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Old Hong Kong, New China

Originally published in Consequence Volume 15.2 (November 2023).

I couldn’t stop consuming news about Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan in August 2022. It was political theatre: Beijing threatened Taiwan with sanctions and military action; Washington maintained its commitment to the One China Policy while celebrating Taiwan’s democracy. Meanwhile, in Taiwan, people ate their braised pork over rice at local diners, and the TV showed news clips of Pelosi shaking hands with the Taiwanese president, Tsai Ing-wen.

After Pelosi’s departure, the Chinese military shot missiles into the Taiwan Strait. Some landed twenty kilometers (12.4 miles) off the coast of Taiwan. When reporters interviewed Taiwanese residents about the military exercises in the southern city of Kaohsiung, they shrugged. Some said they went to work, and others claimed they took the ferry for their weekend getaway to Luiqui, the idyllic island known for its sea turtles.

I want to think I’m just as carefree about the impending invasion, but the truth is I’m panicking—as a Taiwanese Canadian woman married to an American who lived in Hong Kong for eight years, I have reasons for concern. The Taiwanese had indeed lived with the constant threat of Chinese aggression since 1949, when Chiang Kai-shek and the then-ruling party of Kuomintang (KMT) retreated to Taiwan after losing the Chinese Civil War. In Chiang’s lifetime, he vowed to take back the motherland from the “communist thugs” while ruling Taiwan with an iron fist. However, towards the end of the twentieth century, many countries began to recognize the Communist Party of China (CPC) as the legitimate ruler of China, and therefore, the United Nations suggested dual representation—allowing both Taiwan and China to be a part of the UN. However, Chiang withdrew from the intergovernmental organization, effectively removing Taiwan’s participation in global affairs. Thus, 1971 was the year China joined the UN, and Taiwan lost its status as a country.

The cross-strait relations between China and Taiwan have always been contentious, and they escalated under Xi Jinping’s leadership. Xi declared that “reunification” between Taiwan and China must be fulfilled and that Beijing may use force if necessary. However, many of us in Taiwan, myself included, have no desire to be ruled by a government with a dismal human rights record, known for imprisoning Muslim minorities and crushing a democratic movement in Hong Kong.

In 2019, while most Taiwanese watched the news in horror as militarized police brutalized young Hong Kong protestors, I lived in the midst of it.

§

I attended the Tiananmen Square vigil on June 4, 2019—the only annual event commemorating the 1989 massacre in Chinese territory—not knowing it would be my last one. After the serene candle-lit ceremony to remember the democracy-seeking Chinese students who died at the hands of the People’s Liberation Army, people began walking from Victoria Park through Wan Chai. They ended up at the Legislative Council Complex, about four kilometers (2.5 miles) away. This was the start of the 2019 protest movement—almost every week from then on, a protest happened every weekend. I could see the procession from the window of the Wan Chai apartment I shared with my husband, Derek. One day, we decided to join them. We donned black t-shirts and marched the streets with Hong Kongers—young and old, students and professionals, the elderly with their canes, and parents with their toddlers in strollers. Shoulder to shoulder with millions of Hong Kong residents, we shouted: “Reclaim Hong Kong; Revolution of Our Times!”—a common slogan that appeared everywhere in 2019. It reflected Hong Kongers’ desire to shelve the extradition bill—proposed by Carrie Lam, the Chief Executive of Hong Kong. Lam used a murder case involving Hong Kong citizens in Taiwan as a pretext to propose extradition agreements with Taiwan, Macau, and China. Lam said the bill would prevent lawbreakers from committing crimes in one region and fleeing to another. The reality was that the bill would let the Beijing government arrest people the CPC deemed unsavory—activists, journalists, and even business executives, and subject them to its justice system with a 99 percent conviction rate. Naturally, Hong Kongers didn’t want this extradition bill—they feared getting caught up in the unjust Chinese legal system and rotting in a Mainland prison.

That summer, I observed the gathering each weekend and watched the number of protestors swell. In June, one million people were on the streets. By the first weekend of July, two million people marched and chanted through the major roads of Wan Chai. The government, however, ignored people’s demands and cracked down on peaceful protests. Soon, there were allegations that police officers beat commuters on the MTR, Hong Kong’s subway system, and some had died at Prince Edward Station, a station I passed through every day to and from work. No one knew what happened—according to the news media, the security footage disappeared, and there were speculations that the government destroyed evidence to conceal their atrocities. As a result, many young people in Hong Kong felt pacifism was futile and resorted to violence. Believing that the MTR was colluding with the police to harm them, they trashed subway stations. Furthermore, they also vandalized businesses—belonging to those aggravated by the protests that disrupted their livelihood—and branded them pro-Beijing. The police ramped up their presence around the city to maintain order and protect property. As Derek and I walked home with our groceries one day, we bumped heads with a group of militarized police. We dropped our shopping bags and raised our arms as they sped past us, chasing black-clad protestors.

Bearing witness to the atrocities in Hong Kong, I couldn’t help but think about my ancestral homeland of Taiwan, which made me root for Hong Kong even more. However, after six months of constant turmoil, the political situation drained and depressed me. Despite myself, I was also resentful: I had already fled political unrest in Bahrain ten years ago—how did I get thrust into another? Friends called me after hearing about the situation in Hong Kong. “It seems like revolutions follow you wherever you go!” they teased.

I chuckled along, but the city’s ordeal was no laughing matter. People were hurt; lives were upended. Life in Hong Kong would never be the same again.

In 2012, I moved to Hong Kong not knowing a soul. I had just separated from my first husband and escaped the Arab Spring and Bahrain’s sectarian conflict—where burning tires blocked highways, and the smell of tear gas lingered in my neighbourhood—and landed in a maze of disorientating skyscrapers in the metropolis of “Fragrant Harbour.” Worn down by my failed marriage and driven by my desire to gain more professional experience, I moved to Hong Kong for a librarian position at a local university.

At this time, I was more concerned about establishing myself and finding love in my new city than worrying about the CPC’s growing power. So, I immersed myself in online dating. Many potential matches were excited that I lived in Wan Chai, famous for bars lit by neon lights that promised dancing girls and two-for-one drinks. “Shall we meet in your ‘hood for happy hour drinks?” They texted with the winking emoji.

I soon learned to steer clear of men who spent their weekends getting drunk in the red-light district of Wan Chai. On its main drag of Lockhart Road, the domineering, grandmother-aged madams congregated in front of bars shrouded by black draperies, tugging at men’s sleeves as they staggered by. When someone paused, smiled, or showed interest, a troop of young Southeast Asian women in cakey make-up and miniskirts swooped in and led him into their curtained establishments for a good time.

Back then, as a young Taiwanese Canadian expat in Hong Kong, the only thing that made me think about the other side of the border was who could be there. One day, I went to Shenzhen to meet a man I matched online. I gripped my Canadian passport with my single-entry visa at the Hong Kong-Shenzhen border. I was worried that a customs agent would see my face and demand that I produce some other kind of identification that showed that I was “Chinese.” Since my place of birth was Japan, I could pass for a non-Chinese person, but my Taiwanese surname might have given me away. I was wracking my brain with scenarios where I got into trouble as a foreigner imposter, but to my relief, the agent barely looked at me as I crossed the border.

My date met me at the train station. He was an American English teacher working on his first novel and not nearly as cute or cool as his profile suggested. However, since I had paid for the visa and gone through the two-hour ordeal of coming to Shenzhen, I let him play tour guide for the day. We walked through a shopping district and visited some tourist sights, but I couldn’t recall anything noteworthy—except that we walked by a Walmart. While having a mediocre meal, I complained about the lack of decent cocktails. After spending a day in Shenzhen, I deemed it unruly and unsophisticated, a stick in the mud in the backwaters of China.

By early 2014, I was bored with my job and the glitzy city that offered endless shopping expeditions and boozy weekend brunches. I was also frustrated by my lack of romantic prospects and the city’s noncommittal Romeos—the bankers, teachers, or journalists who wanted to get drunk and hook up. I didn’t feel connected to Hong Kong and found nothing and no one to keep me there. Therefore, I plotted my escape—instead of finding a professional librarian position in Canada when I finished my contract, I would move to the Philippines and become a dive instructor.

My plans fizzled when Derek entered my life. He was a typeface designer, a professor, and a “gentleman redneck” who hailed from the Indiana side of the Ohio River. He didn’t just want to get drunk and hook up. Instead, we went to a David Sedaris performance and a music festival. After that, we spent almost every waking moment together and texted each other nonstop when we were apart. Then, two weeks after we officially started dating, he told me he loved me and asked me what kind of engagement ring I wanted. Within four weeks, we flew to Taipei so he could ask my father for my hand in marriage. Ten months later, we were wed in Hong Kong, surrounded by family and friends.

After Derek and I married, he moved into my apartment in Wan Chai. We decided to make the Fragrant Harbour our permanent home, and I grew to love my neighborhood, which was more than a depraved watering hole. It existed at the intersection of contradictions—the seedy bars near a high-end shopping centre and a historic temple sandwiched between skyscrapers on Queen’s Road East, a major thoroughfare built on reclaimed land where the harbor used to open up to the South China Sea. On my way home from work, I stopped by my favorite stall in the Wan Chia market to buy Korean-imported socks in the narrow streets filled with kiosks selling tchotchkes, from the tacky “beckoning cat” lucky charms to counterfeit Calvin Klein underwear. I shopped for fresh vegetables and freshly butchered chicken on the weekends while hopping over puddles in front of live seafood tanks and snake soup stalls. In the bustling centre of Wan Chai was a ballpark with bleacher seating that separated the seedy part of the district from the rest, where people of all ages gathered to play sports and have picnics.

Hong Kong seemed to fall under Chinese rule overnight—I barely had time to catch my breath. Less than a year before the 2019 protests, the new high-speed rail service commenced between Hong Kong and Shenzhen. At that time, my wariness of the CPC had faded enough that I was tempted to visit when my friends boasted about inexpensive massages and spa treatments on the other side of the border. The pampering appealed to me, so I convinced Derek to join me for a leisurely weekend in Shenzhen.

Months before the trip, my mother convinced me it would be more economical and convenient to enter China with the “Taiwanese Compatriot Permit.” It is a travel document for Taiwanese citizens to enter China since the Chinese authorities don’t recognize the Taiwanese passport as a legitimate travel document. I agreed to let my mother apply because I otherwise would have had to pay for a non-transferable ten-year tourist visa on my Canadian passport, which was expiring in less than two years.

On a Saturday morning in late September 2018, Derek and I arrived at the newly built Hong Kong West Kowloon train station. We went through security and stopped at a well-stocked duty-free shop. Recalling my annoyance about the lack of quality alcohol in Shenzhen six years ago, I picked up a bottle of Roku, a Japanese gin, before going toward the passport control area. A thick black line with a thinner yellow line was in the middle outside the duty-free shop. In both Chinese and English, it said, on one side, “Hong Kong Port Area,” and on the other, “Mainland Port Area.” Once we crossed the threshold, all the signs changed from traditional to simplified Chinese. This jarring shift in the writing system indicated that I was entering the realm of the authoritarian CPC.

The passport control area has two sections: “Chinese Nationals” and “Foreigners.” Derek made his way to the 

“Foreigner” section. In the past, I entered China as a Canadian, a foreigner. But this time, by showing up with my “Compatriot Permit,” I was no longer Canadian—as far as the border customs agent was concerned, I was Chinese.

I sighed. “Hey, sweetie,” I said, turning to Derek. “I think I should probably go to the other line.”

We kissed each other goodbye, and I made my way to the other side, hating every minute. In my head, I was screaming: “I’M NOT CHINESE! I’M TAIWANESE!” But, I barely felt Taiwanese—I wasn’t even born there and had only lived there for four years as a child. Even though I grew up in Canada and spent most of my adult life in the Middle East and Hong Kong, in the eye of Chinese border control, I looked the part, and with my travel document, I was definitely a “Chinese National.” At this moment, I wondered if the money I had saved and the convenience my mother had touted were worth this identity crisis.

The line moved faster than I expected. Within ten minutes, I was through. After my weekend bag went through another security check, I was surrounded by thousands of people in the terminal. Derek was nowhere to be seen.

Where are you? I texted.

Still in line. Derek texted back. It barely moved since you left.

I found our gate and texted Derek again. Hey, the train is going to leave in twenty minutes. Are you almost through?

I hope so. He texted. 

I groaned. I distracted myself with Instagram, calming my nerves with luncheon spreads, beach vacations, and cat portraits.

Then, five minutes before the train was supposed to depart, I called Derek, “The train is leaving soon. Are you going to make it?”

“I am running toward you,” he yelled into the phone. Then, I spotted him scrambling to gather his bag at the security checkpoint and making a beeline toward me. Together, we sprinted to our gate. We made it on the train seconds before the doors closed.

Once we got off the train, we found ourselves in a spacious, spotless train station and followed the sign to an orderly taxi stand. In the cab, I told the driver the name of our hotel in Mandarin. Unlike some taxis in Hong Kong, this one was clean, free of stale cigarette smoke stench. The driver was courteous, and his driving etiquette was impeccable, unlike the cabbies in Hong Kong who crisscrossed the city in jerky, vomit-inducing brakes and cussed loudly when stuck in traffic. To my delight, I felt a breeze on my face—in Hong Kong, if the cab window were open even a crack, we would have been suffocated by exhaust fumes or deafened by the incessant honking. However, public vehicles and taxis in Shenzhen were electric, making the air cleaner. On the fourteen-lane highway, there was enough room for everyone, reducing the need for honking. There were even bike lanes.

We explored Shenzhen via the MRT, the public railway system. First, we had a relaxing massage and ate delicious and cheap spicy mudbugs—Derek’s favorite. Then, we went to the Overseas Chinese Town at night, famous for hip bars and restaurants, not unlike those in Wan Chai. We saw paintbrushes in a jar poking out of a window as we walked around.

“Look, they have studios here,” Derek said, pointing toward an old industrial building. “I bet you can rent a space here cheap.”

“Wouldn’t it be amazing to have a studio?” I sighed as my head filled with visions of life economically unattainable in Hong Kong.

On our final morning, we visited the Dafen Oil Painting Village, famous for oil paintings dedicated to the reproductions of masterworks, from Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa and Van Gogh’s Starry Nights to Monet’s Lily Pond. This village supplied the world’s doctor’s offices and gift shops with the most realistic-looking fakes.

In a taxi to Dafen, we drove by massive housing complexes still under construction.

“I wonder how big those flats are.” Derek mused, “I bet we could get more space for our buck out here.”

Shenzhen seduced me. Not knowing what would happen to Hong Kong within the year, modern China almost convinced me that it was more advanced than Hong Kong, with abundant housing, electric cars, and bike lanes.

When we arrived in Dafen, it was drizzling. Easels were set up before every storefront, where artists demonstrated their painting techniques, copying the masterpieces from photographs. Even up close, the fakes were impressive—serious training went into creating them. But after we got over the initial marvel, we realized that the whole village was the same thing on repeat. I was wet and bored and demanded we leave.

“But isn’t it ironic that while China is trying to demonstrate progress and innovation, it has a whole village dedicated to copying masterpieces from the West?” Derek chuckled as we stepped out of Dafen.

We stood by the main road but couldn’t find a taxi. So, we searched for a subway station. This was an older part of town, rowdier and dirtier. The electric vehicles were gone; the clogged roads were filled with exhaust-spewing cars—this was China that matched the image in my mind. Then, we stumbled upon a Walmart. It wasn’t the same one I saw on my first trip to Shenzhen, but I convinced Derek to go in with me. Unlike the North American megastores, this one had no spacious aisles and logical signages. Instead, salespeople hollered at the top of their lungs, and shoppers elbowed each other through the crowded space. The scent of death clung to the air as we walked near butcher stalls.

“Ugh, even the Walmart is a rip-off,” I moaned.

Derek pointed to something behind me on the jam-packed train on our way back to the hotel. Our train accelerated through a three-block-wide housing estate. They were about fifteen stories each and no older than thirty years. Some buildings remained intact among the imposing cranes and menacing bulldozers, while others were half torn down. Most of their windows had been knocked out, revealing dark, empty interiors, and the cityscape of Shenzhen poked out of the jagged concrete structures. The view was fleeting but made an impression—it was the first of many we witnessed—remnants of homes torn down to pave the way for the newer, shinier Shenzhen.

Spending a weekend in Shenzhen gave me a glimpse into Hong Kong’s future. I couldn’t help but wonder: In the eyes of new China, how much of old Hong Kong would survive? Reflecting on the smog-free fourteen-lane highway, the trendy artist district alongside the copycat painting village, and the half-torn-down housing estates, I was disheartened to imagine Hong Kong’s future devoid of its contradictory charms: The upscale French restaurant in the puddle-filled street market, the prurient, neon-lit Lockhart Road next to a basketball court where children play, and the tiny temple dwarfed by glass skyscrapers. I love Hong Kong because it was a haven where quirks and weirdness were allowed to exist, a city that had room for resistance and diversity instead of snuffing them out. 

§

Derek and I left Hong Kong in December 2019 after witnessing months of crackdowns. Militarized police patrolled Wan Chai daily. Public transportation and businesses halted operations anticipating new clashes between the protestors and the police. Like in Bahrain, I was again subjected to unpredictable road closures and tear gas thrown around my neighborhood. International companies shuttered their Hong Kong offices, and our friends left in droves. As a Taiwanese woman, I felt unsafe in Hong Kong, even with my Canadian citizenship. When Derek got a job in Sri Lanka as a dean at a design university, we packed up our Wan Chai apartment and bid our Fragrant Harbour goodbye.

Two years later, after shuffling around Sri Lanka and the US during a global pandemic, Derek and I made Taiwan our home, despite its volatile relationship with China. Friends and family worried about our safety, but we reminded them that Hong Kong and Taiwan differed. The former was always going to be reunified with China according to the Sino-British Joint Declaration—but instead of maintaining Hong Kong’s capitalistic status quo until 2047, the CPC took control of the territory twenty-seven years ahead of schedule. With the implementation of the National Security Law in 2020, freedom of speech in the former British colony vanished overnight. The government banned the annual June Fourth Vigil. The popular slogan, “Reclaim Hong Kong; Revolution of Our Times!” became illegal, and anyone uttering it or displaying it was arrested. The border between Hong Kong and Shenzhen will soon be a thing of the past—old Hong Kong will be integrated into new China—the carefree, freewheeling city-state will solely exist in the collective memory of those who called it home.

On the other hand, in Beijing’s eyes, Taiwan became a renegade province when the rebel Kuomintang fled to the island in 1949. Chiang Kai-shek established his government in Taiwan and always planned to retake mainland China. He never succeeded. During his reign, he imposed martial law to squash dissidents and created an environment of terror until his death. In 1987, his son Chiang Ching-guo lifted martial law, and Taiwan had its first election in 1996. Slowly but surely, Taiwan shed its brutal authoritarian past and emerged as a beacon of democracy.

For the last decade, my feelings about CPC have oscillated from indifference and apprehension to panic—with a brief and misguided moment of enamor. As CPC under Xi’s rule becomes more powerful, Taiwan’s future is uncertain. Beijing’s track records in Hong Kong and Xinjiang are not reassuring, and I worry about what will happen to Taiwan if the CPC takes it by force. Yet, Derek and I love this island my Chinese ancestors made home over three hundred years ago—with its modern convenience, superb healthcare, and proximity to the rest of Asia, we can’t imagine living elsewhere. Therefore, I have to learn to channel the carefree attitude of my fellow Taiwanese—eat braised pork over rice at my local diner, enjoy a weekend island holiday, and live one day at a time. 

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Love Wins On Puddle Street

Herstry originally published this essay on November 23, 2020.

A shirtless man hollers at the top of his lungs, creating chaos in the already jam-packed Wan Chai market. The crowd disperses to the sides, allowing him to barge through with his metal cart of carcasses. As he passes, he releases the scent of sweat, unwashed hair, and rot. 

Today, I’ve come to the market with a mission: To collect ingredients to make “three-cup chicken” for my husband, Derek. It’s a traditional Taiwanese dish cooked with copious amounts of garlic and ginger, seasoned with rice wine, soy sauce, and Chinese basil. On the phone, Mama had said to buy fresh chicken from the market with its skin and bones intact for extra savouriness. Mama’s suggestions made my heart sink—the market is grimy and filled with puddles I would rather avoid. However, since I want the best result for my hardworking husband, I make my way to the market with trepidation. 

I elbow my way through stalls of limited-edition anime figurines, imported Korean socks, tacky jade ornaments, and knock-off Calvin Klein underwear. 

“Excuse me!” I say as I bump shoulders with sheepish middle-aged American tourists who have stopped in the middle of the narrow pathway to pose for a selfie. Then, I pass some roaming Mandarin-speaking shoppers crisscrossing from one stall to the next. After avoiding several determined local grannies armed with their nylon shopping carts and stepping around a group of head-scarf clad domestic helpers carrying bags and bags of fresh produce, I turn the corner and enter an even smaller alley. The earthy aroma of fragrant herbs from the vegetable stalls does little to mask the fetid smell from the dried-fish hawker. Before I can stop to catch my breath, the pungent stench of death comes pouring out from the butcher shops—this is when I know I’ve reached Wan Chai Road, or what I call, Puddle Street. Before I married Derek, I’d have run away as fast as I could from that putrid smell. But today, I summon whatever courage I have in me to find chicken for Derek. 

On Puddle Street, it’s impossible to divorce the animals from the meat you’re eating. Carefully watching my every step, I tread by a vendor hawking fish. On a bed of ice, their black, beady eyes stare into nothingness, waiting for their moment on a dinner table. Next to the fish vendor is the chicken butcher. He hangs featherless carcasses by their feet over the counter where you can assess their freshness. Next to the counter, there are cages of live chickens fluttering their flightless wings and flicking at each other with their feisty beaks. Personally, I’d rather buy my meat from the sterile grocery store, where I don’t have to trouble myself with grim thoughts of an animal dying to nourish me. But today, I am committed to my mission. 

Puddle Street is not only a dangerous place for animals, but it can also be life-threatening for shoppers. You must stop and look for oncoming traffic while paying attention to the ground to evade the dark puddles this street is famous for. I am not exaggerating— every pothole on this street is filled with stale, standing liquid —a rancid combination of random spills of unknown fluids, spit of thousands of people, and the water used to rinse the floors of seafood stalls and butcher shops. Every time I encounter a puddle, I fix my gaze on it and tiptoe around it, fearing that if I don’t stare it down, the dirty pool might shift, and I’d trip into it by accident. 

Yes, I’m aware that my squeamishness is silly, and the germs on Puddle Street won’t kill me. Yet, I despise them with every single fibre of my body – those very same fibres that love Derek.   

Derek is Midwestern American and loves Puddle Street. He grew up in Madison, Indiana, a quaint, little historical town by the Ohio River, with about 3,000 residents. For someone who grew up in such a rural setting, it’s incredible how he could love a place like Puddle Street. It brings him joy to shop there— even daring to go in his flip-flops. When he comes home, he takes cruel pleasure in taunting me, whispering in my ear, “I am gonna rub my feet all over you…” 

“Eww! No!” I yelp, squirming away from him as I imagine all the gross, gunky, ghastly puddles he touched with his uncovered feet.  “Go wash your feet!” I’d shout halfway across the living room.

He sometimes makes a half-hearted attempt to chase me around our tiny apartment. Most of the time, though, he looks at me adoringly despite my irrational fears of puddles. 

I often suspect we were born in the wrong bodies. My phobia would be more fitting for a Westerner or a gweilo. Meanwhile, Derek, the gweilo, would love nothing more than to fit into the Chinese culture, speaking Cantonese and haggling with the vendors on Puddle Street. Our physical characteristics often misrepresent us in Hong Kong: Derek is treated like any other gweilo, and prices go up when a vendor sees his face. On the other hand, with my Chinese face, I am often mistaken as a Hong Konger. 

I was born in Tokyo to Taiwanese parents. When we first moved to Taiwan, I threw a tantrum outside of a dirty shack in an open-air market. In my innocent, six-year-old mind, this simple, bare-boned establishment was unacceptable by my standards of cleanliness, and I refused to go anywhere near it. My favorite aunt came out of the shack, hoping to coax me into the horrible place. After a long negotiation, I finally went inside. I perched on top of a metal stool, my hands in my lap and my mouth in a pout. I refused to touch anything. Every time someone offered me a morsel of food, I shook my head vehemently. 

I was only in Taiwan for four years. Had I stayed longer, perhaps I could’ve developed immunity against all things grimy and gross. Alas, my family immigrated to Vancouver, Canada when I was ten. I grew up in a suburban house and went shopping with Mama in big box stores filled with pre-packed meats and aisles and aisles of processed food. Open-air markets soon became a distant memory in my mind—until I moved to Hong Kong. Over the years, I’ve learned to control my tantrums, but deep down, that neurotic, grime-phobic little girl still lurks. Now, she’s the grime beneath my otherwise polished, grown-up exterior. She comes out in snippets, especially on Puddle Street. 

But love wins on Puddle Street. 

Today, Derek is the only one on my mind. Without venturing too far into Puddle Street, I stop at the first chicken vendor. As I study the limp and featherless chickens hanging above the counter stall, a man in a white apron approaches me. 

“What do you need?” He asks in Cantonese. 

“I am making three-cup chicken,” I stammer in Mandarin. “Which chicken should I get?”

Instead of taking down one of the dead ones hanging over the counter, the man points to the cage before me. There are about four or five chickens inside, quietly cooing. I nod my head while contemplating my options.   

Before I say anything else, the man opens the cage from the top and grabs one of the chickens by its neck. The chicken squawks and all the other chickens start squabbling in terror. Instinctively, I hold my right hand in front of me, my palm facing the man as if begging him to stop such a blood-curdling ruckus. I spin and run away, not even caring which way I am going. In the split second before I bolt, I see a faint smile on his face from the corner of my eye. It isn’t an unkind smile, but he probably thinks I am the most ridiculous person in the market that day.  

I gather myself at the next store, focusing on a shelf filled with jars and bottles of sauces and condiments from all over Asia. My heart pounds and my mind races. I think I just killed a chicken! I take a few deep breaths. I’m pretty sure I just killed a chicken.

After a few minutes, I realize I haven’t told the butcher how I wanted my chicken chopped up. Even though I don’t want to show my face in front of the chickens after I’ve just killed their friend, I drag my feet back to the butcher shop. In a timid voice, I say, “Please chop them in pieces with the skin and bones attached.” 

The man in the apron nods with that faint smile on his face again. 

I head back to the other store to buy Taiwanese soy sauce and cooking rice wine. When I return to the chicken stall, I hear the frightening thuds of a cleaver splitting flesh on a woodblock. 

Moments later, the man hands me a plastic bag.  Surprisingly, it isn’t very heavy, maybe a couple of pounds. I pick up the rest of the ingredients and plod my way back home with the bag of chicken dangling from my hand. 

Inside my kitchen, I empty the bag into the sink to wash the chicken. I gasp as I touch it—it’s still warm. Like I said, you can’t divorce the animal from the meat you are eating, not when you buy from Puddle Street. But love wins on Puddle Street. That night, Derek devours the three-cup chicken as he marvels at my bravery in conquering all the gross, ghastly puddles on the most dreaded street in Hong Kong. 

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Postcard #2

Dear Hong Kong, February 2020 (#2)
I have been scrolling through photos of you my friends have posted on social media. For the past month, an eerie silence has engulfed you, suffocating your usual boisterous ways. Your lonely sidewalks, deserted public spaces, and shuttered storefronts are stark reminders of the COVID-19 virus. Your skyline is as magnificent as ever, but I can’t help but notice the absence of smog–a run on the Central Promenade would be pleasant.
When I left you, I thought I was done with you. I never thought I’d feel the tightening of my chest seeing you on social media. I mourn the city of my memories, your seedy streets where I have lost and found myself. You’re a shell of your former self, quiet and still. I hope you’re simply hiding under the abandoned masks and will come out to play soon. I miss you. Love, Kayo

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Dear Hong Kong #1

Dear Hong Kong, February 2020
Surgical masks, toilet papers, and hand sanitizers are flying off the shelves as you hoard everything in sight. I know that the coronavirus is scary and uncertain, but this panic buying makes you seem hysterical and rapacious. Now that I’ve been away from you and don’t have to queue for hours to buy toilet papers, I can assess the situation in a more detached way. Instead of closing the crossings to the Mainland, the government is keeping them open to appease the Central government. The Central government, meanwhile, has been more interested in maintaining its reputation than to informing and protecting its citizens–as if it has not learned from the 2002/03 SARS epidemic. After nearly a year of lies and deception, you witness another failing of the government and betrayal from Beijing at the start of 2020. I understand that your avariciousness for daily supplies is not just a sign of selfishness or greed, but a symptom of trauma. I hear you, Hong Kong.
Love, Kayo

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Duty-bound

We are in riot gear and armed with full-body clear shields, facing thousands of young protestors. These kids—clad in black, carrying umbrellas, and covered in face masks—should be at school or at work. Instead, they are using their sweaty bodies to block a major road in downtown Hong Kong, preventing lawmakers to enter the Legislative Council building to read the controversial extradition bill.

As a law-abiding person, this bill has no effect on me. But my wife says that if the bill passed, activists, journalists, and even business executives—anyone Beijing deems unsavory—could be extradited to mainland China, in a justice system known for its lack of human rights and a 99.9% conviction rate. Last Sunday, my wife joined the one-million strong march where people were chanting about this “evil law” that will erode Hong Kong’s freedom of speech. I did not participate—My duty is to protect and serve while maintaining order.

As I stand in the middle of the wide boulevard in my soaked-through uniform, I see a woman approaching, eventually standing between the protesters and us. She is bespectacled, middle-aged and wearing a t-shirt with a towel draped around her neck. “I am a mother, and I am sure some of you have kids,” She wails. “Why did you attack our kids like this?”

She, like many mothers on the streets today, are protesting on behalf of their children who have been shot at with rubber bullets, beanbag rounds, and tear gas when the Commissioner gave us the directives to disperse the crowd. Our duty is to protect and serve while maintaining order.

 “I am not here to attack you. I have no weapon.” She unloads her small backpack and stretches out her thin arms. “I have been smoke-bombed by your tear gas so many times. Can you please stop?” She pleads.

As she steps nearer, I feel tears trickling down under the clear visor over my face— this woman could have been my mother, who also drapes her towel the same way when she practices Tai Chi in the park. I cry for my divided city. While my colleagues on the force want nothing more than the protesters to go away, the pro-democratic students behind the woman, like my wife, are resisting the tear gas with open umbrellas and face masks, demanding the scrapping of the extradition bill.

Then, out of nowhere, a colleague comes dashing behind me. With a beanbag round, he shoots at the woman who is only inches away from my shield. My ears ring as I watch her topple backward. Luckily, a bystander catches her fall and leads her away. Instantly, my eyes start to burn—the same colleague has also fired tear gas into the crowd.

The crowd scatters within seconds. I dab away my tears with my handkerchief. Then I return standing in line with my shield up. My duty is to protect and serve while maintaining order.

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30 years After the Tiananmen Square “Incident”

The phrase “Tiananmen Square” is blocked in search engines in China. The date June 4 has become synonymous with “Sina Censor Day” as Beijing intensifies its censorship efforts to block its citizens from accessing information about the Tiananmen Square Massacre–a tragic day in 1989 in which the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) fired at peaceful demonstrators and innocent bystanders. To this day, Beijing tries to hide the truth: There was no massacre, just an “incident.” The death of thousands of citizen is not mentioned in any history books; the Great Firewall of China blocks any words or phrases associated with the event, and to this day, Beijing has never acknowledged, let alone apologized, for their brutal tactics in suppressing the amicable democracy- seeking protesters. Every year on June 4th, Beijing watches closely, ensuring no trouble could be stirred up within China. However, across the border in Hong Kong, thousands of people have gathered for a candlelight vigil every year since 1990 to pay tribute to those who lost their lives in the hands of the PLA.

Partial view of the crowd at the 30th anniversary of Tiananmen Square Massacre.

This year, for the first time (after living in Hong Kong for seven years), I finally attended my first vigil with my husband Derek. From our home in Wan Chai, we walked to Victoria Park in Causeway Bay, which took us about 20 minutes. It was an incredibly humid night; my phone pinged with ceaseless thunderstorm warnings from the Hong Kong Observatory. It took us a while to get through the crowd to finally enter the park, but it was evident that despite the imminent bad weather, spirits were high. Thousands of Hong Kong people gathered for the 30th anniversary of Tiananmen Square Massacre and to protest against the proposed extradition legislation. If this legislation becomes law, it will be problematic as it could allow the transfer of fugitives to jurisdictions with which Hong Kong lacks a deal, including mainland China. Basically, Hong Kong people can be extradited to Mainland China to be prosecuted under Chinese law–a frightening thought indeed, especially for activists, journalists, and other vocal folks Beijing deems “criminal.”

The vigil was a humbling experience. On the surface, I blended in with the thousands of Hong Kong people around me, but as a Taiwanese Canadian living in Hong Kong, I am an outsider-insider. Though I didn’t understand many of the speeches in Cantonese or receive one of the white candles that the organizers were handing out, I was in awe. Looking at the serene faces lit by the soft glow of the burning wicks, I admire Hong Kong people’s resolute and determination to memorialize those who lost their lives on June 4, 1989. I respect their perseverance to defy Beijing by gathering each year, refusing to let go of the past. I feel a sense of affinity with the people of Hong Kong at the vigil and they gave me a little glimmer of hope: Perhaps with the international community watching, the Hong Kong people’s effort to preserve their autonomy will not be ignored. This leads to me think: Perhaps Taiwanese people can take a cue and organize a vigil next year in Taipei? A vigil not only to commemorate those who died but also as a gesture to show the international community that Taiwan is a democratic society, and should remain free of Beijing’s control.

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The Forgotten 30 Houses

Originally published in Photography is Art, Issue 12, December 2018, pp. 118-125.  Photography by Johnny Gin. 

The original emerald windows are one of the unique features of tong lau from the post-war era. They give us a glimpse of Hong Kong’s past.

Tucked behind the trendy restaurants and bars on Staunton Street in the Central District of Hong Kong is a piece of history the rest of the city has forgotten. I climbed several sets of steep steps behind the Police Married Quarters (PMQ) to find a quiet, shaded neighbourhood of low-rise buildings, “tong lau,” arrayed around a network of granite steps, airy terraces, narrow lanes, ancient trees, and quaint little shops. Tong lau –literally “Chinese buildings” –were built in the late 19th century to the 1960’s. They were used as tenement housing in southern China, Macau, Hong Kong, and Taiwan.

In the middle of the hustle and bustle of Hong Kong, 30 Houses is a charming neighbourhood that is only accessible by foot. The area’s core is Shing Wong Street, named after the guardian god of cities whose temple once stood on the current site of the PMQ. There are tong lau on both sides of Shing Wong Street, most being two or three storeys tall. Facing Staunton Street stands a taller grey building. Between Staunton Street and Caine Street are many small lanes that consist of tong lau and vacant lots. Once upon a time, tong lau stood in these lots. The ground floors were used as storefronts for print shops and other small businesses while the shop owners and their families lived in the upper floors.

Folding gates made with corrugated iron emblazoned with floral patterns is a common feature of tong lau in the 30 Houses neighbourhood.

The name “30 Houses” likely originates from an earlier 19th-century development destroyed by bombing during World War II. After the war, the government and local landowners redeveloped the area, and it became a vibrant working-class neighbourhood. Over the years though, the tong lau were torn down to make room for modern high-rises. As these new residential developments sprung up in the area, the “kai fong,” the neighbourhood residents started to move away.

I learned about this alluring and nostalgic area from Katty Law, a neighbourhood activist serving as the convenor of the Central and Western Concern Group. As a kai fong, she grew up on Caine Road and has watched her home neighbourhood transform.

“I’ve lived in the neighbourhood for over 40 years,” Ms. Law mused. “When I was young, there used to be a lively street market on Staunton Street. Now people see little trace of it.”

Not only are the original grocery shops, and dai pai dong, traditional open-air food stalls, have gone years ago, many of the remaining tong lau have also become dilapidated shells of their former glory. The Hong Kong Urban Renewal Authority (URA) has been planning to tear down the tong lau to build luxury apartments. But 30 Houses isn’t just any neighbourhood: with 19th-century layout and building orientation and early 20th-century architectural style and construction techniques it represents something unique in the city. The tong lau are rare examples of the post-war urban residential neighbourhoods built between 1948 to 1958. They make a striking contrast with the surrounding high rises, built in the more recent years. Once these historic structures are destroyed, a part of Hong Kong will be lost forever.

Human memory is faulty and ephemeral; it only remembers what the eye sees. Once a building is gone, it fades away and eventually disappears from the collective consciousness. Fortunately, photography has been a medium to document and preserve buildings and communities in the brink of disappearance. In 1967, American photographer Danny Lyon made images to give testament to the transformation of lower Manhattan. He was able to record the process of turning an abandoned mid-19th-century working district of markets, warehouses, showrooms, and hotels, to complex high-rises that eventually became the heart of the financial district, where the World Trade Center once stood. Lyon’s work was turned into The Destruction of Lower Manhattan (1969), which seized the rare moments before the disappearance of a neighbourhood.

The curved balconies of 88-90 Staunton Street can be seen while climbing the steps on Shing Wong Street. They add to the structure’s old-timey charms.

Johnny Gin is a Hong Kong-based photographer. His interest in buildings, and specifically, how the built environment and vernacular landscapes inform the identity of a city led him to photograph the 30 Houses area.

Gin’s lenses captured various stages of development and decay in the area. Wing Lee Street, made famous by the 2010 film, Echoes of the Rainbow is one of the few to have escaped demolition. The tong lau on this street have been restored by their owners but are missing many of their original details, such as emerald iron balcony fences, matching window frames, and folding gates made with corrugated iron emblazoned with the name of businesses.  They now look uniform, stripped away of the eccentricities that made them intriguing.

Behind the tong lau on Wing Lee Street is a massive retaining wall—another marker of Hong Kong history. Since the original City of Victoria –the colonial name for Hong Kong –sits on a steep slope, 19th-century engineers dug an “L” shape onto the side of the hill to clear flat land to build on. On the long end, they used locally sourced granite to construct a sturdy retaining wall, matching the flagstones on the neighboorhood’s stairways. Trees have sprung up in the gaps in the wall, their unruly roots stretched out like spider webs across the wall, leading locals to call them “wall trees.” (石牆樹)

Wah In Fong West is a narrow street, one side facing a row of tong lau across from a stairway. This arrangement reflects the original orientation and plot size of first and second-generation tong lau in the Tai Ping Shan area, a densely populated zone struck by the plague of 1894. Nowadays, it is the only remaining two-storey tong lau built alongside the granite steps in Old Central. Tragically, these unique homes are among the most deteriorated structures in the 30 Houses area. Their facades obscured in bamboo scaffold and mesh, the upper floors are barely perceptible from the street. Even so, remnants of their past are still evident: the emerald balconies with their original plant holders and the storefront signs mark what once was a print shop near the top of the alley.

This concrete building features the ventilation shafts in the staircases, providing airflow in the hot and humid summers.

My favourite building in the area is the imposing four-storey concrete building at 88-90 Staunton Street. Rusty metal gates obscure the store sign, but the ground floor might have been a “Cha chaan teng,” a traditional café that served affordable Hong Kong style western food. I imagine this is where the kai fong gathered for breakfast before work. One of its most striking features, common in neighbourhood buildings, are the long vertical ventilation shafts carved at the front of the building. These provide much-needed airflow through the staircases, especially during the hot and humid summer months. Rounded balconies, visible from the Shing Wong Street steps, add to the old-timey charm.

The best-preserved tong lau can be found on Shing Wong Street, three-story structure split through the middle with ventilation shafts. The owners kept all of their original features through recent restorations, including balcony railings, window fixtures, and folding iron gates. Storefronts occupy ground floors, while upper levels are reserved for rental properties.

As a long-time resident of Hong Kong, I probably walked by this hidden architectural wonder hundreds of times on my way to the bars and restaurants in the area. However, the tong lau, sitting halfway up the hill, are very easy to miss. They have been tucked away, decaying while their surrounding areas develop rapidly. With photographic evidence created by Gin, it is easy to see that though the tong lau are in a terrible and potentially dangerous condition, they embody the passing of time and tell the stories of Old Hong Kong.  Even though they can be seen as an eyesore to those who don’t understand their history, there is a potential to restore and repurpose these old tong lau and turn them into social housing that Hong Kong desperate needs, artists’ residences to allow creative pursuits, and retail spaces to attract tourists. Ms. Law and her group are advocating to preserve them as part of Hong Kong’s history.

“It is so important to keep the original character of these buildings, as they are a culmination of history,” Ms. Law said, “Perhaps Shing Wong, the guardian god of the city, is protecting our area. After all, the buildings still stand today.”

Notes:This text is based on the research done by Katty Law, Charlton Cheung, and Sjoerd Hoeksta for the Central and Western Concern Group.

The author has read The Life and Death of Buildings: On Photography and Time by Joel Smith (Princeton University Art Museum, 2011) to learn about Danny Lyon’s work in The Destruction of Lower Manhattan (1967).

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Wan Chai Grammatica: Past, Present, Future Tense

Studying an acrylic painting of green shrub and concrete, Dewey Punk Pickles knows right away what she’s looking at—a pathway in Wan Chai she passes by during her morning runs to Victoria Harbour. Yeung Tong Lung’s brush strokes remind her of Cézanne’s obsessive and repetitive dabbing of paint. However, unlike Cézanne,  who took up to 100 work sessions to complete a still life, Dewey doubts this artist had put in as much effort.

Dewey is at Wan Chai Grammatica: Past, Present, Future Tense, an exhibition celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Wan Chai Arts Center, Hong Kong. Lately, she has attended many shows and openings to enhance her skills as an art writer. For a Hong Kong-based writer who doesn’t want to work in finance or PR; art writing is her best bet.

As a Wan Chai resident of almost seven years, Dewey is interested in how artists see Hong Kong from the past, present, and future. Looking at an acrylic painting by Galylord Chan, she recognizes that this is an image of Vicotria Harbour of Old Hong Kong— the low-rise, not-skyscraper buildings, the old-timey clothes hanging to dry, and the airplane flying near the mountains on the Kowloon side where the old Kai Tak airport used to be. Though she wasn’t alive in Hong Kong during that time, she’s seen enough of Fan Ho’s photographs to get a sense of what Hong Kong was like in the past.

Chan’s painting looks as though the viewer is viewing at the harbor from the mountains, and the artist uses child-like lines to render the cityscape, evoking a sense of innocence. However, there is a depth to it too, like the way the artist illustrates the stacking of concrete buildings in Kowloon to show its population density. Also, by placing a ferry in the middle of the painting, the artist highlights the importance of ferries in Old Hong Kong—before the MTR (the reliable and inexpensive transportation system of Hong Kong), people relied on ferries to get from Hong Kong Island to Kowloon and vice versa. These days, the Star Ferry that takes passengers from Wan Chai to Tsim Sha Tsui has become a relic from the past. Although Dewey thinks it’s romantic to ride the Star Ferry, she only does so when she is not in a hurry.

Harbour (1969) by Gaylord Chan.

Dewey looks at an ink and acrylic painting by Luis Chan that reminds her of classic Chinese ink paintings.  She’s always enjoyed the serene mountain scenes created by the elegant strokes of a calligraphy brush. This one before her is a modern take of an old form, a painting of hilly Hong Kong Island with the sea and Kowloon in the backdrop. There are a few buildings in the picture, but the hills are mostly bare, except for a crazy tree with blue, yellow, and red leaves. In the harbor are junk boats with crimson sails, and at the foot of the hills are some obscured figures— they look like they are carrying something.

Other objects that remind Dewey of traditional Chinese landscape paintings are over-the-top dioramas created by MAP Office.  She stops before a snow-capped mountain made of mini plastic palm trees covered in glue. All around the hills are soldiers wearing green uniforms and white helmets who have climbed towards the top using ropes secured by divers down below. The diorama depicts a scene of an invasion—the soldiers are storming around the Godzilla-like monster on the top of the mountain, trying to destroy it. Dewey thinks that this work shows the transition between old Hong Kong moving to a more contemporary Hong Kong.

Dewey’s favorite diorama is the landscape of seashells, fan-like corals, and a sand dollar covered in shiny pink beads, plastic palm trees, faux pearls, and female figures performing lewd acts. Some of them are lifting their skirts to show their asses; some are standing around naked sticking out their tits, others are sitting on the ground, submitting themselves to the male gaze. This glittery, pink world reminds Dewey of the neon lights on Lockhart Road, where young women from southeast Asia in short short skirts holler at Gweilos to entice them to stop for a drink.

Close-up of Wanchai Islands: Wanchai Colonies (2018) by MAP Office.

Dewey stands before Xyza Cruz Bacani’s photographs of street scenes of Wan Chai. They are typical scenes of the neighborhood: Laborers hanging out on the steps of the Southorn Playground, a Gweilo (Cantonese slang for a light-skinned European descent) passed out on the infamous Lockhart Road, (Wan Chai’s red light district), and a couple kissing on the crowded sidewalk off Johnston Road. The image that captured Dewey’s attention shows the closing of an iconic Wing Wah Noodle Shop in Wan Chai. The store sign made up of four Chinese characters were covered carefully with characters printed on white paper, “gloriously finished business.” Wing Wah had been serving tantalizing wontons noodles and mouthwatering braised pork knuckles for the last 68 years. She’ll miss Wing Wah’s wonton noodles, especially after a night out.

Dewey enjoys these images because it’s fun to identify the locations in her neighborhood. They are current, like something she’d see in her day-to-day life. However, in her mind, they lack that unique little details that make her love the photographs. Or, perhaps she’s too fixated on identifying the locations to find the details.

So far, Dewey has explored the past and the present of Wan Chai. However, the only object in the show that reflects any inklings of Wan Chai in the future tense is MAP Office’s aquarium tanks stacked on top of each other. There is nothing special about the tanks, except when she bends down to take a closer look.  Upon seeing at the construction projects outside of the window through the tank, Wan Chai has been turned into an underwater world inhabited by fishes. If the government and corporations don’t stop with the reclamation projects, Dewey thinks, we’d all have fishes as our neighbors.

Close up of Wanchai Islands: Wanchai Island (2018) by MAP Office.

There were a lot of artworks in the three-level exhibition space. There are photographs of Hong Kong skyline floating over a pint of beer by South Ho Siu Nam. There is an installation of leftover Indian food on banana leaves by N.S. Harsha, its realistic qualities grosses her out a little. There are more paintings, installations, and photographs, but after a while, her mind checks out.

Thinking back, Dewey wonders if Wan Chai Grammatica was an exhibition of quality. As a budding art writer, she needs to be analytical of her observations. She likes many of the objects in the show, though she is aware they are the ones she can relate to based on her own experience. She wonders if she would have enjoyed them if she didn’t live in Wan Chai. Also, she is also keenly aware that she hasn’t paid attention to everything in the show—there are just too many damn objects.

Yes, the exhibition makes an effort to show Wan Chai from the past, in the present, and what the future might hold, but, but Dewey’s not sure if the show has cast a new light on how she sees the city she calls home. Many of the objects illustrate Wan Chai’s multi-cultural identity and its colonial past. There are also some reflections on its seedy reputation and over-consumption. Many of objects also evoke a sense of nostalgia while documenting Wan Chai frozen in time. None of this is revealing or challenging though, Dewey thinks to herself. She’s not quite sure what deems revealing or challenging, but she’ll let you know when she comes across it.

 

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Dewey Visits Cao Fei’s “A hollow in a world too full” at Tai Kwun, Hong Kong

Dewey Punk Pickles doesn’t understand art. She’s never studied art in school though she was a librarian at an art and design university. She goes to art exhibitions because it seems like the cool thing to do. All the cultured, intellectual, creative types, the type of people she associates with, are all going to drink wine at the art opening.

Dewey goes to the JC Contemporary at Tai Kwun to see Beijing-based artist Cao Fei’s show, A hollow in a world too full. Tai Kwun used to be a prison complex back in the colonial days of Hong Kong. The Jockey Club spent a fortune restoring and renovating the previously abandoned space. Dewey thinks it’s ironic that the institution that makes its bucks luring Hong Kongers with horse racing and gambling is now the city’s peddler of art and culture.

The entrance of JC Contemporary and its lobby is full of pretty, well-dressed people.  They stand in clusters, chatting while sipping on their wines and beer. Dewey stands with her husband, Mean Dean, while drinking a glass of white wine. For free wine, it isn’t bad at all, she thinks to herself. She says hi to some friends, people she knew when she was a librarian. Then, with Mean Dean, she walks up to a grand staircase leading to the exhibition space. The place still smells like fresh paint. She has no idea what to expect.

Rumba (2015-2018). Video capture from the exhibition. 

The first things Dewey encounters are some seemingly mindless yet hyper-aware disc-like robot cleaners roaming on a minimalistic landscape. They navigate the narrow passageways from one island to the next without aim but always swivel at the edge of the raised platform.

“I don’t get it,” Dewey thinks to herself, “what are these Roomba vacuum robots supposed to say?”

She keeps these thoughts to herself as she doesn’t want the people around her to hear her stupidity and ignorance. She clutches her exhibition catalog, hoping to glean some insight from it. But she has trouble reading while walking, and Mean Deans has already moved on to the next room.

The next room is a darkened theater. On the wall outside, it has a sign indicating that only those over the age of 18 are allowed to enter. The film shows a post-apocalyptic fantasy world filled with miniature architectural sets and figurines. Dewey sees the derelict golden arches of MacDonald’s restaurant and abandoned Porsches. There are people in this film too, and they look scared, in pain, or like zombies.  Then, the scene changes and a man and a woman start to have a conversation in French. Dewey feels a little voyeuristic at this point as she stares at a pair of figures fucking on the screen. The woman is on the top riding the man. Dewey can’t help but notice that it looks like the woman is riding a metal rod, the rod is the man’s dick. Riding a rod doesn’t sound like a pleasurable experience.

Dewey is not bashful or anything, but while the film is fascinating on some level, it lacks plot. It doesn’t have a beginning or an end, and things are happening randomly. Sitting there in the dark room, she starts to feel sleepy. She curls up next to Mean Dean and falls asleep.

Prison Architect (2018). This is a close-up of one of the installations.

She wakes up when Mean Dean stands up to go to the next room, which has distressed walls with grey, peeling paint. Close to the back wall is a desk with an old-timey lamp on it. The lamp is on. Dewey sees a black rotary phone, a glass ashtray with two boxes of matches, and a file on a prisoner open for all to see. Behind the desk is a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II hanging crookedly on the wall.

“Ah,” Dewey thinks to herself, “this must be one of the offices when Tai Kwun was still a prison.” This she understands and thinks is interesting. She feels that she understands culture and history better than art.

At this point, the exhibition space has closed. Dewey Punk Pickles and Mean Dean leave the exhibition, having seen only half of it.

A week later, Dewey returns to the JC contemporary. This time, she reads the exhibition catalog before going to the show, so she has some vague idea of what to expect.  After seeing the vacuum robots, the film with the zombies and the fucking couple, and the prison room, she finds herself on the top floor.  There are two screens flashing with animations. She looks at one of them for a while. It looks like a city in China but like a Chinese city on crack. It has a crazy, over-the-top color palette, and the perspective spins as if we are seeing the city from a drone.  At one point,  Dewey sees Tiananmen Square. In the place where Mao’s portrait should have been is a picture of a panda. She chuckles.

She doesn’t bother to look at the other screen in the same room. Instead, she climbs down the grand staircase and continues the exhibition.

Prison Architect (2018). This is the space where the film is shown.

The next exhibition is another film, and according to the catalog, it is called The Prison Architect, a newly commissioned work. The film is only a part of the work, as it also includes installations that span three floors. The film takes place in Tai Kwun in the past as Victoria Prison and in the present as Hong Kong’s hub of art and culture. The protagonists of the film, a female prison architect and a male poet-prisoner, exist in parallel realities–she lives in the present while he stays in the past. Cao creates illusions in the physical space by installing prison-style bunk beds, the same ones from the film, in the theatre, which allows Dewey and the other people watching to immerse themselves in Cao’s imagination.

Dewey recognizes the prison office where the poet-prisoner is getting yelled at by a crude, mango spewing guard. She becomes excited that the exhibition is coming together through this film. The open file she saw during her last visit must belong to this poet-prisoner.

In another scene, she notices that the prison architect is slicing her mango carefully in her modern Hong Kong apartment, and placing them in a bowl. Later on, there was the poet-prisoner, holding a half-peeled mango.

She wonders about the mangos.

Dewey has her Eureka moment in the scene that takes place in a starkly white room that looks familiar. There are three ghost-like prisoners with painted faces that are spinning around the poet-prisoner as if trying to suffocate and swallow him.

“Oh! That’s in the same room where the Roomba cleaners are!” She shouts inside her own head, “the robots might be a representation of the prisoners prowling in a random yet cognisant way.”

Dewey feels pleased about making this connection.

The rest of the exhibition doesn’t interest Dewey Punk Pickles as much, now that she feels like she’s figured it out. She walks down the grand staircase and notices fake mangos dangling.

At home, Dewey tells Mean Dean about the exhibition and what she figured out. Then she remembers the mangos.

“What is up with the mangos?” She asks.

Mean Dean tells her that there used to be a massive mango tree in the Victoria Prison complex, and the guards used to eat the sweet, meaty fruit from it.

How does Mean Dean know this? Dewey has no idea.

A Solo Exhibition by Cao Fei, A hollow in a world too full @ Tai Kwun, Central, Hong Kong. On view until December 9, 2018. 

 

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Lesson on Love, Part III

Dear Reader, this post is part of a three-part series. Please read Part I and Part II before proceeding.

At an impressionable age, Mama and Ama, my parental grandmother, taught me what I know about love. Ama chose to be with a married man in exchange for a financially secure life. Mama broke down when she found out that Baba was cheating, but eventually decided to swallow her pride because she didn’t have economic means of her own (and she also loved him desperately). I would never want to be in a situation where I have to make the choices they made.

As soon as I got my graduate degree in library studies, I took a job in Dubai to start my career as an academic librarian (the alternative was to stay in Vancouver to write invoices for a plumbing company.) Since then, I moved to Bahrain, and then to Hong Kong for work, to ensure that I am always financially independent. That’s all I learned about love from the women in my life—I must never rely on a man.  

In 2012, I arrived in Hong Kong for a new job, a few months before my 30th birthday. With a failed marriage behind me, I still didn’t know what a healthy, lasting relationship looked like. Regardless, I plunged myself into the world of online dating. It was something I dabbled with in the past, but I always disabled my account the minute I found a new boyfriend.

At first, it was fun. Hong Kong is a transient place, and I met men from all over the world. After dating a string of men that didn’t materialize into a steady boyfriend, I was disappointed that it wasn’t as easy as when I was younger. Was it the curse of turning 30?

After venturing into the dating circuit for a while, I begin to feel that I wasn’t good enough. I was in my 30’s; I couldn’t compete with all the skinny 23-year-old Hong Kong girls. Having been in relationships my whole adult life, I didn’t know how to date. For example, a guy I was casually dating didn’t text me back, and that was supposed to be normal. Some of my guy friends suggested I shouldn’t expect so much; I was too needy, too emotional and maybe a little too weird. I didn’t know what to do. I drank, I danced up a storm, and I flirted shamelessly. I did everything to hide that confused and hurt little girl behind a carefree facade. I gave men what I thought they wanted, in the hopes that one of them would love me. Instead, they walked all over me, and I hated myself for it.

I was miserable. How do we end up living in a society where people take sex for granted, and fear intimacy? Why can’t a woman expect the man who she hooked up with to return her text and have an adult conversation after a night of fun?

For years, I put up with a lot of bad behaviors from men. One day, after ending an on-again, off-again relationship I decided enough was enough. I vowed that I would never allow a man to make me feel like I wasn’t good enough ever again. If he thought I was “too” something, then he wasn’t the right person for me. I vowed that I wasn’t going to be apologetic for wanting a serious relationship and that I wasn’t going to settle. I vowed that I would rather be alone than to be with someone who wasn’t going to accept and love me for who I am. I resolved to my fate: I would rather be single for the rest of my life than to be with the wrong person.

It’s not that I stopped dating—I just had zero tolerance for men who mistreated me. I had expectations and boundaries, and I commanded respect. Men called me demanding, bitchy, crazy. I didn’t care. I stopped putting up with shit.

Then it happened one day.

I had known Derek for almost a year at this time. I met him at SCAD Hong Kong, where I was the head librarian, and he was one of the graphic designer professors. He borrowed a bunch of books on typography. I told him about my fifth-grade teacher who made us practice calligraphy. We became friendly and eventually, our paths started to cross.

One night in the fall of 2014, he and I went out for a drink with a bunch of our friends from work. At the end of the night, Derek texted me. “It was great seeing you tonight. You looked cute, even though you were wearing a cat dress.”

He hates cats.

I was wearing the cat dress the day before my wedding, while my best friend Sarah and I were buying flowers for my big day.

“Is Derek flirting with me?” I showed the text to my friend Kuba, who was visiting me at the time.

Kuba confirmed my suspicion.

The rest is history. After a whirlwind engagement, Derek and I married a year later. We will celebrate our third anniversary on Halloween this year.

It’s very ironic that Derek, who hates cats, ends up marrying a cat lady. 

Last summer I resigned from my position at SCAD to work towards my M.F.A. degree in writing. I plunged myself into the world of freelance writing. I no longer have a regular paycheck, which taps into my primal fear —to be dependent on a man, like Ama and Mama. Sometimes I freak-out, doubting my abilities and decision. Derek has spent hours comforting and encouraging me. He won’t let me quit and go back to the library.

Sometimes I still can’t believe my luck: my husband not only loves and accepts me, but he also supports me in my writing career. By choosing not to put up with shitty men, I in return found the best man ever. I couldn’t dream of having a better husband.

So, this is what I learned about love. From my Ama and my Mama, I learned to be financially independent. From my dating experience, I learned to stop taking shit from men, and that I had to love and accept myself before I can find anyone who would do the same for me. From Derek, I learned to let go of my fear (though I still have moments of doubt). I couldn’t have got to where I am today without these lessons. Finding love was hard, but I was lucky. For those of you out there who are still looking, don’t despair: You have someone that has been through it all rooting for you.