亮忘记了 — 作者：畿米; author: Jimmy Liao

“看见的，看不见了。
夏风轻轻吹过，在瞬间消失无影，
记住的，遗忘了。
只留下一地微微晃动的米离树影……”

What was once visible, is now invisible.
Summer’s gentle breeze disappeared in a twinkling moment,
Once remembered, now forgotten.
Silent, mysterious and hazy moving shadows of the distant trees are all that is left behind.

“看不见的，是不是就等于不存在？
也许只是被农运遮住，
也许刚巧风沙飞入眼帘，
我看不见你，却依然感到温暖。”

Does invisibility suggest non-existence?
Perhaps t’was just the shielding by thick puffy clouds,
Perhaps t’was coincidental that sand (wind) was blown into one’s eyes,
I can’t see you, yet, I still feel the warmth.

“记得的，是不是永远不会消失？
我守护如泡沫般脆弱的梦境，
快乐才刚开始，悲伤却早已潜伏而来。”

Does what is remembered mean that it will never-ever vanish?
I watch over the bubbly-foam-like fragile dream-mirror,
Happiness has only just appeared, yet sorrow has long crept in and is now beginning to surface.

“看不见的，看见了。
夏风轻轻吹过，草丛树叶翻舞飞扬。
遗忘的，记住了。
乌云渐渐散去，一道柔和的月光洒落在窗前……”

Whatever that was invisible, is now visible.
Summer’s breeze gently brushes by, swaying meadow grass-blades and tree-leaves into a wind-dance.
All that is long forgotten is now remembered.
Rain clouds dissipate with time, revealing a soft luminance of the moon before the window…

These quotes (please excuse my amateurish english translations) are taken from the beautiful picture book "Then The Moon Forgot", by the Taiwanese author, Jimmy Liao. D very kindly introduced me to his beautifully illustrated pictures and website some time ago. in the book, Jimmy cajoles us into appreciating everyday happenings, which we often grow to take for granted and gradually see them as being mundane….e.g. like the rising of the moon…it’s being there in the night…that children have interesting experiences worth noticing but adults often overlook their need to share their experiences and resort to telling them to behave and listen to them instead… etc. beginning with a rather bizarre pictorial introduction with a guy falling over his balcony as the moon fell from the sky and then through a little boy’s discovery of the fallen moon, who has apparently forgotten about its identity, and the boy’s loving care of his new friend and the friendship between them, Jimmy described different worlds through his series of pictures… which are dotted by a few contemplative poetic lines. among the different ‘realities’, was one of the adult world… which was ruled by an apparent ‘rigid’, man-made conformity, while the little boy’s world was one full of innocence, discovery, dreams and imagination… the moon seems to bear some symbolism of a friend, a confidant(e), or perhaps even dreams… in a way… the dream ends as the moon awakes from re-discovering its identity, and likewise, as the adult person awakes from his head-injury-coma (?!), and re-finds the moon back in the night sky… that meditative and forlorn look towards the moon before his accident is suggestive of escapism… of some dream… or perhaps some aspiration of far away possibilities etc. yet his gentle smile as he gazed towards the moon, reappearing anew, might be a portrayal of a relieved yet bewildered sense of ‘enlightenment’….perhaps of the realisation that the boundaries between dreams and reality might actually be quite hazy and grey?!

i think i am beginning to become addicted to Jimmy’s creation although i have yet managed to subscribe to his website! i shall have to soon!… i have also managed to read “向左走，向右走”(“turn left, turn right”) and watched it’s movie (vcd) adaptation… which i quite enjoyed despite the various apparent differences from the original story (about 2 people meeting by chance and falling for each other. Yet, despite being literally separated by the wall, they do not seem to bump into each other… they pass each other’s lives so ‘subliminally’, because each has a tendency to turn in one direction as s/he leaves her/his place…. they are always so close, yet so far…)…. yet the original story-line is not totally explicit and allows for individual interpretations… which is probably what makes the story linger about in your head…. hey D! i do think that the two protagonists did meet again even in the book!.… try looking for them on the page with the picture of everybody celebrating the arrival of a new year — it’s a “where oh where’s Wally?” game! thanks for sharing the works of Jimmy Liao with me D! it’s lovely that i could brush up on my deteriorating Mandarin, and also reflect on various things…. which is wonderful!

now, i shall have to try to continue with my good intentions of brushing up my Chinese with another wee picture-book: “我只能为你画一张小卡片” (“Love in the cards”, although literally translated, it is: i could only draw you a wee postcard), also by Jimmy, which i picked up on monday. it should be fun… although it will take me longer to suss it out when mum isn’t around for the occasional help with foreign-looking characters, which i ought to know… and the lack of regular use in the last 9 years… has drastically lowered my fluency in Mandarin. sob…. 我一定要努力用心把中文搞好 (i must really make a big effort to improve my Mandarin)！

Thanks Overacuppa for the good article here.

 

 

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January 13, 2006

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