异乡记

by Eileen Chang

《异乡记》为张爱玲当年从上海到温州寻访胡兰成时写下的所见所闻。
书中记载了张爱玲在农村过年、看见杀猪、农民生活等细节，精练的文字佐于真挚的情感流露，使得通篇读来生动有趣，农村百景跃然纸上。
此外，这部作品不仅记录了张爱玲人生某个重要关键日子，书中文字更成为她日后创作《倾城之恋》、《秧歌》、《怨女》，甚至是《小团圆》等作品的灵感来源。

103 pages, Hardcover

Published December 1, 2010

About the author

Eileen Chang is the English name for Chinese author 張愛玲, who was born to a prominent family in Shanghai (one of her great-grandfathers was Li Hongzhang) in 1920.

She went to a prestigious girls' school in Shanghai, where she changed her name from Chang Ying to Chang Ai-ling to match her English name, Eileen. Afterwards, she attended the University of Hong Kong, but had to go back to Shanghai when Hong Kong fell to Japan during WWII. While in Shanghai, she was briefly married to Hu Lancheng, the notorious Japanese collaborator, but later got a divorce.

After WWII ended, she returned to Hong Kong and later immigrated to the United States in 1955. She married a scriptwriter in 1956 and worked as a screenwriter herself for a Hong Kong film studio for a number of years, before her husband's death in 1967. She moved from New York to Los Angeles in 1972 and became a hermit of sorts during her last years. She passed away alone in her apartment in 1995.

Reviews

[Boomz · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a recently rediscovered travel journal written by Eileen Chang while she was trying to find her husband Hu Lancheng (胡兰成) in 1946. The book chronicles her arduous yet eye-opening traveling experiences from Shanghai to Wenzhou when China was undergoing the civil war right after the Second Sino-Japanese War. As a so called bourgeoisie, sometimes Chang gives me the impression that she cannot fully understand the miseries and sufferings of the lower class people; however, she never lets herself be blinded by ignorances and prejudices. Instead, Chang always tries to write with great sympathy and kindness. In this slim book, we are presented with a colorful picture of ordinary people's lives in a chaotic China: the blind fortune-teller in a back alley, the army officer with his submissive concubine and servant in a car, the ritual of killing pigs for the celebration of Chinese New Year in a remote village, a craftsman living a simple life with his wife and son... All those people must be alien for Chang, who lives most of her life in big cities like Shanghai and Hongkong; but she does not view them as some exotic existences for sightseeing, she is deeply impressed by their fortitude and courage to live in such a difficult time.

It is really a great pity the book is a fragment, only 13 chapters are available now.

[Cynthia · Rating 5 out of 5]

在最热闹的人间烟火里被心中挥之不去的惆怅和清冷蚕食，知道怕是要失望，仍然不甘心地想要看看究竟会怎样的微弱的愿望，终究是欲说还休了。这么高傲的人，这么卑微地踏上一段充满变数的旅程，也只有为了心中的那个信念，所谓爱，不必说值不值得。