可不可以說我鄉是… (Chinese version) - Can We Say Our Hometown Is… (English version, Translation by Jennifer Feeley)
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Author’s Introduction
1The question of “what it means to be a Hongkonger” is not one that is easy to answer, and its possible answers are definitely not as simple as the geographic location of one’s birth or residence. The city has been ruled by different nations at different points in history, leaving distinct legacies in its inhabitants’ political, social, cultural and linguistic conventions. The city’s culture is constantly influenced by traditional Chinese values and new ideas from around the world, through popular culture, imported goods, international cuisine and so much more. The frequent movement of residents into and out of the city while retaining personal relationships with their hometown is another factor that makes Hong Kong a fascinating collage of influences from various sources, coming together to form the unique image of “Hong Kong''. In my own writing, I find myself always circling back to the question of “what it means to be a Hongkonger” one way or another.
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“Can We Say Our Hometown Is” is my attempt to make a sketch of the daily life of Hongkongers living overseas. When I was in London pursuing a MA in English, life in a foreign country stripped away from my surroundings everything I was used to in Hong Kong: the food, the Cantonese language, the climate, the popular culture, the human relationships. Everything felt new and required some getting used to. Still, I seemed to blend in well enough with the cosmopolitan demographic of central London that people rarely reminded me of my status as a foreigner. It was only when I interacted with my classmate and her family from Hong Kong that our identities as Hongkongers became obvious. When I was with them, we could speak Cantonese and dive right into all of the idioms and puns of our mother tongue without having to translate ourselves into a foreign language. The Mid-Autumn Festival became meaningful again when we celebrated it together in a city where we found ourselves part of the “ethnic minorities”. Our afternoon tea consisting of home-made Hong Kong style daan tat and milk tea filled a void we brought with us from “home”. Shared appreciation for the same Japanese cartoon characters we grew up with and nostalgic items that emigrated with them to the UK pointed towards our upbringing in the same city during the same era.
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Is it possible for us to define our hometown by matters other than politics and geography, but by lived experiences, Cantonese language, food, and the warmth of a friend’s mother inviting you to “mooch a meal” at their family home? With “Can We Say Our Hometown Is”, I wanted to record these moments when our shared traits and memories as Hongkongers were brought to the forefront in each others’ company, and the ways through which this family living in diaspora kept elements of Hong Kong alive in their homes.
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With increasing emigration and the city’s rapid and drastic changes, the desire to preserve memories of Hong Kong became more urgent and obvious. In the past few years, authors, readers and publishers have been very interested in place-writing and stories about the history of Hong Kong, with books recording personal memories and images of local neighbourhoods topping best-selling charts in independent bookstores. “Deep-Rooted” was written during this time in response to an invitation from the Hong Kong House of Literature’s “Writing Hong Kong” initiative, which gathered creative writing about different streets of Hong Kong from established writers and the general public.
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I chose to write about Bonham Road, a winding street in a traditionally middle-class neighbourhood on the western side of Hong Kong Island. A key feature of this road is that it used to be the home of several “stonewall trees''. Many old Banyan trees in Hong Kong grow from crevices in old stone walls, sometimes raising concerns over safety as the deep and aggressive roots can weaken the structural integrity of the walls. In 2018, some of the stonewall trees near St. Stephen’s Girls’ College fell after a storm, causing injury to a newspaper seller on Bonham Road. Soon after the incident, the remaining stonewall trees along the road were removed as a safety precaution, yet many people felt it was unnecessary to cut down these otherwise healthy and very beloved old trees. I was saddened by the death of the trees, and wanted to keep a record of them in the form of a story so that the future generation would know that they once stood along Bonham Road, watching over students from Kindergarten to University.
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In my mind, Bonham Road has always been associated with Hongkongers’ obsession with education. Many famous schools are in the area along with The University of Hong Kong, one of the most prestigious universities in the city, with English as its official medium of instruction. Many locals believe that obtaining a university degree is one of the most important goals for their children, and pursuing a degree overseas is a very popular thing to do as well. In “Deep-Rooted”, the main character’s fiancé and her maid of honour both went to university overseas. Their movements between Hong Kong and other countries meant very different things to each character at different points of their lives, from pursuing higher education in the world’s top universities to leaving a romantic relationship behind for a new life in the UK. Education, employment, and family are all reasons for the protagonists’ migration. With “Deep-Rooted”, I wanted to capture the atmosphere of a globally mobile middle-class, and to explore how collective and personal memories function in relation to vanishing physical landmarks.
可不可以說我鄉是…(Chinese version)
7在我們討論「冬瓜豆腐」和「三長兩短」的喻意和起源時,我又再次意識到我們都來自香港。那時我們捧著飯碗、拿著塑膠筷子吃著妳媽媽準備的炒菜和蒸魚,討論起我來倫敦進修前研究過的廣東話委婉詞;不用戴眼鏡的妳那晚聽著剛從 Oxford Street 拿到新眼鏡的我、和同樣「四眼」的妳媽媽訴說為什麼在香港配近視眼鏡的師傅很可能比英國的視光師熟練,臉上露出了一種看著異國人談外國生活習俗的陌生感。我在倫敦生活的日子前前後後加起來已有一年多,一般生活起居的新鮮感已經消褪,和戴眼鏡的生活有點像,現在只會留意到鏡片起霧、被雨沾濕和度數不對的時刻。而在聖誕來臨前,已經移居英國十多年的妳往妳的輪椅上掛滿彩燈,我想這樣有型的背影如果出現在香港街頭一定會引來許多目光,只是妳和整個有型的倫敦一樣,早就已經習以為常了吧。
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如果家鄉是「黐餐」
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在這裡新認識的英國人朋友說我的東方面孔容易招來街上的種族歧視,可是在滿有來自五湖四海的人的倫敦街上行走時,我常常忘記我的長相清楚地標示出我並非「西人」。我彷彿是一個裝在西班牙品牌的大衣、蘇格蘭製茄士咩頸巾、日本品牌牛仔褲和英國品牌皮靴裡的幽靈(那些因資本主義而在香港和倫敦都可以買到的衣物), 以比一般倫敦人快的腳步逆風前進,看不見披在腦後的天然長黑髮(那在東方被視為女鬼特徵、在「鬼佬」眼中是日本動漫女高中生的模樣),也不在意輪廓相對扁平、使我被以前在倫敦認識的戀人稱為「瞇眼亞洲人」(squinty-eye Asian)的面容,自覺透明得無法被任何人定義身份或國籍或城籍或鄉下為何。因為我不在乎、路人也不在乎我來自哪裡,我便可以抓緊時間看見倫敦的美麗,那些我們在課堂裡讀過的十九世紀中至今的英語文學裡書寫過的街區和人文——並握著在 Victoria train station 買來的熱茶擠在早上的通勤人潮裡趕路回校。
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只是回到同是來自香港的舌頭面前,那些在街頭被我遺忘了香港特質便忽然變得鮮明。比如英國的大學在中秋節前一星期的九月底開學,硬生生把隻身來留學的我從聚滿家人和朋友的香港拔起移到外國的月亮下;這時妳第一次邀我到妳的宿舍去和妳媽媽一起製作港式蛋撻(英國原裝的 egg custard tart 完全比不上港式蛋撻的細緻)、用煉奶泡熱奶茶(港式煉奶奶茶比英式鮮奶奶茶濃滑得多了),又讓我留下吃叉燒炒蛋和糖水、並在晚飯後把兩個雙黃白蓮蓉月餅交到我手裡。那天我便彷彿穿過了隨意門,回到我所熟悉的香港裡。
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可不可以說,我們的家鄉就是月餅、廣東話和同學媽媽準備的飯後果?我想起我在香港讀中學時常常跑到好友智希的家裡看漫畫,到了晚上也常常被她媽媽留下來「癡餐」,然後在我回家前往我手裡塞些甜酸蕎頭和𣏴㮌醬讓我帶給我母嚐嚐。我中學時代的同學媽媽們對我都義無反顧地親切,像每次見面都送我手作麵包糕餅的妳媽媽一樣大方。妳大概也記得香港的房子比英國的小很多吧,可是我朋友們的媽媽總是樂於讓我不時打擾、和朋友們一起做功課或看《哈利波特》電影 VCD(是的第一集電影推出時VCD仍然是主流)再留下來吃晚飯;在因為「土地問題」而使許多人無法輕鬆地戀愛、結婚和交配繁殖的香港,和女兒的同學分享住家空間便顯得更加慷慨。在英國讀中學的妳不知道有沒有這樣被同學母親招待的經驗呢?聖誕節在妳家當 house guest 時,我又像坐上了時光機,回到中學時的同學家裡。
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如果家鄉是海洋公園家庭照
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妳位於Kent的老家和我中學同學們的家都很像,都有一座直身鋼琴、一屋暖色的黃光燈,照見放在鋼琴上的妳們的童年照片,攝於海洋公園的登山纜車前或澳洲的抱樹熊活動裡。在其中一個相框裡妳挽著穿牛津大學畢業袍的哥哥的手,風把妳的長髮美麗地揚起、陽光把妳媽媽的變色鏡片曬黑,妳哥哥咧齒而笑得看不見眼睛的模樣,跟那天在gelato店他看見「抵食夾大件」的豪華芒果新地一樣徹底地快樂。妳媽媽大概是把對妳的愛護分了一些給我:她把小暖爐和電暖氈搬進妳使用輪椅以前的房間裡給我,房間裡的書架上放了幾本應該屬於她的中醫、穴位和推拿書, 後來我雙手神經失序時她二話不說地把我手抱在懷裡仔細的揉捏,我想她每次給妳按摩雙腿時大概也是同樣的堅強而溫柔吧(我的母親也學過中醫穴位和按摩,也在我那精瘦的弟弟身上練習過)。大概我們這一代於回歸前後在香港出生的孩子,都有寵愛我們的母親帶著我們的那一兩個兄弟姊妹去過海洋公園、坐過仍使用金屬餐具的飛機去過外國,而相對寡言的父親則站在鏡頭的後面,把日後會成為童年照的影像用菲林相機拍下來、拿去曬相舖、裝飾在客廳裡。可不可以說這樣的家庭照就是我們共同的香港記憶?畢竟這樣的家庭關係,不是每個「瞇眼亞洲人」都共有;有些地方幾個世代裡的人都沒有兄弟姊妹呢。
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那位於樓上的房間床上鋪著和我小時候用的一模一樣的Sanrio卡通床單,樓下以客廳改建而成的妳的房間裡則放滿了許多由香港陪伴妳至今的毛公仔。妳哥哥也和我的眾多朋友們一樣,喜歡日本動漫和卡通人物;妳的親人給妳寄來的那個鬆馳熊形鬆餅模具,也讓我們三個香港兒童一起吃到了特別快樂的早餐。可不可以說我們童年的另一個共通點就是明明活在香港,卻被日本卡通和點心圍繞?那樣的童年使我現在仍常在英國被誤認作日本人,或是需和外國人解釋為什麼我明明不是日本人卻常常在煮日式料理。可不可以說,在我們這一代以前, 香港已是日本流行文化和飲食文化的殖民地?就算到了外國留學,我的朋友們從香港寄給我的禮物往往是日本文具和零食;倫敦和香港一樣有許多日本料理快餐店,我的室友把她工作的店裡賣不完的三文魚壽司帶回來請我吃時,我總覺得我又回到了滿街「日本嘢」的香港,以曲折的方式解了一種奇怪的鄉愁 。
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香港人許多年前便喜歡穿越各國的國境,有些人留下,有些人回歸。已離開香港十多年的妳說過妳已經漸漸忘了許多中文字的讀音和模樣,只是來自我們共同的家鄉的記憶,除了紀錄在語言裡也記錄在味蕾上,在童年記憶和家庭裡,那些比靈魂更無形但更堅定持久的地方。香港作為我鄉也許真像馬格列特(Magritte)所畫的那頂著一座浮城的石,難以追溯單一或清晰的起源或未來,但那海景和地心引力的角度給那些居民塑出好多看不見的共通點,讓他們到其他或許有根的城裡時才赫然發現。
16(原刊於《明報》2016年4月28日)
Can We Say Our Hometown Is… (English version)
17As we deliberated the metaphorical meanings and origins of the expressions “winter melon and tofu” and “three long and two short,” both alluding to death, I once again became aware that we are all from Hong Kong. At the time, we were holding our rice bowls, using plastic chopsticks to eat the stir-fried dishes and steamed fish prepared by your mum, discussing the Cantonese euphemisms I’d researched before coming to London for advanced studies. That night, you, who doesn’t need to wear glasses, listened to me, who’d just purchased a new pair from Oxford Street, telling your mum, who, like me, is also “four-eyed,” why the craftsmen in Hong Kong who fit glasses for the nearsighted might be more skilled than British optometrists, a sense of strangeness crossing your face as though you were watching people from another country chatting about foreign lifestyles and customs. I’ve been living in London for a combined total of more than a year, and the novelty of daily life has faded. It’s a bit like life wearing glasses––now only noticing those moments when the lenses fog up or get wet in the rain, or when the prescription is wrong. Before Christmas, you, who’ve already lived in the UK for more than a decade, festooned your wheelchair with colorful lights. I think that such a stylish back view would surely attract a lot of attention if it were to appear on the streets of Hong Kong, but both you and all of stylish London are long used to it.
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If Our Hometown Is “Mooching a Meal”
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My new British friends here claim that my East Asian face makes me vulnerable to racism while out in public, but as I wander the streets of London, teeming with people from all corners of the world, I often forget that my features clearly indicate that I’m not a “Westerner.” It’s as though I’m a ghost in a Spanish overcoat, a Scottish cashmere scarf, Japanese jeans, and English leather boots (clothing that, thanks to capitalism, can be purchased in both Hong Kong and London), walking against the wind at a pace faster than the average Londoner, unable to see my naturally long black hair draped behind my head (which, in the East, is regarded as a characteristic of female ghosts, while in the eyes of gweilos, it’s associated with the appearance of high school girls in Japanese anime), unconcerned about my relatively flat facial features, which prompted an ex-lover to call me a “squinty-eyed Asian,” feeling so transparent that no one can define my identity, nationality, city of residence, or hometown. Because it doesn’t matter to me, or to the people on the street, I can seize the time to admire London’s beauty, the neighborhoods and culture written about in English literature from the mid-nineteenth century to the present that we read about in class, then squeeze into the surge of morning commuters, rushing off to school holding a hot tea bought at Victoria train station.
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It is only when I return to the company of other tongues from Hong Kong that all of those Hong Kong characteristics I’ve forgotten on the streets suddenly become distinct. For example, British universities start classes at the end of September, one week before the Mid-Autumn Festival, forcibly uprooting me, who is studying abroad alone, from a Hong Kong filled with family and friends, and transplanting me beneath a foreign moon; it was then that you first invited me to your dormitory to make Hong Kong-style daan taat with your mum (the original English egg custard tart can’t compare at all to the delicacy of the Hong Kong-style egg tart) and brew hot milk tea with condensed milk (Hong Kong-style milk tea with condensed milk is much creamier than English tea with fresh milk), welcoming me to stay and eat char siu pork stir-fried with eggs and tong sui dessert soup, placing two double-yolk white lotus seed paste mooncakes in my hands after dinner. That day, it was as if I’d passed through Doraemon’s Anywhere Door and been swept back to the Hong Kong I know so well.
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Can we say our hometown is the product of mooncakes, the Cantonese language, and a meal prepared by a classmate’s mum? I remember when I was in secondary school in Hong Kong, I often went to my good friend Ena’s home to read manga. In the evenings, her mum regularly invited me to stay and “mooch a meal,” and before I returned home, she’d stuff my hands with sweet-and-sour pickled Chinese onions and yellow mangosteen sauce for my mother to try. All of my secondary school classmates’ mums were unfailingly kind to me, as hospitable as your mum, who gives me homemade breads and cakes every time we meet. You probably remember that homes in Hong Kong are much smaller than those in the UK, but my friends’ mums were always happy to let me drop by every now and then to do homework with friends or watch the Harry Potter movie on VCD (yes, when the first movie came out, VCDs were still mainstream) and then stay for dinner. In Hong Kong, where the “land problem” makes it difficult for many people to easily date, marry, or procreate, sharing space with their daughter’s classmate was all the more generous. Have you, who spent your secondary school years in the UK, ever had the experience of being hosted like this by a classmate’s mother? When I was your family’s houseguest at Christmas, it was as though I was in a time machine, transported back to visiting a classmate’s home during my secondary school days.
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If Our Hometown is an Ocean Park Family Photo
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Your house in Kent is quite similar to the homes of my secondary school classmates, featuring an upright piano and bathed in warm yellow light, illuminating your childhood photos––taken in front of the Ocean Park cable car or during activities with Australian koalas––perched atop the piano. In one of the picture frames, you’re holding the hand of your older brother who wears an Oxford graduation gown, the wind beautifully tousling your long hair, sunlight darkening your mum’s color-changing lenses, your brother grinning so widely that you can’t see his eyes, as completely over the moon as he was that day at the gelato shop when he laid eyes on a “more bang for your buck” sumptuous mango sundae. Your mum has probably shared some of her love and care for you with me: she moved a small heater and electric blanket for me to use into the room that used to be yours before you needed a wheelchair, the shelves lined with books on traditional Chinese medicine, acupoints, and tuina massage that presumably belonged to her—later, when my hands suffered from a nerve disorder, without saying a word, she cradled them in her arms and carefully kneaded them. I suppose she was just as firm and gentle whenever she massaged your legs (my mother also learned about acupoints and massage in traditional Chinese medicine, practicing on my little brother who’s all skin and bones). Perhaps our generation of children born in Hong Kong around the time of the handover all have doting mothers who’ve taken us and our one or two siblings to Ocean Park and flown us abroad on planes still using metal cutlery, while our relatively reserved fathers stood behind the camera, shooting rolls of film that would later become our childhood photos, dropped off at the photo shop to be developed before adorning the living room. Can we say that such family photos are our shared memories of Hong Kong? After all, not every “squinty-eyed Asian” has such family relationships; in some places, people haven’t had siblings for generations.
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The bed in the upstairs room was covered in the same Sanrio sheets I used as a child. The downstairs living room had been converted into your room, filled with numerous stuffed animals that accompanied you from Hong Kong. Your older brother, like many of my friends, loves Japanese anime and cartoon characters; the Rilakkuma-shaped waffle maker that your relatives sent you allowed us three Hong Kong kids to enjoy an especially cheerful breakfast together. Can we say that another common feature of our childhood was being surrounded by Japanese cartoons and snacks, though we clearly lived in Hong Kong? To this day, such a childhood still frequently leads to me being mistaken for a Japanese person in the UK, or having to explain to foreigners why I often cook Japanese food even though I’m not Japanese. Can we say that before our generation, Hong Kong was already a colony of Japanese pop culture and culinary culture? Even while I’m studying abroad, the gifts that my friends send me from Hong Kong tend to be Japanese stationery and snacks. London, like Hong Kong, has many Japanese fast-food restaurants. When my roommate brings back unsold salmon sushi from her workplace for me to eat, I always feel like I’ve returned to Hong Kong, where the streets overflow with “Japanese stuff,” satisfying a peculiar kind of homesickness in a roundabout way.
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Hongkongers have enjoyed crossing national borders for many years; some have stayed abroad, and some have returned. You, who left Hong Kong over a decade ago, said that you’ve gradually forgotten the pronunciation and appearance of a number of Chinese characters, but the memories of our shared hometown aren’t only recorded in language but also etched on taste buds, in childhood recollections and families, places more intangible than the soul but more steadfast and enduring. As our hometown, perhaps Hong Kong is truly like the floating city rock painted by Magritte: it’s challenging to trace a single or clear origin or future, but the seascape and direction of the gravitational pull have molded numerous invisible commonalities among its residents, which they are shocked to unearth when they travel to other ostensibly more rooted cities.
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(Chinese text originally published in Ming Pao Weekly, 28 April, 2016)
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Référence électronique
黃怡 Wong Yi et Jennifer Feeley, « 可不可以說我鄉是… (Chinese version) - Can We Say Our Hometown Is… (English version, Translation by Jennifer Feeley) », Transtext(e)s Transcultures 跨文本跨文化 [En ligne], 18 | 2023, mis en ligne le 30 décembre 2023, consulté le 19 juillet 2025. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/transtexts/2490 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/12u22
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