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Chinese Shock of the Anthropocene pp 57–79Cite as

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Recognition, Reinhabitation, and Recreation: Engaging Nature in Hong Kong Literature

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Abstract

In a fast changing place like Hong Kong whose landscape is always under large-scale urban development and infrastructure projects, the notion of nature would always be a site for literary interrogation. The booming days of social construction and economic transformation, that is, the 1970s, was the time when people in Hong Kong showed their identification with the city while at the same time were alienated from nature. Since then, Hong Kong writers have tried to engage nature in their literary imagination of the relationship between humans and landscape. I put forward in this chapter the three modes of engaging nature in Hong Kong literature, that is, recognition, reinhabitation, and recreation. By recognition I mean to re-cognise what nature is—to acquire new knowledge about nature; by reinhabitation I mean a person adjusting their relationship towards nature based on the new knowledge they acquire during their engagement with nature; by recreation I point to the spaces in which people can recreate and re-create themselves, to have enjoyment in nature while reorienting their relationship with society. The discussion focuses on Hong Kong writers like Wu Xubin, Xi Xim, and Dung Kai-cheung to see how they, in the face of large-scale urbanisation of their hometowns, develop a new understanding of their relationship with nature and reshape their awareness of the interdependency between humans and nature.

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  • DOI: 10.1007/978-981-13-6685-7_4
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Notes

  1. 1.

    See Nan Guo, “Xianggang de nanmin wenxue” [The Refugee Literature of Hong Kong], Wenxun zazhi 20 (October, 1985): 32–37.

  2. 2.

    See Ji Hongfang, Xianggang nanlai zuojia de shenfen jiangou [Identity Construction of Hong Kong Southbound Writers] (Beijing: China Social Sciences Press, 2007), 157–158.

  3. 3.

    See Esther Mee-kwan Cheung, Crisis and Identity: Representations of Nation and Home in Hong Kong Cultural Imaginary (PhD Diss.: The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1997), 54.

  4. 4.

    Xixi, Wo Cheng [My City] (Hong Kong: Suye, 1996). Chan Chi-tak elucidates how My City interrogates the idea of citizenship against that of nationality, and explores the sense of belonging of the Hong Kong people as evoked in the story. See Chan Chi-tak, Jieti wocheng: Xianggang wenxue 1950–2005 [Disintegrate My City: Hong Kong Literature 1950–2005] (Hong Kong: Arcadia Press Ltd., 2009), 149–158.

  5. 5.

    See Mary Shuk-han Wong, Nüxing shuxie: dian ying yu wenzue [Female Writings: Film and Literature] (Hong Kong: Qingwen, 1997), 13.

  6. 6.

    Esther Mee-kwan Cheung, Crisis and Identity, 59.

  7. 7.

    See Liu Yichang, “The Short Stories of Xubin,” in Bison, trans., Ip Chi-yin (Hong Kong: Renditions Paperbacks, 2016), 7–9.

  8. 8.

    See Chung Ling, “Xianggang nüxing xiaoshuojia bixai de shikong he ganxing” [Time, Space and Sensibility in the Fiction of Hong Kong Women Writers], in Xianggang wenxue tanshang [A Study of Hong Kong Literature], ed., Chen Bingliang (Hong Kong: Joint Publishing Co. Ltd., 1991), 55.

  9. 9.

    Chen Bingliang, “Zai meng yu chenmo zhijian: Wu Xubin xiaoshou sitan” [Between Dreams and Silence: A Preliminary Study of Wu Xubin’s Fiction], Xianggang wenxue tanxiang [A Study of Hong Kong Literature], in ed., Chen Bingliang (Hong Kong: Joint Publishing Co. Ltd., 1991), 239.

  10. 10.

    The mountain is a core symbol in Wu’s works. In an interview, she discusses the reason for her fondness for mountains: “I like sublime things. The mountain is vast and grand, and is a collection of unknown but beautiful elements. The characters in my novels pursue the beautiful world in the mountains.” Mountains here are described as beautiful. See Zhou Guowei, “Wu Xubin fangwen ji” [Interview: Wu Xubin], Luopan 1 (December, 1976): 14.

  11. 11.

    Lo Kwai-Cheung, Tade zaide: fanxun wenxue de pinglun [The Foreign and the Local: Literary Criticism] (Hong Kong: Cosmos Books Ltd., 2008), 225.

  12. 12.

    Xubin, “Stone” in Bison, trans., Diana Yeu, 20.

  13. 13.

    Lo Kwai-Cheung, Tadi zaidi: fangxun wenxue de pinglun, 221.

  14. 14.

    Gilles Deleuze and Caire Parnet, Dialogues (London: Athlone Press, 1987), 2.

  15. 15.

    Xubin, “Stone,” 20. My emphasis.

  16. 16.

    Lo Kwai-Cheung, Crossing Boundaries: A Study of Modern Hong Kong Fiction from the Fifties to the Eighties (MPhil. Diss.: University of Hong Kong, 1990), 97.

  17. 17.

    Lo Kwai-Cheung, Tadi zaidi, 222.

  18. 18.

    Chung Ling “Xianggang nüxing xiaoshuojia,” 56.

  19. 19.

    Xubin, “Stone,” 28.

  20. 20.

    Luo Feng, Qingwu chaoyue huangxian: Xianggang wenxue de shidai jiren [Please Stand Behind the Yellow Line: Traces of Time in Hong Kong Literature] (Hong Kong: Wenhua gongfang, 2008), 85.

  21. 21.

    Lawrence Buell, The Future of Environmental Criticism: Environmental Crisis and Literary Imagination (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2005), 69–70.

  22. 22.

    Greg Garrard, Ecocriticism (London and New York: Routledge, 2004), 108.

  23. 23.

    Gary Snyder, A Place in Space: Ethics, Aesthetics, and Watersheds: New and Selected Prose (Washington, D.C.: Counterpoint, 1995), 185.

  24. 24.

    Greg Garrard, Ecocriticism, 188.

  25. 25.

    Xixi, Huzi you lian [Bearded Face] (Taipei: Hongfan, 1986), 39–80. For the English translation, I refer to Eva Hung, trans., “The Story of Fertile Town,” in Marvels of a Floating City, ed., Eva Hung (Hong Kong: The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1997), 29–64.

  26. 26.

    See, for example, Liu Su, “Xiang Xixi zheyang de Xianggang nü zuojia” [A Hong Kong Female Writer like Xixi], Dushu 114 (1988): 150; Yukiko Nishino “Kaifang de gushi: Xixi zuopin pingxi” [Open Ended Stories: Analysis of Xixi’s Works] in Huopo fenfan de Xianggang wenxue: 1999 nian Xianggang wenxue guoji yantaohui lunwenji [Hong Kong Literature – Lively and Diverse: Anthology of 1999 Hong Kong Literature International Conference], ed., Huang Weiliang (Hong Kong: Hong Kong Chinese University Press, 2000), 544; and Chan Yin-ha, Fanpan yu duihua: lun Xixi de xiaoshuo [Rebellion and Dialogue: On Xixi’s novel] (Hong Kong: South China Research Center, 2000), 29.

  27. 27.

    Different scholars include different stories into the Fertile Town Series. Eva Hung and Esther Mee-kwan Cheung consider “The Story of Fertile Town,” “Town Curse,” “The Fertile Town Chalk Circle” and Flying Carpet as the Fertile Town Series while counting “Marvels of a Floating City,” “The Case of Mary,” and “Delights of the Universe: a Supplement” as related stories. Chan Kit-yee includes all the above stories as well as “Apple” in the series. See Esther Mee-kwan Cheung, Crisis and Identity, 167; Eva Hung, “Introduction,” in Marvels of a Floating City and Other Stories (Hong Kong: The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1997), xix; and Chan Kit-yee, Yuedu Feituzhen: lun Xixi de xiaoshuo xushi [Reading Fertile Town: On the Narrative Strategies of Xixi’s Novel] (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1998), chapter 1.

  28. 28.

    See Daisy Sheung-yuen Ng, “Xixi and Tales of Hong Kong,” in The Columbia Companion to Modern East Asian Literature, ed., Joshua S. Mostow (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003), 582–583.

  29. 29.

    This mode of running business, that is, living space and working space coexist together in one house, was very popular in Hong Kong.

  30. 30.

    See Xixi, “The Story of Fertile Town,” 33–34.

  31. 31.

    See Martin Heidegger, “The Question Concerning Technology” in Basic Writings (New York: Harper & Row, 1977), 283–317.

  32. 32.

    Xixi, “The Story of Fertile Town,” 64.

  33. 33.

    Eva Hung, “Introduction,” p. xv.

  34. 34.

    For the heteroglossical effect in Xixi’s polyphonic novel, see Chan Yin-ha, Fanpan yu duihua, chapter 3; also see Daisy Sheung-yuen Ng, “Xixi and Tales of Hong Kong,” 580.

  35. 35.

    See Esther Mee-kwan Cheung, Crisis and Identity, 178.

  36. 36.

    Chan Yin-ha, Fanpan yu duihua, 57.

  37. 37.

    Jonathan Bate, The Song of the Earth (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2000), 63. My emphasis.

  38. 38.

    See Bate, The Song of the Earth, 63–64, 132–136.

  39. 39.

    Xixi, Xiang wo zheyang de yige nüzi [A Girl like Me] (Taipei: Hongfan, 1984), 37–41.

  40. 40.

    Chan Yin-ha, Fanpan yu duihua, 46.

  41. 41.

    Chan Yin-ha, Fanpan yu duihua, 48.

  42. 42.

    See Dung Kai-cheung, Anzhuozhenni [Androgyny] (Taipei: Unitas Publishing Co., 1996), 17.

  43. 43.

    When the story was first published in 1996, many critics analysed it from a feminist perspective. See Shiouh-Jen Shyuu, “Huigui nüxing benzhi de wutuobang jiangou: lun Dong Qizhang ‘Anzhuozhenni’ de cixiong tongti yishi” [Back to Feminine Essential Utopia Construction: Discuss the Hermaphrodite Consciousness of Doong Chii-Jang’s “Androgyny”] Journal of Taipei Municipal Teachers College 29 (March 1998): 143–155; Mei Jialing, “Yue du ‘Anzhuozhenni’: cixiong tongti/nütongzhi/yuyan jianguo” [Reading “Androgyny”: Hermaphrodite/Lesbian/Discursive Formation], in Xingbie lunshu yu Taiwan xiaoshuo [Gender Discourse and Taiwan Novels], ed., Mei Jialing (Taipei: Rye Field Publishing Co., 2000), 249–277; Ai Xiaoming, “Cixiongtongti: xing yu lei zhi xiangxiang” [Androgyny: The Imagination of Sexuality and Lei], Zhongshan daxue xuebao (shehui kexue ban) 3 (1998): 50–57; Tan Zhinming, “Ziwo aiyu yu leyuan huigui: lun Dong Qizhang ‘Anzhuozhenni’” [The Return of Narcissistic Sexuality and Paradise: On Dong Qizhang’s ‘Androgyny’], in Xingtanxieying: Chen Bingliang jiaoshou rongxiu jinian wenxue yanyiu lunwenji [Collection of Profession and Outstanding: Prof. Chen Bingliang], ed., Xingtanxiejing bianji weiyuanhui (Hong Kong: Wenxing, 2001), 337–370.

  44. 44.

    Dung Kai-cheung, Anzhuozhenni, 34.

  45. 45.

    Dung Kai-cheung, Anzhuozhenni, 15.

  46. 46.

    Dung Kai-cheung, Anzhuozhenni, 60.

  47. 47.

    Li Wan “‘Anzhuozhenni’ de youhuo” [The Seduction of “Androgyny”], Dushuren 16 (June 1996), 31. Li Wan talks about keys because in the story the two men use keys to “break” into the protagonist’s private space.

  48. 48.

    Dung Kai-cheung, Anzhuozhenni, 67.

  49. 49.

    Dung Kai-cheung, Anzhuozhenni, 73.

  50. 50.

    Chen Lifen interprets the silence of androgyny in a different way. She argues that “androgyny, therefore, is the ultimate symbol of madness. She surpasses all the theories and discourses and silence is her language.” It means that the silence of androgyny is outside any discursive articulation and theorisation, and even out of any text, including Dung Kai-cheung’s own story. See Chen Lifen, Xiandai wenxue yu wenhua xiangxiang: cong Taiwan dao Xianggang [Modern Literature and Cultural Imagination: From Taiwan to Hong Kong] (Taipei: Bookman Books Ltd., 2000), 147–148.

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  1. Hong Kong Baptist University, Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong

    Enoch Yee-Lok Tam

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  1. Department of Humanities and Creative Writing, Hong Kong Baptist University, Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong

    Prof. Kwai-Cheung Lo

  2. Hong Kong Baptist University, Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong

    Jessica Yeung

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Tam, E.YL. (2019). Recognition, Reinhabitation, and Recreation: Engaging Nature in Hong Kong Literature. In: Lo, KC., Yeung, J. (eds) Chinese Shock of the Anthropocene. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-6685-7_4

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