Realism

Yesterday I picked up It's Not an All Night Fair by Indonesian writer Pramoedya Ananta Toer at a book store, before I headed off to my 4.30pm doctor appointment. In the introduction, editor and translator C. W. Watson included this apt reminder: 'Realism's question is: you've seen this, haven't you? But have you ever thought about it in this way?'

At the same time, an absurd incident was happening at the Lo Wu border crossing in HK. A group of 21 Hong Kongers - who signed the Charter 08 - staged a protest in support of Liu Xiaobo, the Chinese dissident who's jailed for 11 years for subversion (as mentioned in my last entry). The group was to enter the mainland to 'turn themselves in', since everyone who's involved with the charter should be arrested and tried if that's what happened to Liu. The protesters are mostly young people, including a 16-year-old student, and they kept live updates of their movements on Twitter for the public to follow. The local media was also shooting the procession.

Just as they're lining up to go through immigration - they're still in HK territory - the mainland cops crossed the control point, grabbed a few of the protesters by the neck, dragged them into Shenzhen territory where they were detained for four hours along with two HK reporters. According to the One Country Two Systems, the mainland cops' action was illegal - they're not allowed to do their job cross border - though of course their HK peers did nothing but watch yesterday. The protesters and reporters had their 'Return to Motherland' cards confiscated, while the pictures and video clips were erased. The HK police wouldn't entertain any of the Hong Kongers' complaints.

I take back what I said in my last entry about getting banned from entering China: I don't have to become a famous writer at all. I've also signed the Charter 08 and I only have to turn up at the border crossing with a protest sign, flash my Return to Motherland card and that'd be it. Whether this happens or not, I would continue to write and protest. For those of you who may be interested, go take a look at the online text of Charter 08. There's also the English version. As of today over 10,400 people have signed it. You can send an email with your name, location and profession to: xianzhang2008xianzhang@inbox.com, xianzhang2008@aol.com

Christmas Headline

Before I tell you about my Christmas niceties in HK, allow me to draw your attention to this utter disgrace that happened today in China. One of the country's most prominent dissidents Liu Xiaobo was sentenced to 11 years in jail this morning for 'inciting subversion of state power'. Jail is no alien place to Liu - he served a long sentence after his involvement in the pro-democracy protests in 1989. Yet he has remained an outspoke critic of the Communist Party; this time his crime was to have organized 'Charter 08', which called for political reforms in the country. The document was signed by many other intellectuals in the mainland and they've faced persecution to various degrees since. For details, read this article on Reuters.

It's no surprise that Communists would jail (if not gun down) anyone for advocating democracy. My feelings for China are complicated--I call her 'China' rather than 'mainland' since I can't emotionally identify my hometown as a Chinese city. China is a beautiful country to see, but I never want to go there because 1. it's close and it wouldn't feel like traveling; 2. I just don't want to embrace her. For three years I held a feature writer job at the HK branch of a state-owned English paper as 1. I needed a job; 2. contrary to what most people imagined, my job gave me plenty of freedom and editorial autonomy. All the while I continued to join rallies against totalitarian moves by the Chinese and HK governments.

That I'm out of the Castle now doesn't put me on a higher moral ground than I was. I'm a HK citizen who follows the news, goes on protests and whines in front of friends and on her blog about acts of injustice like the persecution of Liu Xiaobo. If you ask me how I truly feel though, I must say that one day if I got banned from visiting China for whatever reasons - dream of becoming a famous writer! - I don't think I'd care. Calling China my motherland sent a wave of confusion and anger up my spine and I cannot, will not concede. Give it another few hundred years and the country might open up. But for as long as the commies would arrest, shut away and erase dissidents and their families, I won't call her home.

* * *

In HK people celebrate Christmas with friends and lovers rather than families, and the main celebration falls on Christmas Eve. Crowds gather at popular spots like Star Ferry in Tsim Sha Tsui for the countdown--it can take a couple hours just to get out of the area since most of the roads are closed. My Christmas holidays have always been quiet. This year I met my friend Amy and her boyfriend Solomon for some adventures on Temple Street.


















Amy is a final year English major in HKU (which I also went to). Amy read my story 'Luke' over two years ago and got in touch. Since then we've become good friends. Or it's another way of saying we confide in each other a lot and share the same crazy streaks.


















Marcus and me at a dessert place. Marcus is an aspiring filmmaker and he gave me a book for Christmas--The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. Marcus is fascinated with my cat and loves to play with him. I said he could have Taro for a few days next time I go away.

The Enigma of Sleep

Taro in my last apartment. He just woke up from sleeping on the top of 'Sleep', a short story collection by Banana Yoshimoto.

Sunday morning I was naked and wet in the cold air. A moment of exposure and I caught a chill. I spent most of Monday dozing off over herbal tea and my manuscript. At dusk I went to sleep for twelve hours straight. When I awoke at 6am the light was yet to break. The Winter Solstice is here.

I have the most vivid dreams. Dreams of escape, violence, murder, of strange occurrences like black and white skulls disintegrating all on their own, rolling down the cliff I'm sitting on. In my dreams I've killed many people. I'm often on the run; futuristic looking guards with funny grins chase me down a building and when I turn around, I see only their heads hovering in the air like spirits who have come to tease me. I'm never scared; I find these twisted presences very amusing. I'm going on constant adventures in my sleep.

Often times I dream of things that come true, more or less. A group of people need my help; they'd appear and ask, 'Do you have time tomorrow?' One minute after I wake up there's the phone call. Or I'd embrace old friends I haven't thought about in years. Within a week I'd get a message. Or a girl friend I never talk to turns into a rocker as she never did in the past. Two days later she wants to borrow my Nirvana albums. By no means being superstitious, I believed people can pick things up. With me it happens when I'm sleeping.

* * *

On a different note, I'd like to quote an excerpt from Elizabeth Gilbert's blog, which I first read in the blog of fellow writer Rose Hunter.

"...The more important virtue for a writer, I believe, is self-forgiveness. Because your writing will always disappoint you... You will think: “I suck, I’m such a failure. I’m washed-up.” Continuing to write after that heartache of disappointment doesn’t take only discipline, but also self-forgiveness (which comes from a place of kind and encouraging and motherly love). The other thing to realize is that all writers think they suck. When I was writing “Eat, Pray, Love”, I had just as a strong a mantra of THIS SUCKS ringing through my head as anyone does when they write anything. But I had a clarion moment of truth during the process of that book. One day, when I was agonizing over how utterly bad my writing felt, I realized: “That’s actually not my problem.” The point I realized was this – I never promised the universe that I would write brilliantly; I only promised the universe that I would write. So I put my head down and sweated through it, as per my vows."

Reading this made me feel just a tad more motivated to go back to my novella. I'd give my best to any fiction I write. But did I ever promise the universe--or did the universe ever promise me--that I'd write something so damn good that it'd blow everyone's mind? What matters is that I'm here doing what I'm doing. The rest is to be forgiven!

Stop That Train

Today the Legislative Council (LegCo) was to debate and pass the funding for the HK section of the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-HK Express Rail Link (XRL). To my overseas readers, XRL is supposed to be this high-speed railway which connects HK with two neighboring mainland cities. To stop the government from robbing us--of our money, civil rights and dignity--over 1500 citizens staged a sit-in protest outside the LegCo this afternoon.


















A group of young protesters took turns to camp and walk outside the LegCo building, 24 hours a day in the last two days.

The XRL has caused a stir in my town in recent months. The cost is estimated at HK$66.9 billion (about US$8.6 billion), excluding the cost of some supplementary works that have yet to be factored in. The money amounts to 1/4 of the government's annual spending, to be taken out of our treasury. When completed XRL will be the world's most expensive railway, since the section will only be 26km in length. The official explanation is that XRL will strengthen economic ties across the border. The reality is that a handful of tycoons in HK who have strong connections with mainland businesses will profit from the deal. Some of the pro-government LegCo members are connected with or belong to these tycoon families. All they have to do is to raise their hands in approval, to get their slices of the cake.


















Shrines for the pro-government councilors and for the death of justice in HK.

The proposal of XRL is beyond intriguing to the HK residents. Why do we need this railway when there're already comprehensive, cheap and fast transportations between HK and the two mainland cities? Hop onto the West Rail - another government invention that has cost us a great deal of resources - and we'll cross the border in an hour. Or get the China Travel buses that stop all over the city starting from 6 am, Monday to Sunday. Who's going over to the West Kowloon district (an affluent area) to board the XRL? The rich local residents, no doubt--businessmen who can't bother to put mainland license plates on their cars and drive up to GZ or SZ. Don't ever dream the revenue from XRL will cover its cost--our government has always over-estimated the passenger flows of our railways, and taxpayers bear the burden for years to come.
























Who's going to pay for it this time? Every one of us, but some are losing their lifelong homes when the XRL graces the districts they inhabit. The villagers of Vegetable Garden in the New Territories, farmers who will lose their lands and livelihood for pathetic amounts of compensation. The big landowners get their fat checks, and the average farmers have nowhere to start again. Residents of Tai Kok Tsui, where some of the old buildings might collapse thanks to massive underground construction--and the government won't offer compensation unless the property owners hire an expert at their own expenses to prove the damage. Residents of Tsuen Wan and Kwai Fong, who will suffer severe air and noise pollution. These are densely populated areas, with young students walking (soon choking and squinting their eyes) down the streets.
























A 81-year-old lady from the Vegetable Garden.

True to its quasi-totalitarian vein, the government did its public consultation from Nov 2008 to Jan 2009, when few Hong Kongers had any clue about what XRL was. Minimal publicity and brief consultation period were the way to go. When the community and their specialists came up with an alternative proposal, which would save half of the estimate cost, the government rebuked it in one hour so the public couldn't discuss and think it through in their own time. As politics goes, the government is most efficient when democracy isn't part of the equation. To fight back, the HK public staged a series of rallies against XRL in the past couple months. Today was the showdown. The independent media appealed to the public to gather outside LegCo - some participants took half a day off work - to put pressure on the councilors.


















It was a cold day in HK (13C/55.4F). I went by myself, with my camera and a lot of anger. From 1.30pm the crowd surrounded the building, shouted, sang in rage but also in good humor. The noise was at times audible inside LegCo. The debate and Q&A went on much longer than planned as the pan-Democrats, and other councilors who have to rely on us voters raised an endless string of questions. At 7pm the financial affairs panel chairperson Emily Lau ended the session, which will be resumed on Jan 8. The pro-government guys are the majority in the LegCo and they'll eventually manage to pass the funding, but let's see how the government responds to the public actions in the coming days.


















Night falls. More protesters join after work. Everyone waits for the session to end, for news of a temporary victory.

Love Will Tear Us Apart

My close friends know I've been bad at breaking up with people. Calling it quits was a daunting task: Was I sure I wasn't letting go of something I shouldn't? The sequence was that I'd drift into distant and erratic behavior which drove the other person to cut ties. Half of the time I was surprised and sad. Guilt was an easy way out of self-absorption, the fact that you hadn't been paying attention. Being left commonly hooks people in the heart. Soon enough, I turned away and smiled.

Since my early adult years, I've had the most beautiful experiences in life around the times of my more significant break-ups. Friendships with creative, passionate souls like Julien and EC, who stay close to me to this date. Moments with men who reminded me of who I am and what I seek in love. This year I had my alter-ego, left the commie castle and started writing in a way I never did in the past. There're always thrills, hopes and truths to pursue in the future. Some people say it; I live it.

On a different note, I've been going through my favorite rock bands again these days. I have very diverse tastes in music, but at the end of the day I'm a rocker. Here's Joy Division's 'Love Will Tear Us Apart' on BBC's Peel sessions (1979). A very good version.

Click. Delete.

I awoke early in the morning, foggy with confusion over my interrupted sleep. There's not a lot I can tell you about why, how and what happens: my mind speeds through possibilities, rationales and decisions much faster than the reality takes place. As a fiction writer I delete or revise every line as it is born, over and over in a first draft. This doesn't look good; that doesn't ring true and I won't fall into the sentimentality of thinking I'm bigger than myself for just one second.

It'd be nice to say I'm a realist and I'm searching for truth at every moment of my life. But you and I know it comes down to that invisible nugget that we imagine but cannot hold in our palm.

Most people look for distractions and comfort along the way. I'm all for disruptions and drama. If I could take this innate need away, I wonder how life would move and manifest, what I'd accomplish and where I'd fail. Rather than contemplate the impossible, I should learn to cope with the constant aftermaths. Apparently I haven't--I spend time skirting over what transpires, what I don't want to do to move on to the next game, then jump into a conclusion that hasn't even crossed your mind.

The thing I do is to click the 'delete' button. I don't want to know what you think of me.

Days Like Today

When people hear about my taking a break from short stories to write a novella, some nod in approval and say, 'something more substantial.' Comments like this make me want to wring their necks. As I've said in so many words - in my blog, to my friends, in lectures - I'm a short fiction writer by temperament. A novel shows the development of a personality and the narrative of life, while a short story is revelation: the core of a personality, the moments when his world turns upside down. A good short story almost always leaves a void in the readers: What happens after the abrupt change? How do we part from the protagonist so quickly, and go on to seek the grief, compassion and understanding we've just experienced?

To call novel 'more substantial' than short fiction is, in my view at least, pure ignorance. The best short fictions give glimpses of humanity that are whole, astonishing and true as anything you'd find in a character in a novel. Only the short fiction writer chooses to depict the decisive moments that change someone's life and leaves the rest unsaid. To capture the dilemma of a person's soul in a short story - let's say 5000 words - is a real tough task. Some of the best fictions I've read encompass the society, history and even myths. Here's one example: 'Days Like Today' by Rachel Ingalls, an American author who's better known in her adopted home England.

























The 2000 collection consists of four stories and a novella that revolve around betrayal, sacrifice, family conflict and war. Ingalls creates a diverse set of characters and stories that are multi-dimensional, moving and utterly true. Some of the twists and turns in the stories would seem contrived in the hands of a lesser writer, but Ingalls is an exceptional story-teller and observer of human nature. Quite simply, the book delivers what you'd expect from great fiction: the extraordinary survival of love and hope, of what's impossible except in our heart and mind. It's a shame that Rachel Ingalls is so under-marketed (as many good works of short fiction, or just good authors are). If you're looking for something to read, pick up this book.