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19世纪七八十年代,有超过1.5万的华人参与修建了横贯加拿大的太平洋铁路。然而铁路竣工后,加拿大政府却为限制华人入境而先后实施了种族歧视性的“人头税”和《排华法案》,致使数千华人家庭支离破碎。加拿大华裔作家余兆昌的短篇小说《鬼魂列车》就是专为筑路华工谱写的一曲悲歌。本文主要从后殖民批评的角度出发,分析小说中采用的历史反书写、混杂等重要策略,这些策略消解了殖民主义的文化霸权。从结构上看,《鬼魂列车》还是典型的后殖民出行故事,旅行实际上象征着精神上的洗礼。文学上的后殖民书写与政治上的维权抗争相辅相成,经过华人社团长期的抗争,加拿大政府终于在2006年为“人头税”举行了平反仪式,正式承认华工为加拿大做出的历史贡献。
In the 1870s and 1880s, more than 15,000 Chinese participated in the construction of the Pacific Railroad across Canada. However, after the railway was completed, the Canadian government implemented racially discriminatory “head tax” and “exclusion act” laws to restrict the entry of Chinese, resulting in the fragmentation of thousands of Chinese families. Canadian Chinese writer Yu Siu-chang’s short story “Ghost Train” is a sad song written exclusively for road laborers. From the perspective of postcolonial criticism, this article analyzes the important tactics such as anti-writing and mixed history used in the novels. These tactics have solved the cultural hegemony of colonialism. From a structural point of view, the “ghost train” is still a typical story of post-colonial travel, travel actually symbolizes the spiritual baptism. Literary post-colonial writing and political protest work complement each other. After long-term protests by the Chinese community, the Canadian government finally held a rehabilitative ceremony for “poll tax” in 2006, officially recognizing the historical contribution made by laborers to Canada.