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 economically vibrant, bustling and hustling more than ever before, and very, very much alive.  Hardly a shrinking violet.

When I first conceived of this Hong Kong edition for the APWN site, I wanted to hear what the writers who were in the city, of the city, transiting or temporarily perching within our city limits had to say about where we were at right now.  Wong Kar Wai’s latest film 2046 was on my mind, the way “1997” was once on the entire city’s mind.  So let’s call the number, I thought, let’s put that big five-0 out there and see what anyone has to say.  Let’s recall the film by our city’s leading indie filmmaker and see if it resounds.  But most of all, let’s pose the notion and see what results.

To shrink, it seems, is not the verb of choice.  As one of our leading poets Louise Ho says in her poem “Forty Yeas to Go,” we are as “protean as ever.” Instead, our poets, essayists and fiction writers ask us to remember – memory is vital to our longevity after all – and the things they wish to recall are as varied and unexpected as the city itself. 

From the pen of Agnes Lam, a true Hong Kong daughter and one of our most important literary voices, comes a touching memorial to Leslie Cheung, who starred in so many Hong Kong films, and whose suicide leap from the top of the Mandarin Hotel sent seismic waves across continents.  In his essay “Route 99,” Keane Shum remembers unknown bus driver Chiu King Hong who, on a nondescript summer’s day, proved that courage and kindness can and does strengthen the fabric of our daily lives.  And Sally Dellow is “Taking Stock” of the city in her poem—So if I ever need to, I can / Map and map / From memory.

Suicide is not necessarily the end for Nicholas Y.B. Wong, whose story “Suicide with McDonald Suk Suk” is colored by a dark comedy.  Love is preserved in the places and spaces of Hong Kong in the poems of Woo See-Kow, whether Penny Bay, or Sai Kung or Victoria Park.  And words on letterhead from one of the city’s hotels record the disparate sights and feelings by visiting Chinese-Australian poet Ouyang Yu in both our “native languages.” These are just a few of the offerings in this diverse and oftentimes reflective edition of words about our city. 

24 poems, 5 essays, 2 short stories and one powerful image by thirteen very different writers and artists fill the cyberspace that is this issue.  May you be as moved, amused, and provoked as I was by their thoughts so that you too will stop in, visit, and maybe stay awhile here in this city, our city, the one so many of us continue to call home, regardless.

Xu Xi is the author or editor of eight books, including Overleaf Hong Kong: Stories & Essays of the Chinese, Overseas and the novel The Unwalled City.  Her essay collection Evanescent Isle, is forthcoming.  A Chinese-Indonesian native of the city, she now lives along the flight path connecting Hong Kong, New York and the south island of New Zealand.  Please visit http://www.xuxiwriter.com

The bios of the contributors can be found in the Directory, filed under Writers.