the marco polo project: 中国式大 Migration：何处安放我们的故乡

"南都 Metropolitan Daily" 记者 张 Tianpan

每年春节，都是中国人一次集体的回家的朝圣之旅，为了一家人的团聚，entfernte Gegenden、千难万 Hindernisse，都难以牵制回家的脚步。这或许是全世界独有的现象。中国人对于故乡的 Abhängigkeit，成为中国文化中一个难以无视奇景。最直接的体现是，关于故乡的诗文不计其数，“举头望明月，低头思故乡”、“近乡情更 ängstlich，不敢问来人”、“乡音无改 aber das Haar ist 衰”等等，思乡中总是 verbunden mit konzentrierter Melancholie、Sentimentalität，Heimweh 扑面而来。近些年来，更有“每个人的故乡都在 feindlicher Hand” 这样的现代化之 Heimweh。

在今年的春节期间以及春节之后，又 erhöht 一波对于家乡五味陈杂的思考和书写，同时也有了面对北上广，entfliehen 还是 zurückflüchten、大城市与小城镇孰 überlegen 孰 unterlegen 的 Diskussionen。这些也都在给 temporär 放下工作 durchdringen 于 aufsaugen 年味的人们，带去难以 ringen 的现实提示：我们与故乡到底是什么的关系？为什么在哪里生活，会成为永不停歇的争论话题？中国式 Migration，何时能够得以安宁？我们的故乡，何处可以安放？

故乡：故去的家乡

诗人 Yujian 的一篇写于2011年的文章《朋友是最后的故乡》这个春节在 Weixin 朋友-Kreisen 流传甚广，hat geführt zu 诸多人的 Resonanz。他在文中说到：故乡不再是我的在场，只是一种记忆，这种记忆最 aktiv 的部分是朋友们保管着。记忆 aufwecken 的是存在感，是乡音、往事、人生的种种细节、个人史、经验。如今，只有在老朋友那里才可以复苏记忆。中国世界 sieht völlig neu aus，日益密集的 Wolkenkratzer、Autobahnen，令文章无言以对。但朋友是旧的，朋友无法被拆迁，许多老朋友，也还 bestehen auf “Abstrakte 理想最高之 Platz”， unvermeidlich 是，己所不欲强加于人的恶行时有发生；ist der 路 weit, 知马力，日久见人心，朋友继续故乡遗风，“止于礼”“止于至善”，像刘关张那样 Hingabe，言行一致，说着母语，时刻准备为朋友 sich zu opfern。

事实上，Yujian 说出了一个很多人 halten 在中心迟迟没有去 entdeckt 的真相，其实人们与故乡之间千言万语的 Gefühle，本质上只是寄托在 schwach 的载体之上的。由此，也 führt zu “亲人是 die einzigen 的故乡”等真实的 gezeigte Emotionen，道尽了故乡与内心中的真实联系。这也说明，在这个已经被现代化与城市化 mit sich bringen 的时代进程里，人们与故乡之间的 Verbindung，其实已经 immer schwächer，亲友等线索，成为最后的游子与故乡的中介或 Medium。而如果这些中介或 Medium 一旦中断，那么这个故乡，或者就将成为已经故去的家乡了，被遗忘，被 weggewaschen。

这种真实的心理的 Entdeckung，在社会-Studien 中来说，可能意味着更多。已故著名社会学家费孝通先生在《乡土中国》中说，“乡土社会是安土重迁的，生于斯、长于斯、死于斯的社会。不但是人口流动很小，而且人们所取给 Resourcen 的土地也很少变动。在这种不分秦汉，代代如是的 Umwelt 里，个人不但可以信任自己的经验，而且同样可以信任若祖若父的经验。一个在乡土社会里种田的老农所遇着的只是四季的转换，而不是时代变更。一年一度，周而复始。前人所用来解决生活问题的方案，尽可 kopieren 来作自己生活的指南。”

但是到现在，这种安土重迁——乡土中国的一个 Symbol，也 vollständig 反转了，中国人口流动已经成为全世界最 oft、数量最多的国家。故乡，开始被时代 erodieren und 日益 verblassen，不再是神圣不可疏离的圣地，或者说，它只是成为了旅游式的胜地了。

在 häufig 的流动与 Migration 中，费孝通所说的这一套乡土生活运作 Methode 和 Logik 被 stark untergraben。而一旦这种乡土中国的 Symbol 在退化，“故乡”这个很大程度上寄托于乡土中国之上的文化产物，也将会随之 verwelken。乡土中国的 Hintergrund，是一种传统式的 suchen Stabilität、可预见、最具安全感的生存需求，年复一年，好像时间在乡土中是 Stillstand。很显然，在流动的现代社会中，这一切都是不复存在的，变化、fremd、不可预见才是最显著的 Charakteristik，时间在人们匆匆的脚步中，急剧飞逝。

如今，乡土中国的载体，随着农村的 Verarmung，已经慢慢 zurückgezogen zu 小城镇中，流动中国的载体，zweifelsohne，是在大城市。于是，在乡土中国与流动中国之间，人们也 treffen 的选择Problem，到底是具有更多中国传统的乡土中国式生活好，还是现代化与城市化之后流动中国的那种生活方式好？成为了众多人的 Verlorenheit。

小城镇与大城市

刚刚出街的《南方人物周-Ausgabe》封面报道就是“zurückflüchten 北上广”，它说：马年春节过后，Internet 上关于大城市与小城市的比较与 hitzige Diskussion，außergewöhnlich lebendig。无论是 entfliehen 北上广，还是 zurückflüchten 北上广，大城市、小城市之间的比较与取舍，以及由此带来的人群 vor- und zurückgehen 的 Tide，deutlich zeigen 的是一代城市 arbeiten-者安全感的 Mangel，“无根”的 Problem。

在两三年前，eingeschränkt durch 房价 Erhöhung、交通-Staus、Umwelt 恶化等大城市的各种工作、生活压力之后，很多的年轻人主动或被动地选择“ entfliehen 北上广”，形成一股 zurückkehren zu 乡 Flut，zurückkehren zu 二三线的小城市（随着中国城镇化的推动，“小城市”其实严格上应该称之为小城镇更合适，后文都将使用小城镇）。但在这一两年后，这些“entfliehen 北上广”的人，经历了家乡诸如工作机会少、收入水准低、观念不合 Rhythmus、人情世故 viele Enttäuschungen 与不如意之后，却又有很多人选择了“zurückflüchten 北上广”。身在故乡为异客，反倒觉得自己的原先 entfliehen 大城市苦虽然苦一些，但却更自由和有发展机会，心情不像在家乡小城镇那般 Beschränkungen。于是，家乡成为了回不去地方。

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http://epaper.oeeee.com/A/html/2014-02/16/content_2020475.htm

Zhang Tianpan

Übersetzung

Great migration China-style: where is our hometown?

Southern Metropolitan Daily commentator: Zhang Tianpan

Each Chinese New Year (Spring Festival) is a collective pilgrimage home for Chinese intending on reuniting with their families. Though some of them must travel long distances and encounter all kinds of difficulties, their steps still irrepressibly take them home. This phenomenon is perhaps unique in the world. Chinese people’s dependence on their hometown is a marvel of Chinese culture that is hard to ignore. The most obvious sign of this is the innumerable quantity of poetry and literature that pertains to one’s hometown: “I look up and gaze at the moon, I look down and think of home”, “The closer to home the more timid I feel, not daring inquire about my family”, “The local accent hasn’t changed, but my hair is sparse and greying” etcetera. Thinking of home always comes with deep emotions, it’s nostalgia hitting one right between the eyes. In recent years, a more modern kind of nostalgia has emerged, along the lines of “everyone’s hometown is being overrun”.

During and after Spring Festival this year, a new wave of reflections and writings pertaining to the mixed emotions towards one’s hometown has risen again. At the same time, people faced disputes over the merits of big cities and small towns, no matter whether they were coming back from one or leaving for one. These situations also give those that have temporarily stopped work and are immersed in the New Year atmosphere a real prompt: What is the real connection between us and our hometown? Why is it that wherever you live, this becomes an unceasing topic of debate? When will Chinese style migration become stress-free? Where can we find our home?

Hometowns: Dead Homes

The poet Yujian in the unyielding 2011 article “Friends are the Final hometown”, which has been spread far and wide among circles of friends on Weixin, has resonated greatly with a lot of people this Spring Festival. In the article he says: My hometown no longer has my presence, it’s just a memory, the most active part of which is being taken care of by my friends. What my memory awakens is a feeling of presence, my native accent, past events, all kinds of details of my life, my personal history and experience. Nowadays, it’s only by having old friends that it’s possible to revive old memories. China has completely changed. Increasingly more skyscrapers and highways make this article unable to respond. However, old friends can’t be dispossessed. Many old friends still persist in “the highest place of abstract ideals”. What’s unavoidable is that when you have evil intent, it will make itself known: just as distance determines the stamina of a horse, so does time reveal a person’s true heart. Friends continue the legacy of one’s hometown by “following the etiquette” and “having a state of perfection”. Just like how Liu Guanzhang shows total devotion, practise what you preach, speak your mother tongue, and be ready at any moment to sacrifice oneself for friends.

In fact, Yujian has spoken forth the truth that many people have inside of them but haven’t explored. Actually, the many things people say to express their feelings for their hometown is essentially a weak medium. This gives rise to the expressed emotions such as “one’s close relatives are the sole homeland”, as the only real connection between one’s hometown and one’s innermost being. This also explains, in the course of this era’s modernisation and urbanisation, the connection between people and their hometown is actually already becoming progressively weaker. Close family and friends are like the thread that joins, becoming the final link or medium between those living far from home and their hometown. If these links or mediums are broken off, then many hometowns will perhaps become dead hometowns, forgotten and washed away.

This kind of real introspection, looking at social studies, maybe signifies even more. The famous late sociologist Fei Xiaotong in “Native China” said, “people are deeply attached to their local society, in which they were born, raised, and will die. Not only is the population pretty much stationary, but also the land that provides natural resources hardly changes. In this kind of environment that is indistinguishable from the unchanging Qin Dynasty, not only can individuals trust in their own experience, they can also in the same way trust their ancestry. All that an old farmer in his local society has come across is the changing of the four seasons, rather than the change of an era. Everything moves in an annual cycle. Our forebears’ plan for resolving life’s problems, as far as was possible would be to take a leaf out of their own books.”

However, up until now, this deep attachment to one’s native land, representative of Native China, has been thoroughly turned upside-down. The frequency that China’s population moves from place to place and it’s volume now stands at the world’s highest. Native places have started to be eroded away by the era, fading more day by day. They are no longer the holy lands that cannot become estranged. Rather, they have just become touristy scenic spots.

From the aspects of the frequency of population movement and migration, the model and logic of life in one’s hometown that Fei Xiaotong talks about have been severely undermined. In addition, as soon as this kind of symbol of Native China starts to degenerate, one’s “hometown”, this high level product of culture that entrusts the care of Native China, will accordingly wither. Behind the scenes of Native China, there is a kind of a demand for a traditional existence that pursues stability, predictability and safety.Year after year, it seems that in people’s hometowns, time is at a standstill. It’s very clear that in modern society where people move from place to place, everything has a temporary existence, changes, and is strange. It’s impossible to say what the most outstanding characteristic is. In the frantic pace of modern society, time is fleeting.

Nowadays, Native China’s medium, with the impoverishment of rural areas, has slowly retreated to small towns. However, the medium for mobile China is, without a doubt, consigned to big cities. Consequently, people are faced with a bewildering choice between Native China and mobile China. Is it better to have more a more traditional, Native China style of life, or is it better to have the modernised and urbanised lifestyle of mobile China? This causes many people to feel at a loss.

Small Towns and Big Cities

In the most recent issue of “Southerner’s Weekly”, the cover story is “Fleeing Back to Big Cities”. It says: After this year’s Spring Festival, the comparison and heated debate between big cities and small towns on the internet is uncharacteristically lively. No matter whether returning to or parting from big cities, the comparisons and decisions between big and small cities, as well as the resulting tides of people going back and forth, highlight the lack of security in the generation of those who make a living in the cities and the bewilderment of “having no roots”.

Two or three years ago, restricted to high housing costs, traffic congestion, environmental degradation etcetera, after enduring every kind of stress in both work and life in big cities, many young people either actively or passively chose to “flee the big cities”, forming a tide of people returning to their hometowns of second and third-tier small cities. (With China’s push for urbanisation, actually “small cities” more suitably should be called small towns, so the remainder of this article will use this term.) However, one or two years later, these people that “fled the big cities”, found that there were few work opportunities in their hometowns, income levels were low, people’s views were not in step with their own, they didn’t know how to get on etcetera. After feelings of disappointment and things not being in line with their own wishes, many people in fact chose to “flee back to the big cities”. As a stranger in one’s hometown, one unexpectedly feels that the big city that one fled, although a little trying, in fact has more freedom and opportunities, and one’s mood doesn’t feel suppressed like it is in one’s home in a small town. As a result, hometowns have become places that can’t be returned to.

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http://epaper.oeeee.com/A/html/2014-02/16/content_2020475.htm

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