James Poy Wong 黃培正
"Whether one is forgetting the origin cannot be determined merely by one’s residing location. In actuality, not forgetting one’s origin is also a passive action [. . . ]"
"Forgetting One's Origin and Longing for One's Root" - 1973
忘本与思源
客舍幷州已十霜
归心日夜忆咸阳
无端更渡桑干水
却望幷州是故乡
这首诗是唐代和尚诗人贾岛写的，（就是名句「僧敲月下门」的作者）贾岛住在幷州（即山西省太原）有了十年的时光，日夜都思念着他的故乡咸阳（陕西省，在长安附近）。后来不知为了什么原故，又要过渡桑干河（今名永定河，源出山西，经察哈尔，入河北省出海），这样离开又二百里了，所以现在回望太原的时候，依恋不舍，反而以太原为故乡了。
贾岛怀念咸阳故乡的心情，我们华侨都有过同样迫切的经验，而他认为幷州是他的新家乡的心理，也和我们这一代华侨所处的情境相同。 我们的祖先原来是中国北部的居民，大约是七百年前宋朝末年的时候， 因为蒙古入主中原，才大批逃难到广东来。 相信他们当初必定也日夜思念着北方的故乡。后来在南方住久了，落籍广东，而出生在岭南的子子孙孙自然都成为地道的广东人了。 我们华侨的祖先一百多年前开始来美国谋生，当然是日夜思念着广东故乡。
所以挨了几年「骡仔」，或是侥幸中了一盘大票，就荣归故里，希望不会再来受苦了。但是祖国的政治经济情形，每况愈下，所以一代一代的还是要回到美国来。日子久了，自然有些人会留居下来，这里就是不称家乡，也成为事实上的故里了。 大战前来美打工的大部分是珠江下流的广东乡里，来读书的为数甚少。留学生以外籍的居多，他们绝少和广东人来往。他们在此间逗留不久，读完书就回国，有官做， 自然用不着在这里挨工。我常常存着一种偏见，认为北方佬兄看不起我们华侨的理由，不完全是因为我们的教育水准低，而是觉得我们这些土生对祖国有忘本的罪过。多少因为有着阶级的差异，他们当时不会了解我们广东人买假纸冒充美籍的苦衷。
大战后大批北方佬兄来美留学。大陆换了政府后，他们不愿回家，就流落在美国，成家立业，儿女都做了土著仔女了。 我有一位北方的同学，我常常劝他在此入籍，可以省却许多不必要的麻烦，而且找政府工作做也比较容易。 但是他总说这样的事情他做不出来，听来好像是要出卖老婆那样幸苦。其实我很明了他对祖国的忠诚，所以二十年来他都保持着自立的「贞节」。
但是三年前他想把母亲接过来，不得不认真考虑到入籍的问题来。这个一向乐观的朋友，居然皱起眉来，摇摇头说不知怎样做才好。这并不是一个难以解决的问题，所以就故意不予同情， 竟学了存在主义大师沙特（Sartre) 的口气说： 「那就好极了，现在你有了最大的抉择的自由。 一方面是抽象的传统观念，一方面是实际的母子的爱，这两种观念都有取求的价值。 不过你过去高捧着的传统爱国观念是未曾经过考验的，可以说是人云亦云，并不能代表你真正的思想，因为你从来没有以行动表现过你的抉择。现在无论你采择的是那一条路，都是你自己自由决定的，没有人能够帮你的忙，你也不能借大家都应该爱国这样空洞的借口，来做避免选择的责任。只有行动才能够表现出真正的信仰。 现在我的朋友三世同堂，在美国过着很快乐的生活。
他的抉择是忘本吗？ 当然不是，因为对中国的爱好， 在思想和信仰上根本没有丝毫的改变，只是在行动上不再迷信一种与实际情形不符的偏见罢了。 忘本不忘本并不是单纯以身居的境界来决定的。
其实不忘本也不过是一种消极的行为，尤如每年照例跟着父兄们去行青一样，对孝道不过是一点皮毛的表现罢了。 又譬如有人在家里严厉地执行说中国话运动，这样强迫孩子去不「忘本」，而且将来还有强迫他们回国读书。 结果怎么样呢？我们这一代华侨，每一个人都可以说出一段幸酸的失败经验。 就是间中有成功的，试问这样个别的努力，能够把中国的文化灌输到几代？ 我们华侨的祖先虽然不是来自诗礼之家，但是对于积极性的「思源」却不遣余力。办学校，出书报，组织社团，维持风俗等等工作，目的是要使后代的子孙能够思本溯源，继承中国的文化。但是，现在华埠闭关自守（应该说是被封锁）的时代已经过去，青年人逐渐全盘美化，所以「思源」的工作面临危机，我们不能不同力及时挽救。 每一种经得起时代考验的文化都一定有可取的地方。我们生长在物质文明极高的环境中，不免觉得人情味的消失，而人变成反应的物体，与缺乏灵性的机器无异。如果我们不找点精神补品来调整一下， 板滞的生活就没有什么意思了。所以，我们推崇中国的优良文化，并不是为了自夸狂，而是为了生活上的需要。
美国本来是人类的熔炉，现在却变成了人的熔炉，把人的个性几乎消灭了。 小而至争先穿时髦的衣服（就是制服），大而至平民公意所测验的切身问题，都是三反四复盲从附和，毫无个人的旨意，更不用说到委身于信仰的壮志了。 自从第一次世界大战发生以后，杀戒打开，信义尽灭，西方固有的传统思想和人伦价值都被砲火轰毁了。 人与人间应有的联系标记已失了意义，兄弟都已经互相残杀起来，还有什么友谊可以说呢！所以许多轻浮的标记也成了众所争取的目的，有钱人可以入份财主佬会，无钱的可以大家互称穷鬼。 总之，一个人不能不有所附属，就是有份戴绿帽的名誉都比无名无声的好吧。 许多敏感的人都要发问： 「我到底是什么人？」现今小数民族政治上的抬头，更加逼切地追求他们的根源。 同源固然可以用来增加政治资本，但是更重要的是不知源好像是野生一样，尽受心理上缺陷的痛苦。
华侨在美国，不需要那些虚浮的标记，我们知道应该做一个什么样的人，我们拥有可以日夜思念的根源。这份宝贵的遗产，我们应该要好好地留给后代的责任。
Forgetting One's Origin and Longing for One's Root
As a traveler I have lived in Bingzhou
through frost of ten rounds,
I am homesick for Xianyang
day in and night out.
By chance I travel again crossing
the river of Sanggan,
yet turning back I see Bingzhou
as my hometown.
This is a poem written by the Tang Dynasty monk-poet Jia Dao, (who wrote the famous line “A monk knocks on the door awash in the moon.”) Jia Dao has lived in Bingzhou (now named Taiyuan in Shanxi province) for ten years, and is longing for his native town Xianyang (in Shaanxi Province, near Xian) day and night. Later, not knowing the reason he was crossing the Sanggan River again, (now it is named Yongding River that flows from Shanxi Province, passes through Chahar into Hebei Province and enters into the sea.) He is now 200 miles away from Taiyuan. So when he looks back at Taiyuan, he feels reluctant to leave it as he now considers Tiayuan as his hometown instead.
We overseas Chinese all have the same intimate experience of longing for one’s hometown as Jia Dao had for Xianyang, and the mentality of considering Bingzhou as his new hometown is also the same circumstance encountered by the overseas Chinese in our generation. Our ancestors were originally residents in the North. About 700 years ago at the end of the Song Dynasty, due to the Mongols’ invasion of the Central Plains of China, a large number of the population escaped into Guangdong. I believe they had also longing for their northern homeland days and nights. But after settling down in the South for a longer time, they became native residents. Their descendents born in the Lingnan areas naturally were native Cantonese. More than a hundred years ago, our overseas Chinese ancestors started coming to the United States to look for work. Naturally they were longing for their Guangdong homeland days and nights.
Therefore, after enduring a few years of a life of a “donkey,” or for those lucky ones winning a lottery, they would gloriously return to their homeland, hoping not to come to suffer again. But the political and economic situations in the motherland were getting worse, so generation after generation they have to return to the United States. Over time, some would naturally stay. So even if this place may not be called their homeland, in reality, it became their native place. Those who came to the United States to work before the world wars were mostly from the Guangdong villages located on the downstream of the Pearl River. Among those, the ones who came for schooling were few. Most of the students studying abroad were from other places in China, and they had almost no contact with the Cantonese here. They didn’t stay long here and they returned to China as soon as they finished their schooling. With government official positions awaiting them, they certainly did not have to endure working here. I always have a biased view in considering the reason our Northern brothers’ looking down on us overseas Chinese is not completely due to our low level of education, but that they felt we native born are guilty of forgetting the origin of our motherland. Perhaps there is a class difference; at the time they would not have been able to understand our concealed, bitter pain in buying false papers to disguise ourselves as citizens.
After the war a great number of the Northern brothers came to the United States to study abroad. After the government changed hands in China, they didn’t want to go back home and were stranded in the United States, establishing families and starting enterprises here. Their offspring all became native born children. I have often urged a classmate to become a naturalized citizen in order to avoid many unnecessary troubles. Besides, it would be relatively easier to find a federal job. But he always said he cannot do such a thing, sounding like it is as hard as if I was telling him to sell out his wife. In fact, I really understand his loyalty to the motherland. So in twenty years he has maintained his self-established “chastity.”
But three years ago he wanted to bring his mother over, so he has to seriously consider the matter of citizenship. This friend of mine who has always been optimistic was then knitting up his brows and shaking his head for not knowing what to do. I knew the conflict in his heart, but I also knew that it was not a difficult problem to solve, so I purposely not showing any sympathy to him and imitated the tone of Sartre, the master of existentialism, and said, “Wonderful, now you have the greatest freedom to choose. On the one hand it is an abstract concept of tradition, and on the other hand, it is a real love between mother and son. Both ideas have values to be embraced. However, the traditional concept of patriotism that you have held up high in the past has never been tested, and it could be said that it is echoing the view of others, and it does not represent your thinking because you have never expressed your choice with action. No matter which way you choose now, it is your own free decision, and no one can help you. You also cannot use the empty excuse that everybody should love their country to avoid your responsibility to choose. Only action can show true belief.” Now my friend is living with three generations under one roof, enjoying a very happy life in the United States.
Is his choice one that is forgetting one’s origin? It is of course not because the thought and belief in loving China have not changed at all. It is only that now in action he no longer has the bias of a blind faith which does not correspond to reality.
Whether one is forgetting the origin cannot be determined merely by one’s residing location. In actuality, not forgetting one’s origin is also a passive action, just like customarily going with your father and brothers to sweep the family graves is just a tiny arbitrary expression of filial piety. Another example is someone strictly implementing the movement of speaking Chinese at home, forcing the children not to “forget their origin” and forcing them to go to school in China in the future. What was the result? Each of us overseas Chinese in this generation can tell his sad and bitter failed experience. Granted that there were a few successful ones, but the question is, how many generations can this individual effort be able to instill and pass on Chinese culture? Although the ancestors of overseas Chinese were not from families of literary and scholarly background, they spare no effort in actively “longing for their roots.” They established schools, published books and magazines, organized social associations, maintained customs, et cetera. Their goal is to allow the descendants to be able to think of their origin and search for their roots in order for them to inherit Chinese culture. Now that the period in which Chinatown had to shut its gate for self defense (actually being blockaded) has passed, young people gradually have entirely become Americanized. So the work on “thinking of one’s origin” is facing a crisis. We must work together to promptly save it. Any culture that can withstand the test of times should have something worth of value. We live in an extremely materialistic environment and can't help feeling the loss of human touch, while humans become reactive objects which are not different from machines without intelligence. If we don’t find some mental tonics to make some adjustments, the dull living wouldn’t have much meaning anymore. Therefore, as we advocate the excellent culture of China, we are not being narcissistic mongers, but it is a necessity in life.
The United States is supposed to be a melting pot for all humanities, but now it has become a melting pot of human beings, and has wiped out almost all our individual characteristics. A small example can be seen in people fighting to be the first to wear fashion (like wearing uniform), while a greater example is like the problems concerning people themselves in the survey of public opinion. People’s responses are being repeated and echoed upon others’ opinions without any idea of their own, let alone the ambition of dedicating oneself to one’s belief. Since the First World War, there was no more restraint on killing, good faith had completely vanished, and the Western traditional thinking and the value of human relations were all destroyed by gunfire. The symbolic connection between human beings has lost its meaning. When brothers are killing each other, how can we talk about friendship! So many frivolous symbols have become the target to be competed among the general public: the rich can join the rich-men club; the poor can address each other as a poor devil. In a word, a person has to belong to something, even if being part of the group with cheating wives is better than without any reputation at all. Many conscious people will ask, “Who am I after all?” Now with the minorities having political progress, they have a more urgent need to search for their roots. Although having the same root will increase one’s political capital, more importantly, not knowing one’s root is like a bastard child suffering the pain from a psychological defect.
The overseas Chinese in the United States do not need those frivolous symbols. We know we ought to be what kind of human beings as we possess the roots we are longing for day and night. We have the responsibility of doing our best to leave this valuable legacy to the future generations.