Si Cong’s Southern Chronicle｜A Close Reading of an Immigrant’s Social Media Text

（This picture was automatically drawn by ChatGPT4+DALL.E.）

In September 2023, after completing my third master’s degree, my life entered a new phase, and I once again became an immigrant in a new society. Ten years ago, I did this in Hong Kong, and now I’m doing it again.

Over the past week, I reread the posts I mainly published on the Douban platform over the past year.

For about half a year, I couldn’t speak on any domestic platform except WeChat Moments, so that was a blank half-year of cyber-simplified Chinese. The blank itself is also a form of cyber expression. What I didn’t say has been displayed by the scaled blank.

As for those moments when I could speak, in those posts, I saw myself trying to hold on and the unavoidable pain.

During the long cycle of this public account ceasing to update, my phone still occasionally received reminders from the official, saying that a certain old article was gone again.

Looking through those remaining articles, I feel somewhat ashamed of my youthful enthusiasm, but I can also feel that fleeting youth and beauty. I won’t pretend that I can go back to the past, because the hardships, pain, and struggles of these years have left a deep imprint on me. There are also things that haven’t changed. Those are the parts of my personality that are—violent, fleeting, sad, indifferent, and resolute.

I will start from last September, the afternoon I just arrived in the Czech Republic, to sort out my “current situation” and “future situation”, and do a social text reading of an intellectual immigrant. For more systematic writing, I will write in the column for Sanmingzhi.

————————

2022.9.17

(Just arrived in the Czech Republic, tidying up for a day, in the afternoon)

I don’t know how I fell asleep, and I dreamed of a realm of nothingness, and suddenly I heard a voice reciting, “White clouds for thousands of years, empty and leisurely”, and I felt that this Chinese sentence was so beautiful, and then I woke up.

2022.9.23 

Marked book ★★★★☆ Lost in Translation: A Life in a New Language

A paragraph I translated myself:

“As long as the world around me is always new, it does not become my world; I grit my teeth and survive, to resist the attacks of every unfamiliar thing… Only in an environment you can understand, stimulation will be transformed into experience, action will have a purpose, a face will appear familiar, and a person can be known. These patterns constitute the soil of meaning. But this is obviously the danger of immigration, exile, and ‘Extreme mobility’, because you are uprooted from that soil of meaning.”

(I translated this paragraph at the end of my article “A Year of Leaving Europe” in Sanmingzhi.)

Marked book ★★★☆☆ 《Revisiting Eastern Europe》

The journey of reading this book, my path with Hoffman’s visit to Poland is almost exactly the same. But let me make a self-deprecating remark, I have been finding it difficult to chat with ordinary people along the way. After Hoffman returned to Poland, everyone was talking and laughing with great scholars. And I have been in the loneliness that is engraved in my bones.

(Soon, I could no longer speak in the simplified Chinese environment, until April 2023.)

2023.4.13 

180 days, I’m out.

2023.4.13

“Those of us who were fortunate enough to survive the concentration camps are not really witnesses. This feeling, though not very comfortable, is something I slowly understood after reading many accounts written by survivors, including myself.

Years later, I reread my notes and found that our group of surviving survivors were not only extremely few in number, but also fundamentally outside the norm. Maybe it was luck, maybe it was skill, by hiding and escaping, we didn’t actually fall to the bottom of hell. Those who really fell to the bottom, those who saw the demons of snakes and scorpions, either couldn’t survive, or were silent ever since.”

——Primo Levi

2023.4.26

(I first posted a paragraph written in Shenzhen in 2021, when I was hesitating whether to leave:)

(Two years later, after I finished studying and living in Germany, Poland, and the Czech Republic, I returned to Göttingen, Germany. I wrote:)

After going around Germany, Poland, and the Czech Republic for two years, I am now back in Germany, and I am in a language class. I am studying German with a Japanese person, a Ukrainian person, an Indian person, and a Pakistani person. Except for me, the other four are all women. The Japanese person used to be a “company employee” in Tokyo. Her boyfriend came to Munich to work three years ago and is now studying in Göttingen. We met on the train in Hanover on the weekend. Her boyfriend looks like a young Shun Oguri. She quit her job and applied for a Working holiday here and started learning German. I’m not surprised, the Japanese passport is the most privileged passport in the world.

The Ukrainian is a mathematician who came to Göttingen before the war and works at a university institute. She said that she has to learn both English and German. She knows which nouns should be used with der, die, or das in front of them, which is amazing. I asked her if it was because the nouns in Ukrainian and German have basically the same grammatical gender. She told me in English with a sonorous and tactful accent, “We don’t say that at all in Ukrainian.” Then I thought, this is the pure talent of a mathematician who is good at categorization.

The Indian is from Mumbai, and her husband is from Delhi, and they have been working in Germany for two years. They got married in India a few years ago, and she has only been here for two months. She is not Muslim, she is very secular, she rides a bicycle as fast as lightning, and she speaks English very well. Now she wants to find a job in Germany. Although Göttingen is an academic city, German is more important to find a job other than research.

The Pakistani woman is more interesting. She is Muslim, and her Hijab is very tight. She was even sent by her husband on the first day of class. But she is very active in class and often answers questions, and she also reacts quickly when we practice dialogues. When we tried to say the German words from A to Z that we knew, she knew all the words about supermarkets, food, and daily necessities. When it came to occupations, she said she was a Hausfrau, which is not surprising.

I, on the other hand, am somewhat out of touch with reality. When it comes to occupations, I stammer out words like Schriftsteller. The teacher said, can you say some normal occupations. And if you are a journalist and editor, don’t say you are a writer, a writer writes books. I replied slowly in German that my previous occupations were journalist and editor, and now I am a Schriftsteller, and I said that I am writing a book.

We are all learning a language like children, but we have all taught ourselves this language in various situations, so we all have mastered a small corner of the vast map. And that corner is mostly about the long years we have walked, my vocabulary is those abnormal occupations and nouns in the teacher’s mouth, and the Pakistani woman’s vocabulary is all the vegetables, meat, fruits, and washing powder in the supermarket.

So I searched out this content from two years ago, imagining myself in a language class (referring to the picture above). I don’t feel any sense of refugee now—in fact, I have made friends with many people who were refugees (and now have citizenship) in the past two years, and they are all too amazing and inspiring to me.

By the way, when I say that they are good at English, I am not saying that they have a London accent/American accent. I think my English is also good, but I am a non-native English speaker using this language. This was once a colonial language, so since the whole world is using it now, it has to have a new post-colonial tradition. The tradition of post-colonial writers is, They write you, you write back.

In 2018, I studied post-colonial literature in Hong Kong. In the past two years, I have taken or audited many post-colonial courses in Germany, Poland, and the Czech Republic. A standard xx accent is the least important thing. What I want to do is write back.

Now, German is related to my survival. Although it’s very brain-burning, after learning a little Polish in Poland, German at least looks very friendly.

I want to say that being an immigrant/refugee definitely means that you are an optimist—this is not what I said, this is what Arendt said. You have strong self-confidence, believing that after uprooting yourself, you can still pursue a life that is happier than what you once had in the secular world. I am not starting over, but all my previous self-choices have led to more self-choices.

I don’t need to envy the friends in this post, because obviously, I believe that I have a more thoughtful and strong vitality.

2023.4.29 

I’m going to the Balkans tomorrow, to keep the appointment made in 2019.

2023.5.13 

A lot of things have been entangled in the past few months.

Finally, after the end of the pandemic in our country, I went to exchange my Home Return Permit. The Hong Kong village I went to ten years ago is considered to be completely over.

In Germany, enduring extreme embarrassment, I used Google’s real-time translation to complete the Erste Hilfe Kurs (first aid course) that I couldn’t understand at all. It took 7 hours to get the certificate, because this is a necessary step to get a German driver’s license.

Daily German classes. Contacting a real estate agent in Berlin. Doing fieldwork, reading literature, writing papers, and completing my third master’s degree. This started in October in the Czech Republic. At first, I felt it was quite embarrassing, but now I feel it’s quite awesome, because each degree has completely changed my abilities and destiny. And those things about publishing. And then the right of residence in a foreign country.

My German white boyfriend said that this is Shenzhen speed. Because he went to Shenzhen with his ex-girlfriend in 2019 and climbed to the top of the Ping An Finance Centre, he exclaimed at the slogan Time is money, efficiency is life, which is both magical and crazy. He told me to slow down and enjoy life. But in fact, on the one hand, I feel that my immigrant friends here, the Bangladeshis and Indonesians, are even faster than me and don’t enjoy life more, which is something that can’t be helped. For us, holding on is everything.

Secondly, I have long been accustomed to this kind of struggling life to pursue freedom, because it is self-sufficient enough, “Hyrule” enough, and enough to rewrite my own destiny.

(Why did I write about “Hyrule” that day, because I seemed to have just bought the pre-sale version of the game “Tears of the Kingdom”, but I have never finished any of the Legend of Zelda games. At most, my Link has a paraglider and can fly out of the village.)

2023.5.16 

(Why did I quote the content of this book on this day? It seems to be the day of the big news of the stand-up comedy show.)

“Germany published a large number of childhood memories, novels with family backgrounds, landscape albums, lyrical works of nature, and many sentimental little things between 1934 and 1938. This was an unprecedented phenomenon. Apart from the stereotyped Nazi propaganda literature, the books that Germany was allowed to publish almost entirely came from those categories. This trend has been receding since about two years ago. The reason is obviously that, no matter how hard you try, it is increasingly impossible to create that kind of painless atmosphere.

However, the situation before this can only make people sigh: all the literary works are depicting snowdrops and daisies, the joy of children’s long vacations, first love, fairy tale scenes, baked apples and Christmas trees. This literature is full of childlike innocence and lacks the color of the times, as if by prior agreement, it was published under the circumstances of parades, concentration camps, armaments factories, and the fundraising iron cans of the ‘Stormtroopers’.

If anyone, like the author of this book, has to read a large number of such books by chance, they will gradually find that behind their well-behaved, calm, and gentle narratives, they are constantly shouting between the lines: ‘Don’t you notice that we are not affected by time and are returning to our inner world? Don’t you notice that nothing is hurting us? Don’t you notice that we haven’t noticed anything? Remember this, please remember this, we implore you!’

I know some of those writers. For each of them, or at least most of them, it has now come to a dead end. Many events that have happened have made them unable to turn a blind eye and a deaf ear. For example, some of their relatives and friends have been arrested, or similar events have occurred. Childhood memories can no longer provide a protective umbrella. Many people have collapsed because of this, and a series of tragedies have been staged. I will find time to narrate some of the stories.

The above is the contradiction that the Germans faced in the summer of 1933. It seems that one must choose from several different ways of making the mind die. We can say that people who are used to living in normal circumstances will feel that they are either in a madhouse or in a mental institution. But what can we do? That’s the way it is, and I can’t do anything about it. In addition, that was still a relatively harmless stage, and then there will be a completely different situation.

My attempt to hide in the private domain and settle down in a sheltered little corner soon failed. The reason is: this place simply does not exist. The storm invaded my “private” life from all directions and immediately blew it to pieces. For example, a small group that could be called my “circle of friends” disappeared in the autumn of 1933.” 

——《Hafner’s Memoirs: A German Story》.

2023.5.25 

“Moving to a new country and adapting to it can destroy relationships.”

(This is a sentence from my Russian senior’s graduation thesis.

After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, she decided to write this topic, how former Soviet immigrants women survive in Sweden. She wrote an ethnography. This sentence is the memory of a former Soviet woman in Sweden—a non-Russian person using Russian. When they first moved to Sweden, they were a couple, and after a few years, she divorced her husband.

My Russian senior asked her why, and the above is her answer. Translated from Russian into English.)

2023.6.7 

YouTube recently started pushing pure sounds of 432Hz to me for some reason, saying that it will release the bad energy of the subconscious. One night I woke up and turned on this sound, which was like music but not music, and then I fell asleep sweetly.

I only remember being in a cloud of mist, with many people coming and going. I began to feel wronged and sad for some reason, and then I started to cry. Crying in a dream, this crying in the dream, is like a leaf, in the water, I don’t know why, swaying back and forth.

2023.6.16 

In Neukölln, Berlin, I took a real estate-savvy friend to see two houses, which was considered a practice. I felt a little depressed after seeing them.

She comforted me, saying that it’s as unrealistic to buy a house the first time you see it as it is to get married to your first love. I was relieved.

(During my fieldwork in Berlin, I also went to see some old houses in Berlin, planning to move there in the future, but I was disappointed.)

2023.7.4 

About a dozen years ago, a group of people made an independent campus media. Before graduation, they quoted the sentence “What is remembered, will be echoed” from The Grandmaster, and felt it was very cool, with a sense of satisfaction that good and evil will be rewarded. Then I went to Hong Kong, and from then on, I embarked on a road of no return.

Most of the things I thought were of social value and significance, whether it was news reports, interviews, research, or social resistance, had no echo, not a single bit, and then I was tormented, full of trauma, living in punishment, surveillance, and nightmares.

Before the country’s borders were completely closed more than two years ago, I went to Europe and sighed that in the past ten years or so, I have been reshaping myself again and again, and I often think of the seemingly spirited “Exodus” I wrote in my twenties, but the real exodus did not have the grandeur of parting the Red Sea, nor would I expect any echo. I am used to building a tiny community in the new loneliness, and I only want to live the kind of life that power does not want you to live.

Last month, Mubi recommended the daily movie, which happened to be The Grandmaster, and I opened it by a stroke of luck. I closed the curtains, turned on the projector, and watched it for an afternoon. Then I remembered that there were eight more words before “What is remembered, will be echoed”. Those eight words are not very noticeable and not very remembered by the mood of more than a dozen years ago.

Because those eight words have no purpose at all, do not seek rewards, and do not expect echoes:

With a breath, light a lamp.

2023.7.30

Coming to an end

The academic requirements for a master’s degree in Europe are still very high.

Looking back, I took five courses in the first six months when I arrived in this German city, and each course required a term paper of 15-20 pages, not including the bibliography. The requirements of the two schools in Poland and the Czech Republic are lower than those of Göttingen, but not much lower. This time, the thesis is 30,000 words, not including the bibliography, and I wrote 105 pages.

My first master’s degree was in the Department of Journalism at HKU, and I graduated with a 3,000-5,000-word English in-depth report. My second master’s degree was in the Faculty of Arts at HKU, studying English studies (literature track). The graduation thesis was to write a capstone project of about 5,000 words (it’s strange that the college doesn’t say it’s a thesis).

When I was studying, both were very difficult. The first one was full-time, and the second one was working and studying at the same time. In addition to the poor ability at the time, there was a huge problem that the time was very short, and I couldn’t fully immerse myself in it. For example, in the Department of Journalism, I had just adapted to English classes, and I had to start looking for internships in winter. When writing the graduation report, I also had to think about how to stay in Hong Kong to find a job in journalism. All these things happened in less than 12 months.

The Department of Literature is better, and the curriculum is very, very avant-garde, especially post-colonial literature. But because Hong Kong universities imitate the British education industry and separate MA and Mphil, so MA still lacks enough time to digest what is learned and read. I was working in the factory at the time, and I was also fighting a （right of reputation）lawsuit, and studying this major at the same time, which was very difficult. So I printed out all the course materials at the time and brought them directly to Germany, and reviewed them from time to time.

The training and immersion in Europe in the past two years is the best experience I have had. From theory, methodology to actually doing fieldwork and research, I have enough time to communicate with different supervisors, or professors who are not supervisors, constantly.

I personally feel that, first, my English ability and all-round survival ability have undergone a qualitative change. This is largely due to my second master’s degree. As an immigrant, I “accepted” post-colonial education in advance.

Second, the political and economic system in Germany is really far away from the extreme neoliberal system in Hong Kong. In this kind of place, small cities are especially cheaper. I won’t be pressured by the overwhelming pressure of finance, wealth, and rent all day long, and I will be forced to learn those neoliberal skills, such as opening a securities account with a securities broker at the subway entrance, which is a very stupid and Hong Kong-like real story.

I have now found the reason why I have to study three master’s degrees:

The first is because I don’t want to be a news reporter in China.

The second is because I want to prepare for language and thought in advance for “leaving”.

The third is because I have to carry out the departure, of course, departure is only a means, I am to restore public writing.

Now the execution comes to an end. Whether to study for a doctorate, maybe I have a little more confidence now, but what research topic do I have to spend five years to do? I have to think about it again.

Because survival and identity are always the first priority. Simply put, paying taxes is the first priority. With a German degree + two years of paying taxes, you can apply for permanent residency.

Secondly, even in a society like Germany, you are still an immigrant living in a neoliberal environment.

A few days ago, I counted the five jobs I have done in the past ten years. Two journalists and editors. YZZK. DUAN. Both in Hong Kong, free media. One venture capital institution. One academic institution. One factory worker. I have no career plan to become a leader. The only plan is to live freely. If I can’t be a journalist and editor, I can go to work hard for money for a while. These are all part of the plan.

Life is simple, set clear goals, face the unexpected situations everywhere, stay calm, execute step by step, and get wet step by step. Never collude with power.

2023.7.31 Movie “Morning Light is Just Right” ★★★★☆

“I have forgotten how.” It’s just like my life in a foreign country. I suddenly realized that immigrant life, at least in certain times and spaces, is also a kind of experience of being widowed.

2023.08.28 Movie “Past Lives” ★★★★☆

There are so many types of immigrants. And me? When I was twenty-two, I thought I would stop here when I arrived in Hong Kong. I came again at thirty. During the pandemic and the lockdown. Saying goodbye to lovers, constantly saying goodbye to lovers. Not the same life situation, not going out together, interrupted reunions, longing, hate, pain, helplessness, let it go. What I arrived at is not even an English-speaking country. Learning to speak. My dreams are not in Chinese, my dreams have no sound. Saying to her that I understand her choice. Saying to her that I have no way back. What is the fate that awaits me? Nora wants those awards, I don’t want them, I’m just curious how old I can live to.

2023.09.05 

The job in Germany is almost in sight, but don’t be too sure, anything can happen. Let’s try to be a connector and see what it will be like. I cherish this opportunity because it can really help people. I don’t have to go to work, but I have to live in Berlin. I have time to write my overdue manuscript, time to take German classes, time to look for longer-term projects on my own, and do them one by one silently, to find a way of life and contribution that does not harm personal well-being, is sustainable in the future, and is not for the sake of love, full of daily threats.

这是我十年前，刚做港媒记者时，梦寐以求的一种生活模式。

Over the past decade, I couldn’t find such a pattern in Hong Kong, Shenzhen, or Beijing. I became a marginal person of a country very early on. But the five jobs and three master’s degrees in the past ten years have given me a set of neoliberal transnational skills, which is a privilege. I think many people have their own Privilege and Marginality, and it’s important to recognize and understand these, to know where your body is in the social structure, and then to do something beneficial. Of course, don’t make yourself too hard, this is also what the experience of the past ten years has taught me. You have to understand that no matter where you are, you are still living in a neoliberal world.

Naturally, there is the endless path of discriminatory permit documents. I walked this road once, for seven years. The world of immigration is filled with words like: skills, language, immigration office, wall, race, gender, class, foreign affairs administration, labor department, nationality law… These words forge you into an exile master, an official letter receiving room, a master of self-observation, a hard-working professional actor, a forced multilingual user. (The italicized words are copied from Dubravka Ugresic’s novel ‘The Art of Balance’, from the book ‘The Fox’)

2023.09.14

The joint defense ended, and I graduated with a top score of 1 in Germany and a top score of 5 in Poland, and I will receive certificates from both schools! Now, in addition to saying that I am an alumnus of Oppenheimer in Germany, in Poland, I am an alumnus of Milosz, Szymborska, and Zagajewski! I have to thank so many people, but most importantly, I have to thank myself, I chose my own universe.

2023.09.14

In February of this year, after two years, I returned to China and had to apply for the return home permit, which had been delayed for several years due to the lockdown, and went to the local county police station to cancel my household registration. There were a lot of deaths during that time, and the county hospital opposite my home had dozens of deaths every day. Many young people came to the police station to help their other deceased relatives cancel their household registration.

I didn’t think much, and directly asked the policewoman in the police station, who was wearing a thick, dark blue cotton coat: I’m here to cancel my household registration.

The policewoman looked at me and said straightly: Where is your death certificate?

After she finished speaking, we stared at each other, and for a few seconds, she didn’t feel embarrassed, and I didn’t feel offended. We just silently looked at each other. Afterwards, I repeatedly thought of that silent, sad scene. I don’t know if she had lost someone, but she looked at me as if she saw a strange ghost.

Was she just a clerk who followed the rules at that moment, or did she momentarily fantasize about the possibility of talking to a ghost?

2023.09.18

About this day and last year, I remember a lot of pain.

2023.10.11

Summer is over, and there are so many sad things in life.

2023.10.20

Going back to taking public transportation to and from work. But it’s purely taking the subway, not even crowded. Sent my employment contract to the Foreign Affairs Bureau. Forgot the gloves she gave me at lunch, now I’m going to find them. Then went to see ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ alone, was 20 minutes late, and there were still ads playing.

2023.10.23

Today I went to Berlin on a business trip, and by the way, I looked at a house again, and was disappointed again.

The location is particularly good, Kreuzbergstraße. The house is particularly well-decorated, the heating is very modern, the electricity meter is brand new, the toilet is not floor-mounted but wall-mounted, I learned these from the last time I looked at the house, although the orientation is north-facing, but that doesn’t matter. The reason for the 20% price reduction is because the building above belonged to a construction company, which added a floor before the pandemic, and then the construction company went bankrupt during the pandemic, so the exterior and the scaffolding in the courtyard have been tied outside like this.

The whole building courtyard has been tied up like a mummy for more than a year, and the new property management company cannot contact the person in charge of the original housing company, and it is not known when the scaffolding will be removed.

By the way, the construction date of this apartment building is 1900. The construction date is not necessarily bad, because the houses built at that time had thick walls, solid materials, good sound insulation, and good thermal insulation. It’s actually better than the houses built in the years after 1945.

But the year 1900 still surprised me too much, it was the long peace era of great European powers, it was the long 19th century before the two world wars, it was the era when national independence was stirring, it was the late period of imperial colonialism, it was the second year of the publication of ‘Heart of Darkness’, it was the Second Reich, it was the late Qing Dynasty! I was actually looking at a house like this, how many lonely ghosts have lived here?

When I returned to my small town, Deutsche Bahn again ‘punctually’ canceled + alternative trains and ‘punctually’ delayed.

2023.10.30

Reading Ocean Vuong’s new novel, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous.

This reminds me of a 1.5-generation Chinese-American ABC friend, whose native language is English, and who has been working for mainstream foreign media. She interviewed me several times when I was in a lawsuit. Some time ago, at a news Fellowship in Sweden, we reunited and talked a lot about literary topics, no longer in the relationship of interviewer and interviewee.

After graduating from university, she has been working and living in various places in Asia, India, China, Thailand, etc. We have a very opposite life trajectory, even in terms of reading. I read Rushdie first, and then entered the English department and read Jhumpa Lahiri. She is the opposite. I like the short essays she wrote recently that she sent to me by email. I can understand the beauty and sadness of her using English as her mother tongue, just like the book I am reading.

This beautiful and sad book. On this earth, we were briefly gorgeous.

————————

(I didn’t expect that combining all these very short paragraphs would actually be almost 9,000 characters. The close reading of social media texts is over. For what I have written in the past two years, please refer to historical articles, or give to the column written for Sandwich.)