蟾蜍夢多 Dreams of a Toad

「蚊子會擾人清夢，壁虎長期藏匿家中，鯨魚突然來襲，野豬『逛商場闖童裝店』，蝙蝠則『到超市嘆蘋果』??乍看不討好的動物，身處這座神經兮兮的城市，會否感同身受，久不久排上失眠的隊列，入睡了又闖進詭異的夢境。」
歡迎你進入《蟾蜍夢多》看似尋常又神經質、疑幻疑真的動物寓言世界。

"Ａ mosquito barges into your sweet dreams, a gecko hides itself at home, a whale sweeps the town, a wild boar intrudes a kid's wear shop in a mall, a bat feasts on apples in a supermarket…to these underwhelming animals, does such a daunting city get on their nerves too? Do they, every once in a while, join the insomniacs club and venture into an eerie dream?"
Dreams of A Toad takes you on a trip to the seemingly mundane yet neurotically fantastic world of animal fables.

區華欣

畫畫人，畫漫畫，做版畫。生於一九八四，成長於荔園隔籬，畢業於中文大學新亞書院藝術系。半邊獨立創作，半邊教學工作。插畫曾刊於香港不同紙上媒體，也作書籍出版及劇場作品宣傳設計。偶有展覽，如《像是動物園》(2014)和《像是動物園II》(2018); 偶然策劃，如《p-at-riot：80後六四文化祭》(2009)，2011至2013年為活化廳核心成員。2013年辦了首個個展《斷爛記》，2014年創作《咩世界》漫畫，於《星期日生活》連載至今。近年專事版畫創作，2017年於阿根廷Proyecto'ace版畫工作室作駐留，同年跟友人成立「點印社」，探索印製事務。

www.auwahyan.net

Au Wah Yan

Born in 1984, Wah Yan grew up next to Lai Yuen and studied fine arts at New Asia College of The Chinese University of Hong Kong. Wah Yan is an artist and a printmaker whose drawings and illustrations have been published in numerous local magazines and newspapers including Ming Pao, C for Culture, Muse, META, Ming Pao Weekly and City Magazine. She has also worked on book publications and designed posters for various theatre projects. Some of her occasional group exhibitions include "Zoo As Metaphor" (2014) and "Zoo As Metaphor 2" (2018). In 2009, she organised "P-at-riot June-forth Cultural Festival" with her friends. She was also a member of Wooferten from 2011 to 2013. Her debut solo exhibition "Fragments" was held in 2013. In 2014, she started her bi-weekly comic strip Me1 World in Sunday Mingpao. She has devoted much of her creative efforts to printmaking in recent years. She was an artist-in-residence at Proyecto'ace, Argentina in 2017 and started Printhow, a printmaking collective, with her friends the same year.

www.auwahyan.net

出版人的話
為何出版這書？

純粹因為我喜歡華欣的版畫。這些版畫表面古怪，內裡殘酷，其人性和實驗性深印我心，這都使華欣的創作獨一無二。華欣為人不張揚，版畫卻鮮明地立於人前。野獸受困異域，吸引我們留意細節，塑造自己的故事。她作風低調，但畫作充滿神彩，以確鑿的明暗昇華喻意。

華欣喜愛閱讀和寫作，即使文字創作的經驗不多，這書的文字也如版畫生動，與畫作既各自獨立，又相輔相成，張力十足。她文字上的句式和風格變化多端，有詩、有散文、有故事，不過讀者大概會先被強烈和豐富的線條、濃淡不一的黑影吸引。她的敍事常偏離一般軌跡，看似沒統一的結構或形式，卻會發現跟版畫出奇呼應。這種怪誕的文字實驗，常帶喻意。

千個晚上遊歷夢境後，華欣現以此書展現她文字上的求索、畫作上的變法，讀者不妨用別的眼光和別的心思欣賞。畫作與文字的喻意未必全可一下把握，但種種或有或無的暗示，卻可讓我們以各自對世情的感應，創造自己的天地。這該就是出版此書的初衷了。
馮美華

The Publisher’s Words
Why publishing this book?

Simply because I like Wah Yan’s prints much. They impress me for their explicit weirdness and implicit cruelty. They touch me for their humanity. They move me for the experimentalism in their making. All these qualities contribute to a final uniqueness that belongs only to Wah Yan’s way of creation and no others’. As a person, Wah Yan never intends to be loud; but as an artist, she lets her prints stand out by themselves. The depiction of wild beings trapped in bizarre situations attracts us to scrutinise the details and the nuances to make up our own stories. She is subdued but her images shine and sublimate in a metaphorical way enclaved in starkness and perhaps darkness.

As for her words, as much as Wah Yan loves reading and writing, writings have never been her major creative efforts. In this book, Wah Yan wants her words to appear just as vivid as her prints, both independent of each other but also inter-dependent with each other. Their closeness is both complementary and creating tension. Whilst her words are made up of varied syntax and styles, be they poetry, prose or story, the consistently strong and complicated contours and varied shades of black of her prints do take away readers’ first glance before they allow themselves to immerse in her writings. The narrative in her words more often than not takes detour from people’s normal way of reading. One cannot really find a consistent structure or form there, but can awkwardly identify a certain quality that echoes her print works: words that run in a weird and experimental manner. And, one can easily read it in a metaphorical sense.

Having wandered in her dreams for a thousand nights, Wah Yan is now showing us her strenuous way in searching for her words and her assured way in conjuring her images. Let us now read the book in a different light, with a different mind and a different heart. Not all the metaphors of her images and words can be readily captured by us; they can perhaps lead us to create our own mindscape resonating with our very own sensibility towards the human conditions around us as hinted or not hinted by Wah Yan. It may well be the true intention of publishing this book after all.

May Fung

目錄 Contents

黑色早晨 A Murky Morning
蟾蜍夢多 Dreams of A Toad
蚊子多情 A Tender Mosquito
跑上街 A Bolting Boar
蝙蝠惡果 The Bat's Apple
打蛇餅 A Coiled Snake
颱風來了 Here Comes Typhoon
蝸牛郵件 The Snail Mail
夜蛾驗眼 Night Moth's Eye Test
逃脫的尾巴 A Fled Tail
阿根廷牛肉 Argentine Beef
夢的背叛 The Betrayal of Dreams

後記 Afterwords
華欣 壓印的夢境 Wah Yan A Dreamscape of Press and Print
Daniela Ruiz Moreno I dream another dream, in a dream of another…
我夢到另一個夢，捲進另一個夢……
May Fung The Publisher's Words
馮美華 出版人的話

動物索引 Animal Index
版畫索引 Plates Index

蚊 子 多 情
尖音家蚊
蚊子為什麼愛叮細蚊仔？

很久以前，曾經有一隻蚊子，渴望要成為受人歡迎的社交動物。蚊子每天思量如何變得受歡迎，讓人對自己產生好感，留下好印象。蚊子自幼受母親教導：先要待人好，別人才會待你好。不怕跟陌生人接觸是第一步。蚊子於是說服母親讓她獨自出門，結交新朋友。

在路上，蚊子遇上穿梭人群的蝴蝶，主動跟她聊天：「要怎樣才能像妳一樣，成為討人喜歡的蝴蝶？」花蝴蝶向蚊子瞟了一眼答：「天生的。」蚊子一時答不上嘴，繼續上路，遇到看來較蝴蝶平易近人的蜻蜓，又問：「要怎樣才能像妳一樣，成為討人喜歡的蜻蜓？」「談吐大方，有話直說。」正當蚊子想追問下去，蜻蜓頭也不回飛走了。結交新朋友沒有想像的容易，蚊子心想。此時在樹上休息的蟬，漫不經心的說：「煩呢～為什麼想要討人喜歡？」

蚊子怕麻煩別人，自知外表長得不及蝴蝶漂亮，談吐不夠蜻蜓自信，氣質不像蟬清高。一下子感到迷失，又不知那來的膽量，決定飛到更遠的地方尋找答案，越過荒山，跨過高樓，穿過大大小小的房子，來到一個又一個陌生人的睡房。

某個悶熱的夜晚，蚊子來到睡了一家三口的睡床。細蚊仔剛進入夢鄉。蚊子嘗試模仿蝴蝶，優美地飛，長得不夠漂亮，唯有盡量表現熱情，上前吻一口細蚊仔。蚊子嘗試像蜻蜓有話直說，在細蚊仔耳邊細語：「你喜歡我嗎？我想跟你交朋友～」細蚊仔給蚊子的嗡嗡吵醒，「啪啪啪」試圖一掌打死蚊子。

為何待人好，人卻對她左閃右避？於是，渴望要成為受人歡迎的蚊子，不再相信母親的話。自此慢慢夜遊，飛到那裡睡到那裡，專叮細蚊仔。

A Tender Mosquito
Common House Mosquito
Why do mosquitoes always pick kids to bite?

Once upon a time, there was a mosquito who yearned to become a social animal. Every day she pondered how to become popular and endearing, to give a good impression. “Be kind before expecting kindness,” she recalled the teaching from her mother. Be not afraid to talk to strangers was the first step. The mosquito convinced her mother to let her go out alone, to make new friends.

On her way, the mosquito met a butterfly dancing in the crowd. She went up to her and asked, “What does it take to be like you, an endearing butterfly?” The butterfly cast the mosquito a glance and answered, “Born this way.” The mosquito did not know how to respond and continued her journey. She met a dragonfly, who looked more approachable than the butterfly, so she asked, “What does it take to be like you, an endearing dragonfly?” “Be gracious and upfront.” Just when the mosquito was about to ask further, the dragonfly has already headed off. Making new friends was not as easy as thought, the mosquito reflected. A cicada resting on the tree said heedlessly, “Why bother? What’s the point to be endearing?”

The mosquito did not want to bother anyone. She knew too well that she was not as good looking as the butterfly, not as gracious as the dragonfly, not as unworldly as the cicada. Somewhat lost yet incredibly brave, the mosquito decided to fly off to somewhere even further away for an answer. Over the barren hills, spectacular skyscrapers, big houses and small huts, the mosquito has visited one bedroom of stranger after another.

On a sultry night, the mosquito came to a bed of a family of three. The kid has just fallen sound asleep. She tried her best to fly as gracefully as the butterfly but fell a bit short, so she tried to be as affectionate as possible and went up to give the kid a kiss. She tried to be as upfront as the dragonfly and whispered into the kid’s ear, “Do you like me? I want to be your friend~” Stirred by the buzzing beating of her wings, the annoyed kid struck a few slaps to get rid of her.