Chapter Introduction

Perhaps at some stage in our lives, we had all been a “foreigner” once: migrating to another country, studying abroad, or even moving to a new street block…Being abroad is a cut-off from our past.

As I am writing this introduction, I found immigration similar to a form of replantation. We uproot ourselves from our homeland and replant ourselves in a stretch of unfamiliar and unknown. We learn to live by sewing new habits into our bodies, translating our minds, and uttering with a different tongue.

However, the nostalgic breath of our hometown still lingers on the tip of our tongues, sprawling in our bodies as a reminder of our pasts. Perhaps the discrepancy between “us” and “others” can never be overcome, and it forces us to examine ourselves, and our past, in an over-sensitive way.

Being abroad is never just a simple relocation, but rather a reconstruction with burning ruptures and undercurrents of pain. But I won’t call it a journey of struggles, or glorify it as a glamorous venture. I aspire to gather the colliding fragments of identities; to listen, to document, to capture the truth of each and every soul adrift.

“独在异乡为异客，每逢佳节倍思亲。”

在写这段简介时，我的脑海里不知为何浮现出了小学时候背的这句诗。正如诗中说的那样，或许我们都在生命的某个阶段成为过那个“异客 ”。小到搬到城市里的另一条街道，大到留学、移民。

之前听到一个说法，说漂泊像是一次生命的移植，我深以为然。我们将自己的根从故土上拔起，而后又扎根到一片充满未知性的新土上，努力将新的习惯缝进身体。我们用新的语言去寻找答案，可唇齿间却始终萦绕着母语的气息，皮肤下仍流淌着故乡的涓涓碎语。或许我们永远无法变成那个遥远的“他者”。

漂泊从来都不是一场简单的寻觅，而是一次充满挣扎的撕裂与重构。然而我并不愿将整个过程用苦难二字来简化，又或将其美化为一场光鲜的冒险。我想去收集交织、碰撞时落下的碎片，去聆听和记录每一位漂泊者的真实。

是为序。