在充满对亚裔仇恨的时代，那些爱的形式
Keeping Love Close
伍绮诗
2021年4月14日
IN CHINESE FAMILIES, you greet someone by asking if they’ve eaten yet. It is love expressed as concern: Let me take care of you, let me tend to your most basic need. And the response — I’ve eaten already — is an expression of love, too. Don’t worry, Mom, I’m doing fine.When I was in college, my father would send boxes of snacks: packets of potato soup mix, sticks of beef jerky, my favorite chocolate pudding cups, purchased in bulk. Didn’t he know, I thought, that I could buy food myself? He would call me weekly — to fuss, I used to think. Did I need money? Was I staying out late? The day before he died, he called to see if I was going to bed on time.
在中国家庭中，人们会问“你吃了吗”来表达问候。这是一种以关心来表达的爱：让我来照顾你，让我来满足你最基本的需要。而它的回应——我已经吃了——也是一种爱的表达。别担心，妈妈，我挺好的。我上大学时，我父亲会寄来装满零食的箱子：速溶土豆汤粉、牛肉干、我最喜欢的巧克力布丁杯，都是批发购买的。我想，难道他不知道我自己也可以买吃的吗？他会每周给我打电话——我曾经觉得是他瞎担心。需不需要钱？有没有很晚回家？在他去世的前一天，他打来电话想知道我有没有按时睡觉。
After my son’s birth, I took him to visit my mother and found she’d converted my old desk into a changing station. A soft mat on the desktop for my baby to lie on. Boxes of wipes in the cubbies that once held envelopes; a pump of hand sanitizer where pens once stood. Every need anticipated and attended to, though of course I could have just changed him on the floor. Holding my 3-month-old, his skull still soft, I was finally old enough to see this for what it was: love disguised as worry.
在我儿子出生后，我带他去见我母亲，发现她已经把我的旧书桌改造成了一个尿布台。桌面上铺着一个我的宝宝可以躺上去的柔软垫子。曾经用来装信封的格子里，现在装着一盒盒湿纸巾；曾经放笔的地方放着一瓶按压消毒液。每一个需求都被想到并关照到了，即使我完全可以在地板上给他换尿不湿。抱着我的三个月大、头骨仍然柔软的婴儿，为人父母的我终于明白了这个感觉：被掩饰为担忧的爱。
These days, I video-call my mother every weekend; I ask about her hip, her allergies, her medications. Has she been eating enough vegetables? Is she double-masking? Has she gotten any exercise?
现在，我每周都会和母亲视频通话；我询问她的髋关节、她的过敏症、她吃药的情况。最近她蔬菜有没有吃够？她有没有戴双层口罩？她锻炼身体了吗？
Love is a slippery and intangible thing, and sometimes we can only pin it down in these mundane, bodily needs.
爱是一个无形的东西，倏忽而逝，有时候我们能抓住的只有这些平淡无奇的身体上的需求。
FOR MANY OF ASIAN DESCENT, there is good reason for love to look like worry, especially now. Our faces mark us, in the eyes of too many, as foreigners, no matter how long we’ve been in the United States. Sadly, this is nothing new. Like so many other wrongs in our society, it’s a crack that has always been present, widening under the pressure of the pandemic.
对于许多亚洲人后代来说，把爱伪装成担忧是有原因的，尤其是现在这个时候。我们的样貌在太多人的眼里被当作外国人，无论我们在美国待了多久。悲哀的是，这并不是什么新事。就像我们社会里那么多扭曲的事情一样，它是一个一直存在的、在大流行带来的压力下不断扩大的裂缝。
I watch the videos of attacks on elderly Asians, though they are hard to stomach. They dress like my faraway aunties and uncles; sometimes they walk like them too, hands clasped behind their backs, or clutching plastic shopping bags heavy with fruit. I cry because it could have been them; it still could be them, next time. Each of these people is someone’s auntie or father or poh poh.
虽然感到难受，我还是看了袭击亚洲老年人的视频。他们的衣着打扮就像我远方的叔叔阿姨；有时他们的走路姿势也像他们，双手在背后交叉，或者提着装满水果的沉重的塑料购物袋。我哭了，因为这也可能发生在他们身上；下一次，真的有可能就是他们。视频里每一个人都是某个人的阿姨或父亲或婆婆。
I text my cousins — only our generation replies promptly. How are you? How are your parents? Stay safe, OK? I text my mother a picture of the food I’ve cooked, the cake I’ve baked, my son smiling and well-fed. What I mean is: Don’t worry, we’re all fine, see?
我给我的表亲发信息——只有我们这代人会马上回复。你怎么样？你父母还好吗？注意安全，好吗？我给我母亲发了一张照片，上面有我做的菜，我烤的蛋糕，我儿子微笑着，他喂养得很好。我想说的是：别担心，我们都挺好的，你看？
I wish I lived nearby, so I could bring her melons and the pork buns she loves, so that if someone came rushing toward her, ready to strike, I could throw myself in their way.
如果我住在附近就好了，那样的话，我就可以给她带西瓜，还有她爱吃的肉包，如果有人朝她冲过来，要攻击她，我可以挡在中间。
WHEN YOUR FACE MAKES YOU VULNERABLE, one solution is to disappear: Keep your face hidden; don’t go far from home; don’t leave the house at all. Some advocate becoming hyper-American. Change your name; change your smile; wave the flag — camouflage yourself with what we’re told Americanness should resemble, which is to say: not us. Others would like us to disappear literally. I was 11, standing at a bus stop, when a man shouted in my face: Go back to China or Vietnam or wherever you came from.
当你的样貌让你变得易受攻击，一种解决方法是消失于人群中：把脸遮起来；不要去离家远的地方；干脆别出家门。有人倡议做一个高调的美国人。改掉名字；改掉微笑的方式；挥舞星条旗——用他人所谓的美国人该有的样子来伪装你自己，这也相当于说：不要做自己。其他人则希望我们真的消失。11岁那年，我站在一个公车站，一个男人在我面前大吼：滚回中国或者越南，或者从哪里来就回哪里去。
Hanging above the desk where I type this is a small print of a famous Dorothea Lange photograph: “Oakland, Calif., Mar. 1942.” It shows the Wanto grocery store, a huge banner stretched across its front. I AM AN AMERICAN, it reads. I picture Tatsuro Matsuda, the owner, a University of California graduate, commissioning the sign. Larger. All capitals. As large as you can make it. Hanging it across the windows of his family’s store, embracing his Americanness in two-foot letters.
在我打字的书桌的上方挂着一张小小的照片，是多萝西娅·兰格(Dorothea Lange)拍摄的著名照片《加州奥克兰，1942年3月》的复制品。照片上，一个巨大的横幅挂在湾东商店(Wanto co.)的门前。上面写着，“我是美国人。”我想象着加州大学毕业的店主松田达郎（Tatsuro Matsuda，音）请人制作这个标牌的景象。再大一点。全用大写。能做多大做多大。他把它挂在自家店铺的橱窗上，用两英尺高的字母表达他的美国之心。
And then, with tens of thousands of other Japanese Americans, he was rounded up and sent to a detention center nonetheless, disappearing into the desert. I can’t find anything about what happened to him after that, only this picture of this sign that did not save him.
后来，他还是被抓起来送到了强制收容所，和成千上万的日裔美国人一起，消失在沙漠里。关于他的下落，我找不到任何信息，只有这块并没有挽救他的标牌的照片。
A picture can’t prove someone’s humanity — at least not to those determined to see you as other. But we don’t need our photos and stories to convince people we’re human, that we’re just like them. We don’t need to be just like them, for that matter; we don’t need to match some narrow red-white-and-blue blur of what Americanness — or humanity — means.
至少对于那些决定把你当外人看的人来说，你无法用一张照片证明一个人的人性。但是我们不需要用我们的照片和故事来说服别人我们和他们一样是人。对此，我们不需要像他们那样；我们不需要把自己框入某种狭隘的标准来证明自己的美国特性——或人性。
There is value in choosing how to be seen, in reclaiming the right to select the face you show the world, in insisting that others see you as you know yourself to be. In proudly and boldly framing ourselves in the ways of our own choosing, to say: Here I am, this is me.
选择如何被看到是有其价值的，重拾你选择向世界展示面孔的权利，坚持让别人看到你心目中真实的你。自豪并大胆地用我们自己选择的方式描述自己：我在这里，这就是我。
In a way, this is a form of love, too.
在某种意义上，这也是一种爱的形式。
IN THE MEANTIME, WE SURVIVE: by loving each other through our worry and by our worry. We check in. We mask our children, and ourselves; we remind each other to stay on guard. We send packages with gift messages to the living and make offerings to those who have gone. We stock each other’s fridges, feed each other, tend each other’s bodies and spirits in whatever ways we can. We visit those we love, but sometimes only through glass: behind windows, on our screens, in our minds. We do what we can to show them we are fine, so that they worry less, and in this way, we show them our love, too.
除此之外，我们还要渡过这个时期：通过担忧来表达爱，用担忧来爱彼此。我们报平安。我们给孩子们戴上口罩，自己也要戴；我们相互提醒保持警惕。我们给活着的人寄去写有祝福的包裹，祭奠那些已经离开我们的人。我们为彼此的冰箱备满食物，为彼此做饭，照顾彼此的身心健康，只要是我们能做到的，无论是以何种方式。我们拜访我们爱的人，但有时只能透过玻璃：在窗户的另一侧，在屏幕上，在我们的心里。我们尽我们所能让他们知道我们很好，这样他们就不用太担心，与此同时，我们也在向他们表达我们的爱。
In the early days of the pandemic, I sewed mask after mask, mailing them to family and friends when none were available to buy. My mother had been worrying about my masklessness for weeks, so I snapped a selfie in one and sent it to her. Happy, Mom? I asked.
在大流行的早期，我缝制了一个又一个口罩，把他们寄给当时买不到口罩的家人和朋友。曾有几周，我母亲一直担心我的口罩不够，所以我拍了一张戴口罩的照片发给他。我问道，妈妈，您满意吗？
I am very happy now, she texted back.
我现在很满意，她回复说。
