轮椅上的香港街头艺人
The Street Artist in the Wheelchair
Not too conspicuous, the image of the nameless street artist has deeply rooted in the memory of my visit to Hong Kong in May of 2008.
It was taken in Mong Kok, an area said to best capture the dynamics of the city. Street artists abounded. Yet, this particular artist in the wheelchair attracted me by his hoarse voice and the nostalgic melody he was performing. Stranger to Cantonese, I had no idea whatsoever what he was singing, but I was hooked. The song he was playing and singing had a strikingly evocative tone that connected me with the moment and the setting. The melody seemed to account the ups and downs of the past and a reexamination of the present, combing through the unforgettable and the regrettable. The flow seemingly suggested that life is well lived and this life is made significant, to borrow Laozi's term.
I tried to Google the name of the song a few times, but failed. Some Hong Kong friends couldn't tell what the song is either. Surprisingly, I have not forgotten the melody of the song or what the artist looks like. Actually the picture and the melody have marked the greatest surprise and pleasure of my visit.
I wonder sometimes why people travel and what people explore when they travel. Indeed, answers vary from person to person. To me, traveling is a chance to make connections with the unknown, consciously or otherwise. It is more than an adventure. It is an experience in which I reidentify who I am, not in terms of our existing social roles, but rather of how I am emotionally related to an incomprehensible Hmong tune, a smile or a look of a bare-footed hyena man, a tantalizing smell of full-blown sakura, or a refreshing mastication of herbal stimulant. For these beautiful unknowns, I travel; as I travel, I see the otherwise invisible connections. By establishing the connections, I learn to appreciate the beauty of life and time, and these experiences will in one way or another shape my life.
I may forget the artist and his melody sometime in the future, but this experience will have already trickled into my being, leaving an inerasable mark.
题图：于 2008 年 5 月拍摄于香港旺角。短文写于 2010 年 10 月，有改写。
打算下周再去趟香港，不禁想起了第一次去香港的经历和这个无名歌手。9 年时间足以改变一个城市的兴衰、际遇和心气。可能没有什么比《客途秋恨：极简香港经济史》一文中的这句更能捕捉到这种时过境迁了：香港仍然是香港，而世界已经不是昨日的世界。
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