On Live-ing!!! Translated…
The Heartbreaking Image
A few days ago, I’d gone to the Taichung City’s City Art Museum to see the Asian Arts Festival of 2015, and went to the opening exhibition of Irwan AHMEETT & Tita SALINA’s photography show, “Salting the Sea” and “Longevity”/
After I’m done, viewing the exhibitions, Irwan and Tita came towards me, asked, “Are you okay?”, the tears that were originally circling around in my eyes, all of a sudden, overflowed, I’d replied, “My heart is broken”, the, I’d fallen, silent, completely out of words.
And, I’d felt that sourness of the emotion from looking at the photos, I couldn’t get myself together, until last night.
At midnight last night, I’d walked out of the house from the depth of the alley because I’d needed to run an errand. In the depth of the night, the darkened streets, all the shops were closing down one by one. After the lights are turned off on the sides of the streets, it’s, as if, everything that was once alive, had all, died.
This silent night, was awakened, by a loud laughter.
That laughter was from the stomach………no, sounded like it came from up high, from the depth of the land, from the historic times. And, the laughter had, turned this small alleyway into a valley, and all of a sudden, I was, hypnotized, as if, the rocks were tumbling down all around, and, approaching me quick.
That laughter was so grand, I’d never, heard anything like it before.
I’d opened my eyes wide, looked toward whence it came, I saw an elderly man, wandering in the nights, with his hands, holding up his pants, with an unlit cigarette in between his lips, from his head to toes, only one color showed—the kind of color that’s, fitting, to be hidden by the nights, dirtied, to the point that you can’t tell what the original colors were, the color that’s not fitting to belong to earth. He was smiling, as he’d, passed me, slowly by.
Don’t know why, back then, I’d recalled the sentiment I’d had after I’d viewed the exhibits: some person’s life was crushed by one thought, others held stubbornly to the beliefs for life………
Urashima Taro Who Has Absolutely NOTHING
Ean and Tita recently made art on the humanitarian beliefs, through the images, they’d, led us, into the world of those who are the lowliest of the world. The short films aren’t fitting to be dramatic, and, all that I can say was, that this time, the works this time captured the lives of the family members of the Indonesian workers who are in jail here, and their families’ trials, it’d collected their stories, prayers, as well as tears.
Based off of understanding, a prisoner, committing a crime in a foreign land, in the thickened indictments, their confessions, after the translations, only took up a few pages. It is wrong, to hurt someone else, it’s criminal behaviors, but, they have their own unspeakable difficulties, and, couldn’t know, how many days they are warranted to have, and, are constantly tortured by the body and the mind, that no one else knows of. And so, after the reasons flew out, their lives crumbled, after just that one bad thought.
Before Irwan and Tita left Taiwan, they’d handed my friend a pile of things, it was, the belongings of a convicted felon, there were, letters from his wife, his parents, two packs of cigarettes, peanuts, along with eight packs of instant noodles. “I’d sent the letters in, but I couldn’t get all the other items, Irwan told me to help eat it all up.” My friend added, “I’d verified, that this man is serving a fourteen-year sentence.”
I think, that fourteen years from now, there will be a Urashima Taro. If he’s able to get out alive, he would be facing, a totally different world, completely, foreign to him. And he, will still be like he was before he came here, with absolutely NOTHING.
For the families of those inmates, those words unspoken, maybe, just like Irwan and Tita had said in their film, salt in the seas, or, the wind into hurricanes…………
And, all of a sudden, it’s, as if I’d realized why I was shocked, by the laughter of the elderly man wandering the streets at night—the elderly wanderer of the night was great and free, because he’s not incarcerated, kept bound by the colors of the world, and that showed out the opposites from the hardships of this society.
And so, this, is from the trials of life, the stories untold, and, it’s really sad, how the workers came here, hoping to make a better life for their families back home, and, one wrong step in life, they’d become, prisoners.