Chris Song’s Note: Lawrence Kwok-ling Pun’s 潘國靈 short story “Twenty Years Since Losing the City” 失城二十年 is a sequel to Wong Bik-wan’s 黃碧雲 canonical short story “Losing the City”, which gruesomely explores the despair Hongkongers felt upon the 1997 Handover and the disbelief in migration as any effective way out. Pun’s story explores what happened to the characters in Wong’s story and re-situates Hongkongers’ fated tragedy in the new politically turbulent context.
A-GIRL
◯
The Chan family murders next door occurred twenty years ago, in 1994, shortly before I was born into this world. My parents initially thought I was slow mentally, but in reality, I was just a bit slow to develop physically. At the age of five, I was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), fortunately on the milder end of the spectrum. In truth, I simply enjoyed talking to myself. Because I began doing that at a very young age, I didn’t speak much, but I loved writing. You don’t need to know my name, but if you must call me something, you can call me A-Girl.
To this day, I have lived in the village house in Sai Kung for nearly twenty years. When I was born, we originally lived in the neighbouring building (which I call the Old House). Several families had also moved into this house before over the years (the one I live in now; I follow my mother in calling it the Lucky House), but none stayed for more than a year or two. Some had cancer, others committed suicide, and some went bankrupt, and they all eventually left. Did they think repainting the walls and floors could wash away the bloodstains? Perhaps it could have, but in Hong Kong’s real estate market, a comprehensive record of “haunted properties” gradually developed. Lucky House was listed as the most haunted due to Chan Lo-yuen’s murders of his own family of five in 1994, waiting for more gruesome murders to replace them.
In 2003, during the SARS outbreak, when I was nine years old, I went to school every day, disinfecting my hands, checking my temperature, and wearing a mask. Meanwhile, my parents were all smiles, seeing the sluggish market and plummeting property prices. They successfully persuaded the owner of Lucky House to sell it to them at an incredibly low price. The house had been vacant without maintenance for a long time, and when someone finally inquired about the price, the owner was eager to sell. So, our family of three moved into it and rented out the Old House. My father, Chim Hak-ming, is an ambulance driver, and my mother, Oi-yuk, is a funeral agent who deals with the living and the dead every day. They weren’t stubborn disbelievers; they simply weren’t afraid, as my mother put it: “Ghosts are just part of the human world. Bravery will get you far.”
A 700-square-foot, two-story duplex is much more spacious than an average family’s home—unless, of course, you’re just three people.
After moving in, I would sometimes hear several children crying at night, and the television would come on for no reason, displaying static. The first time they appeared, I thought they were neighbours’ children who had come over. They played by themselves and paid little attention to me. There was an older girl and two younger boys, each with a star-shaped mark on the back of their heads, a starburst of blood. If you gathered enough of them, they formed another constellation. The older girl liked to lean on the table, while the other girl, a little younger, walked with her nearly detached neck held up. They came and went at will, sometimes visible but silent, other times audible but invisible. Each time they came, they brought a foul smell, and I vaguely knew they belonged to another world. As I grew older, they remained young as ever, as if time had frozen in their world, or perhaps they had no concept of time at all. Once, the younger girl took one of my teddy bears to play with, and my mother, Oi-yuk, saw the teddy bear floating about two feet above the ground. Even though she was used to the unusual, she couldn’t help but cover her mouth. That’s when I realised I was the only one who could see these apparitions. I was afraid of people but not of ghosts. They said I was slow and unflinching to react, but in truth, I was just absorbed in listening to the sounds of another world. The next night, my mother placed a bundle of willow branches by the door, and the teddy bear returned to my bed, slightly stained with blood. After I grew a little older and had my first period, the four small children never appeared before me again. Children have their own channels, even in the realm of ghosts. Their disappearance marked the end of my childhood.
But my ability to sense the other world didn’t completely disappear. At night, I often heard a recurring cello melody in my ears. While other students learned to play musical instruments under pressure from their parents, I did it voluntarily. My father, Chim Hak-ming, was 175 centimetres tall, and I inherited his height, making me well-suited to learning the cello. My parents were quite relaxed; they didn’t care much about what I did. I found out that the hauntingly beautiful melody I heard was Bach’s Unaccompanied Cello Suite No. 1. One day while practicing at home, my father happened to be on vacation and, with a somewhat distant look in his eyes, asked me, “Why did you start playing this piece?” Immersed in the music, I must have looked radiant, and I replied, “Such beautiful music. I keep playing it back and forth. Do you like Bach?” Upon hearing my question, my father dropped the cup in his hand. My father then told me the story of the Chan family, starting that very evening. He said that on a night approaching dawn, a ghastly-looking man moved in with his wife and four children. The four children liked to watch the moon on the rooftop, while the bald wife watched TV in the living room. One night, in the early hours of the morning, the man calmly invited my father over, coffee already brewed, Bach’s Cello Suite No. 1 playing in the background, and then, as if presenting artworks of death, the man introduced the dead family members he had just murdered. My father was usually playful, but when he recounted this story, there was a gleam in his eye. Everyone wears a mask, and what you see or what they want to show you might not be their true selves. He responded to the helplessness of life with a kind of ironic humour, a trait he shared with my mother. In fact, my father didn’t know much about the Chan family, but he was the first witness at the crime scene as if it were his fate. After hearing his account, I thought perhaps he moved into this place not only for the extra rental income but also because he was drawn to the supernatural. And it seemed like the story was now passed down through me, the spiritual medium.
To avoid alarming my father, I would only play Bach’s Cello Suite when he was out. The beauty of playing solo was that I didn’t need to coordinate with anyone; I could handle everything on my own. Did Chan Lo-yuen’s deadly artistry also unfold without accompaniment? Back and forth, flowing endlessly, the G note started, rising to its conclusion on a high G chord. It was almost like a religious experience. The cello bow on the five strings made me sway, and as I played, I imagined Chan Lo-yuen as the bow and the five strings as his wife and four children. But then I thought, this leaves out the big white rat that was also killed. It, too, was a life. Perhaps, I should find an original six-string viola da gamba to play. Silent, muted, sometimes, after playing, I would go to the rooftop alone to gaze at the moon. The nearby mango tree, which had seemed lifeless, was still alive—my father had planted it, and it’s uncertain whether it still belonged to us.
I once wrote a letter to Chan Lo-yuen in prison. I didn’t know which prison he was in, but serious offenders in the city were usually held at Stanley Prison, so I sent the letter there. According to my father, after their last conversation, Chan Lo-yuen ceased speaking completely. He remained silent during the recording of his statement and truly exercised his right to remain silent under the law. I had read novels and seen movies about people who became mute after trauma, like the actress Elisabet’s role in Persona. But Chan Lo-yuen’s silence didn’t seem like trauma-induced muteness, but a deliberate decision to stop speaking, not because he couldn’t, but because he didn’t want to. How could a momentary escape from the mundane endure? Who could linger at the pinnacle of a Gothic cathedral? What was the feeling of returning to the ground after transcending? In the face of an endless sentence thereafter, could he still be so certain of what he had done by his own hand? How strong a willpower did it take to maintain this silence until death? Even if he no longer spoke to people, he couldn’t escape language entirely, and I understood that. Or perhaps, he truly ceased to reflect, and without reflection, there’s no repentance. Maybe, to him, that was a complete break from the past, or maybe not even the past, but something entirely separate from this world. I really wanted to find out, so on my 18th birthday, I wrote him a letter. I included a stamped-addressed envelope, so when he saw the return address, would it strike a chord of familiarity or absurdity? But in the end, I received no reply. Perhaps the letter never reached him, or perhaps his ultimate silence was his response. Meanwhile, the city in this year, 2012, was particularly tumultuous.
Strangely, I have still not encountered Chiu May. Did Chan Lo-yuen really have such a wife? If we assume reincarnation takes eighteen years, there should be no reason for her to arrive early. Or maybe I have to wait a few more years to sense her, until I reach her age of approaching the end of her life. My abilities are not complete; I have only half of the Yin-Yang vision. I’ve also heard another theory. In this world, one person’s birth replaces one person’s death, or perhaps Chiu May’s departure was fated for my arrival, a life for a life, making us like two opposite poles that can never meet.
EVANS
◯
Many years later, I would still remember the feeling of that night.
I had thought I would never set foot in this colony again, but twenty years later, I returned. Outside the Causeway Bay Typhoon Shelter, the yachts were still anchored, but the place was unusually crowded. The Victoria Harbour, which I had once gazed upon, now seemed much smaller. Twenty years ago, Lam Kwai and I bid farewell to each other here, and now, on my return, I realised it was only a farewell to him. My last memory of Lam Kwai was of him being strong and agile, with sharp eyes and perfect features. His face had a magnetic quality that could stir my heart. I wondered if two decades had weathered his body or if, like me, he had turned into a deflated balloon. I didn’t know. How I wished to preserve that last impression he left on me like a frozen tableau!
When I left, Lam Kwai had just been promoted to District Commander, and he eventually rose to the rank of Deputy Commissioner, narrowly missing becoming the Commissioner. He retired five years ago, and I heard he suffered from severe depression, ending his more than sixty years of life this month by taking his own life. I never expected that the funeral committee would reach out to me across the ocean, asking me to come back to oversee his wake, claiming it was Lam Kwai’s wish. It was surprising that he remembered me at the end of his life. Twenty years ago, I handled the case of Chan Lo-yuen’s murder of his own family of five and a giant white rat. After presiding over the trial of my own son David for drug trafficking, I returned to Ireland, the homeland that I had left for several decades, thinking I had severed all ties with this colony, not even returning to pick up David when he was released from prison over a decade ago. Little did I know that there was still a lingering thread. Yes, my David, I wondered where he was in the city now. Would he be at Lan Kwai Fong, frequenting the bars? He must be around the same age as Lam Kwai was twenty years ago. In truth, I had lost him twenty years ago, and I didn’t like to collect remnants of life. He had a tall frame like mine, with green eyes. I didn’t want to see him, or perhaps I didn’t want to see the version of myself that no longer existed.
One may think they’ve grown old, but in reality, one can keep growing older. From the beginning of old age to its end, there is no end to growing old.
I moved through the crowded streets of Causeway Bay, wearing a hat and navigating through the bustling crowds like a plump rat crossing the street. Was it my failing eyesight, or were there more lights spotted along the streets? The city shone brilliantly, but it no longer burned. The city at night as I remembered it, where neon lights had burned ceaselessly, now faded into a dim shadow of its former self. I didn’t know many Chinese characters, but I could recognise that some of the neon signs were in disrepair, much like my own deteriorating body, waiting for the inevitable fate of being discarded. I didn’t regret it, but there was a twinge of sorrow. This city’s nightscape, which had once seduced my desires, now appeared diminished.
To avoid being jostled by the crowd, I squeezed into an approaching tram. Trams were the only things I was familiar with, but even trams seemed different now. I rode the tram not to reach any destination but to entrust my body to a carrier, like a leaf carried by the wind. Leaves are heartless, but what was left in his frail body still lingers unconsciously. As the tram approached Admiralty, I disembarked. My body was bloated, yet my steps were light as I walked past the High Court on Harcourt Road. Twenty years ago, Chan Lo-yuen was sentenced to death for the deliberate murder of five people, and I ran into Lam Kwai as I left the courthouse. I remembered him having a gleam in his eyes at that time. How many years had passed since then? Yet, the outcome remained the same. I wasn’t a believer, but for some reason, I found myself inside St John’s Cathedral. I sat down on one of the long wooden pews and dozed off in the quiet space. Surprisingly, the entire Government Hill in Central had ceased to function, leaving only empty shells. During the 1967 riots, Lam Kwai was just starting his career, and I led him in suppressing the labour strike at the Plastic Flower Factory in San Po Kwong. We even stormed the Hua Fung Department Store in North Point together. In May, a group of leftists holding Mao’s little red books had clashed with us on Garden Road, throwing stones at our cars. Lam Kwai and I were among the riot police, holding shields and batons. I still remembered the sound of batons swishing through the air. For many years, I hadn’t thought of him, though we had shared life-and-death moments. In the end, it was he who soared, not me. As the colony neared its end, I felt the urge to leave, but I still remembered Lam Kwai’s parting words: “Evans, go back early. Staying here, watching people and things you know lose their shape bit by bit, I don’t know if it’s decay or rebirth”. He was right, yet where could I go back to? When I left Ireland, I was a young man with a hint of green in the eyes. Returning, I was different; it was no longer my homeland. Since then, I’d been adrift in the world, my only destination being death. Unexpectedly, Lam Kwai reached that underworld shore before me, even in this, racing ahead of me. I remember you always young, brave, strong, as you remembered yourself. Your black coffin against my white gloves; the moment I let go, the coffin slid into the crematorium at Cape Collinson. What does it matter that I taught you so much? In the end, it all turns to light smoke.
Arriving at the familiar Lan Kwai Fong, memories of solitary drinking days flooded back. The place was abuzz, seemingly livelier than before. Sitting alone, I ordered a whiskey on the rocks. Just as I lit a cigarette, a waiter asked me to step outside. Amid the pounding music, Cheers! Santé! Salud! Gānbēi! echo around. Suddenly, I recalled the New Year’s Eve a year before I left this city, the tragic stampede in Lan Kwai Fong. How many of these revellers, lost in drunken dreams or lively chats, remember that? Memories are like ghosts, maybe more so today after visiting the funeral home. Memories are ghosts; I suddenly think of Chan Lo-yuen. I wonder if he’s still silent if he still listens to Bach’s Unaccompanied Cello Suites, or if he ever heard Handel’s Messiah, I left for him. Perhaps even his CDs and player were confiscated by the prison staff. This intriguing fellow, forgotten by the world but remembered by me, just tonight. Maybe during these few days back in Hong Kong, I should visit him in prison. If not in Siu Lam, then in Stanley. Smoking one cigarette after another, another whiskey follows the first. Wherever there’s an Irish pub, that’s my home.
A-GIRL
◯
And so, two more years passed. My cello playing hadn’t progressed much; I kept returning to that same Bach Solo Suite. Yet, my teacher said that even mastering that one piece would be considered an achievement of extraordinary depth. Those who are truly focused have their own destinies.
Once-dominant drug lords and crime figures fade into obscurity after spending time behind bars, only even more so for soloists like you. Resurfacing in the public eye usually marks the end. On September 16, 2014, I saw you for the first time on the television news. After nearly two decades of incarceration at Stanley Prison, you had finally slipped into the ultimate silence, a calm ending. The news report said: “Chan Lo-yuen, the killer of a family of five twenty years ago, succumbed to throat cancer six months ago and passed away at fifty-three in a pneumonia complication at Queen Mary Hospital.” The report included a “This Day in History” segment, and it was there that I saw a photo of you from twenty years ago. My father, watching alongside me, suddenly grew sombre: “What a coincidence. The incident happened on the early morning of September 16 that year.” Despite his casual demeanour, he remembered everything. G note starts, G note ends; it’s like a beautiful cycle. From that point on, I had a different perspective on the span of twenty years.
On September 16, 1994, just four days away from that year’s Mid-Autumn Festival, I was born in the winter, and I never had a chance to see the moon at that festival twenty years ago. This year, the Mid-Autumn Festival arrived a bit earlier, on September 8. I spent the evening on the rooftop, staring at the moon. My father even treated me like a child and handed me a paper lantern. My mother took it and drew the character “offering” on it. It was a bit eerie; within my mother’s line of work, paper lanterns carried a different meaning.
It’s said that after seven days, a ghost returns to its former home. They are escorted back by Ox-Head and Horse-Face with iron chains, fearing they might escape or refuse to return to the underworld after the designated time. On September 22, 2014, I sat quietly at home, listening intently for the sound of chains. I played Bach’s Cello Suite No. 1 while waiting for Chan Lo-yuen’s ghost. Perhaps this night would bring back Chiu May, who had been absent for so long, and their family would reunite, reliving the Mid-Autumn Festival they had missed twenty years ago. But in the end, there was no sound. Perhaps, for Chan Lo-yuen, his home in the afterlife was not here.
At the end of September, almost twenty years into this world, I spent my first night not in Sai Kung Village but in the open space of “Harcourt Village”. The slogans here—“We Reject Sinking!” “We Determine Our Destiny!” “We Disobey Predestination!”—seemed to speak a language different from what my parents used to say, “Things have to be this way.” I learned to fold paper umbrellas in the square, and after returning home, I focused intently on folding them one by one when my mother, watching TV nearby, suddenly blurted out, “Those who want to fall should fall quickly. It’s only a hassle dying halfway.” I thought she was talking about someone else, but she was referring to the city. I had no words to respond; I couldn’t say she was wrong. I even secretly agreed with her. It’s hard to keep dragging on like this. After the news ended, my mother picked up the paper umbrella I had placed on the table and jokingly said, “It’s quite interesting. Make them bigger, and I can sell them to customers as a new product.” I was slightly taken aback and asked, “Does it rain in the underworld, too?” My mother replied, “The world of the dead is nothing more than a projection of the world of the living. If you say it’s raining, it’s raining.” I thought about it, and indeed, with paper smartphones and paper tablets, the underworld was merely a reflection of the world above. Umbrellas bloomed everywhere, so let them go all the way to the netherworld; it wouldn’t hurt. But I still said, “These umbrellas aren’t meant for keeping off the rain.”
The next day, I received a belated letter in my mailbox. The letter was sent from Stanley Prison, and it was you who had finally broken your silence a day before your death, reaching out to someone who had been living under your shadow, even though we had never met. The letter contained just one sentence: “The Messiah never came after all.”
How to cite: Song, Chris and Lawrence Kwok-ling Pun. “Twenty Years Since Losing the City.” Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, 4 Mar. 2024, chajournal.blog/2024/03/04/losing-the-city.
Photograph of Lawrence Kwok-ling Pun © 林振東
Lawrence Kwok-ling Pun 潘國靈 is a prolific Hong Kong fiction writer, essayist, and poet, who has published many volumes of selected works in Hong Kong. In 2006, he received the Lee Hysan Foundation Scholarship to travel to New York for a writing tour. He has also participated in the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa, attended the first “International Writing Day” at Northwestern University in Evanston, and spoke with fellow writers at the Chopin Theatre in Chicago. His fiction and non-fiction writings have won an array of awards, including the Hong Kong Biennial Award for Chinese Literature and the Hong Kong Book Prize. In 2011, he was awarded the “Best Artist (Literary Art)” by the Hong Kong Arts Development Council. His short story collection 離 (Leaving) was shortlisted for the Novel Category of the 2022 Taipei International Book Fair Prize. In 2016, he was the writer-in-residence at Oil Street Art Space, and in 2022, he served as the writer-in-residence at the Department of Chinese of Lingnan University in Hong Kong.
Chris Song (translator) is a poet, editor, and translator from Hong Kong, and is an assistant professor in English and Chinese translation at the University of Toronto Scarborough. He won the “Extraordinary Mention” of the 2013 Nosside International Poetry Prize in Italy and the Award for Young Artist (Literary Arts) of the 2017 Hong Kong Arts Development Awards. In 2019, he won the 5th Haizi Poetry Award. He is a founding councilor of the Hong Kong Poetry Festival Foundation, executive director of the International Poetry Nights in Hong Kong, and editor-in-chief of Voice & Verse Poetry Magazine. He also serves as an advisor to various literary organisations. [Hong Kong Fiction in Translation.]