We remember

At home and travelling at the same time

We are not islands and don’t live in islands. The occasional sense of solitude arose from the difficulty of gauging our distance with the world, the near being far and the far being near.

In the subway, surrounded by commuters going to work by the same subway line as we do, we couldn’t wait for a decent social distance to be restored between us. With the crowded rush-hour train refusing to grant us our wish, we could only stay indifferent, a.k.a. courteous when being among total strangers, while protecting the final piece of tiny flimsy private space. But hey, we weren’t complaining, considering what those commuters pushed into the train by the platform stewards had to go through.

The mobile communication devices that follow us here and there all the time did the job again, splitting the indifferent crowd and opened a way that took us to the neighbours a little bit further. I’ll arrive in 20 minutes, sorry to keep you waiting. Sports news from America, the reality show hoax of the Netherlands, and the latest whereabouts of state leaders, all at our fingertips. Somehow the headlines rushed into our short-term memory, while fellow travellers 20cm from us were silent all the way through, until the terminus parted us.

It was still not the end of the story. We did travel with them for a little longer, this time on a conveyor belt moving at constant speed. You look familiar, have we met before? Oh yeah, you were the guy in a suit that was standing next to me when I chopped onions and carrots on Cooking Mama. I did have a glimpse of you (or, rather, your newspaper) and was as familiar with the latest plots of our favourite soap as you were. See ya, Mr Won’t-see-you-again.

Yes, we are living in an information-overloaded city, but we still choose to overload ourselves with the world thousands and hundreds of kilometres away on our PDA, or an imaginary world somewhere in our NDS. Otherwise we run out of talking points and imaginations.

We never know the names of our “near neighbours” near our homes, on the train or on the bus. The solidarity demonstrated by true “communities” in the older areas can only be envied. Hey, don’t we all aim to move to a bigger house, just like everyone else (or so we believe)? Then neighbours and fellow travellers are just that, travellers, travellers that come and go. And are you not, am I not, travellers, at home and travelling at the same time?

故鄉旅行

你我不是孤島，也不活在孤島中；偶然出現的孤寂，源於與世界的距離難以測度；近的遠，遠的近。在地鐵被乘坐同一條地鐵線列車上班的人群圍繞，你我恨不得他們跟你保持社交距離；無奈車廂太擁擠，我們逃不了，只好保持陌生人之間應有的冷漠，並守護著僅有的一片細小得可憐的私人領土。和東京地鐵火車裡給月台職員推進車廂的乘客相比，你我也該無怨了。

你我隨身帶備的通訊器材，劃破了這群正常地冷淡的陌路人，把你我帶到稍遠處的近鄰。還有二十分鐘就到了，你等等我。美國的體育消息，荷蘭的真人騷風波，中國領導人到哪裡去跟哪國的首長會談，你我都大致知道了，二十厘米以外的「同路人」仍然不吭一聲，直至總站把你我他她分開。

接下來你我他她還在一條定速移動的輸送帶呆了好一陣子，或許大家都覺得大家很面善，啊，原來就是我和我的cooking Mama在切著洋蔥甘筍時站在旁邊那西裝友。我有瞄過你（手中的讀物）一眼，對最後五集《溏心風暴》的劇情，跟你同樣清楚。再見了，不會再相遇的人。

城市不是有太多的資訊，太多令人目眩的刺激嗎？你我卻像反射動作般啟動PDA和NDS，尋找數千數萬公里以外的世界或一個大概不算存在的地方，給你話題，給我想像。

你我和居所附近、交通工具上的「近鄰」從來不相往來，對著看來相當團結的老區居民，只有羨慕的份兒。畢竟「細屋搬大屋」價值當道，鄰人和地鐵「同路人」一樣，只是過客。而你，而我，又何嘗不是？所以，就讓你我繼續在故鄉旅行吧。