Heart Fax

The fictional code

Text/Yu, Chen-gua

Translator/Rick

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What is the city?

Living in the city for so many years, it is so hard to tell its characters. It makes people feel so confused like in montage that let us cannot find the proper adjective. It would be too flatter to say it like a money hole; on the other hand, it is unfair to say it like a hell: generally speaking, the city like a big cage, covering the greedy people, everyone wants to free himself from it, but feel reluctant to give up.

More and more cities have the similar situation, like an heaven interlocks with heaven.

Walking on the street in Kuala Lumpur, the place crowded with Malaysian, Indian and Chinese, and a world full of different languages. I feel so confused to say my complicated feeling. I was not able to keep my mind clear in such a complexes situation. When I put the thing away, and then I feel everything suddenly opened. Kuala Lumpur is an industrializing city with confusion and chaos. People starts feel agitated. The fast-developed step takes the city’s beauty away gradually. The green park disappears, and the building stands up in a great numbers. The marsh disappears, and the nature beings go ways. The buildings, supposed to build on the plain, but build on the side of slope cliff. The unpredictable disasters would happen in the future, replaying the Taipei's past. The sadness would come in this city with desire.

Why is the city's development always so similar? Tokyo's situation is very similar with Seoul's one; the Seoul's one is very similar with Taipei's. So, how about compare the Kuala Lumpur with Taipei? It is too similar- in the future, the traffic jam will be more similar; the people's confusion would be more similar; then the political disorder would be more similar; the economics' uncertainty would be very similar, finally like a greedy city drown into the human's act, making people suffocate.

The city's chaos makes people think of the " invisible city". Between the fiction and reality, it describes city life's confusion and charming very lively, which analysis the strange situation of city.　

A famous German architect has ever said:" Only a work is done by motivation, can it have spiritual meaning." This is the wise that city people lost. Work is not only for happiness, but is to earn money for material life, otherwise, the "joy" become the one kind of responsibility, and our life just like a slave for money.

Therefore, the character of city disappears. Reasonable speaking, every city should like human being, having its own depend and unique character. But the result likes a copy, it turn city into a reproduction with same mold, lacking of taste and reducing the touch. That’s why the world likes a global village. Except the appearance, everything is the same, like a toy empire.

City likes a monster

If there is description can explain the city, I would use monster to describe it; long eyes, big-holed mouth, shining hands, and shaken body, looking like a city never be spoiled, and can live forever. Everyday the city people swallows a lot of material, having super physical strength. It looks like a desirable body, working twelve hours a day, engaging in social activities for three hours, having party every night; Whether it is the technical city, News York, industrial city, Tokyo, busy city Taipei, their character is similar to a immortal monster, having limitless energy and greed. It is quite ridiculous to build countless castle and scraping building that will end some day. .

The structuralism of desire builds the unreal city, where there are one-hundred-squared luxury house with a expensive sedan, a full-care service, a fame title, a beautiful dress and a noble quality. But behind the heavy color curtain, it is an old body, whose eye comes from a thin face, and the noble quality actually is a dead-minded that no spirit, like a farm without grass.

The busy city uses the magic power to treat the person as machine to control everyone. Everyone is rich, but everyone is dead；everyone tries to hold the life, but everyone can not hold it. But people would dead. If people die, the desire also leaves. Go and back, what do you get? Have you ever thought of what kinds of live do you really want to live? In the city of monster, everyone works like an animal, as tired as a dog. What can man do?

City is very desolated

The city's development usually depends on their convenience, but the city could be more inconvenient with inconvenience.

To eat out is for convenience. But the restaurant in order to be existence, it creates the fame. If customers go to the famous restaurant, they need to raise their plate, and wait for servant to lead them in. After when they have spent a hour on one meal, then eat in a hurry. So it is convenient or not?

Subway provides the convenience so that you do not have to spend time on looking for parking lot. The schedule of train is every three minutes, but power supply is always broke out. Under such condition, people who used to the life's convenience do not know how to bend the rule but curse. Convenience let people don’t know how to find out any good way. 　

Kuala Lumpur is one of the developed cities, which demand convenience as its index. However, the transportation is convenience, but what they offer is not the convenience but nervous. People walk on the street like an animal walks on the jungle, losing the order in chaos. People only keep going forward but no thinking so that the five minutes distance take hours to get there.

The relationship between people used to begin with sentiment, but then turn into the connecting by money. There is cheerless with vulgar, no true sincere, only hurry in and out. Few care each other. Building is standing everywhere, but it is so hard to find a closed friend. People live next to your door, but you know only a few of their names. Sometime you want to make friend with others, but other do not want to do the same. You do not say hello to each other, it means you do not associate with each other any more. If people live in the city do not care about other people but money, it is really bad to live there.

Lost in the city

Life should like a map, recording the story like the Marco Polo's experience, not like a dead city that has nothing worth recording. Treasure of life is kept in the warehouse of memory, waiting to be colored. But, what thing is worth to be recorded in the present city.

After a long run in life, people usually desire a place to anchor, stay, and rest. But as these functions are gradually lost, the value of city is gone little by little. Even you hide in the corner of city, you can see the expressions of city. But this little wish would not come true any more in the 21st modern city. The city is just a frost to make people lost.

People struggle in their designed mighty torrent, losing themselves gradually. The city becomes a number billboard, everyday life like the stock market, exploring your grade report of assets. You see only people rush in and out in their life security company.

When I close my eyes, my city experience is almost empty. My brain is filled with worry, anxious, frightened, tension, pressure, weary, and sleepy. As for happy, which has limit.

City is in the dark

It is the best way to use living example to describe this city.

A friend of mine, used to work so hard, came to see me with tired mood. Life like a unreasonable movie, the more it play, the hard you know the ending; My friend says why I want to play the bored play with a group of ignorant traveler; this city are full of different kind of bodies, but no one can see the soul; jus live for the purpose people make up. People can fight each other, but never think about why? Recently I found his physical strength can not stand for a long time, even so difficult to move this body. I am very tired, weary, and want to closed eyes. So I suggest him to give me the withdraw card, and tell me the code number. He resist me from doing it. Since he does not want to do that, he has to get his physical strength back, and do not feel lost any more.

City makes people feel blind. Everyone says the same excuse like he can not live without money. But have you ever though of how can you "live" without life. For the money, what people think is "living in the moment", but to life, what people think is "living in the future". It seems that people can live forever with greedy, wasting life for the unknown future. The city limits the definition of fortune. They forget the health, happiness and freedom. The combination of time and money is the true fortune, otherwise, the money would like a unsigned paper, which is not useful. So what we are competing for? The meaning of life, or just an excuse?

I live in this city, having the right to expect the city's future style, not such vulgarized. It is not necessary to be such noisy, adding a flowing source into a silent pond. You still can have free moment in the daily busy time, drinking tea and recite poems with good friend, feeling so relaxed and unworried.

Life's meaning is: A people need to live, and then he can solve the difficulty. Owning to live, the hop is an deal, otherwise, if he died, the hop would become an irrational attempt or an illusion; the city should be the place to collect ideas, so I want to see the jadeite-liked green, deep sapphire-liked blue and the yellow-flag-liked yellow. All of these decorate the city so colorful, having unique style, and no more gray color.