譯文字自身的不準確將會影響他的旁白工作。這樣的提醒讓我想起去年發表的〈流亡話語──無路可走而必須前行〉（2014）文章中，關於翻譯體「必須離開領地、必須渡越──離開語脈、必須摧毀母語──離開殖體，它必須以破碎的、個人的、有瑕疵的、不標準的、不傳輸真理的聲調性格進行譫妄的陳述」的個人論點。然而我繼續著這個抵觸」，將原文交付一位精通中文的日本人重新翻譯為日人式的日文，讓旁白工作順利進行，讓自己目睹《三島》將滑入總體的扁平式歷史結構與標準敘事中。錄音當日，我聽著黑島先生猶如電影廣告配音的聲音，流利專業、抑揚頓挫的聲線，在耳機中迴盪。結束後我小心翼翼地詢問，是否可以做簡單的訪談？我想知道一位沖繩人對這些文字原稿中描述沖繩戰役、美軍基地的看法。
「我贊成美軍進駐沖繩，如果美軍撤出，誰來保護沖繩？這不是一個簡單的歷史戰爭傷口問題，而是世界結構的問題。美軍一旦撤出，中國馬上過來。」黑島先生平靜地說，他接著說「我不喜歡說中文」。
標準聲體消失。
我反覆咀嚼同時追問他的看法，同時想起高橋哲哉《犧牲的體系》一書中我唯一感興趣的段落：
野村浩也在其著作《無意識的殖民主義》中，相當敏銳地批判分析了日本人對沖繩的無意識殖民主義。書中，野村問道：「如果日本人沒有歧視沖繩，而且認為沖繩不是殖民地，那麼當沖繩人反問：『那就把美軍基地搬回去啊』時，他們會做何反應？」
日本人：「我好～喜歡沖繩！」
沖繩人：「要真那麼喜歡沖繩，那麼把基地搬回去這種小事應該做得到對吧？」日本人：「……（權力的沈默）」[2]
野村浩也的無意識殖民主義所批判的日本本島人，同樣是大江健三郎所自我質疑的那群殖民日本本島人，那群「喜歡沖繩文化，跟沖繩人一起反對美軍基地，一年造訪沖繩一兩次大喊『美國人滾回去』」的無意識殖民主義者，恰恰是我拍攝沖繩度嘉敷島自決現場的強烈不適感來源。此不適感正是前述的太政治正確，正確如臺灣本島面對蘭嶼核廢料的權力沈默態度。我注視著眼前的沖繩人，他的個人立場讓我決定此標準聲語在影片中的必要性：它召喚了我所欲求的不可見的凹陷──個人話語的凹凸、對母語的否定（但什麼是母語？）、內在語體的流亡、文化翻譯差異，它將凸出一個裂縫，讓歷史回音綻出。正是因為這個尋聲經驗，我再度確認了翻譯影像與個人語言的必須共同顯影，它不能僅是文學的直接引述、歷史現場的直接記錄，它必須也是影像語法、影像邏輯、獨立聲軌。亦即：藝術的在場性。
於是我想起了董福祺，一位反語敘事的影像創作者。如果《哪吒》影像投影了一具身體，那麼他必須開口說話，有自己的聲線路徑。這位藝術家將開口，為《鯤言》說話。鯤言，如同一個無法說母語的聲體。當我們試著追索「母語」，便是一種身分的追索；而身分永遠是歷史地理、國家殖體的容器，難以一語帶過。個體常常被身分標準化的總體概念遮蔽，鯤言就是試著將個體語言不被標準化的局部，進行顯影。此聲線路徑的第一個節點，便是社寮島蕃字洞，臺灣最早出現西語的處所。
──社寮島石洞出現荷蘭人刻字最早記錄於法國人 M. C. Imbault-Huart 的《Ile Formosa》一書 （1898 年出版， p.195） ，他採集的荷蘭人刻名及年分如下：
HANS HUNBENER HANS HENRICK ROTENPORY
1664 AE JACOB BOSCH 1664 BPF
SCHELCK 1666 1664
NICOLUS CROS. AG 1667
二、霧社川中島
旁白：董福祺、陳春照／巴袞．達斗（BaGuen DaDo）、
黃瑞香／哈波．馬尼絲（HaBo MaNis）、普乎克．畢夫（PiFu）
地點：南投川中島清流部落
作家：賴和、吳新榮、佐藤春夫
「貼在亞洲地圖上的一枚中日戰爭紀念郵票。」春山行夫（Yukio Haruyama，1902–1994）在1942年的《臺灣風物誌》寫下這樣的帝國視域句子。1942年，臺灣仍是日本殖民地，作為春山行夫口中的中日戰爭紀念郵票，臺灣諸作家在此年的聲線並不如郵票般扁平。1942年，臺灣新文學之父賴和出獄；也是在這一年，「鹽分地帶」文學代表作家吳新榮與《民俗臺灣》雜誌合辦佳里專輯，調查平埔族。這一年臺灣出現「臺籍日本兵」，大東亞戰爭美術展舉行。在此之前，賴和以臺語文體所寫的〈富戶人的歷史〉（1935），透過鄉里議論穿插「林爽文事件」等，將「微言」的口傳語甚至地誌「轉譯」為臺語文學創作。佐藤春夫《女誡扇綺譚》（1926）與《霧社》（1925）、中村地平〈霧之蕃社〉（1939）則是日人角度寫就的口傳書寫（阿罩霧林家、霧社事件），真實的事件、局部虛構的敘事，皆因「在地微言」而翻譯轉述成獨特的語法文體。1930年賴和用漢文夾雜臺語寫下原住民抗日的詩〈南國哀歌〉，同年吳新榮亦寫了〈霧社出草歌〉。1946年禁止臺籍作家用日文寫作，1947年二二八事件後全面禁講日語，接著消除福佬語、客家話與原住民語言，此年吳新榮被捕入獄。語言政策無論如何遞嬗，「微言」仍舊口傳，轉譯照樣增生。而關於前述的社寮島，佐藤春夫亦曾發表〈社寮島旅情記〉（1937），文中簡短地描寫了當時琉球（沖繩）人部落。
1930年10月27日，臺灣霧社事件。因不滿日本當局暴政，三百多名原住民於霧社公學校襲殺日本人，在日本殖民政權深入霧社地區之前，此地原住民自有一套生活法則──gaya。gaya就字面上的意思，是指「祖先流傳下來的話」。[3]
當車子行至北港溪上的清流橋，川中島部落的標語進入眼前。即便車上放著佐藤春夫及賴和、吳新榮的霧社，我仍舊想聽聽此餘地餘生的族人如何陳述霧社事件。進入部落初始，我看見路旁有一個簡樸的藝工坊，販售族人日常乾食、手藝品。當我一手拿著攝影機，一手品嘗詢問乾食療效時，一位紋面、灰白長髮，著賽德克族服的中年男子普乎克．畢夫（清流社區發展協會總幹事）開口與我攀談起來。而我開口詢問是否可以做簡單的霧社事件採訪。
「他是莫那魯道的孫子。」他指著身旁的另一位短髮中年男子說。
我們在藝工坊對面的草地上進行採訪，事實是，我並不想聽可能會聽到的那一大串為大陸觀光客所做的霧社導覽，我想聽私口口傳的那一場歷史又或者，非歷史。那位「莫那魯道的孫子」（應是遠親）巴袞．達斗說，關於霧社都是聽祖輩的描述，祖輩們說的也不盡相同，因為當時有六個社（波阿倫、荷哥、洛多夫、馬赫坡、速庫、塔羅灣），各社遭遇相異。
「我不在場，所以我不多說，以免說錯。我只想過平靜和平的日子。」他緩慢、重複地說。
普乎克．畢夫提到他是在服兵役時無意間看到一本書提到霧社事件，在書中辨識出自己，於是開始他的原民自我肯認工作至今。畢夫亦曾參加1984年的原住民正名運動。訪談約一個多小時後他直直地看著我的眼睛說，「妳應該要待久一點，住在這裡，妳才會聽到妳想聽的東西，我會幫妳翻譯（賽德克語）。」我不清楚我的哪些提問讓他感覺到「我想聽的東西」，或許是因為當畢夫說話時無意間參雜的賽德克語，他看到我的眼神不同，我不確定。採訪結束我獨自慢步拍攝部落空景與餘生紀念館，途中再度遇見開著貨車、已經換回普通裝束的畢夫，他停車搖下車窗。
「妳會待在這裡嗎？」
「我會再來。」我看著他奇特、沒有表情的目光，他沈默很久後慢慢把車開走。那一刻我覺得自己是可惡的死觀光客。
高嶺深坑飛未過，冬天雪夜餓加寒。
我有一族數二千，雖然無刀也無槍，
但是天地已寒冷，眼前那有紅頭兵。──吳新榮，臺語詩：霧社出草歌／1930–10–29／《南瀛》第2號／原題〈霧社暴動畫報〉，改名〈霧社出草歌〉收錄於《震瀛隨想錄》及《吳新榮選集》第一冊，〈震瀛詩集〉第一卷
三、臺南本町四丁目一〇五番
旁白：董福祺、陳郭芒阿嬤
地點：1945年日治時期臺南本町四丁目一〇五番，
今臺南市民權路二段和新美街交叉口附近以西路段
作家：吳新榮
1947年，二二八事件。國民黨政府對本土語言採取了更強力的打壓措施。政府電令各級學校禁用日語，授課以國語教學為主，暫酌用本省方言；日常用語盡量以國語交談，不准以日語交談，若有違背情事決以嚴懲。
三月一日 晴
今天要吃午飯時，發出了空襲警報，不久就聽到連續的爆炸聲，事後才得知臺南受到政擊的消息。
──吳新榮日記，（1907年11月12日至1967年3月27日）。作者於日治時期曾參與組織「佳里青風會」及「臺灣文藝聯盟佳里支部」，為「鹽分地帶」文學集團代表人物之一。1947年二二八事件發生時，遭逮捕入獄。
在追蹤吳新榮作品時，閱讀到其1940至1945年的日記中，寫著1945年的臺南大空襲片段。我想起在東京時曾去東京大空襲資料館做簡單的拍攝，以及訪察臺南奉祀二次大戰日本飛官杉浦茂峰的安南區飛虎將軍廟的過程。吳新榮的日記片段，較少作家的文風，只有對當時現場如新聞報導的素樸陳述。因為這段陳述，我對照定位了當時空襲最嚴重的路段，試圖尋找見證者。根據作家魚夫的資料，此路段為今臺南市民權路二段和新美街交叉口附近以西路段，一個下午的地毯式搜問，我覓得九十多歲的陳郭芒阿嬤，空襲時她約莫十九歲。
「忽然間炸彈就來了，四處攏黑的。大家哎爸叫母，就恐怖。」阿嬤用臺語說著當時的情形。「實在太久了，我記不很 清楚。」
不準確的記憶，不準確的歷史。真正的翻譯便是此刻。我聽著阿嬤不斷重複描述的空襲過程，錄音錄下的是阿嬤已經淡化的恐懼，還有記憶退化的歷史聲響。阿嬤說，她有一個日本名字「梅子」うめこ（U-Me-Ko），因為她受的是日本教育，會說日文。うめこ，這三個日文字母將我腦中的場景拉到吳新榮1938年的日記：
一月四日 晴
日本國的擴張即意味著日語的氾濫。以我這小小的個人的城堡來說，要防備這種氾濫是不可能的。正如同我在生活中使用日語這件事，以日文來寫日記亦是極為自然的事。想一想，我打從一出生就已經是日本統治下的人，而前半生完全是接受日語的教育，此極為重大的事實，令我說的是日語，並以日文書寫。這又與英國讀書的留學生說英語、寫英文的意義是不同的。 [4]
阿嬤時而出神，時而重複地個人歷史記憶迴圈，重複了法國作家莒哈斯在《廣島之戀》電影筆記裡強調的「這是一個你們永遠看不到的廣島。」因為在那些紀錄與虛構影像交錯的電影中，投映的是無法全視的歷史真相。醫院、博物館、街道、照片、身體、新聞片、原子彈的破壞所留下的歷史真相殘跡，全都收在檔案、建築、床鋪裡。這些都是標準的災難與殘跡地點；而前往戰後越南的河內和西貢等地參觀的觀光客，看的也是類似的地點。這些是官方版的歷史痛楚展示處。這也是為什麼個人話語和政治正確的歷史樣板同樣重要。因為陳述即行動，即便那些個人話語是某種錯誤書寫；即便那些錯誤書寫來自於殖體教育。
四、女書
旁白：無人
地點：臺北興城街
作家：何艷新（女書者）
沱雨。辦公室裡沒有一位生理雄性的物種。
在等候影片檔案傳輸時，我隨意地翻閱書架上的檔案資料，看見郭昱沂導演發表於2011年的紀錄片《女書回生》，關於中國湖南永江最後一位女書傳人何艷新女士的生命故事。
「婆，妳寫這些書字怎麼在哭啊？」
「哎，寫這些書字就是苦的。受了苦，很多苦處，才用這樣的文字記載下來。」[5]
影像中白髮老嬤邊拭淚邊唱著〈哭嫁歌〉，聲音熟徹、悲惋卻堅定。然吸引我的不是老嬤動人的生命，而是那一串串難以辨識、由漢字轉化而來、陌生又熟悉的文字符號。女書，只為女性使用的語言，正在滅亡中。
某資料顯示每十四天就有一種人類語言消失。在我為期不長的索語路徑中，「女書」輕易地佔據一個重要的節點。如果流亡話語是讓自己於「不說母語」、「不立原地」（或者在地）的狀態中運動，那麼「女書」這種完全的自我傾訴、個人歷史回音、將自我語言陌生（封閉）化、以逃離被支配統治的線路，無疑地給出了一個真實的聲／身群。「男人寫男字在桌子上寫，女人寫女書在膝蓋上寫，可以一邊做飯一邊寫。」[6] 這段視覺化了性別書寫、勞動、閱讀位置的文字，或許是「對抗電影」（counter cinema）的直接劇本。突顯對抗透明、不愉悅對抗愉悅、真實對抗虛構。如果藝術家董福祺的反語敘事作為女書動作的感知聲線，那麼慢動作與多重敘事將成為必須不斷翻譯才能溝通的影像。而這樣的生存狀態，恰是女書者當時異語的重點所在。
檔案傳輸完畢。離開辦公室時大雨仍舊滂沱。我好奇著鯤言的索語路徑還會帶我前往何處？
而影像如何陳述。
[註釋]
1 臺灣藝術家。董福祺的近年的創作主軸多是關於語言的探討。他將語言視為一種材料，將語言進行一連串的倒反、拆解、重組。藝術家由此創造一種新的語言，它不僅揭開日常語言背後的運作法則，同時也挑戰著觀者的既有認知經驗。作品有《話非話》（2013）、《第一人稱》（2013）、《翻譯》（2013）、《亂語》（2013）。
2 高橋哲哉著，李依真譯，《犧牲的體系》，2014，臺北市：聯經，頁164–165。
3 參照中研院「寫真．霧社事件」。http://knowledge.teldap.tw/focus/001005/ws1.htm （2015/07/18）
4 吳新榮著，張良澤總編，《吳新榮日記全集 1933–1938》，2007，臺南市：國立臺灣文學館。頁181–182。
5 郭昱沂導演的紀錄片《女書回生》（2011）對白節錄。
6 趙麗明，《傳奇女書──花蹊君子女九簪》，2015，北京：清華大學出版社，頁79。
Khun-Giân:
The Traces of a Lost Mother Tongue
─────── Hsin-i Lin
Translated by Li-fen Wang
1. Foreword
Narrator: Fu-chi Tung [1]
Place: Foreign Writing Cave, She-liao Island (Hoping Island)
It was in January 2015 when 3 Islands was being edited that I started to look for a suitable person for its voice-over. My decision was to recruit “an Okinawan male with a deep voice in his forties.” These were rigid requirements leaving no space or liminality for any alternative, not to mention they directly contradicted my strong resistance to “a standard language.” I was crystal clear that a standard language failed to react to the uncertainty brought along by the images; at most, it assured a historical presence and provided vague but identifiable oral evidence. It is ‘too politically correct’, to put it in another way. Nonetheless, it is my feeble and reluctant choice after filming the historic sites in 3 Islands.
With a friend’s help, I got in touch with Mr. Masahiro Kuroshima, an Okinawan who has been living in Taiwan for a long time and is a professional voice actor. While I was on my way back to Taiwan from Green Island, I had delivered a file of Japanese text (translated by a Taiwanese) to Mr. Kuroshima, yet he told me on the phone that the ten-page translation was not ‘correct’ (in the sense that the Chinese source text was unintelligible making the literally-translated target text Chinese-ish rather than Japanese). He suggested having it re-translated as the inaccuracy of the target text would hamper his voice acting. It reminded me of one of my 2014 articles Discourses of Exile: Nowhere to Go but Must Forward in which I wrote about my personal opinion of a target language. “The target language has to leave the territory and cross over; for it to leave the territorial context, the source language has to be destroyed; for it to leave the carrier it is born of, it has to perform its presumptuous statement in a broken, individualized, flawed, off-standard and unfaithful manner.” But I continued the contradiction by entrusting the source text to a native Japanese speaker mastering Chinese for Japanese translation. This time, it would be a correct Japanese translation so that the voice-over could be done; while on the other hand, 3 Islands slid into a flat historical structure and standard narration before my very eyes. On the day of recording, I listened to Mr. Kuroshima’s voice streaming in my headphones-professional, fluent, rich in tones, and was a voice that you would hear in commercial ads in movies. After the recording, I asked cautiously whether I could have an interview with him. I wanted to know how he, as Okinawan, saw the Battle of Okinawa and the issue of American military bases mentioned in the script.
“I am in favor of the station of American army in Okinawa. Who will protect Okinawa if they remove the bases? This is not simply about war-torn traumas, but it involves the structure of the world. If the American army withdraws, China will come.” Mr. Kuroshima said calmly, adding “I don’t like to speak Chinese.”
The standard language disappeared.
I ruminated on his opinions while asking further, meanwhile, I thought of the only paragraph that interested me in Takahashi Tetsuya’s The Sacrificial System: Okinawa and Fukushima:
Nomura Kōya sharply criticized Japanese people’s unconscious colonialism in Okinawa in his book Unconscious Colonialism: the Japanese People’s US Military Bases and Okinawans. He questioned, “If Japanese people did not discriminate Okinawa and did not treat it as a colony, how would they react after being asked by Okinawans, ‘Why not move the American bases to Japan?’”
Japanese people: “I like Okinawa so much!”
Okinawans: “If you like Okinawa that much, then moving the bases to Japan should be a piece of cake, right?” Japanese people: “…(the silence exclusive to the powerful)” [2]
Nomura Kōya’s criticism of unconscious colonization targets the Japanese living outside the colony, the same group of people to whom Kenzaburō Ōe doubted if he belonged. These unconscious colonists claiming “to love Okinawan culture and fight against the American army bases with the Okinawans by shouting ‘Americans get out’ in their one or two routine visits to Okinawa every year.” They happened to be the reason that I felt extremely upset after filming at the site where the Tokashiku Suicide Incident took place. ‘Their political correctness, as I mentioned earlier, was too much’, and it reminded me of Taiwanese people’s passive attitude toward the nuclear waste issue in Orchid Island. The powerful play silent. I watched this Okinawan before me, and his personal position underscored the imperativeness of a standard language in this film: it summoned an invisible hollow that I had been craving for. It referred to the hollow in an individual’s words, or one’s denial to his/her native language (but what is a native language?), or the exile of the inner language, or a discrepancy in translating culture. A crack was thus created to allow the fleeing of echoes to history. Because of this voice-searching experience, I came to reassure that translated images and personal languages have to be shown at the same time. The simultaneity is not only a direct literary quote and a direct historical documentation, but it must illustrate a grammar and logic of images as well as an independent voice, which is, the presence of art.
I thought of Fu-chi Tung, a video artist exploring verbal irony. If Nezha is granted a body by projection, he has to talk in his own voice. Now the artist is about to speak for Khun-Giân. Khun-giân is a language bearer that does not speak a mother tongue. Since the search for the traces of “a mother tongue” is a search for identity, it is always difficult to summarize identity in a single sentence as it is the assembly of history, geography and reproduction of nationalism. While an individual is subject to be ascribed to a standard group identity, khun-giân functions to expose the off-standard parts of his/her language. The first node of this language search is Foreign Writing Cave, She-liao Island, where in Taiwan a western language is first found.
—Dutch writing in Foreign Writing Cave was first recorded by a French man named M. C. Imbault-Huart in his book Ile Formosa (p. 195, published in 1898). He collected Dutch names and some years in the cave, as shown in the following :
HANS HUNBENER HANS HENRICK ROTENPORY
1664 AE JACOB BOSCH 1664 BPF
SCHELCK 1666 1664
NICOLUS CROS. AG 1667
2. Kawanakajima, Wushe
Narrators: Fu-chi Tung, Chun-chao Chen / BaGuen DaDo, Jui-hsiang Huang/ HaBo MaNis, PiFu
Place: Kawanakajima/ Chingliu Tribe, Nantou
Authors: He Lai, Hsin-jung Wu and Haruo Sato
Yukio Haruyama (1902–1994) revealed his imperial perspective by describing Taiwan as “a stamp in the map of Asia in memory of the Sino-Japanese war” in Taiwanese Scenery (臺灣風物誌) in 1942 when Taiwan was still a colony of Japan. Being the stamp in memory of the Sino-Japanese war, however, Taiwan was not as flat as a stamp or was a single-voiced colony. Local writers showed their vigor and multiple voices in that same year. It was in 1942 that He Lai, the Father of the New Taiwanese Literature, was set free from prison; it was also the time when Hsin-jung Wu, the iconic writer of the Salt Belt literary workshop, co-authored with the Folklore Taiwan Magazine to publish a special issue on Jiali’s Plain indigenous people. The Taiwanese Japanese soldiers came into being in this same year when the Greater East Asian War Art Exhibition was held. Before 1942, He Lai wrote The Rich’s History in Southern Min in 1935. He incorporated different versions of the Lin Shuangwen Incident and translated these common people’s marginal talks into Southern Min Literature. On the other hand, Japanese writers adopted a Japanese perspective to conduct the writing of oral literature on real incidents happening in Taiwan (the Lin Family in Attabu and the Wushe Incident) and laced them with fictitious accounts. For example, Haruo Sato’s The Curious Case of the Lesson-for-Women Fan (1926) and Wushe (1925) and Chihei Nakamura’s “Savage Village in the Mist” (1939). They were the “marginal talks among local people” and were later translated into a distinctive genre. In 1930, He Lai inserted oral Southern Min into his Chinese poem “Southern Territory Lament” to describe indigenous people’s resistance to Japan while Hsin-jung Wu finished his “Song of Wushe Head-hunting” in the same year. In 1946, the government prohibited local writers from writing in Japanese. After the 228 Incident in 1947, Japanese was not allowed to be spoken whereas Hokkien (Southern Min), Hakka and indigenous people’s languages were eliminated. In the same year, Hsin-jung Wu was arrested and jailed. No matter how language policies have been changed, “marginal talks” has never gone away from people’s mouth and translation has always taken place. Haruo Sato had a piece of writing named “The Travel to She-liao Island” (1937) dedicated to the aforementioned She-liao Island, and he briefed the Okinawan tribes in the article.
On October 27, 1930, about three hundred strong Taiwanese indigenous people stormed Wushe Public Elementary School and killed Japanese people. This is the so called Wushe Incident and was the indigenous people’s response to the Japanese authority’s brutality. Before the Japanese colonization had its way into Wushe, the indigenous people had had their doctrine of life, gaya, whose literal meaning is “the words passed down from ancestors.” [3]
When I was driving on the Chingliu Bridge across Beigang River, a sign reading Kawanakajima Tribe could be seen easily. Even if I had Haruo Sato’s, He Lai’s and Hsin-jung Wu’s books in the car, I still wanted to know how the indigenous survivors in this marginal lot would tell the story of the Wushe Incident. What first came into my eyes was a humble studio selling villagers’ daily provisions and handicrafts. With my camera on one hand, I tasted some indigenous food and asked about the remedial effects when a middle-aged Seediq male started to chat with me. His name was PiFu (chief executive of the Chingliu Community Development Association), a man with grey hair, in traditional costume and had traditional facial tattoo on his face. Then I asked if I could have an interview with him on the Wushe Incident.
“He is the grandson of Mona Rudo,” he said while pointing at another middle-aged man with short hair.
We then had an interview on the lawn opposite to the studio, because I did not want to overhear the introduction to Wushe tailored for Chinese tourists. I wanted to listen to the non-official history or the non-history passed down by word of mouth. “The grandson of Mona Rudo” (probably not from a direct clan) was BaGuen DaDo. He said that everything he knew about the Wushe Incident was from the elders, but their descriptions varied as there were six tribes involved (Boalun, Hogo, Lodofu, Mahebo, Sunku and Talowan), and each tribe was treated differently after the incident.
“I was not there so I should not say much to avoid mistakes. I just want to live a peaceful life,” he said slowly and repeatedly.
PiFu, on the other hand, mentioned that he read a book about the Wushe Incident by accident when he was serving in the military. He recognized himself in one of the photos in the book and that was the beginning of his journey of self-recognition as indigenous, and he also joined the indigenous people’s Name Rectification Campaign in 1984. After the one-hour interview, he looked at me directly and said, “You should stay longer. It is only by living here that you may hear ‘what you want to hear’. I can translate (from Seediq into Chinese) for you.” I do not know which questions I asked made him feel that there was something ‘I wanted to hear’, perhaps it was because when he switched to Seediq, I looked different. I was not sure. After the interview, I strolled alone to film the village and the Memorial Hall for the Survivors. Then I bumped into Pifu again. He was in his van and had taken off the traditional costume. He rolled down the window saying,
“Will you stay here?”
“I will be back.” Then I caught his peculiar and blank eyes. He was silent for a long while and then drove away, at that moment, I thought I was a bloody tourist.
The mountains are so high and the caves are so deep
Never will I stand a chance to fly across both.
The winter is so cold and the night is accompanied by snow
Never will I feed anyon e in such coldness.
There are two thousand of us
Without knives and guns.
The world is freezing cold already
But we fall prey to the red-hat soldiers.—One of Hsin-jung Wu’s poems written in “Southern Min: Song of Wushe Head-hunting”/ 1930–10–29/ Nan Ying Volume 2/ Its original title was “Pictorial of Wushe Uprising” renamed as “Song of Wushe Head-hunting” and was included in Chengying Impressions & Thoughts, The Collected Works of Wu Hsin-jung Volume 1 and “Chengying Poetry Collection” Volume 1.
3. No. 105, District 4, Honcho Area, Tainan
Narrator: Fu-chi Tung and Grandma Guo-mang Chen
Place: No. 105, District 4, Honcho Area, Tainan (this is the old address in 1945 when Taiwan was ruled by Japan); Its whereabouts is the west side of the intersection of Minchuan Road and Hsinmei Street.
Author: Hsin-jung Wu
There was the 228 Incident in 1947. The Nationalist government suppressed the use of local languages in Taiwan harsher than ever. All levels of schools banned the use of Japanese and teachers taught dominantly in Mandarin Chinese while local dialects were allowed to use sparely. People were encouraged to talk in Mandarin and no Japanese was allowed. Any violation would be treated with strict punishment.
March 1, Sunny
When I was about to have my lunch, the air raid siren was on. It was followed by a series of explosions. Later, I realized that Tainan was under attack.
—The Diary of Hsin-jung Wu, (from November 12, 1907 to March 27, 1967). Being one of the most prominent figures in the Salt belt Literary Workshop, the author founded the Jiali Youth Wind Association and Jiali Branch of Taiwanese Cultural Association. When the 228 Incident occurred in 1947, he was arrested and prisoned.
I read about Hsing-jung Wu’s diary written between 1940 to1945 when I was researching on his works. He wrote about the big air raid on Tainan in the diary, and it reminded me of the filming process when I went to the Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage and the visit to the Annan District in Tainan where there is a Feihu General Temple enshrining a WWII Japanese pilot named Shigemine Sugiura. His diary is less literary and has the plain statements as you would see in live news reports. I tried to identify the most stricken part in the air raid and started to look for witnesses after reading the above quote. According to Yufu, a writer, the west side of the intersection of Minchuan Road and Hsinmei Street would probably be the place. After a whole afternoon of carpet investigation, I found Grandma Guo-mang Chen who was nineteen years old when the air raid took place.
“The bombs dropped upon us suddenly. There was a blackout and everyone was screaming. It was so scary.” The grandma described the situation in Southern Min and added, “It was so long ago, I don’t remember clearly now.”
Incorrect memory and incorrect history. It is at this point that translation is most needed. While I was listening to her reiteration of the air raid process, what was recorded was her faded fear and an echo to history emitting from the grandma’s deteriorating memory. She told me that she had a Japanese nameうめこ (U-Me-Ko), because she received Japanese education and spoke Japanese. The three Japanese alphabetsうめこdrove my attention to a passage in Hsin-jung Wu’s diary written in 1938:
January 4, Sunny
The expansion of the Japanese empire means the overflowing use of the Japanese language. It is impossible for me to prevent it as I am just a tiny castle. Just as I have to use Japanese in my daily life, it is natural to write my diary in the language. After all, the Japanese have started their rule before I was born and that I received Japanese education in the first half of my life. These are all significant facts so that I speak and write in Japanese, but it differs from people speaking and writing in English when they study in the United Kingdom. [4]
The grandma would at times be absent-minded or repeated in her memory circuit of personal history, illustrating what the French writer, Marguerite Duras, highlighted in her notes of Hiroshima Mon Amour that “This is the Hiroshima that you will never see.” In a film that reality intertwines with fiction, it is difficult to see historical truth from a panoramic perspective. Hospitals, museums, streets, photos, bodies, news reports, and ruins resulted from the atom bomb destruction are archived in files, buildings and beds. These are typical sites of disasters and ruins, so tourists visited similar places in Hanoi and Saigon after the war, because they were the official window to showcase historical trauma. This is why personal voices and official models full of political correctness are equally important. Since to explicate is to act, even if those personal voices may sometimes be a kind of wrong writing and even if the wrong writing resulted from a colonial education.
4. Women’s Script
Narrator: None
Place: Xingcheng Street, Taipei
Author: Yan-xin He (a user of women’s script)
Pouring rain. There was no biological male in the office.
When I was waiting for the film file to be transmitted, I browsed the files documents on the book shelves and saw director Yu-i Kuo’s 2011 documentary Calling and Recalling: Sentiments of Women’s Script. It was the life story of Ms. Yan-xin He, the last user of women’s script.
“Grandma, why are you crying writing the script?”
“Writing the script itself is a suffering. It is because the writer has suffered a lot so that she can write the script.” [5]
In the film, an old lady with grey hair is wiping her tears while singing the Wedding Song. The voice is mature, sad but determined, but I was not attracted by the old lady’s touching life story but by the bundles and bundles of written symbols—they were unidentifiable, transformed from Chinese characters, and is a script both strange and familiar to me. Women’s script, the language exclusively to be used by women, is dying.
One of the surveys I read says that a human language disappears every fourteen days. In my short journey searching for the traces of a lost language, women’s script easily occupied a node. If the language of exile is for one “not to speak his/her mother tongue” and “not to be local”, women’s script is a language roundly soliloquizing and enables personal history to be resonated. It is the result of the users’ self-alienation and self-isolation from a familiar language, by doing so, the women have escaped the destiny to be governed and have undoubtedly formed a true voice/group. “A man writes at the table whereas a woman writes on the knee. She can cook and write at the same time.”[6] This not only visualizes the description about sex writing, labor and reading space, but it also serves as a handy script for counter cinema, because it deals with the prominent vs. the obscure, the unpleasant vs. the pleasant and the real vs. the fictitious. If Fu-chi Tung’s narration featuring verbal irony is applied to voice for the women’s script, lots of slow motions and multiple narrations would have to be constantly translated in order for the images to achieve communication. The living condition of the women’s script users is exactly the reason why they choose to switch to a different language.
The file was transmitted. It was still raining heavily when I left the office. I wondered where the search of the traces of a lost mother tongue would lead me to?
And how the images would tell the story.
[ NOTE ]
1 Taiwanese artist. Fu-chi Tung’s recent creations are mainly about language. He see a language as a material to be reversed, disassembled and resembled, then the artist is able to create a new language that discloses the operating rules in daily life languages and challenges the viewer’s established perceptual experiences. His works include 2013 Un’words, First Person, Translation and Nonsense Talk.
2 T. Takahashi, The Sacrificial System: Okinawa and Fukushima, trans. Yi-chen Lee, Taipei: Linking Publishing, 2014, pp 164–165.
3 With reference to Photos and the Wushe Incident Exhibition held by Academia Sinica, from http://knowledge.teldap.tw/focus/001005/ws1.htm (Retrieved on 18/07/2015)
4 Hsing-jung Wu, The Diary of Wu Hsin-jung, ed. Chang, Liang-tse, Tainan: National Museum of Taiwan Literature, 2007, pp 181–182.
5 Excerpt from director Yu-i Kuo’s 2011 documentary Calling and Recalling: Sentiments of Women’s Script.
6 Li-ming Zhao, The Legendary Women’s Script, Beijing: Qinghua University Press, 2015, p 79.