Xu Xi - Dear Hong Kong: Penguin Specials

In this time before the yet-to-come, that Chinese future tense or , the future moment in question being the year 2046, I have already begun saying goodbye to my city. See, see, I still call Hong Kong my city, the way Xi Xi once did, this other Hong Kong writer whose pen name tracks closely to my own byline, except that unlike me she writes in Chinese. I have been occasionally complimented for her work, or been contacted about her books, such as her novel My City, the one that of course I did not write. Hers was a stunning work, something that spoke so well to me of a vision of this city when I was still the fledgling scribe trying to put my HK into words. See, see, my city has already become my HK, an abbreviation dating back to my birth and childhood here, a residency that carried through to adulthood in a spasmodic fashion. Almost everyone uses initials, followed by a surname, when their Cantonese name is turned upside down into English. There are probably hundreds of HK Wongs, Chans, Lees, Maks, Leungs, et al, and a number are undoubtedly men. H could be the Cantonese or hok, meaning to study, a good character choice for a name in my education-obsessed city. As for K, take your pick, as so many characters with a K sound denote something masculine, making these all suitable choices for a boys name in Cantonese. If I seem a little repetitive about Cantonese rather than Chinese, it is because this southern dialect.

So my voice is not a vox pop, this English-language story I tell, this attempt at remembering my version of the city as a local foreigner. I am a native daughter, born and bred here, a child of overseas Chinese wah kiu migrants from Indonesia, who happens to be an English-language writer of fiction and who is, for a change, trying to tell some of the facts of her life in a memoir, the way the genre demands.

What will happen after 2046, or, more accurately, 2047, the year when something is actually supposed to happen to HK? Once upon a time, we used to say: What will happen after 1997? That was the year of the great handover, when my HK returned like a prodigal child to his real parents, the nation of China, having spent too many adoptive years with his foreign parents, Britain. He was still a young man then, a boy really, just barely out of adolescence. This is the problem of belonging to families that are very, very old, ancient even, with not hundreds but thousands of years of history, because you remain a youth for a long, long time. Some years after that first rite of passage, that handover-takeover moment (depending on whose version of history you read), I tried to interview HK about his history. He was a petulant interviewee, but got the facts right even though his perspective was biased in favour of himself. That is the problem with history, written as it is by all who consider themselves winners, regardless of the facts.

But the problem at hand is 2046. Besides its notoriety as a dystopia fantasy sci-fi romance Hong Kong film by Wong Kar-wai, the only director who could successfully produce a feature with all those adjectives under such a moniker that is not a political film, the year 2046 is in fact a highly political future moment, the way 1997 once was. It is a year that colours anything I write about my life in this city, and is a reason I am saying goodbye to my city in the Dear John letter that follows in these pages, a Dear HK prolonged goodbye. The year 2046 is when our current life will end. Its a will construction rather than a might construction because here is how our future reads in Article 5 of the Basic Law, the one that went into effect on 1 July 1997: The socialist system and policies shall not be practised in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, and the previous capitalist system and way of life shall remain unchanged for 50 years. Hence, 2046 is the last year before our known way of life ends on 30 June 2047 (check my math I flunked math in my school leaving exam and am, after all, a fiction writer). Since Im writing a memoir in the form of a Dear John letter to say goodbye to HK, mines not to reason the whys and wherefores to interpret Article 5, which is best left to legal minds to debate and political minds of that future moment to enact. Instead, let me think about language since that is the only tool a writer has and the latter part of Article 5 that speaks to a fifty-year period of frozen time for an unchanged previous capitalist system and way of life.

The trouble with a deep freeze is that you have no idea what will happen when you unfreeze, especially after such a prolonged time. As it is, you worry about defrosting the chicken that has sat in your freezer for a month or so, purchased with all good intentions to cook and consume before its use-by date, but somehow, chicken never quite appeals to my home-cooking taste buds when all the Chinese cuisines available in HK restaurants do a much better job than you can. Future tense is like that: desire suspended, more imaginary than real.

So HK, this love of my life (albeit an oftentimes tiresome and petulant lover) is in semi-suspended animation, with only his head sticking out of the deep freeze, so that he can continue to yell at me about how upset he is. Have you ever been in a relationship with a hopelessly maimed lover? Well, perhaps not maimed, since he willingly placed his otherwise functioning body into this frozen state, leaving only his head at work. All head but no heart does not a lover make (never mind the frozen corporal reality). Do you wonder that our relationship has become at least slightly maimed?

And so, Dear John, let me begin my goodbye. You will scream and rail, of that I have no doubt, but to mitigate your pain let me recall happier times, or at least past times, when we lived through our previous capitalist system and way of life. Let me recall for you some of what that life has been, was, and still is all about in this, our unchanged moment. Perhaps that will give you some comfort, this serenade to you, HK, oh city of my heart. Quizs, quizs, quizs?