迎接賓客、熱心款待是人類社會的重要禮俗，也是文學作品中經常出現的場景。然而，伴隨全球化情境中移民與外籍勞工等問題叢生之際，對異文化他者是曾真能敞開大門接納，不啻為亟待研究之課題。本文由德希達自一九九○年以降所關注之接待倫理議題出發，探討華人遷徒越界時所面臨之跨文化接待問題。 本文選擇澳大利亞作家卡斯楚（Brian Castro）之二部華人移民作品，一九八三年之《候鳥》（Birds of Passage）與一九九二年之《中國之後》（After China）為研究文本，討論文本如何再現跨文化脈絡中華人於界鄉之移民「作客」經驗，並質問定居異鄉的華人能否易客為主，成為接待的主人之可能性。 本文分為四部份，第一部份爬梳「接待」所蘊涵之倫理責任與弔詭邏輯，並討論德希達式的接待倫理於現代社會之重要性及其可能之實踐方式。論文的第二部份將首先剔析《候鳥》所呈現近一百五十年，白人東主與華人移民（異）客間對立、調適及磨合之過程。第三部份是《中國之後》之分析，將探討作品中跟文化情境中的性接待與說故事接待方式，並繼而討論接待之場域—旅館之象徵意涵。第四部份為結語。質言之，本文希由接待倫理的觀點，開啟澳洲華裔文學研究的新視野。

This paper examines the problematic moments of hospitality extended to the alien, rethinking the paradoxes of transcultural hospitality in the initial encounter between the host/self and the visitor, a stranger, a foreigner. Hospitality is an act of sharing of space, time, food or other consumable and amenities. Seemingly a virtue, welcoming a stranger is nevertheless not without it economy of power. In fact, the idea of hospitality is founded on an altruistic concept wrought upon the economy of internal tension. Hospitality is conditioned by mastery; to permit entry to a stranger means that someone controls the conditions of hospitality by demanding the stranger to submit to the host’s authority. Hence, hospitality makes claims of ownership. On the other hand, hospitality is evolved upon an existential question, as hospitality is rendered to the others, as Derrida suggests in Of Hospitality, before they are identified, even before they are posited as a subject (29). Drawing on Derrida’s reading of hospitality, this paper specifically focuses on Brian Castro’s two major novels, Birds, of Passage (1983) and After China (1992). A Hong Kong born, Australian writer with a Chinese background, Castro unfolds in his works a transcultural space where hospitality is viewed as either an excess or lack—a process of continuous exchange and transactions between the giver and the receiver.