Cuba on the Horizon 遥望古巴

When I was young I heard the Cuban folk song of La Paloma, in which it sings: When I left Havana, nobody saw me go... When I arrived the United States from China, I realized Cuba is even farther. Because of the embargo, the citizens of the US is not allowed to go to Cuba. I was told that there’s no rule to prohibit US people to go to Cuba, as long as they do not spend money there. I heard that some people went to Cuba via the third country. To make it happen, Cuba won’t stamp on the US passport. However, the meaning of travel is posting blogs. A trip without blog is meaningless. Therefore, it’s worthless to go to Cuba if you cannot tell anybody you did it. Last winter, the cruise ship I took passed the strait between Cuba and Haiti. At last, I was able to have a glimpse of Cuba at distance, though it’s far away from Havana.

Long time ago, I watched two episodes of Black Mirror, which are very interesting. Never had chance to watch more. Until yesterday, I accidentally found Series 3 of Black Mirror at Netflix. In the story of Nosedive, everybody can rate other people in the real life. With the rating of 4.5 you can go to the upper class. If the rating is lower than 4.0, you will have some difficulties in everyday life, such as renting a car or booking air ticket. For a rating below 2.0, everybody will avoid you. Just like the common imagination mentioned in the book of Sapiens, A brief history of mankind, if everybody believe it, it becomes reality.

We passed Cuba and the Sun goes down. The calm ocean was a black mirror reflected the lights of a bright remote star. At distance, there’s another cruise ship on the dark sea, which reminds me a poem of Xu Zhimo: We met at the sea during the midnight. You have your direction and I have mine…

小时候常听到一首古巴民歌里唱道：当我独自离开哈瓦那海港，没有人知道我多么悲伤。到了美国以后发现古巴更加遥远。因为禁运的原因美国政府不准其国民进入古巴。听说按照严格的说法进入古巴并没有被禁止，只是禁止在古巴消费。所以有些人通过第三国去古巴。而古巴也不会在护照上留下印记。然而旅游的意义就是发博客。不能发博客的旅行是毫无意义的。就像独享美食不发照片是非常自私的行为一样。所以在这种情况下古巴犹如锦衣夜行，是不能去的。现在对古巴虽然有些松绑，但还是挺麻烦。去年冬天在加勒比海坐船时，从古巴和海地之间的海峡通过。终于在船上可以遥望古巴。虽然远离哈瓦那，也算看到了古巴。

很久以前看过两集英国的电视系列剧《黑镜》，很有意思。但是一直没有机会看其他几集。昨天在Netflix上偶尔找到了黑镜的第三季就看了一集Nosedive(坠落)。片子照例是非常有趣。故事里每个人都可以在现实生活中对他人评级。人品4.5以上的可以进入上流社会左右逢源。人品4.0以下生活中会遇到很多障碍，比如租车订机票。人品不到2.0的就是过街老鼠人人躲避。就像《人类简史》所说虚构是人类的一个伟大发明。而大众共同的虚幻则成了这个社会的真实存在。

过了古巴，太阳沉入海底，夜色笼罩海洋。漆黑而平静的大海像一面黑色的镜子，映影出天边明星的粼粼波光。远处有另一艘邮船相伴。想起徐志摩的一首诗：你我相逢在深夜的海上，你有你的我有我的方向。。。