Hong Kong has a colonial history of over a hundred years, during which it established itself as a confluence of Eastern and Western cultures and has been inextricably linked with the footsteps of many literati. In 1974, Taiwanese poet Yu Kwang-chung came to Hong Kong for his teaching career and authored the poem “Let’s Just Call It Home.” He spent the next 11 years in Hong Kong, which coincided with his creative prime, and his inhabitance among the Sha Tin hills became the most enjoyable part of his life.
The end of 1984 witnessed the signing of the Joint Declaration between the then-Chinese and British governments as a settlement on the future of Hong Kong. The following year, Mr. Yu left Hong Kong and returned to Taiwan. In his farewell to Hong Kong, he wrote affectionately, “I’m afraid that this green land (Hong Kong) will become deeply embedded in my dreams” and “I suddenly realized that this is a dreamland lost.” Why did Mr. Yu feel this way? What happened in Hong Kong that created such a deep feeling in him?
Hong Kong Close Encounters
Mr. Yu became eminent in four places (China mainland, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macao) for his poem “Homesickness.” Like many overseas Chinese, his life of moving from one place to another was a result of China’s turbulent history in modern times. He has traveled far and wide and has set foot in many cities in mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, the United States, and other places. On Dec. 14, 2017, Mr. Yu passed away from illness in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, at the age of 89.The story began in 1937 during the Anti-Japanese War. Then, ten-year-old Mr. Yu was a refugee who was transiting through Hong Kong. This was the first time he had a close view of the British colony. He did not go ashore. The ship was anchored in Victoria Harbor. He and his family watched the bright lights on both sides of the harbor from the deck.
He and his family fled to Hong Kong in 1949 due to the civil war in China between the Kuomintang and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and finally settled in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, in 1950. At the time of leaving China, he was still a college student. The sea and sky were vast, and his future seemed even bleaker. The young boy did not expect that he would not be able to visit his hometown for another 40 years...
More than twenty years later, in August 1974, Mr. Yu accepted a position as a professor in the Department of Chinese Language and Literature at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) and brought his family to Hong Kong. This time, he stayed in Hong Kong for more than ten years. On the day when he was about to leave for Hong Kong, the very thought of being able to reach out and be in contact with the mountains and rivers of the mainland made him sleepless for the few ensuing nights.
In his 1998 prose “From Mother to an Extramarital Affair,” he concluded: “Mainland is the mother, Taiwan is the wife, Hong Kong is the lover, and Europe is the extramarital affair.”
“Hong Kong is my lover because we have had a relationship spanning twelve years. Although we broke up in the end, it was not because of any disagreement. When we first met, I was only twenty-one years old, without looking back to the north, I was a student in exile from the mainland, and left for Taiwan a year later. When I met her (Hong Kong) again, I was in my middle age and became a professor at CUHK,” he quipped.
How did he feel when he first arrived in Hong Kong? He mentioned that it was surely not love at first sight. The Cantonese accent here was difficult to interpret, and sometimes, he tested himself on some simplified Chinese characters. “And that seemed to offend someone, who would even make a mockery out of me in the local pro-CCP newspapers, so I was quite frustrated in the first few years.”
He said that as he got to know more about Hong Kong, he discovered its true nature and finally fell in love with it. “Not only can I understand Cantonese and read simplified Chinese, but I have also changed my American English to a more reserved British accent. At the same time, my interest in the English-speaking world has also moved from the United States to the United Kingdom, and Hong Kong has become a springboard for my leap toward Europe.”
Ten Years Among the Hills: ‘Hong Kong Is a Dreamland Lost’
Many Hongkongers can still remember that on Dec. 19, 1984, after years of hard negotiations with many twists and turns, China and the United Kingdom signed a joint statement affecting the entire future destiny of Hong Kong, confirming the CCP’s exercise of control over Hong Kong’s sovereignty on July 1, 1997. Before the joint declaration, the people of Hong Kong could only speculate about their future.In 1983, Mr. Yu was keenly aware that the drastic changes of an era were lying in front of Hong Kong people. Although he was only a temporary Hongkonger, the poet himself was destined to be not just a passerby. He wrote in his “Crossing the Lion Rock Tunnel,” saying that when he drove through the tunnel, it suddenly dawned on him that the future anticipated, just like the exit of the tunnel, may not be the same familiar scenery.
In June 1985, Mr. Yu left Hong Kong, returned to Taiwan, and wrote “Ten Years of Looking at the Hills” (1985) to commemorate his ten years of teaching at CUHK and to say goodbye to Hong Kong.
The poem starts with his usual expression of nostalgia for his homeland.
“Ten years looking at the hills, not just the green hills of Hong Kong, But what lies behind this green pasture, That vast tract of land piece (that I am after)...”
However, he soon expressed that while living in Hong Kong, he had overlooked the beauty of the place:
“I’ve been looking at the hills for ten years, but I’ve never even seen them. Meanwhile, the Bauhinia blossom and wither, alas, not once, but again ...”
When it was time for him to leave Hong Kong, he realized what Hong Kong meant to him:
“Ten years have passed, and the peaks outside the door, On the eve of this farewell, I look up, Suddenly, all the green springs to my eyes, Turning my head around one more time, I realize they have been in my heart for a long time.”
“Whenever someone asks about my departure date, The green hills in front just choke my throat, When I am across the sea in the future, I am afraid that this green color, Will be in my dreams.”
………
“Looking back again, these ten years of fate, It’s all turned into water and mountains in the basin. I realized that was the dreamland lost.
The poem concludes:
“My ten years of sweet dreams have been protected by the green hills, This row in front of the door, alas, the quiet green hills, Keeps out the clamor of slogans.”
In these lines, one can sense the subtle position of Hong Kong in modern history and Mr. Yu’s gratitude for his ten-year stay. Is it possible that Hong Kong offered him a temporary paradise of peace, away from the clamor of political movements in modern China? What was the experience that made him realize, just before his departure, that “Hong Kong is a lost dreamland”?
Hong Kong Years His Best Years
Mr. Yu came to Hong Kong to teach in 1974. In the face of Communist China in the latter part of the Cultural Revolution, Hong Kong and the mainland were closely linked, and there were left and right forces in politics and academia, but there was a great deal of freedom of speech.Mr. Yu’s nostalgia for his homeland intensified when he first arrived in Hong Kong, and a lot of his works were nostalgic about his homeland and critical of the Cultural Revolution. Some of his works, such as “Nightmare,” “Looking North,” and the like, all severely criticized the Cultural Revolution. He also authored many poems expressing his complex feelings of sympathy for mainland Chinese stowaways.
After moving to Hong Kong, Mr. Yu’s nostalgia was no longer just for the mainland, but also for Taiwan. “Listening Across the Water” and “Flying Across the Strait” are all works that show how dearly he misses Taiwan.
In a place like Hong Kong, he can look north to his hometown and east to Taiwan, and his heart finally finds a place where it can rest in balance.
In the postscript of “Eternal Tug of War,” Mr. Yu said that Hong Kong happens to be located between the mainland and Taiwan. “It (Hong Kong) seems to be connected to the mainland as its motherland yet also seems to be isolated. It seems to be far away from Taiwan yet is also close to it.” Hong Kong thus becomes an ideal place in the poet’s world, the ideal fulcrum that takes care of his complex feelings towards the mainland and Taiwan.
Hong Kong Period Also His Prime Creative Period
Mr. Yu was born in mainland China and passed away in Taiwan, spending 11 years in Hong Kong in between. This period coincided with his golden period of creativity when he authored many modern poems about China and Taiwan.When it comes to Hong Kong, what was most unforgettable for him is not the bustling international metropolis of his host, but the quiet corner of Sha Tin in the New Territories. Although Mr. Yu does not belong to the ranks of Hong Kong writers, his work in fostering “Sha Tin Literature” exerted quite a significant influence on the Hong Kong literary domain.
Mr. Yu said that inhabiting the Sha Tin hillside was the most tranquil, comfortable, and enjoyable time in his life.
“In the past ten years, living on the unique campus of CUHK, enjoying the quiet hillside residence, and enjoying the open sea view has been the most stable and comfortable period in my life. Looking in retrospect, I find that the works from these ten years have occupied a great proportion of all the literal works in my life.”
From the perspective of poetry alone, the eminent mainland poet Liu Shahe (pen name) believes that “The Kowloon Peninsula is the place where Yu Kwang-chung made his final leap up the rank to become another great contemporary Chinese poet.”
Mr. Yu’s happy days in Hong Kong were not only due to the scenic surroundings he lived in or because CUHK hired him on excellent remuneration terms plus other benefits. What is more important is that “people he talks and laughs with are learned men.” Celebrity writers and colleagues such as Song Qi and George Kao were there, and they lived close enough to allow them to communicate easily among themselves. For Mr. Yu, that period was “really enjoyable” for him.
In the article “Long Term Friendship in the Sunset,” Mr. Yu fondly recalled his time in Sha Tin:
“In the first few years, most of the friends from the universities and literary circles just sat and talked gently over a pot of tea or a bottle of fine wine. They talked about anything, from Li Bai (an ancient eminent Chinese poet) to Xu Zhimo (a modern-day Chinese poet), from William Shakespeare to Rabindranath Tagore (an eminent Indian poet, Nobel prize winner 1913), from Qin Shi Huang (first Chinese emperor) to Mao Zedong, Hu Shih (early 20th-century Chinese philosopher) to Lu Xun (early 20th-century Chinese writer). The talks were always full of both praise and criticism, and we could talk all night long. When it comes to freedom, this is really the place where Chinese people enjoy the most freedom of speech.”
He also wrote that in the following years, especially after September 1983, Hong Kong’s future became bleak, and the fate of Hong Kong people was left to the mercy of those at the meeting table. “So, this piece of leased land, this period of borrowed time, suddenly seemed more deplorable, yet also precious.”
“Because of this, in the following years, as we gained a deeper understanding and stronger affection for Hong Kong, all the “Sha Tin friends” devoted more time to exploring the countryside, up the mountains, trekking the rivers, and so on. We started staring into the distance, not necessarily in the mainland direction, but shrouded in a feeling of sad farewell, looking back at the time when we enjoyed our lives in Sha Tin, and the mountains and seas around Hong Kong...”
Mr. Yu also strongly disagrees with some people calling Hong Kong a “cultural desert.” He once wrote: “When Cai Yuanpei (Chinese philosopher and influential figure in Chinese modern education) passed away in Hong Kong (1940), and when the funeral was held five days later, all flags flew at half-mast in Hong Kong. I can’t remember any such tribute to a cultural leader in other Chinese cities. At least when Hu Shih died, Taipei did not do this either.”
He added: “As for the protests “June 4th,” and “Diaoyutai protest” in recent years, the grand scenes and fierce sacrifices are in no way like those of a docile colony too.”
Many of Mr. Yu’s works express his deep affection for Hong Kong. When he returned to Taiwan in 1985, he wrote in “Hong Kong Knot”: “Ten years to tie a Hong Kong knot, follow the long coastline with silk threads, turn left here and right there, and weave a pattern of a lingering harbor...”
In another one of his works, “Staring at the Sea,” written by him shortly after arriving in Kaohsiung from Hong Kong, he mentioned that when he came to Sizihwan Bay in Kaohsiung, he missed Hong Kong very much. He looked at the vast Taiwan Strait and looked further and further away; in the end, the farthest thing was his eyes looking at the sea. The poem profoundly expresses the poet’s love for Hong Kong.
‘Homesickness’ Distorted by the CCP, Like a Big Business Card Covering His Full Face
Mr. Yu wrote many anti-communist works throughout his life, and because he was not afraid to express his opinions, he was often involved in controversies.After the June 4th Incident in 1989 and the CCP’s bloody suppression of the pro-democracy movement in Beijing, Mr. Yu also published “My Heart is in Tiananmen—Selected Poems in Memory of the June 4th Incident” composed by poets from Hong Kong and Taiwan and attended poetry gatherings at CUHK and other places.
However, due to his support of the “reunification” stance of a “peaceful cross-strait reunification,” he was embraced again by the CCP soon, even disregarding all his former enmity, and allowing some of his works to be included in mainland Chinese textbook lists, including the poem “Homesickness.”
However, Mr. Yu pointed out that “Homesickness” was written purely out of his remembrance of his hometown, and it was written more than 40 years ago. “At that time, the mainland was indulged in the late phase of the Cultural Revolution, and I was in a gloomy mood, thinking that I might not be able to go back in my life.”
Mr. Yu also suggested that people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait should read more literary works from the other side. “Politics can easily divide people, but literature can help people understand more.” He also said, “‘Homesickness’ seems like a business card, so big that it covers my whole face.”
