化蝶 Metamorphosis

从家向后穿过菜田往南丫岛的深处,经大坪村往山上走,有一段可从高处望海的很美的山径,这是我的晨径。进入晨径前是一段葱郁的长路，此时野花缤纷。也是在这一段，每年初夏和晚秋，各色蝴蝶飞舞, 亦真亦幻。

想起儿子在刚会说整句话后不久，有一天忽然问我: “蝴蝶死了以后就变成花了,是吧？”我笑了,说“是,蝴蝶象花一样美,可它小时候是只小肉虫儿。” 蝴蝶的生命,从沉重变轻盈，从丑陋变美丽，从平庸变灿烂，在我心里始终是个奇迹,好象一个绝不可能的梦想的实现。

中国最著名的有关蝴蝶的故事有两则,一是庄周梦蝶, 二是梁祝化蝶。庄周梦蝶讲的是道家的代表人庄子有一天梦到自己变成了一只蝴蝶，醒了之后感觉梦境中的一切如此真实,他问了一个问题:“我是谁? 我是庄周,梦到了蝴蝶，还是蝴蝶的一个梦, 蝴蝶梦到它变成了庄周?”这个故事中所隐含的哲学思想也可延伸至道家对生与死,现实与梦境等人生命题的阐释。梁祝化蝶是相爱的两个人生前被拆散,死后化作蝴蝶破坟而出,随风自由而舞，永远相依。

蝴蝶是中国人的一个梦境，它是自由, 是美, 是灵魂，是爱情，同时却也是死亡，是脆弱，是女人的虚荣和短暂的欢乐; 它的变形是从肉体到灵魂的解脱，从沉重丑陋的现实生活至美丽轻盈的精神世界的升华。而在传统中国文化中,死亡本身就是一种变形，而不是一个终结。

每每置身于这段蝴蝶纷飞的小径,我都有种伸出手去便触到梦的感觉。有时我想,如果我是一条匍匐而行的虫子,用我的一生做交换可以拥有蝴蝶的一天，我会愿意么？变作蝴蝶的我,还会有虫子的记忆么?

In the deeper part of North Lamma Island up to the hills beyond Tai Peng Village, there is a beautiful trail overlooking the sea. This is our Morning Trail. Leading to the entrance of the Morning Trail, a long pass winds through verdant woods and bushes. Now is time for wild flowers and butterflies. Every year in early summer and late autumn, many butterflies of different sizes and colors flutter on one section of this pass, making it almost dream-like.

I remember once being asked by my then two-year-old son: “when a butterfly dies, it changes into a flower, right?” I smiled and said: “yes a butterfly is as beautiful as a flower, but when it was young, it was a caterpillar”. To me, the metamorphosis in a butterfly’s life is an impossible dream that comes true.

In China, there are two most well-known butterfly stories – “Zhuangzi’s Butterfly Dream” and “Butterfly Lovers”.

The first one was about a dream of Zhuangzi, the Taoism philosopher who lived more than 2000 years ago in China. One day he dozed off and dreamed that he turned into a butterfly. When he woke up, the joyful feeling of a butterfly was so real, and he wondered who he actually was. Was he Zhuangzi who dreamed that he was a butterfly or was he the dream of a butterfly who dreamed it was Zhuangzi? The philosophical proposition implied here also extends to the Taoism view on life and death, reality and dream.

The Butterfly Lovers is a legend of the tragic romance between Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai. When their hope of marriage was dashed when Zhu’s parents betrothed Zhu to another man, Liang died of a broken heart. On Zhu’s wedding day, she threw herself against Liang’s tomb. The tomb opened up and enveloped Zhu. Then a pair of butterflies emerged from the tomb and flew high freely and together.

To Chinese, butterflies symbolize freedom, conjugal love, beauty and soul but at the same time death, vulnerability of life, female vanity and transient joy. Its metamorphosis is the extrication from flesh to soul and rise from the heavy, ugly reality to the light and beautiful spiritual world. In traditional Chinese culture, death is anyway not seen as an end, but a metamorphosis into another form of existance.

Every time I walk along the butterfly section before the Morning Trail, I have the feeling that I can raise my hand and touch a dream. A thought often comes to mind. If I were a caterpillar and could exchange my whole life for a day as a butterfly, would I be willing to? When I became a butterfly, would I still carry the memories of a caterpillar?

“在泥泞中, 鞭炮声宣告发现了又一具尸体”"Amid the mud, fireworks signal another body"

当我读到《金融时报》头版报道中国四川为震中的7.9级大地震的这个标题时，我的心颤抖了。“每过一会儿，鞭炮声就响起,告诉人们发现了又一具尸体，然后哀号声就又开始了。”稍后又看到南华早报头版的照片，是几个死去的孩子，身体部分掩埋在他们坍塌了的学校的瓦砾碎片中。我整个身体颤抖了，泪不觉涌上来。

我记忆中也有一次地震。32年前这场地震从一个中国北方城市中夺走了二十多万生命。我模糊记得在一个初夏拂晓的黑暗中，有多彩的光在窗外，有碎石摇落的声音，床在晃，爸爸叫醒我们从我家所在的大灰楼往外跑。直到那年深冬,我们才回到这个大灰楼里。全大院儿的人都挤到了车库和外面的空地中,每家在这里支起一、两张床和蚊帐。我父母后来用各种颜色的塑料布搭起了全大院第一个防震棚，我在周围跑跑跳跳,快乐而自豪。之后一个多月, 妹妹作为一个新生婴儿从医院直接住进了这个塑料的家。 是的， 我用了“快乐”这个词，它的确准确形容了我当时在震后这几个月中作为一个小孩儿的感受 – 无忧无虑，不上学，没人管，尽情游戏，象野猫一样自由……

孩子总是用与大人不同的眼光看世界，而星期一在地震中失去生命的孩子们却再也不能看世界了,他们在世上的最后时光也是充满恐惧。我无法从脑海中抹去躺在碎瓦中那些小小躯体的样子，这也完全改变了我对自己所稍稍经历了的那场地震的感受。准确地说，把灾难后那几个月回忆成一段快乐时光，我深感内疚。

在我写下这些文字的时候，一定有鞭炮声又在响起；在我写下这些文字的时候，我心中只有悲哀。

My heart shivered, when I read this title of Financial Times' front page story on the 7.9 magnitude earthquake on May 12th with its epicentre in China's south-western Sichuan province. "Every so often the crackle of fireworks signalled another body had been found and the wailing began again". Then I spot from SCMP's front page the picture of dead children partly buried in rubbles of their collapsed school building. My whole body started to shiver and tears filled my eyes.

I too have memory of an earthquake, which wiped out 240,000 lives from a northern Chinese city 32 years ago. Vaguely I remember colourful lights, sound of falling rocks and shaking of the bed when my father woke us up in the darkness of an early summer dawn, to escape from our home in a big grey building. Not until deep into the winter did we return. The whole compound crowded into a large garage and the open areas outside it. The space for each family was merely one or two beds with mosquito nets. Then my parents built up the first emergency shelter in the whole compound with plastics of different colours, and I was running around, happy and proud. A month later, my new born younger sister came back from the hospital into this plastic home. Yes, I used the word “happy”, because the word exactly described how I felt for these few post-disaster months as a child - no worry, no pain, no school, less rules, as fun and free as a wild cat... ...

Children always see the world differently from adults, but these children who lost their lives on Monday will never see the world again. I cannot erase the picture of their small bodies lying in the mud, and this has changed how I feel about my own earthquake. Precisely, I feel guilty for remembering it as a happy time.

As I write, fireworks must have crackled again and again; as I write, grief was all I could feel.