JAMES TAM  谭炳昌

【Flower Lounge】 Table of Content and Chapter One -- Broken Reality. Prison was diabolically different from what I had imagined. During my first day in jail, reality broke.

《花厅》自白、目录，与第一章【断片】：一刹那前，犯人们还在高谈阔论想当年，欢乐之声震动着整个楼层，与走廊上以超高分贝广播电台节目的大喇叭斗闹。并无转眼之间，一切都静了下来。囚犯的叫嚷变了隆隆鼻鼾与零星窃语。令人窒息的浓烟也消减不少，尿骚味变得显著起来。两个截然不同的场景，唯一的连接是自以为一直没有中断的知觉。

Finally, we've reached the end of the Flower Lounge story. The Court of Appeal made a long story very short on the 9th of May, 2012. 

Finally, we've reached the end of the Flower Lounge story. Contemplation may not be an existential prerequisite, but is very likely the primary distinction between man and beast. Only through deliberate thinking can humans deny, restrain, or indulge basic instincts and develop human nature, for better or for worse. Trying to understand one’s existence is a natural, reflexive, down-to-earth human curiosity; it doesn’t have to be arcanely philosophical.

《花厅》故事告一段落。无论如何，那段日子确实留下了不少值得铭记的人和事。

放监前想了一下：「人性」到底是啥呢？没人性的人具体缺乏了些什么呢？「我思故我在」可能应该翻译为：「我思，故我如是？」 思考虽可令人迷茫，却是人与自身兽性斗争的主要手段，甚至唯一手段，因为只有经过思考，人类才会刻意控制天生兽欲，培养所谓「人性」。不一定是什么深邃哲理哦！只不过尽量认识一下匆匆而过的一生而已；连这也懒得好奇的话，恐怕只能跟随天性吃喝拉睡，与禽兽无别，如此人身纵使难得，得来干嘛呢？

Justice is paradoxically unique and universal, intuitive and complex all at once. Humanity seems further from universal justice after millennia of contemplation, deliberation, and experimentation. It was high time that some prisoner gave this dead-end issue some good thinking in his plentiful spare time. I volunteered. From social justice, my reverie ventured into slippery territories like reincarnation.

公平公义比自由更难掌握。一般人可能并不真正需要自由，却真心渴望公平，起码希望自己的人生比其他人的更公平。富人们都说：「人生根本就沒有『公平』这码事，认命免得瞎折腾」真的吗？也许公义类似财富，一般人永不嫌多，盲目追求，却极少花时间究其本质。趁着坐牢有空，将这难题思考了一下。 美國法庭的定罪率非常高，但其中只有大概百分之二—— 2%左右 —— 的案件完成審訊程序，其餘都是經「認罪協商」定罪的，原因很簡單。。。 想不到这班穷师兄对公平公义的见解竟然与索罗斯或盖茨之流甚为相近。 由社会公义扯到轮回业力似乎有点远，有点玄，但所有人间课题，一直追问下去都会变得玄之又玄，没有例外。。。

Freedom is a bewitching phantom. Many who defend it with a passion don’t seem to know what it is. They can’t define or describe its basic features, significance, or potential meaning to our lives. Why is it so blindly, embraced? If a hungry person gets food, he gobbles it up. What would an unfree person do if given unlimited freedom? These questions tickled my mind when I stood still to kill time in jail, surrounded by men who had been denied freedom

自由一词在近代非常流行，但不少誓死捍卫自由的人似乎从未思考过自由的基本性质或定义，就算本身的「自由」从未受到威胁，也照样着魔，究竟是什么原因呢？饥饿的人得到食物都会饱餐一顿，失去自由的人重获自由会如何反应则很难预测，证明「自由」没有标准。此时此刻被迫在塘福花厅的嘈杂声中沉思静修，望着网外的浪球和一群失去了自由的人，不由自主地思考着何谓自由。

On the 7th of May, I was summoned to Fingerprint Room and told that our appeal application would be heard in the High Court two days later. It will be an application hearing to decide if we had sufficient grounds for appeal. I tried to maintain an even mind. No anticipation. No wishful thinking. But hope, like fear, or humidity, is hard to quell. After receiving this hopeful news, I lost concentration for the rest of the day, attempting incoherently to think about nothing

五月七号，指模房突然传召，通知我上诉庭接受了初步申请，两天后正式聆讯。第一反应是压制幻想。根据塘福经验，获批保释候审的机会极微，年中最多两三单。智者们都说「希望」这东西属高级妄想，并非我等凡夫说放下便放下的扰人情绪。这「好消息」带来的希望令我整天忐忑，神不守舍。 在上诉庭的六十九号囚室继续默诵心经，一遍又一遍，提醒自己一切皆虚无，假的，不要认真，更不要痴心妄想……心为道宗，心乃祸根。 十点不到，好像已经忙了一整天。不肯定早起是否有益身体，感觉活多了却是事实。法官大人已经上坐。这紧张关头，对他来说只不过是又一个沉闷平常工作天的开始。

Don't want to dwell on the trial or to prove innocence (or otherwise) in this story. Anyone who's been trawled through the justice system would always be tainted in the eyes of some, and remain perpetually innocent to those who believe him to be guiltless from the onset. Furthermore, I know by now guilt is largely decided by judicial whims, luck, and, most critically, money. Facts and evidence are secondary. Nonetheless, this seems a suitable juncture to introduce some kind o

此书的目的并非记载冗长沉闷的审判过程或努力自证无辜。对我来说，无辜与否只不过主观印象，充满幻觉，意义不大。在现实世间，假如一个饱受官司蹂躏的人最终被判无罪，定会有人庆幸他沉冤得雪，亦会有人认为他侥幸逃脱，而更罪大恶极的人也会觉得自己起码某方面无辜。经此一役，我更深深感受到在三权分立的司法舞台之上，定罪很大程度视乎裁判官的主观印象和被告人的运气与钱包，客观证据可以是次要因素，起码在地方法院层面是这样。然而考虑到本书的全面性，总得交代少许前因后果。

The Correctional Services is good at locking up people, but no so good at correcting them. Many prisoners get their advanced education behind bars from like-minded colleagues. That said, prison is also a good place to read, think, and write. Many famous persons would not have produced their magnum opuses had they not been jailed. The Tong Fuk library was a big pleasant surprise with a lasting impact on me.

惩教中心一般只惩不教，年轻犯人狱中所受「教育」，大都来自一众蛊惑囚友。然而我做梦也想不到，在塘福「图书馆」看了好几本甚有启发性的好书，同时发现了南怀瑾老师，在心里埋下了好一些种籽。。。

Experienced See Hings told me that Bible hours were conducive to parole approval. It was not an official criterion, but old cons knew how things worked. At the very least, Bible thumping means no work once a week, plus candies. To my criminal mind, it smells like bribery. Though a convicted briber, I refused to be bribed. Plus I worried that my heretic tongue would lose control in a Bible discussion class. On Easter, I did request to join the Triads instead, but was promptly

塘福的光阴像慢镜下的火箭，很难断定是快是慢。个多月来度日如年，回看却只不过转眼之间。不经不觉到了复活节，为了纪念耶稣被钉十字架，五厂休息。如斯惨痛的日子，虽为上帝之子亦不堪回首，世人却放假庆祝，餐厅热卖火鸡，小孩四处寻蛋，好不开心。复活节当天，我申请加入黑社会，想不到被一口拒绝。

Within a few weeks, I had filled two notebooks with personal observations and anecdotes collected from fellow inmates. They got jailed for many reasons. But behind legal technicality, one underlying cause dominated — money — that prolific mother of all evils accentuated by greed, desperation, or simple bad luck. Without money, Flower Lounge would be a very quiet place. Some stories are over-the-top fantastic, but that doesn’t necessarily make them false or irrelevant.

坐牢者各有前因，看似五花百门，归根究底不外乎钱、钱、钱、贪念、意气、流年不利、天生倒霉等业力账目，或贪嗔痴主导的因果效应。然而表面更平淡的遭遇，背后也可能有个深刻的故事，只不过当局者对若隐若现的往事不一定清楚，亦不一定有兴趣回顾，外人想八卦的话，除了赖于机缘，也得具有诚意、尊重和耐心。我在塘福期间，努力培养这方面的能耐，希望较为深入了解师兄们的背景。 入狱几星期已经写满了两本笔记本，主要是些观察、感想、师兄们提供的个人资料、监房轶事，与江湖趣闻。