When I heard of the news of the passing of Mr Ngai Hong (aka Ni Kuang), the first thought ran through my mind was that he had wished for a painless death. I wasn’t sure if he left the humanly world in his slumber. Having watched these two episodes of Whirling Clouds Valley hosted by Chip Tsao and Alex Pao, only did I learn that Mr Ngai gave up his cancer treatment in 2019, and that he was troubled by leg pain in the past few years.
Firstly, I should make it clear that I wasn’t a super fan of Mr Ngai Hong’s works. And rarely did I read his works repeatedly. Imagination is always what I admire about his sci-fi fictions. Imagination is also my pastime. And in recent years I am increasingly convinced that the events of extraterrestials visiting planet Earth will be exposed. Questions as to whether some civilisations existed before ours, whether a good number of intelligent civilisations exists ‘out there’—I believe will be answered, it is just that whether or not humankind is willing to accept and recognise what actually happened.
His staunch love for freedom is also admirable; he despises politics of calling deer a horse. This is absolutely right, otherwise you wouldn’t see people and money trying to flee territories self-proclaiming to be democratic.
Endurance of writing is what I always want to learn. Mr Ngai said that when he was working at home, he was writing longhand immediately after picking up his writing papers. Having written a section of story for serial publication on Chinese-language newspapers in Hong Kong, he carried on with another story for another serial publication.
I am not a good story writer, but I have achieved the target of translating for long hours. I always translate different documents during morning, afternoon and night time. From Chinese into English or English into Chinese, I am able to switch between the languages without confusion–all thanks to the education I received at Chinese and English departments of NTNU. Also, my endurance to work long hours when I am inundated by translation and copyediting work, was kind of inspired by Mr Ngai’s work attitude.
His freestyle attitude in life is also respectable. Whenever he talked about freedom, his ideas reminded me of the works of Chinese philosopher Zhuangzi. On another note, he was recognised for having influenced and nurtured a good reading habit among his fans.
I wish the blue-blooded man a happy journey in another planet to continue telling sci-fi stories, while I keep dreaming about Changing Head in slumbers.
收到倪匡離世的消息時，我第一個想到的，就是他說過希望很舒適地死亡的願望。是不是睡夢中離開，我不知道，但是聽到陶傑與鮑偉聰這一期的《風雲谷》節目，我才知道原來他在2019年已經放棄治療癌症，而且後來幾年也飽受腳痛問題折磨。
首先說明，我並不是重度癡迷的倪匡小說迷，也很少將他的作品看了又看，但我佩服的是他科幻小說中的想像力。我其實也喜歡幻想，這幾年我是愈來愈傾向於相信終究有一天外星人訪問地球的事情會曝光，而且到底這個目前人類文明之前有多少個高度文明、到底外太空有多少個高度文明，我相信是會有答案的，祇是人類願不願意接受、敢不敢承認而已。
另一個讓我佩服的是他的自由精神，對於指鹿為馬的政治非常不屑。這個當然是正確的，否則那些自己號稱民主的地區就不會有這麼多人和錢出逃境外。
寫稿的續航力是我一直想學習的。倪匡說過他在家裡作業時，可以隨手拿起稿紙就直接寫，一個連載故事寫了要交稿的稿件，馬上又接著寫另一個故事。
我不是創作能手，但是以翻譯為職業的生涯來說，這一點我是做得到的，因為我常常早午晚都是處理不同內容的稿件，隨時中譯英或英譯中切換都不會亂掉思緒，除了我在師大國文系和英語系受到很好的磨練，長時間翻譯、校對編審的能耐說到底還是受到倪匡的工作態度那麼一絲絲的影響與啟發。
他對人生的自由與豁達態度，也是非常讓人敬佩，每每說起對自由的熱愛，我就會想起中國哲學家莊子的作品。另外，他的作品也培養了很多倪匡迷的良好閱讀習慣，這一點可說是備受認可。
希望藍血人到另一個星球玩得開開心心，無牽掛地訴說著科幻故事，我在夢中繼續漫遊《換頭記》。