那時我正在高雄駐村，沒事的時候總騎著機車漫無目的在那個城市閒晃 著。也是在一個無事的下午，我隨意地在二手店逛著，看著一個佈滿灰塵、 像是外婆家會有的梳妝台，鬼使神差地拉開了它的抽屜，一疊信件就這樣 妥妥地躺在裡面，這便是我與玉珠和洪先生最初的交會。而後，我跟隨著玉珠寫給洪先生的內容，沿著她走過的路，回到了他們當初相約的地點。人事已非，甚至那條她曾經在大雨中慌忙前往戲院的路線，如今也已改朝換代了。

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信件書寫於民國 48 年 ( 西元 1959 年 )，其實離日本在臺殖民結束的時代 並不太遠，也與國民政府撤退來臺距離十年左右而已。在此之前，臺灣並沒有確立統一的使用語言，即便在日本殖民期間也沒有特定使用的語言， 臺語與日語經常被使用，同時各地區的人也使用著各自的方言溝通。直到 民國 38 年（西元 1949 年）國民黨來台後，中文才被確立為臺灣的官方語言。 我在台灣的南部找到了玉珠的信件，裡面她所提及的地點有關於台北的，也有些位於高雄。我從中得到的線索並不足以讓我準確的知道她所習慣使 用的溝通語言是哪個。所以當我讀著她的信時，腦中嘗試在兩個語言裡來回奔跑，只為了更靠近她一點，與文字更親密些許。

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我想關於一個國家語言的確立與轉換，也同時意味著政權的更迭。語言的交替在這塊土地上有感的被吞吐著，那是一個我未曾參與過的時代。透過玉珠的信件，我看見了其背後蘊含的政史，同時著迷於埋藏在歷史洪流下的故事。我邀請了六位來自於不同文化背景的人與我一起重新閱讀玉珠寫給洪先生的信件，並企圖用當代的角度尋找與她的交集點。

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I was doing art residency in Kaohsiung, the city located in the southern part of Taiwan, at that time. Riding my motorbike and wandering around the city. One day, when I was browsing random stuff in a second-hand shop, I saw a dowry-like vanity. Suddenly, a strong feeling drove me to open the item. Inside were a bunch of letters written between a man and a woman. It was then that I came to know Yu Chu and Mr Hung. According to the letters Yu Chu wrote to Mr Hung, I followed Yu Chu's steps to return to her rendezvous with Mr Hung, but the place no longer existed. Not even the route she had taken.

 

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The letters were written in 1959, A time not long after the end of Japanese occupation in Taiwan, and Kuomintang, just retreated from China to Taiwan for around a decade. During the Japanese colonial period, Taiwanese and Japanese were the most often used languages, and people spoke their own dialects with their communities as well. After 1949, when Kuomintang came to Taiwan, Mandarin was established as the official language.

 

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I found Yu Chu’s letters in Southern Taiwan, and certain locations she mentioned in other parts of the letters were between Taipei and Kaohsiung. The clues from the letters are not enough for me to picture what languages she spoke. So, I had to shift among different tongues, including Taiwanese and Mandarin, when I was reading it. The changes of languages in these letters sort of signified of a very chaotic era. There was a regime change that happened in Taiwan. That was also an era I never came to be part of.

 

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I was intrigued by the complexity of the languages and the political implications that we can see through these letters. So I invited six people who come from different backgrounds for a conversation. We re-read Yu Chu’s letter and attempted to find contemporary connections with her.