The Fifty Shrinking Years, a collection of writing from Hong Kong edited by Xu Xi

Image by Madeleine Marie Slavick.

In Hong Kong, “real” time shrinks.  As we approach the tenth anniversary of our “handover” to China, we watch our time as the Special Administrative Region (“S.A.R.”) recede.  All this language of retraction – shrinkage, recession – suggests a diminishment, and perhaps that is unfair, and inaccurate, because if we look around our city today, we are

Thousands upon thousands
of candlelights
dotted Victoria Park

She handed me a leaflet
in neat short phrases
heralded
the injustices
the cruelties
the things
I must not forget

Her fiery eyes
firm matter-of-fact voice
sheltered
the blazing compassion
shielded
a tender heart

Fighting her battle
preaching her cause
by the park’s swimming pool
where I once almost drowned
as a boy

Red eyes and white-prune finger tips
staying in the water for too

****

变脸

他照镜子时
忽然发现自己的脸
很像某个女人的脸
细看时
又像另一个女人的脸
数看之后
居然轮番换了好几个
女人脸
最后他怀疑
是不是面对面
做爱的缘故

(written on a hotel letterhead in hong kong on 18 april 2002; rediscovered and keyed in on 20 october 2002 in melbourne) [following is my translation in English]

Changing Faces

when he looks into the mirror
he suddenly discovers that his own face
looks very much like a woman’s face
on closer inspection
it looks like another woman’s face
after looking at it for

She’s fifty,
And the ground has started to shift, she
Is feeling cast adrift,
As her children sail for new beginnings
On old shores.

The doors close
And all the questions her life’s posed
Begin to gather like shadows
Seeking answers she isn’t sure she’s found…
And time ticks cruelly on.

The worst part
Is splitting a hard head from a soft heart,
For living a real life is a fine art;
The money trap’s sprung
And it’s liberally baited.

Yet the lure
Of the lyre

Why do I distract,
Reflect,
Refract,

Keep myself on the move, so
Everyone else has to react?
To be more exact,
Why won’t I stay still and just be —
Be me —
Simply let them see
Through the smoke and mirrors,
Kaleidoscopes and prisms,
The warpaint and the red nose?

Who knows, maybe I’ll find they like me —
Simply me.

Sally Dellow