作者：張楚勇
2013年11月21日
我親愛的朋友，
非常感謝K的信息，這些信息帶出香港人根本和反覆出現的問題。
最初，我以為我現在在倫敦，並將於12月初返港，因此我在幾天前給大家的最後一封信中建議，回來後我們也許可以聚在一起，就這個問題交流 。
但是在這個陽光明媚的早晨（2013年11月21日），當我前往大英圖書館進行檔案研究時，在倫敦聖潘克拉斯車站附近，我突然有一股衝動寫一些東西回應K的信息：告訴大家儘管我們現在在香港面臨許多困難和挑戰，但我準備緊跟這個令人驚嘆的城市，並將盡我所能，盡力幫助捍衛/發展其自由和文明。
有趣的是，當我今天早晨出現這個直覺時，我在看聖潘克拉斯的典雅建築，並想著大英圖書館（就在車站旁）是一所出色的機構，並在倫敦有相當於在家的感覺。確實，我很榮幸能夠說，倫敦是我的第二故鄉。
請容許我先沉迷於解釋為什麼我覺得倫敦是我的第二故鄉，然後再返回以理清自己所說的直覺。
我想 1990年代初期，當我和安妮在倫敦住了大約五年左右，我開始有這種（第二故鄉）感覺。自從我們1994年回港並定居香港，經過了這麼多年，這種感覺（我以為）已被淡化薄弱。但是這次，由於我休假，我可以在倫敦呆上六個星期，到現在為止，已經在我的倫敦小房子裡住了大約一個月。
回來並住在倫敦郊區的小房子，使我感到相當有在家的感覺。
之所以如此，不僅是因為我兒子同時住在那兒，還因為除了讀書，我還有時間整理一下房子，看到安妮和我過去25年在家安置的所有東西，充滿懷緬。
當然，我的日常生活（例如做飯，購物，做家務，在我的小花園裡撿起落下的蘋果，游泳，拜訪老朋友等）大部分時間都在屋子和鄰近地方，帶來美好的舊時回憶（例如我如何教我的孩子在他們走路之前，安全地在房子樓梯爬行）。
從更廣闊的角度來看，倫敦當然有很多討人喜歡的事物。
10月下旬到達倫敦的第一天，我去了當代藝術學院，在那裡很享受那些展覽。隨後，我在書店發現歐內斯特·蓋爾納傳記（20世紀優秀思想家，所及領域包括民族主義、哲學、理性、伊斯蘭教、公民社會、人類學等），該書於2010年出版。雖然我已經答應F回來時， 把他的小皮箱和他在英國學習期間留在我家的一些大衣帶回港，我仍忍不住要買那本書（400頁，我還要加上一些其他書）。為免行李超載，幾天後我就把它讀完了。在紐卡素，我發現我的好朋友A也拿著那本書，並且非常感興趣地閱讀。我在赫爾的老師奧沙利文教授，他許多年前向我介紹蓋爾納，也有這本書。相反，在香港，我甚至不知道這本書已經出版，更不用說閱讀並與朋友和同事討論。
就在今天，我從國王十字附近的一家二手書店購買了兩本書，其中一本書的書名是《當我和貓一起玩時，我怎麼知道她不在和我一起玩？”》，這是文藝復興時期偉大的散文家米歇爾·蒙田（Michel Montaigne）的作品。（安妮會喜歡這個標題，這讓我想起了莊子關於魚之樂的故事）
蒙田（Montaigne）有一篇非常著名的文章，名為《致哲學就是學習如何死》。該書序言部分關於他的最後一段讓我非常感動，講述蒙田的文章（關於睡眠，悲傷，氣味和友誼，關於兒童，性與死亡等）一直提醒著我們「如果你珍視朋友，則應與他們會面；如果你喜歡你的孩子，請與他們一起吃飯；如果有你愛的人，請站在他們附近，再靠近他們。而且，如果你想與生活重新建立聯繫，就像弗勞伯特（Flaubert）給沮喪的記者所寫的那樣，請『讀蒙田涅（Montaigne）』」。甚至尼采也宣稱：「我可以努力讓自己在世界上與他同在。」
我也非常喜歡在大英圖書館學習和研究。今天，當我瀏覽舊手稿時，我讀到了阿爾弗雷德·諾斯·懷特海（Alfred North Whitehead）對年輕哲學家A. J. Ayer的評論 。1930年代，艾爾（Ayer）將他與伯特蘭·羅素（Bertrand Russell）比較，當時羅素是懷特海德（Whitehead）的學生。我還碰到了經濟學家皮古（Pigou）的來信，他在信中邀請了牛津大學經濟學家羅伊·哈羅德（Roy Harrod）申請40年代劍橋大學的經濟學教授職位。當哈羅德（Harrod）在1948年休假一年去撰寫凱恩斯傳記時，他不如我幸運，因為牛津大學因休假而停止向他支付當年的演講津貼。我還發現哈羅德給哈佛大學一份文件中，就另一位著名經濟學家瓊·羅賓遜（阿瑪蒂亞·森和約瑟夫·斯蒂格利茨的老師，非常討厭哈耶克的自由市場經濟學，寫了一本書讚揚毛澤東的文化大革命）作了生動而挑釁的評論：
“當她出現在Nuffield會議上時……穿著藍色長褲並發出'布爾什維克'情懷，我相信不認識她的商人將會視她為小流氓。她沒有太多的裝飾和優雅。她喜歡認真工作，極其直率，直言不諱，也不介意對所有人粗魯無禮。”
當然，在倫敦還有許多吸引的事情（就像與我的兒子去富勒姆觀看國際足球比賽、英國廣播公司，博物館，音樂劇等等）。我這個第二個家，文化豐厚和知識上引人入勝。
但是儘管如此，我前一天在伊斯靈頓時與史蒂芬（我在香港大學青年文學獎時期的導師）和凱蒂（香港一位女士）交談，他們問我是否想在倫敦退休？因為我的兩個孩子都有可能在英國發展事業，我的回答是我沒有這樣的計劃，至少現在還沒有。
的確，我一直認為香港作為一個城市，在很多方面都無法與倫敦相比。但是在我內心深處，香港是家，而不是第二個家，而是歸處。
一個家就是你長大的地方，你的肉體和心靈都在這裡棲身。在這個地方，你總是可以回到家中，無論在好時光或壞光景都不會感到陌生或格格不入。
我的大部分個人和集體記憶都在香港，尤其是因為我有非常親密的朋友（像你們中的許多人一樣），從小到大，從這裡到成年，與我有著很多共同的經歷。
香港給了我作為一個人這麼多：有相當良好的教育，良好的職業生涯，我可以從中學習東方與西方世界，一個嵌入了很多的自由和文明價值的現代社區。它也足夠開放和寬容，以至於我作為香港的兒子來來去去，而不會給標籤為較低忠誠度等等。
當然，我有很多我不喜歡香港的事情，例如煽情的媒體、貧乏和不民主的治理體系、地方政治的敵對兩極化、貧富差距、物質主義、我們的淺薄心態、我們與大陸之間日益擴大的鴻溝 。
但是，我覺得無論好壞，我也是其中的一部分。因為如果香港做得好的，它在世界這部分地區通常是獨一無二的，我們應該努力捍衛和促進這種獨特性（例如，在華人社區的法治、以合適的方式將東西方連接起來、視個人為應被尊重和具尊嚴的個體、不由教條主導、廉潔、程序公正等的人）。這就是我的家，很難在中國或世界其他地方找到可比的城市，其中體現如此眾多的文明屬性。
至於不良部分，我們中的許多人實際上已經可以以不同的方式和能力來做一些事情了，這並不是說我們可以一定地改變或糾正這種情況。而是從某種意義上來說，合乎情理地，我們在這個社區中受益匪淺，有責任盡力充分利用我們的資源和能力，使這個地方變得更好。讓我們的孩子以及我們的孩子的孩子，仍然可以稱為家的地方，一個令人渴望的地方。
我知道這是一件複雜的事情，不同的人可能有不同的觀點和直覺。但是，在英國寒冷的秋天裡，一個陽光明媚的早晨出乎意料地激起了我對香港和倫敦這兩個城市的很多感受，我希望你們不要介意我向你們所有人分享這個冗長的信息。
你們的，
楚勇
The Two Cities That I Call Home
21 November 2013
My dear Playgroup Friends,
Many thanks for K’s messages, which have brought out a fundamental and recurrent issue for the people of Hong Kong.
Originally, I was thinking that since I am now in London and will be back to Hong Kong in early December, perhaps our group could gather together then to have an exchange on this issue, and hence the suggestion in my last message to you all a few days ago.
But on this sunny morning (21 November 2013) in London near St Pancras Station, when I was on my way to the British Library to do some archives research, I suddenly had the impulse of writing something in response to K’s messages, telling you all that in spite of the difficulties and challenges we are now facing in Hong Kong, I am prepared to stick with this amazing city, and will try to help defend/develop its liberality and civility as best as I can.
The interesting thing is that when I had this gut feeling this morning, I was looking at the elegant building of St Pancras and thinking of what an excellent institution the British Library (which is just next to the Station) is, and felt very much at home in London. Indeed, I am privileged to be able to say that London to me is my second home.
Allow me to indulge a bit in explaining why I feel London is my second home before I return to rationalize my gut feeling.
I think it was when Anne and I had lived in London for about five years or so in the early 1990s that I started to have that feeling. The feeling had been diluted to the bare minimum after so many years since we returned to and settled back in Hong Kong in 1994. This time round, however, because of my sabbatical, I can spend six weeks in London, and by now I
have stayed in my little London house for about a month.
Returning and living in my little house in the suburban of London makes me feel very much at home.
This is so not only because my son is living there at the same time, but also because apart from doing a lot of reading, I have the time to tidy up the house a bit, and seeing all those things that Anne and I had installed in the house over 25 years ago makes me feel nostalgic.
Of course, spending my daily life (such as cooking, shopping, doing household work, picking up fallen apples in my little garden, go swimming, visiting old friends, etc.) most of the time in the house and the neighbourhood also brings back a lot of good old memories (like how I taught my children to crawl down the stairs safely in the house before they could walk).
On a more macro level, London of course has a lot of things that I find agreeable.
The first day after my arrival in the second half of October, I went to the Institute of Contemporary Arts and enjoyed the exhibition there very much. I then found in its bookshop an intellectual biography of Ernest Gellner (an outstanding 20th century thinker in nationalism, philosophy, rationality, Islam, civil society, anthropology, etc.), which came out in 2010. Although I have promised F to bring back his small suitcase and some of his overcoats he left in my house during his study in England when I return, I could not resist buying that book (400 pages, together with some others I should add) at the risk of overloading my luggage, and finished reading it in a few days’ time. In Newcastle, I found my very good friend A also had that book and had read it with great interest. My teacher Professor O’Sullivan in Hull, who introduced Gellner to me many years ago also has the book as expected when I visited him the other day. In contrast, in Hong Kong, I even did not know the book had come out, not to say to read it and to discuss it with friends and colleagues.
Just now today, I bought another two books from a secondhand bookshop near King’s Cross, including one entitled “When I am playing with my cat, how do I know that she is not playing with me?” (Anne would love this title, which reminds me of Zhuangzi’s story of fish and happiness), which is on the Renaissance’s great essayist Michel Montaigne.
Montaigne has a very famous essay called “To Philosophize is to learn how to die”. I was very much moved by the last paragraph of the Preface of this book about him, which says that Montaigne’s essays (on sleep, on sadness, on smells and friendship, on children, sex and death, etc.) keep on reminding us “if you value a friend, you should meet with them; if you are fond of your children, eat with them; if there is someone you love, stand close to them, be near to them. And if you want to get back in touch with life—as Flaubert wrote to a depressed correspondent—‘read Montaigne.’” Even Nietzsche proclaims that “I could endeavor to make myself at home in the world with him.”
I also thoroughly enjoy studying and doing research in the British Library. Today, when I went through the old manuscripts, I read how Alfred North Whitehead commented on the young philosopher A. J. Ayer in the 1930s, comparing him to Bertrand Russell when Russell was a student of Whitehead. I also came across the economist Pigou’s letter inviting the Oxford economist Roy Harrod to apply for the chair in economics in Cambridge in the 40s. When Harrod took a yearlong sabbatical to write the biography of Keynes in 1948, he was less fortunate than I am since Oxford stopped paying him the stipends for his lectureship for that year because of his leave. I also found Harrod’s invited comment for Harvard on another eminent economist Mrs. Joan Robinson (teacher of Amartya Sen and Joseph Stiglitz, who very much hated Hayek’s free market economics and wrote a book in praise of Mao’s Cultural Revolution) vivid and provocative:
“when she appeared at the Nuffield Conferences…in her blue trousers and pronounced ‘bolshevik’ sentiments, I think the business men who did not know her, regarded her as a sort of hooligan. She has not many frills and graces. She likes to get down to business, is thoroughly blunt and downright, has no mercy in controversy, and does not mind being rude to all and sundry.”
Of course, there are many other things in London that I find attractive (like going to watch an international football match with my son the other day in Fulham, the BBC, the museums, the musicals, etc. etc.) So, this second home for me is both culturally rich and intellectually absorbing.
But despite all these, when I was in Islington the other day talking with Stephen (a mentor of mine in my Youth Literary Award period at HKU) and Katie (a lady from Hong Kong) who asked if I would like to retire in London since both my children are likely having their careers developed in the UK, my answer was I do not have such a plan, at least not yet.
It is true that I always think that as a city, Hong Kong in many ways is no comparison with London. But deep inside me, Hong Kong is home, not a second home, but home.
A home is where you have grown up, where both your flesh and mind dwell, a place where you can always return without feeling strange or alien in good time or bad.
Most of my individual and collective memories are with Hong Kong, not the least because I have very close friends (like many of you) who share a lot of common experiences with me through thick and thin from childhood to adulthood in this place.
Hong Kong has also given me as an individual so much: provided me with reasonably good education, good careers, an environment that I can learn from the East and the West, a community that embeds a lot of liberal and civilized values of the modern world. It is also open and tolerant enough to allow me as a son of Hong Kong to come and go without labelling one as less than loyal, etc.
Of course, there are a lot of things that I do not like Hong Kong, such as sensational media, poor and undemocratic governance system, the friend and foe polarization in local politics, the rich and the poor gap, materialism, our shallow mentality, the increasing divide between us and the mainland, and all that.
But I feel that good or bad, I am part of it, in the sense that if Hong Kong ticks, it is very often unique in this part of the world, and we should try to defend and to promote this uniqueness (such as the rule of law in a Chinese community, the ability to bridge the East with the West in a reasonably comfortable manner, treating an individual as a person with respect and dignity, undogmatic, corruption free, procedural fairness, etc.), for this is home and it is difficult to find a comparable city in China or in this part of the world that embodies so many civilized attributes of this kind.
As for the undesirable parts, many of us in our different ways and capacities are in fact in a position now to do something about it, not in the sense that we can necessarily change the situation or rectify it, but in the sense that it is only reasonable to expect that we, who have benefitted so much from this community, are obliged to try hard to make the best use of our resources and abilities to make this a better place, a place that our children and our children’s children and so on still can call home, and to which others would like to aspire.
I understand that this is a complicated matter, a matter that different persons may have different views and gut feelings. But a sunny morning in the chilly autumn of England unexpectedly stirred up a lot of my feelings about these two cities, Hong Kong and London, and I hope you do not mind if I share this rather lengthy message with you all.
Yours ever,
Chor-yung
後記：
重讀這封8年前在大英圖書館寫的信，百感交集。
我這個年近退休，歸家多年的游子，因為種種原因，今天在去留問題上，不像很多較我年輕的香港人般，要面對眾多的兩難抉擇。
龍應台在《大江大海一九四九》上說：「所有的生離死別，都發生在某一個碼頭---一上了船，就是一生。」
也許，科技和通訊發達的今天，比那時的大江大海，距離上可以拉近了許多。但我明白，對每個具體的家庭和個人而言，去與留，往往是個沉重和不容易作出的決定。
回想中國內戰後的香港，逃避戰亂和政治動蕩而來的人千千萬萬。
我父親1947年從上海遷來香港工作。原籍潮州的母親，在廣東解放前趁學校假期，跑來香港探望在此謀生的親人。假期結束時，母親原本已買了船票回潮州，不料啟程前解放軍在珠江口已佈下水雷，渡輪服務被迫取消，母親從此滯留香江。之後認識了父親，再之後有了我們兄弟姊妹。
沒有內戰，也許便沒有我們這一代。因此，當我讀到張愛玲《傾城之戀》的結局時，倍感共鳴。
無論決定去或留，沒有人會確知未來會怎樣。我這個學習政治思想的書生，不論去留，都會繼續努力，對政治問題進行思索。
上海交通大學的高全喜教授說：「要理解中國的現代政治，必須有一個中西交匯的現代視野。」生於斯、長於斯的我，有幸多少承傳了這種交匯。
希望未來我不論在哪裡，當盡力秉承陳寅恪所說的「自由思想、獨立精神」，上下求索。
張楚勇
