Lost in Translation

Lost in Translation, by James Merrill

Lost in Translation,
by James Merrill

For Richard Howard

Diese Tage, die leer dir scheinen
und wertlos für das All,
haben Wurzeln zwischen den Steinen
und trinken dort überall.


A card table in the library stands ready
To receive the puzzle which keeps never coming.
Daylight shines in or lamplight down
Upon the tense oasis of green felt.
Full of unfulfillment, life goes on,
Mirage arisen from time's trickling sands
Or fallen piecemeal into place:
German lesson, picnic, see-saw, walk
With the collie who "did everything but talk"—
Sour windfalls of the orchard back of us.
A summer without parents is the puzzle,
Or should be. But the boy, day after day,
Writes in his Line-a-Day No puzzle.

He's in love, at least. His French Mademoiselle,
In real life a widow since Verdun,
Is stout, plain, carrot-haired, devout.
She prays for him, as does a curé in Alsace,
Sews costumes for his marionettes,
Helps him to keep behind the scene
Whose sidelit goosegirl, speaking with his voice,
Plays Guinevere as well as Gunmoll Jean.
Or else at bedtime in his tight embrace
Tells him her own French hopes, her German fears,
Her—but what more is there to tell?
Having known grief and hardship, Mademoiselle
Knows little more. Her languages. Her place.
Noon coffee. Mail. The watch that also waited
Pinned to her heart, poor gold, throws up its hands—
No puzzle! Steaming bitterness
Her sugars draw pops back into his mouth, translated:
"Patience, chéri. Geduld, mein Schatz."
(Thus, reading Valéry the other evening
And seeming to recall a Rilke version of "Palme,"
That sunlit paradigm whereby the tree
Taps a sweet wellspring of authority,
The hour came back. Patience dans l'azur.
Geduld im. . . Himmelblau? Mademoiselle.)

Out of the blue, as promised, of a New York
Puzzle-rental shop the puzzle comes—
A superior one, containing a thousand hand-sawn,
Sandal-scented pieces. Many take
Shapes known already—the craftsman's repertoire
Nice in its limitation—from other puzzles:
Witch on broomstick, ostrich, hourglass,
Even (surely not just in retrospect)
An inchling, innocently branching palm.
These can be put aside, made stories of
While Mademoiselle spreads out the rest face-up,
Herself excited as a child; or questioned
Like incoherent faces in a crowd,
Each with its scrap of highly colored
Evidence the Law must piece together.
Sky-blue ostrich? Likely story.
Mauve of the witch's cloak white, severed fingers
Pluck? Detain her. The plot thickens
As all at once two pieces interlock.

Mademoiselle does borders— (Not so fast.
A London dusk, December last.
Chatter silenced in the library
This grown man reenters, wearing grey.
A medium. All except him have seen
Panel slid back, recess explored,
An object at once unique and common
Displayed, planted in a plain tole
Casket the subject now considers
Through shut eyes, saying in effect:
"Even as voices reach me vaguely
A dry saw-shriek drowns them out,
Some loud machinery— a lumber mill?
Far uphill in the fir forest
Trees tower, tense with shock,
Groaning and cracking as they crash groundward.
But hidden here is a freak fragment
Of a pattern complex in appearance only.
What it seems to show is superficial
Next to that long-term lamination
Of hazard and craft, the karma that has
Made it matter in the first place.
Plywood. Piece of a puzzle." Applause
Acknowledged by an opening of lids
Upon the thing itself. A sudden dread—
But to go back. All this lay years ahead.)

Mademoiselle does borders. Straight-edge pieces
Align themselves with earth or sky
In twos and threes, naive cosmogonists
Whose views clash. Nomad inlanders meanwhile
Begin to cluster where the totem
Of a certain vibrant egg-yolk yellow
Or pelt of what emerging animal
Acts on the straggler like a trumpet call
To form a more soph"isticated unit.
By suppertime two ragged wooden clouds
Have formed. In one, a Sheik with beard
And flashing sword hilt (he is all but finished)
Steps forward on a tiger skin. A piece
Snaps shut, and fangs gnash out at us!
In the second cloud—they gaze from cloud to cloud
With marked if undecipherable feeling—
Most of a dark-eyed woman veiled in mauve
Is being helped down from her camel (kneeling)
By a small backward-looking slave or page-boy
(Her son, thinks Mademoiselle mistakenly)
Whose feet have not been found. But lucky finds
In the last minutes before bed
Anchor both factions to the scene's limits
And, by so doing, orient
Them eye to eye across the green abyss.
The yellow promises, oh bliss,
To be in time a sumptuous tent.

Puzzle begun I write in the day's space,
Then, while she bathes, peek at Mademoiselle's
Page to the curé: ". . . cette innocente mère,
Ce pauvre enfant, que deviendront-ils?"
Her azure script is curlicued like pieces
Of the puzzle she will be telling him about.
(Fearful incuriosity of childhood!
"Tu as l'accent allemande" said Dominique.
Indeed. Mademoiselle was only French by marriage.
Child of an English mother, a remote
Descendant of the great explorer Speke,
And Prussian father. No one knew. I heard it
Long afterwards from her nephew, a UN
Interpreter. His matter-of-fact account
Touched old strings. My poor Mademoiselle,
With 1939 about to shake
This world where "each was the enemy, each the friend"
To its foundations, kept, though signed in blood,
Her peace a shameful secret to the end.)
"Schlaf wohl, chéri." Her kiss. Her thumb
Crossing my brow against the dreams to come.

This World that shifts like sand, its unforeseen
Consolidations and elate routine,
Whose Potentate had lacked a retinue?
Lo! it assembles on the shrinking Green.

Gunmetal-skinned or pale, all plumes and scars,
Of Vassalage the noblest avatars—
The very coffee-bearer in his vair
Vest is a swart Highness, next to ours.

Kef easing Boredom, and iced syrups, thirst,
In guessed-at glooms old wives who know the worst
Outsweat that virile fiction of the New:
"Insh'Allah, he will tire—" "—or kill her first!"

(Hardly a proper subject for the Home,
Work of—dear Richard, I shall let you comb
Archives and learned journals for his name—
A minor lion attending on Gérôme.)

While, thick as Thebes whose presently complete
Gates close behind them, Houri and Afreet
Both claim the Page. He wonders whom to serve,
And what his duties are, and where his feet,

And if we'll find, as some before us did,
That piece of Distance deep in which lies hid
Your tiny apex sugary with sun,
Eternal Triangle, Great Pyramid!

Then Sky alone is left, a hundred blue
Fragments in revolution, with no clue
To where a Niche will open. Quite a task,
Putting together Heaven, yet we do.

It's done. Here under the table all along
Were those missing feet. It's done.

The dog's tail thumping. Mademoiselle sketching
Costumes for a coming harem drama
To star the goosegirl. All too soon the swift
Dismantling. Lifted by two corners,
The puzzle hung together—and did not.
Irresistibly a populace
Unstitched of its attachments, rattled down.
Power went to pieces as the witch
Slithered easily from Virtue's gown.
The blue held out for time, but crumbled, too.
The city had long fallen, and the tent,
A separating sauce mousseline,
Been swept away. Remained the green
On which the grown-ups gambled. A green dusk.
First lightning bugs. Last glow of west
Green in the false eyes of (coincidence)
Our mangy tiger safe on his bared hearth.

Before the puzzle was boxed and readdressed
To the puzzle shop in the mid-Sixties,
Something tells me that one piece contrived
To stay in the boy's pocket. How do I know?
I know because so many later puzzles
Had missing pieces—Maggie Teyte's high notes
Gone at the war's end, end of the vogue for collies,
A house torn down; and hadn't Mademoiselle
Kept back her pitiful bit of truth as well?
I've spent the last days, furthermore,
Ransacking Athens for that translation of "Palme."
Neither the Goethehaus nor the National Library
Seems able to unearth it. Yet I can't
Just be imagining. I've seen it. Know
How much of the sun-ripe original
Felicity Rilke made himself forego
(Who loved French words—verger, mûr, parfumer)
In order to render its underlying sense.
Know already in that tongue of his
What Pains, what monolithic Truths
Shadow stanza to stanza's symmetrical
Rhyme-rutted pavement. Know that ground plan left
Sublime and barren, where the warm Romance
Stone by stone faded, cooled; the fluted nouns
Made taller, lonelier than life
By leaf-carved capitals in the afterglow.
The owlet umlaut peeps and hoots
Above the open vowel. And after rain
A deep reverberation fills with stars.

Lost, is it, buried? One more missing piece?

But nothing's lost. Or else: all is translation
And every bit of us is lost in it
(Or found—I wander through the ruin of S
Now and then, wondering at the peacefulness)
And in that loss a self-effacing tree,
Color of context, imperceptibly
Rustling with its angel, turns the waste
To shade and fiber, milk and memory.

掀開哈利波特的隱形斗篷（或者內褲）

有那麼大一群人，他們被稱為“外籍勞工”，就像揚名國際的蔡明亮電影《黑眼圈》中，一個個始終沉睡著的植物人，在黑夜裡攜帶者空虛而行走；或者披著哈利波特的隱形斗篷，所有的外來勞工皆被簡化為一筆筆的統計數字，廉價得可以。單25萬“家庭幫傭”的數量，已是不折不扣組成多元社會的重要份子，所謂的西馬式國慶即將屆臨，對於幾十年來為我國經濟發展貢獻良多的移駐勞工，我們究竟看見了甚麼？

對多數馬來西亞人而言，國家現代化的意義，在於促使這些外來人口從事最低階的勞務工作，且多為危險、肮髒、卑賤的3D工作(dangerous, dirty, demeaning)。遭受辱駡是應該的，因為他們愚蠢與落後；所謂的剝削其實是節省，因為國家進步的一刻也不容停止。

然而“外籍勞工”一詞，其實是不包括來自西方國家的專業白領，主要指的是來自東南亞、斯裡蘭卡、孟加拉、中國等地的藍領勞工。歷史學家Ulrich Herbert說的好：“一個國家對待外勞的政策並不只是反映該國的經濟利益與自由民主的程度，這些政策往往還受到一些傳統所限制，那就是這些社會看待一般外國人的傳統。”

對於一個一味追求功利的社會，如果要談去汙名，談何容易？

翻閱國內平面媒體，“1.2萬女傭逃跑”、“不定時炸彈”、“潛藏在都市里的危機”或“外勞群集，安全堪憂”，盡是一些對於移駐勞工所呈現不友善的遣詞用字。移駐勞工的報導確實需要導回正軌，過度影射或是不必要的報導手法。移駐勞工也不該被塑造為特定的性別刻板印象，進而成為媒體片面報導下的犧牲者，何況並沒有任何整體數據證明犯罪率攀升與引進大量移駐勞工有直接關係。難道在這些人降陸之前，國內掠奪案就比較少？我們的色情行業就比較乏人問津？

媒體偏頗再現的還包括移駐勞工面對的階級、種族、宗教、勞資爭議、超時工作、變相工作、語言隔閡、缺乏司法信息、文化差異、空間壓迫、仲介費用過高、非人性化管理等問題。仔細推敲其中緣由，不難發現大部分的媒介再現，其實都可歸納為整體社會結構因素使然。

在缺乏工作權益保障下，雇主與仲介業者掌握了移駐勞工的生殺大權，面對的是空間與時間的雙重不人道壓迫，使得超時工作與無法休假成為常態。尤其從事家務勞作的移工，工作在容易遭受雇主性騷擾或性侵害，長時間下輕者患憂鬱症，重則精神疾病發作。如此惡劣環境，自然逼迫不少家務移工在還清仲介費後（甚至舉債還債），提早結束契約，進而發生所謂“外勞逃跑”的新聞議題。

隨著國內已婚婦女就業率的提高，雙薪家庭已成為我國主要家庭型態，家務勞動、托嬰、老人照顧，有賴各機構或他人來分擔。同樣的，政府將國家應負之老年照護責任也丟給了民間或私人機構，老年照護變得市場化且商品化，一般民眾負擔不起高額看護費轉而求助廉價人力（即家務移工者），於是使得仲介業者更具鑽研法律漏洞的機會，整個馬來西亞移工社群儼然成為活生生的人肉交易場。

就理想的社會福利狀態而言，政府應當透過家庭福利給付和服務的提供，保障其社會大眾的生活需求，從生到死無所不包，而非只鼓勵私人營利組織競相提供消費型的福利服務，而忘了社福基礎的責任其實就在政府身上。

更應檢討的是，何以我國工業政策是以“外包式”的方法來解決？過去幾十年高度強調經濟思維的發展模式下，譬如前途渺茫的2020先進工業國宏願，政府在國家內部上的治理是以一種“以殘補缺”的工業政策為主，大量任用外來移工成為整體工業發展的主軸，而不去仔細研究如何解決國內勞工市場就業問題。

吊詭的是，這種經濟上的急進政策不斷在亞洲各個國家上演，表面上是利用廉價勞力換取擠進全球市場的入門卷，其實不過是想在國際代工環節裡分一杯羹。

在現有中央政府的整體財務規畫中，我們看不見政府付出多少誠意投資在基礎研發上，人力資源的投入也是乏善可陳，浮誇不實的大型建設卻不斷地從全國各地浮現出來，我們難道只能不斷依靠巨型購物廣場賴以維生？究竟我們迫切需要的是大型基建還是國內就業市場的均勻發展？

經濟政策上一廂情願的結果導致弱勢者之間相殘的事情不斷發生，於是產生所謂“貧者更貧，富者更富”的情況，社會的貧富差距日益深化且對立。倘若政府無法提出具有遠景的經濟政策，此逐漸惡化的社會分歧現象將是國家邁向滅亡的最大致命傷。

（《獨立新聞在線》專欄）

老大哥在看著你！

1917年二月革命後，俄國著名作家葉夫根尼Yevgeny Zamyatin在被捕與流放間寫作科幻小說《我們》，一步步邁向反烏托邦小說始祖的臺階。

小說故事背景設定于未來的公元26世紀，全世界統一成一個單一國家“一體國”，人民生活在一個透明的城市裡，所有東西都是由玻璃或是其他透明材料製作或建造，任何人都被暴露在光天化日下且毫無保留。每個子民擁有一組字母及數字編號，身穿制服且隨時遵守著官方作息時間表：每天起床、工作、吃飯、運動、做愛，按照計算機程序分析歸納的方程式，過著所謂“幸福”的生活。

《我們》不只是一部震撼人心的科幻小說，也是一部發人深省的反烏托邦經典，更是當時英國小說家喬治奧韋爾眼中“焚書年代裡的文學奇品之一”，影響後者創作曠世巨作《1984》。無論是《我們》或《1984》，小說的背景都是個尚未發現DNA的時代，從兩位作家早期生活揣測，一點也不訝異他們早已設想到當科技遇上集權主義時，所有社會活動正常運作的背後邏輯，其實都在於一個易於被控管的目的。

我們確實活在警察國

如同《我們》或《1984》所描述，集權主義往往是這世界最可怕的盡頭。集權主義（authoritarianism）一般發生在極左政權國家，國家安全考慮優先于人民的自由權利，一黨專政與街頭巷尾佈滿秘密警察的情況尤為嚴重，如前蘇聯、朝鮮，極少出現於重視經濟發展的新興民主國家如我國。

內政部長賽哈密日前在國會提呈《脫氧核糖核酸法案》一讀，以強制檢驗涉及刑事案件嫌犯的脫氧核糖核酸樣本，一旦該法案通過後，警方可在無需獲得法庭批准下，強制要求所有刑事案嫌犯提供脫氧核糖核酸樣本。這是典型的集權主義國家才會有的不當作為，把人民的發根、唾液、尿液、組織、精液、血液當成自由索取的免費刊物使用？屆時數據不符，還可暫存資料室內當收藏。果真有那麼一天的到來，我們是否可要求警方給予人民一筆DNA收藏費？

沒有律師公會的意見、沒有公民社會的對話、沒有任何意見的交流，這就是馬來西亞典型國陣式不負責立法，全世界都在看的笑話。於是我們不難理解，何以倒掛國旗竟比倉促提呈DNA法案還令我們可愛的內政部官員們義憤填膺，似乎在擔心畿輔士民屢遭“虜騎”蹂躪，而對倒掛國旗者恨之切骨。如此國陣治理下的馬來西亞式“國民團結”，充斥著流於形式主義的愛國口號，而不得不用各式各樣的煙火慶典來掩飾執政者內心的貪污罪惡感與惶恐不安。

我們可愛的政府官員總以為人民的智慧如此低等，對於慣於操弄醜聞的政客總是縱容包庇，至於那些陰謀、利用、背叛、欲望與佔有等人性，以為完全被排拒於人民想像力之外。別忘了，我國人民總是相信一句話：科技始終來自於人性。

迷信科技還是轉移視線？

英國是世界公認僅次於奧地利的“老大哥”，是全世界收集最多DNA數據庫的國家。英國國會曾於2001年通過一項重大的修正法案《刑事正義及警察法》，該法案原就授權警方可針對違法遭拘捕的嫌犯採集DNA樣本，但事後必須銷毀DNA檢體及數據，修正案卻進一步擴張了警察權限，美其名為“純理論性搜索”（Speculative Searches）。幾年下來，儘管有將近20萬人被無罪釋放，但相關人員的DNA資料卻仍留在警方手上，英國警方辯稱為了防範刑事罪犯再犯率的提升，而不得不如此做，但此舉顯然已是公然違反當初立法原意，引起公憤。

以解決過去及防範未來可能之犯罪為目的，甚過對於犯罪者隱私權之保護，進而合理化它們建立DNA數據庫範圍之行為，只為轉移眾人對於警察辦案效率低落的目光。倘若一個連基本調查程序都做不好的警察體系，我們還能期望他們能妥善運用如此高複雜度的DNA數據庫？更不需費口舌去辯解當中人權觀的重要性。

有個事實我們必須認清，政府如果建立了DNA數據庫是為了防範罪犯再犯，那如今仍存在的身分證制度與報生紙是否就如政府所願防範了非法移民？許多國家如日本並沒有實施身分證制度，但其國內治安如何可想而知，可見任何國民數據庫的建立與治安防範扯不上關係。

笨蛋！重點在於資訊權

甚麼東西屬於誰？誰對甚麼東西可主張權利？誰應對甚麼事物負責？近代的法律制度都是建立在人文主義典範的此三個基本範疇之上，用政府的權利主體來佔有他人的生命、身體與自由，不僅是憲法所不容，更受制于基本道德觀。

至於隱私權，主要建立在兩種概念之上，一是人的尊嚴，以及透過康德之自我決定來理解對於個人自由的尊重，前者是英美法上的隱私概念，後者體現在歐陸法系。任何法律體系都強調政府不得做出任何“立法侵犯”的動作，法律也保障了個人的緘默權以及無罪推定原則，甚至是不自證己罪，政府更不應該對於刑事嫌犯有任何強制性作為，何況是採集DNA。為何繼指紋、大馬卡之後，政府還會想要收集人民的DNA？這政府究竟是有甚麼樣的收藏癖好？

眾所周知，每個人都擁有對其本身基因信息的隱私權，無論是對於基因的保密、流通、運用等，就如金融卡、大馬卡、工作履歷一樣，都擁有資訊自主決定權，享有憲法層次的隱私權保障，基因資訊也應當受到同樣的保障。我們也要認清的是，基因隱私權或基因資訊自主權的權利標的並非基因本身，而在於資訊。

這法案的最大問題與荒謬處在於刑事調查程序，法案允許警方可在無需獲得法庭批准下索取嫌犯DNA，等於說警察的偵察動作若違反人權也將不會有所監督，甚至連負責管理DNA數據庫的竟然也是警方人員。這難道不夠誇張嗎？即便換成是索取指紋、搜索住家等都一樣，這些都牽涉到有關人身隱私權的問題，此法案顯然進一步為惡名昭彰的警察權恣意開了更大的一扇門。

別忘了，V怪客(V for Vendetta)告訴我們甚麼，人民不應該怕政府，政府才應該怕人民，而恐懼是政府的終極武器。此刻反對惡法，正是國慶最好的禮物。

(獨立新聞在線專欄)

But nothing's lost. Or else: all is translation

Broken Social Scene在耳邊撩動著。

七年。是一種什麼樣的衝動，產生如此巨大的意念，驅使人離開熟悉的已令人無法抽離的節奏？由半島至島再由島至島再由島至半島。離開媒體還是回到媒體，真是永劫回歸。

兩個多月耗盡龐大的腦細胞與，只累積了一層又一層後重的皺紋在肚皮。七年來不斷唾棄連鎖咖啡的罪惡，竟然是在一種無從適應的下被迫選擇，在每次下班後自陌生的壓迫逃離再潛入。Fucking lost.

是的，既熱鬧又疏離。就像多年來我站在台北街頭、坐在那些自我慰藉的咖啡館，走在不見天日的建築群組間，美好地原子化。

l'existence precede l'essence，我是如此地自由，卻又是無法逃避所有選擇的結果，儘管結果的出現總是為了讓人更有可能逆向。

選擇這玩意，真是如此令人迷戀。