如何當某一種台灣人
盡快拿個獎學金，離開台灣，去北美：溫哥華、紐約、洛杉磯、多倫多……再不然，管他的，俄亥俄州的哥倫布也行。拚個博士、律師或醫師，反正學歷上當個狀元就對了。雖然你之所以飛離出生的地方，有一部分就是因為爸媽能接受的那條路窄得可憐，你還是忍不住拚命去追那個從小就被訓練要追的獎盃。
朋友盡量交白人。結婚就找有公民身分的。現在反移民反成這樣，學歷再高也不保證留得下來。找一份有股票可領、就算搞砸了也還能往上升的工作，就這樣定下來。做得不開心也沒關係，反正誰知道做什麼才會開心？
打電話回家的次數，只要多到讓親戚閉嘴、不再說你不孝就好。爸爸那套奮鬥史講了一百遍，你也要耐著性子聽。你可以在心裡（千萬別說出口）佩服他點石成金的本事——電子雞工廠、葡式蛋塔店、摺紙野餐椅、四四方方的西瓜——只不過每一波創業熱潮都像颱風一樣掃過這座島，風一過，金子又全變成垃圾。練好那聲不置可否的「嗯」，拿來應付你媽；從你大號順不順、工作換來換去，到你一直沒生小孩（她認定是你不孕），她什麼都有偏方，也不管你要不要聽。你在心理諮商裡慢慢學會說出口的那些話，別跟她講——你要拖著憂鬱的自己起床好多年，才會開始去諮商，而且是等到「我有在看心理師」變成一枚展現脆弱的光榮勳章之後。但這枚勳章，別在你媽面前亮出來。你試試看跟她說，你不想生小孩，是因為你從來沒感受過那種簡單、無條件的親子之愛，她就會開始自我防衛，然後在你們從每週一次、變成每月一次、再變成每年一次的電話裡，哭著說她對不起你，乾脆死了算了。
除了這些電話，其他時候只講英文，講到連做夢都是英文。至少要十年，你才不用在派對上跟著別人的笑話乾笑。
聖誕節的時候，姻親的姻親問你上次回泰國是什麼時候，別翻白眼。反正你自己也拼不出 Mississipi(?)，也不知道紐芬蘭在哪裡。
要是有人問台灣跟中國到底是什麼關係——每次都會有人問——就（等蛋酒喝夠了以後）來上這麼一段獨白……
（未完……收錄於即將出版的短篇小說集《每個故事都有人死亡》）
English original
As soon as possible, get out of Taiwan with a scholarship to North America: Vancouver, New York, Los Angeles, Toronto… or, heck, even Columbus, Ohio, would do. Race toward a Ph.D., J.D., or M.D., an academic best-in-show of any kind. Even though one reason for your flight from your birthplace is the narrow runway of your parents’ acceptance, you can’t help chasing after the prize you are conditioned to chase.
Befriend mainly white people. Marry one with citizenship. An advanced degree no longer guarantees residency in this anti-immigration time. Settle down in a job with stock options and a path to fail upward, even if it doesn’t fulfill you, because who knows what does?
Call your parents only as often as necessary to silence your relatives’ condemnations that you are an unfilial child. Be patient while you listen to your father’s perennial account of his striving. You can marvel at (just not out loud) how everything he touches turns to gold—a Tamagotchi factory, a Portuguese egg tart bakery, origami picnic chairs, watermelons shaped like cubes—before it turns to rubbish when a business craze inevitably passes over the island like a typhoon. Master that non-committal grunt to placate your mother, who offers unsolicited remedies for anything from bowel movement to career meandering to your childlessness that she assumes to be infertility. Don’t tell her what you are learning to articulate in therapy, which you will start years after getting used to dragging your depressed self out of bed each morning and only after having a therapist has become an honor badge of vulnerability. But not to your mother. Try telling her that you don’t want kids because you don’t feel the simple, unconditional love between parent and child, and she’d become defensive and threaten to commit suicide for all the wrongs she’d done to you on your weekly, then monthly, then yearly calls.
Except on those calls, speak only English until you dream in it. It’ll take at least ten years before you no longer need to pretend-laugh at jokes at parties.
On Christmas, when an in-law’s in-law asks when you last returned to Thailand, don’t judge. It’s not as if you know how to spell Mississipi(?) or locate Newfoundland.
If someone asks what the deal is between Taiwan and China—and someone always asks—give this monologue (after you drink sufficient eggnog)…
(Continued…in upcoming short story collection “Someone Dies in Every Story”)
