The short story I have chosen is "Insignificant moments in the history of Hong Kong" taken from Xu Xi's History's Fiction: stories from the city of Hong Kong. The story consists of two diaries written on 30th June and 1st July 1997 which describe how the main character, Lam Yam Kuen, spent these two important days in Hong Kong's history. Through the description of Lam's visit to Uncle Check's restaurant and the dinner party at his workplace, the author shows the diverse feelings of Hong Kong people towards the handover of Hong Kong to her motherland, China.
Author's background
Xu Xi is a Chinese-Indonesian native of Hong Kong and she is one of Hong Kong's foremost contemporary English language novelists. She is described like a camera zooming down from the peaks and penthouses to close-ups of the crowded flats and side streets of Hong Kong. Her book is populated by ordinary people like Lam Yan Kuen and their daily lives. Through the stories of these nonentities, Xu Xi recounts the history of Hong Kong in today's voice. Her stories showcase the tension between the East-West relationships and the ambivalent feelings of Hong Kong people during post-colonialism and handover.
Response to the story
In this part, I will analyze some features (e.g. narrative perspective of the writer, setting, main character, plot line, atmosphere, leit motif and image,) of the story and how these features make the story personally relevant, intellectually uplifting and life-enhancing for me.
1. Narrative perspective of the writer
The story is written by using omniscient point of view, or more precisely, character-bound omniscience. Xu Xi not only looks into the mind of the protagonist (i.e. Lam Yam Kuen), but also the unseen qualities ...
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At the end of the story, Xu Xi describes that the Chacko family leaves when the firework is displaying. It may reflect that some western people in Hong Kong are similar to Uncle Cheuk, i.e. they are not interested in the handover. It does not affect them whether Hong Kong is a colony of Britain or a special administrative region of China.
Conclusion
To conclude, I think Xu Xi is successful to show the paradox of Hong Kong people over handover. On the one hand, we should be glad of it because we finally reunite with our motherland after about hundred years of colonial governance. On the other hand, we may feel little apprehension over the Chinese government. We may not be confident enough on the policy of "one country, two systems." Some other people, or even the majority, are similar to Uncle Cheuk, i.e. they are unconcerned about politics.
“The Death of Woman Wang”, written by Chinese historian Jonathan Spence, is a book recounting the harsh realities facing citizens of Tancheng country, Shandong Province, Qing controlled China in the late 17th century. Using various primary sources, Spence describes some of the hardships and sorrow that the people of Tancheng faced. From natural disasters, poor leadership, banditry, and invasions, the citizens of Tancheng struggled to survive in a devastated and changing world around them. On its own, “Woman Wang” is an insightful snapshot of one of the worst-off counties in imperial Qing China, however when taking a step back and weaving in an understanding of long held Chinese traditions, there is a greater understanding what happened in
Xinran looked at Tibet through a lens of sanctity and love. Ma Jian took his experiences and his imagination to form five short stories dealing with different topics. Both authors use the title of their book to give readers a hint of what the book is about and see how the title intertwines with the text. Each book gives you a different perspective and helps you form your own lens on Tibetan culture.
“It was not easy to live in Shanghai” (Anyi 137). This line, echoed throughout Wang Anyi 's short piece “The Destination” is the glowing heartbeat of the story. A refrain filled with both longing and sadness, it hints at the many struggles faced by thousands upon thousands trying to get by in the city of Shanghai. One of these lost souls, the protagonist, Chen Xin, was one of the many youths taken from his family and sent to live the in the countryside during the Cultural Revolution. Ten years after the fact, Chen Xin views the repercussions of the Cultural Revolution internally and externally as he processes the changes that both he, and his hometown have over-gone in the past ten years. Devastatingly, he comes to the conclusion that there is no going back to the time of his childhood, and his fond memories of Shanghai exist solely in memory. This is in large part is due to the changes brought on by the Cultural Revolution. These effects of the Cultural Revolution are a central theme to the story; with repercussions seen on a cultural level, as well as a personal one.
In his 1937 film Street Angel, Yuan explores the inequities facing Shanghai’s urban proletariat, an often-overlooked dimension of Chinese society. The popular imagination more readily envisions the agrarian systems that governed China before 1919 and after 1949, but capitalism thrived in Shanghai during that thirty-year buffer between feudalism and Communism. This flirtation with the free market engendered an urban working class, which faced tribulations and injustices that supplied Shanghai’s leftist filmmakers with ample subject matter. Restrained by Kuomintang censorship from directly attacking Chinese capitalism, Yuan employs melodrama to expose Street Angel’s bourgeois audience to the plight of the urban poor. Yuan presents capitalist Shanghai as a binary and deeply unequal society, at odds with the “more pluralistic sense of cosmopolitanism” desired by leftist filmmakers of the 1930s (Pang 62).
Blecher, Marc. China Against The Tides: Restructuring through Revolution, Radicalism, and Reform. 3rd ed. New York: Continuum, 2010. Print.
This part is divided into two sub-topics. The first sub-topic offers a summary of the book and contains spoilers. The second sub-topic summarizes the film. Both summaries incorporate key events in both form...
2. The first reason for this thesis stems from the point of view used in the story. The point of view exemplified is one of third person, more specifically one who is omniscient. The story’s message could not be conveyed from the first person, due to the fact that virtually everyone in the writing at hand is not only unable, but unwilling to figure out the true nature of their surroundings.
There is no better way to learn about China's communist revolution than to live it through the eyes of an innocent child whose experiences were based on the author's first-hand experience. Readers learn how every aspect of an individual's life was changed, mostly for the worst during this time. You will also learn why and how Chairman Mao launched the revolution initially, to maintain the communist system he worked hard to create in the 1950's. As the story of Ling unfolded, I realized how it boiled down to people's struggle for existence and survival during Mao's reign, and how lucky we are to have freedom and justice in the United States; values no one should ever take for
The theme of this book is that the human capacity to adapt to and find happiness in the most difficult circumstances. Each character in the novel shows this in their way. For instance, their family is randomly taken from their home and forced to work but they still remain a close nit family. In addition, they even manage to stick together after being separated for one of their own. These show how even in the darkest time they still manage to find a glimmer of hope and they pursued on.
Hong Kong has always remained a very unique city, one which is said to have ‘a Western past, an Eastern future’. Since its colonisation by the British in the 1860s, it has maintained to a very large extent its Chinese identity and its connection to its Motherland, while at the same time, has frequent contact with the Western world, politically, economically, and culturally. Hong Kong’s unique position has made the city a vibrant international metropolis that acts as a bridge between East and West. Yet after it was returned to China in 1997, this former British colony has been constantly reassessing its British past, struggling to find its new position and redefining its identity.
Both novel and short story collection reflect the fear of a past being unexplored and left behind. They express deep concern about a lost generation of Chinese-Americans and look desperately for the ignored, shut out past as a result.
The integrity within Chinas national identity is said to be ephemeral changing since the archaic China. After The Treaty of Nanjing (1842-1997) was signed to end the first Opium war, HK became a crown colony of the Great British Empire (GBE) on a lease for 99 years. China had become lost, what was once part of their nation’s identity had been taken. People of Kowloon began to lose their traditions, and their culture was beginning to disappear with new ports opening bringing Western products into China. HK horror between 1842 and 1997 has arguably been influenced by Western cinema – “It has been argued that Western film critics are simply asserting a kind of cultural imperialism by imposing their own perspectives on non-western film” – Kaplan, A. E. (1997). Looking for the other : Feminism, film, and the imperial gaze. New York: Routledge. A Chinese Ghost story is a narrative about the unrequited love Ling Choi San shares with a ghost (Lip Siu Sin) who has the intentions to kill. Can the differential dominance in these characters be a replica of the relationship between Britain and HK? “It’s a shame you came to the wrong place, otherwise you wouldn’t have to die such a wrongful death” – A Chinese Ghost Story, Lip Siu Sin. This quote can relate to what China believed, that Great Britain knew the ascendancy of HK was great, therefore they made it part of the GBE. The scen...
The short story by Eileen Chang fully reflected the turmoil in China during the Japanese occupation in the 1940s. For decades, Japan has been trying to dominate China with incidents like the first Sino-Japanese war in 1894 where the two powers fought each other for the control of Korea. When Japan attacked Shanghai in what was known as the Battle of Shanghai in 28 January 1932, student bodies fought back and that resulted in the second Sino-Japanese war in history. Understandably the people of 1940s had extreme hatred for the Japanese due to the violence that Japanese military exercised on the country and its citizens. Strained political relationships in the city led to countless assassinations of Chinese government officials who worked ...
Cheng, Nien. Life and Death in Shanghai. New York, New York: The Penguin Group, 1986.
Hsueh, Chun- tu, The Chinese Revolution of 1911: New Perspectives (Hong Kong: Joint _____Publishing Co., 1986), pp.1-15, 119-131, 139-171