Morpheus
莫斐斯
2017

Bracelet line,Letter bead
珠寶線，塑膠字母串珠
​50*65cm
​Since my first visit to India Gate in 2014, I saw a lot of vendors selling handmade English letters bracelets. A letter of the material costs 2 rupees, and the bracelet line costs 10 rupees, so around 30 rupees you can get a bracelet that has your name or name of the person you love on it. The vendors usually do not speak very good English, so does the customers. Sometimes both the customer and the vendor couldn’t either read or write well in English. So there was a time I was stopped by a white lady dressed in Saree, asking me to help spelling her name in English: Morpheus.
 
Delhi is a city full of English signs. As a visitor, except the mixed languages conversation and bargain with the rickshaw drivers, I should have felt comfortable about living in a globalized city. But people from so many different cultural backgrounds use English differently, and this always reminds me of the misunderstanding from communication: those vendors weave the bracelets they don’t understand, on the other hand, the customers also need to try hard to get their ideal English bracelets.
 
In 2017, I went back to India Gate again, with a paper of the Indian National Song translated in English, I asked the vendor to weave the bracelet. For me, this is an exotic, hard-to-read poem; for the vendor, they didn’t understand how the meaning of this poem bracelet related to him. The text here is only a sellable product.
 
“what is this?  G-N-J-A-R-A-T” the tanned vendor asked.
 
“Gujarat，G-U-J-A-R-A-T it’s a tribe of India”
 
(This is a rough translation of the original in Chinese)​
    從我2014第一次到印度門開始，就看到在門前販售英文字母手鍊的小販，一個字母2盧布，一條繩子10盧布，大約30盧布左右的價格就可以獲得一條寫有自己姓名或是戀人姓名的手鍊。攤販的英文多半不好，購買英文手鍊的顧客也未必能夠讀寫英文，我曾經在攤販前被一位穿著紗麗的白人婦女叫住，請我幫忙拼寫她的英文名字：莫斐斯。

    在處處充滿英文標示的德里市中心，作為一個外來者，除了與嘟嘟車司機溝通時夾雜印地語和英文的南腔北調外，我理應在全球化底下舒適的語言環境感到自在才對。在不同的文化背景下使用相同的英文字彙指稱不同事物的語言，總是提醒著我另外一層溝通的不對等。不懂英文的小販鎮日編織自己也看不懂內容的手鍊，購買的人則想盡辦法以英文為自己拼得一席之地。

    2017年我再次回到印度門前，在紙上抄下印度的國歌，請編織手鍊的小販，為我編織了這些手鍊。對我而言，這是無法順暢閱讀的異國語言之詩，對小販而言，他們亦不明白自己編織的東西與自身的關聯性，文字在此僅只是一種可供販售的物件。

    「這是什麼？G-n-j-a-r-a-t」黑皮膚的小販問
​
    「Gujarat，g-u-j-a-r-a-t，一個印度的民族」