二十年多前，我是一名牙科醫(yī)生，在中國南方的一個(gè)小鎮(zhèn)上手握鋼鉗，每天撥牙長達(dá)八個(gè)小時(shí)。

　　在我們中國的過去，牙醫(yī)是屬于跑江湖一類，通常和理發(fā)的或者修鞋的為伍，在繁華的街區(qū)撐開一把油布雨傘，將鉗子、錘子等器械在桌上一字排開，同時(shí)也將以往撥下的牙齒一字排開，以此招徠顧客。這樣的牙醫(yī)都是獨(dú)自一人，不需要助手，和修鞋匠一樣挑著一付擔(dān)子游走四方。

　　我是他們的繼承者。雖然我在屬于國家的醫(yī)院里工作，但是我的前輩們都是從油布雨傘下走進(jìn)醫(yī)院的樓房，沒有一個(gè)來自醫(yī)學(xué)院。我所在的醫(yī)院以撥牙為主，只有二十來人，因牙疼難忍前來治病的人都把我們的醫(yī)院叫成“牙齒店”，很少有人認(rèn)為我們是一家醫(yī)院。與牙科醫(yī)生這個(gè)現(xiàn)在已經(jīng)知識(shí)分子化的職業(yè)相比，我覺得自己其實(shí)是一名店員。

　　我就是那時(shí)候開始寫作的。我在“牙齒店”干了五年，觀看了數(shù)以萬計(jì)的張開的嘴巴，我感到無聊之極，我倒是知道了世界上什么地方最沒有風(fēng)景，就是在嘴巴里。當(dāng)時(shí)，我經(jīng)常站在臨街的窗前，看到在文化館工作的人整日在大街上游手好閑地走來走去，心里十分羨慕。有一次我問一位在文化館工作的人，問他為什么經(jīng)常在大街上游玩？他告訴我：這就是他的工作。我心想這樣的工作我也喜歡。于是我決定寫作，我希望有朝一日能夠進(jìn)入文化館。當(dāng)時(shí)進(jìn)入文化館只有三條路可走：一是學(xué)會(huì)作曲；
二是學(xué)會(huì)繪畫；
三就是寫作。對我來說，作曲和繪畫太難了，而寫作只要認(rèn)識(shí)漢字就行，我只能寫作了。

　　在1983年11月的一個(gè)下午，我接到了一個(gè)來自北京的長途電話，一家文學(xué)雜志讓我去北京修改我的小說。當(dāng)我從北京改完小說回家時(shí)，我才知道我們小小的縣城轟動(dòng)了，我是我們縣里歷史上第一個(gè)去北京改稿的人。我們縣里的官員認(rèn)為我是一個(gè)人材，他們說不能再讓我拔牙了，說應(yīng)該讓我去文化館工作。就這樣我進(jìn)了文化館。在八十年代初的中國，個(gè)人是沒有權(quán)利尋找自己的工作，工作都是國家分配的。我從醫(yī)院到文化館工作時(shí)，我的調(diào)動(dòng)文件上蓋了十多個(gè)大紅印章。我第一天到文化館上班時(shí)故意遲到了兩個(gè)小時(shí)，結(jié)果我發(fā)現(xiàn)自己竟然是第一個(gè)來上班的，我心想這地方來對了。

　　這幾年很多外國朋友問我，為什么要放棄富有的牙醫(yī)工作去從事貧窮的寫作？他們不知道在八十年代的中國，做一名醫(yī)生不會(huì)比一名工人富有，那時(shí)候的醫(yī)生都是窮光蛋，拿著國家規(guī)定的薪水。所以我放棄牙醫(yī)工作去文化館上班，沒有任何經(jīng)濟(jì)上和心理上的壓力，恰恰相反，我幸福的差不多要從睡夢里笑醒，因?yàn)槲覐囊粋�(gè)每天都要勤奮工作的窮光蛋變成了一個(gè)每天都在游玩的窮光蛋，雖然都是窮光蛋，可是文化館里的是個(gè)自由自在和幸福的窮光蛋。我?guī)缀趺刻於家�睡到中午，然后在街上到處游蕩，�?shí)在找不到什么人陪我玩了，我就回家開始寫作。到了1993年，我覺得能夠用寫作養(yǎng)活自己時(shí)，我就辭去了這份世界上最自由的工作，定居北京開始更自由的生活。

　　現(xiàn)在，我已經(jīng)有二十年的寫作歷史了。二十年的漫漫長夜和那些晴朗或者陰沉的白晝過去之后，我發(fā)現(xiàn)自己已經(jīng)無法離開寫作了。寫作喚醒了我生活中無數(shù)的欲望，這樣的欲望在我過去生活里曾經(jīng)有過或者根本沒有，曾經(jīng)實(shí)現(xiàn)過或者根本無法實(shí)現(xiàn)。我的寫作使它們聚集到了一起，在虛構(gòu)的現(xiàn)實(shí)里成為合法。二十年之后，我發(fā)現(xiàn)自己的寫作已經(jīng)建立了現(xiàn)實(shí)經(jīng)歷之外的一條人生道路，它和我現(xiàn)實(shí)的人生之路同時(shí)出發(fā)，并肩而行，有時(shí)交叉到了一起，有時(shí)又天各一方。因此我現(xiàn)在越來越相信這樣的話──寫作有益于身心健康。當(dāng)現(xiàn)實(shí)生活中無法實(shí)現(xiàn)的欲望，在虛構(gòu)生活里紛紛得到實(shí)現(xiàn)時(shí)，我就會(huì)感到自己的人生正在完整起來。寫作使我擁有了兩個(gè)人生，現(xiàn)實(shí)的和虛構(gòu)的，它們的關(guān)系就像是健康和疾病，當(dāng)一個(gè)強(qiáng)大起來時(shí)，另一個(gè)必然會(huì)衰落下去。于是當(dāng)我現(xiàn)實(shí)的人生越來越平乏時(shí)，我虛構(gòu)的人生已經(jīng)異常豐富了。

　　我知道閱讀別人的作品會(huì)影響自己，后來發(fā)現(xiàn)自己寫下的人物也會(huì)影響我的人生態(tài)度。寫作確實(shí)會(huì)改變一個(gè)人，會(huì)將一個(gè)剛強(qiáng)的人變得眼淚汪汪，會(huì)將一個(gè)果斷的人變得猶豫不決，會(huì)將一個(gè)勇敢的人變得膽小怕事，最后就是將一個(gè)活生生的人變成了一個(gè)作家。我這樣說并不是為了貶低寫作，恰恰是為了要說明文學(xué)或者說是寫作對于一個(gè)人的重要，當(dāng)作家變得越來越警覺的同時(shí)，他的心靈也會(huì)經(jīng)常地感到柔弱無援。他會(huì)發(fā)現(xiàn)自己深陷其中的世界與四周的現(xiàn)實(shí)若即若離，而且還會(huì)格格不入。然后他就發(fā)現(xiàn)自己已經(jīng)具有了與眾不同的準(zhǔn)則，或者說是完全屬于他自己的理解和判斷，他感到自己的靈魂具有了無孔不入的本領(lǐng)，他的內(nèi)心已經(jīng)變得異常的豐富。這樣的豐富就是來自于長時(shí)間的寫作，來自于身體肌肉衰退后警覺和智慧的茁壯成長，而且這豐富總是容易受到傷害。

　　二十年來我一直生活在文學(xué)里，生活在那些轉(zhuǎn)瞬即逝的意象和活生生的對白里，生活在那些妙不可言同時(shí)又真實(shí)可信的描寫里……生活在很多偉大作家的敘述里，也生活在自己的敘述里。我相信文學(xué)是由那些柔弱同時(shí)又是無比豐富和敏感的心靈創(chuàng)造的，讓我們心領(lǐng)神會(huì)和激動(dòng)失眠，讓我們遠(yuǎn)隔千里仍然互相熱愛，讓我們生離死別后還是互相熱愛。

　　附錄：WHY I WRITE

　　Yu Hua

　　Twenty years ago, I was a dentist in a little town in southern China. Forceps in hand, I extracted teeth for up to eight hours a day.

　　In China in the olden days, dentists were in the much the same line of work as itinerant street-performers, more or less on a par with barbers or cobblers. In some bustling neighborhood they would unfurl an oilskin umbrella and spread out on a table their forceps, mallets, and the other tools of their trade, along with teeth that they had extracted in the past, as a way of attracting customers. Dentists in those days operated as one-man bands, and they needed no helper. Like traveling shoe-repairers, they would wander from place to place, shouldering their load on a carrying pole.

　　I was their successor. Although I worked in a state-run clinic, my most senior colleagues had all simply switched from plying their trade under an umbrella to being employed in a two-storey clinic—not one of them had attended medical school. At the clinic where I worked, tooth extractions were the main order of business. There were only about twenty of us. The people who suffered from such acute toothache that they came to us for treatment called our clinic the “tooth shop,” and it was very rare for anyone to think of it as a healthcare facility. Compared to the career of a dental physician, already such a respectable profession, I felt that I was no more than a shop worker.

　　It was during this period that I began to write. By that time I had worked for five years in the “tooth shop,” and had been given a grandstand view of thousands of gaping mouths. I was bored out of my mind. All I knew was, there was one place where you were guaranteed to find the world’s least attractive scenery, and that was inside the human mouth. I would often stand by a window overlooking the street, and when I saw people from the cultural bureau loafing about on the boulevard at all hours of the day, I was green with envy. Once I asked someone from the cultural bureau, why did he spend so much time strolling around on the boulevard? He told me that this was his job. I thought to myself: that’s the kind of work I would like to do. So that’s when I decided to write, hoping that one day I would be able to join the cultural bureau. At the time there only three routes of access to the cultural bureau: you could be a composer, you could be a painter, or you could be a writer. Composing music and painting pictures were out of my league, while writing just required knowledge of Chinese characters, so for me it was the only option.

　　One afternoon in November 1983, I received a long-distance telephone call from Beijing. A literary journal asked me to go to Beijing to revise one of my stories for publication. When I returned home later after making the revisions in Beijing, I became aware that our little county town was all in a tizzy, for I was the first person in the history of our district to have been summoned to Beijing to make revisions in a manuscript.(點(diǎn)擊此處閱讀下一頁)

　　 The local officials came to the conclusion that I must be some kind of genius, and they said that they could not have me go on extracting teeth, but should put me to work in the cultural bureau. That’s how I gained entry to the cultural bureau. In China in the early 1980s, people were not entitled to look for a job themselves: all employment was assigned by the state. When I moved from the clinic to the cultural bureau, my transfer authorization was stamped with big red seals of approval, a dozen or so in all. At my first day of work at the cultural bureau, I made a point of showing up two hours late, only to discover that I was the first to arrive. I knew then that this was just the place for me.

　　In recent years friends from abroad have often asked me why I abandoned the profitable world of dentistry for the paltry remuneration of a writer. What they don’t realize is that in China in the 1980s a dentist was paid no more than a factory worker. Medical staff in those days were all as poor as paupers, depending solely on a salary that was dictated by the state. So when I forsook the dental clinic for my job at the cultural bureau, I did not feel the slightest economic or psychological pressures. Quite the contrary. I was so happy that I would practically wake up with a smile on my face, because I had changed from being a pauper mired in drudgery to being a pauper who spent his day having a good time. Although I was a pauper just the same, at least in the cultural bureau I enjoyed a life of carefree leisure. Almost every day I would sleep till noon, then saunter all over town, and when I ran out of people who could keep me company, that’s when I would go home and start to write. In 1993, when I felt I was capable of supporting myself with my writing, I gave up this wonderfully unstructured job, took up residence in Beijing and began a life that was even less regimented.

　　By now I have been writing for twenty years. After twenty years of long, long nights and clear or cloudy days, I have discovered that there is no way I could now separate myself from my writing. Writing has stirred within me countless desires—desires that I have experienced in my past life or desires that I have never had at all, desires that I have attained or desires that are totally unattainable. My writing has gathered them all in one place, and in the reality of the imagination they acquire legitimacy. After twenty years, what I have found is that my writing has forged a path through life, a path that lies beyond real lived experience. It began its journey at the same time as the path I have taken in my own life, and the two follow a parallel course. Sometimes the paths intersect, while at other times they go in entirely opposite directions. This is why, more and more, I believe in the truth of the saying that writing is good for the health. When desires that are unattainable in real life one after another find fulfillment in the life of the imagination, I feel that my own existence is in the process of becoming more complete. Writing enables me to claim ownership of two lives, one imaginary, and one real, and the relationship between them is like that between sickness and health: when one is strong, the other is bound to fall into decline. So as my real life becomes more routine, my imaginary life is brimming with incident.

　　I knew that reading other people’s works would have an effect on me, and what I realized later on is that the characters that appear in my own works also influence my attitude to life. Writing can truly change a person: it can make a strong man tearful, or render a resolute person indecisive, or it can convert a bold man into a timid and apprehensive creature. Its effect, ultimately, is to transform a living person into a writer. My point is not to denigrate writing, but rather to show how important to an individual is literature, is writing. At the very moment when a writer’s senses become more and more alert, his inner self may often feel weak and helpless. He finds that the world in which he has become so deeply immersed is at some remove from the reality that surrounds him, and may even be incompatible with it. Then he discovers that the norms he has come to internalize are quite different from those of other people: they are entirely a product of his own understanding, his own judgments. He feels that his soul possesses a capacity to penetrate any barrier, and his inner world becomes a land of plenty. Its abundance derives from a sustained immersion in writing, from the wisdom and observational powers that develop fully in the wake of a physical decline. It is a fragile resource.

　　For twenty years now I have been living inside literature, inside fleeting images and vibrant dialogues, inside descriptions that are compelling and utterly convincing, inside the narratives of many great writers, and inside narratives of my own. I believe that literature is created by human souls, and weak as these souls may be, they are also incomparably fertile and sensitive. They enable us to understand things intuitively, and they stir us so deeply that we cannot sleep. They make us identify with people from whom we are thousands of miles apart, they make us care about those from whom we are separated in life, or separated by death.

　　Translated by Allan H. Barr

　�。ㄟ@是2003年10月至2004年3月，我在美國30所大學(xué)的演講稿，由于有時(shí)候會(huì)在一個(gè)城市去兩所大學(xué)，我還準(zhǔn)備了另外一個(gè)演講稿《文學(xué)中的現(xiàn)實(shí)》，以后再發(fā)。下面附上演講的英文翻譯，是我的朋友艾倫教授翻譯的，他翻譯了我的《在細(xì)雨中呼喊》和一個(gè)短篇小說集《黃昏里的男孩》。）（當(dāng)代文化研究網(wǎng)）

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