幾天前，朋友跟我說著，我這一生還持續前世未完的緣。
她說著這句話，我笑著、想著：「是啊！」
不知從何時開始，「旅行」成為生命中的一環。作為一位局外人，「遊牧」似乎成了切入當地文化生活的一種方式。雖這麼說著，事實上直至今日，拜訪過的國家，依舊可輕易用一雙手數出。但在這說多不多、說少不少的旅途中，「偶遇」（真的是偶遇）不少難忘的人、事、物，這些偶然，似乎是冥冥之中安排。
(English is below.)
今年八月，趁著工作的空檔，因為接下了一份寫關於文化遺產文章的工作，去了趟中東——以色列與約旦。當時，耳聞有機會能探訪此地，二話不說地接下，也就這樣無預期的踏上省思之路。在出發前，身旁的人聽及中東，緊接著脫口問著：「妳不擔心？不會害怕嗎？」雖仍能從新聞裡看到現在緊張的氛圍，但我那隨遇而安的個性，給了這趟旅程最強而有力的後台。
八月，正是以約的盛夏之際，結束一趟日本的公差返台後的10天，連旅行衣物都還來不及從行李箱拿出，就這麼闔上出發前往。今年第四趟飛航，在漫長的旅途，我還是在機上K書，惡補中東複雜的人文歷史，其中最令人感到羞愧、無力與感傷的，莫過於動亂導致的遺忘。
近年來，許多人因為戰爭遠離家鄉，成為移徙的一份子。2013年，就讀研究所期間，因一堂探討藝術家如何透過身體景觀創作的課程，進到了臺北三峽榮民之家與參與韓戰的榮民們共同執行藝術計畫，藉由計畫使榮民爺爺回憶過去的「家」、思考自己與現在的「家」、邁向未來的「家」，自己也開始反思「生命的銘刻」、「身體的記憶帶來生活與思想的改變」與「社會大環境而流離的影響」，加上自己的親爺爺為823砲戰喪生的烈士，於是乎一腳踏進探尋當時這群特殊身份因被迫遷移到臺灣的生命歷程，檢視對於人、社會環境、文化的所帶來的效應。
相較於這群自小參與抗日戰爭、國共內戰到韓戰的爺爺來說，生於這個世代、生活無虞無慮的自己，帶來的衝擊一時半刻難以用言語表述。有些爺爺能很輕易地講出過往經歷，有的則只概括說著：「我們都是一家人。爭吵總會過去。」但曉得看似平穩的生活，心中總有波浪敲打著，無力說出，也無能處理，擱置成了最終選擇。坐在飛機上，我想起這些事，期待在中東是否也能遇到？想著也這樣安穩入睡 。
旅行，無激情的過了五天，直到伯利恆才又染起一絲期待，但真正打醒自己卻是到了約旦之後的事。進入約旦，氣溫比想像中酷熱，攝氏45度，吸入的空氣悶得讓人抓狂，短時間在太陽下，皮膚發紅翻黑，說是烤肉也不為過。過關時，剛好遇到下班時間，突然大批約旦居民（男人）湧進國界，趕著回家。哇…這是身為海島居民無法經歷的生活模式。這趟紮實的體驗到沙漠型氣候，中東地區，高溫、乾燥、水資源少，難以想像怎麼在如此嚴峻的氣候裡生活，加上國際情勢，或多或少能感受到人們複雜又糾葛的情感…
有一天，地陪聊著約旦收容大批難民的事，說著只要還有能力，會伸手幫助這些需要幫助的人們。這個問題在腦海中不段盤旋、揮之不去。在台灣，除非主動在網路上主動閱讀國際新聞，否則鮮少能在新聞報導中接收這些訊息，或許有人會疑問：「我們不在歐洲」。的確，戰爭距離我們已有兩個世代，奶奶在世時，想問相關的回憶，也只說著那段日子很苦，「生命」成為當時僅有的財產，「生存」成了唯一考量，即便有再多「人道救援」，精神上的安穩是難以補足。
身為海島居民的居住者，也擠身成為全球移徙的一份子，生活中總能遇到來自不同文化背景的人們，看到人因為戰爭，殖民，生活，工作等而移動，產生不少「衝突」，但也使文化產生交融，抑或遺忘文化傳統。
這趟旅行中所見所聞，喚起埋藏在心中疑問：「日久是否他鄉真能變故鄉？」
接下來的故事，就留給下一篇吧！黎明將再次昇起。
One Among the Tide of Global Migrants
A few days ago, a friend told me that in this life I am still continuing the unfinished bonds of a past one. She said those words, and I smiled, thinking: “Yes, perhaps so.”
I’m not sure when it began, but “travel” became an inseparable part of my life. As an outsider, “nomadism” seems to have become my way of entering into local cultures and daily life. That said, the truth is that to this day, the countries I have visited can still be counted easily on one pair of hands. Yet within this journey — not too long, not too short — I have had the fortune of “chance encounters” (truly chance encounters) with remarkable people, events, and things. These coincidences feel like the quiet arrangements of fate.
This past August, during a break from work, I took on a writing assignment about cultural heritage and headed to the Middle East — Israel and Jordan. When I heard there was a chance to visit these places, I took it without hesitation, and so, unexpectedly, I set out on a journey of reflection. Before I left, whenever the people around me heard “Middle East,” the question came immediately: “Aren’t you worried? Aren’t you afraid?” Although the news still carried the tension of the region, my naturally easy-going, go-with-the-flow character gave this trip its most powerful backing.
It was the height of summer in Israel and Jordan that August. Just ten days after returning to Taiwan from a work trip to Japan, before I had even unpacked my travel clothes from the suitcase, I simply shut the lid again and left. This was my fourth flight of the year. During the long journey, I was still crammed with studying on the plane — cramming the complex human history of the Middle East. Of all of it, what left me feeling most ashamed, helpless, and sorrowful was the forgetting that turmoil brings.
In recent years, many people have been displaced from their homelands by war, becoming part of the global tide of migration. Back in 2013, during my graduate school years, a course exploring how artists create through bodily landscapes led me to the Sanchong Veterans’ Home in Taipei’s Sanxia District, where I carried out an arts project with veterans who had participated in the Korean War. Through the project, these grandfather-veterans recalled their past “homes,” reflected on their relationship with their present “homes,” and looked toward a future “home.” Through that experience, I too began to reflect on “the inscriptions of a life,” on “how bodily memory brings changes to living and thinking,” and on “the effects of displacement caused by broader social forces.” My own maternal grandfather was a martyr who died in the 823 Artillery Battle, and so I found myself stepping into an exploration of the life histories of this particular group of people — forcibly relocated to Taiwan — examining the effects that displacement had produced on individuals, on social environments, and on culture.
Compared to those grandfather-veterans who had taken part in the War of Resistance against Japan, the Chinese Civil War, and the Korean War since childhood, I — born into this generation with a life of relative ease and security — found the impact of their stories impossible to express in words in that moment. Some of the grandfathers could recount their past experiences quite freely; others would only speak in broad strokes, saying: “We are all family. Arguments always pass eventually.” Yet I knew that beneath the apparently calm surface of their lives, waves were always beating inward — waves they had no words for, no capacity to process, and so had ultimately set aside. Sitting on the plane, I recalled all of this, wondering whether I might encounter something similar in the Middle East. With those thoughts, I drifted quietly off to sleep.
The first five days of the trip passed without much emotional charge. It was only in Bethlehem that a flicker of anticipation returned — but what truly jolted me awake came after I crossed into Jordan. The temperature there was hotter than I had imagined: 45 degrees Celsius. The air I breathed in was so thick and stifling it was maddening. After just a short time under the sun, my skin turned red and then dark — you could practically call it grilled. At the border crossing, I happened to arrive at the end of the workday, and suddenly a large wave of Jordanian residents — all men — surged through the border, rushing home. This was a pattern of life that someone who has grown up on an island simply cannot experience. That trip gave me a vivid, visceral sense of desert climate: the extreme heat, the dryness, the scarcity of water. It was hard to imagine how one could live under such harsh conditions, and layered on top of that, the international situation — one could feel, in varying degrees, the complicated and tangled emotions of the people.
One day, a local guide talked with me about Jordan’s reception of large numbers of refugees, saying that as long as there is still capacity, they will reach out and help those who need it. This question circled endlessly in my mind, refusing to leave. In Taiwan, unless one actively seeks out international news online, such information rarely surfaces in everyday news coverage. Perhaps some would wonder: “But we are not in Europe.” It is true that war is two generations removed from most of us. When my grandmother was alive and I tried to ask her about those memories, she only ever said that those days were very hard — that “life” was the only possession one had, and “survival” the only consideration. Even with all the humanitarian aid in the world, the spiritual steadiness that was lost could not easily be restored.
As a resident of an island nation, I have nonetheless found myself counted among the global tide of migrants. In daily life I often encounter people from different cultural backgrounds, and I see how people move — driven by war, colonization, livelihood, work — producing much “friction,” but also enabling cultures to blend, or sometimes to forget their own traditions.
Everything I witnessed and heard on this journey stirred up a question buried in my heart: “With time, can a foreign place truly become home?”
The story from here onwards — I will leave it for the next piece. Dawn will rise again.