Over the years, famous works of literature have given many cities an image that reflects them, or eventually contradictory images, in a kaleidoscope of visions that rightfully belong to the common imagination of those who inhabit each city. In Hong Kong, amidst skyscrapers and small street markets, literature also lurks around the corners, revealing echoes of the past, affective memories, and all the futures yet to be invented
The list of books about Hong Kong is long. Even if we stick only to fictional literature, it remains a vast bibliography, which includes works in Chinese and English whose reading allows many views of the territory. On this occasion, as we explore the city, language constraints oblige us to narrow our choice to books written in English or translated into this language, and yet still, the selection remains vast.
Armed with some of these books, especially novels, but also some non-fictional accounts, we roam the city with a willingness to look for their literary echoes and famous locations. Sometimes the scenes described in fiction present themselves to us along the way, but there is also room for memories, so often retold common stories that have become facts for those who tell and hear them, places that have always existed, and through literature have been born again, as if for the first time.
The literary visions of large cities were born between the late 19th and early 20th centuries, closely followed by Modernism and its multiple artistic expressions. Over the first half of the last century, this profound relationship between romance and urbanism contributed to the creation of literary monuments such as Ulysses by James Joyce, Rayuela by Julio Cortázar, and Manhattan Transfer by John dos Passos, among others.
In Chinese literature, it was after the May 4th Movement that style of storytelling emerged, with Shanghai predominating as the backdrop for novels, where the city turns out to be the character, plot and denouement. Hong Kong may not have such famous novels as those mentioned, perhaps, but it certainly has its life, the changes it has been experiencing, and many of its places shaped in the prose of many authors – in such a way that some of these places, which we can visit in the present, seem to have been created by the authors who used them in their work.
Mr. Chuck’s funeral
Crossing the wall of mirrored skyscrapers that mark the divide between the view of Victoria Harbor and the administrative heart of Hong Kong, along a strange mix of aerial pedestrian pathways, elegant shopping centers and office buildings, we begin the ascent towards the lower station of the Peak Tram.
Before arriving at the long line of tourists already forming for the climb up the Peak, we arrive at St. John’s Cathedral. This is where one of the important scenes of Kowloon Tong by Paul Theroux, is set. The story takes place immediately following the years before Hong Kong’s return to the Chinese administration. A partner of Bunt’s late father, the protagonist of the novel, Mr. Chuck, mysteriously dies after Bunt is enticed to sell the paternal company to a Chinese businessman. The funeral takes place in this Anglican cathedral, respecting the religious beliefs of the deceased who belonged to the minority of devout Chinese Christians.
On the day we visit the cathedral in search of the best angles for our photographic record, we did not expect to find a scenario similar to what Paul Theroux had described in his novel. But that’s exactly what happened: white wreaths covered the front door, and inside, the solemnity of the ceremonies involved the coffin and the people gathered around it.
Respect for the privacy of others prevents us from entering the church, but we listen to the choir accompanying the Mass and realize that, as in the funeral ceremonies fictionalized by Paul Theroux, there was also someone here who was both Chinese and Christian. The coincidence is just that, but it is an appropriate starting point for this story, intersecting what we see in real life with the words of the books that are guiding our footsteps this day.
Abandoning the tragic quiet that surrounds St. John’s Cathedral, we head to nearby Jackson Road, looking for the viewpoint described by John Le Carré in The Honorable Schoolboy, the same viewpoint obtained by Jerry Westerby, the journalist, and a spy who works for George Smiley, the protagonist of this espionage novel, when he begins one of his attempts to locate the perpetrators of a massive money-laundering operation with Soviet Union connections.
These were the days of the Cold War, and the trilogy into which this novel fits is a classic example of this bipartition of the world. Hong Kong offers itself as the ideal setting for the second volume of this trilogy, crossing the paths of spies of various origins, scenarios considered exotic to Western readers, and hot spots of many unlawful financial exchanges that feed the gears of a certain underworld.
Rereading Le Carré’s passage and looking up at the short skyline offered by the center of a city where skyscrapers abound, there is the Bank of China tower that Jerry Westerby admires as he crosses the road. We admire it, too, knowing how it has divided opinions among the people of Hong Kong since its construction. And we will return to it later, at another literary point of the city, when we come back to Paul Theroux.
Looking for Susie Wong
Still on the island side, we follow the harbor coastline towards Wan Chai. At the time that Richard Mason wrote one of Hong Kong’s most iconic novels, it was one of the city’s most active red light districts. The remains of this era persist in some long-faded neon lights, announcing one or another dance club where, it is suspected, one might do more than dance, but the area is now, according to Time Out and other cultural and entertainment guides, one of the hot spots for nightlife.
We do not wait for the night to see the new local bars and restaurants, but immediately head for number 72 Gloucester Road. This is where the small hotel stands as the main setting for The World of Susie Wong. In Mason’s novel, the protagonist, looking for a cheap place to stay, initially thinks this modest building is a hotel, however he quickly discovers that it is, in fact, a brothel. Today it has been replaced by a huge hotel unit, another skyscraper filling Hong Kong’s landscape. The name, however, remains: Luk Kwok.
At the reception, the manager fulfills our request. We want to visit one of the upper floors to find the view of Victoria Harbor that Mason so often describes in his book from the room occupied by Robert Lomax, the protagonist. Once told we would be writing about Hong Kong’s presence in literary fiction, the manager guide us to an empty room on the 19th floor and offers us the view from its window. But the view now only extends to two huge buildings across the street, erected on a piece of land that has been reclaimed to the sea in the meantime; a narrow patch of space between them just give us a glimpse of the waters of Victoria Harbor.
Back on the ground floor, the manager explains to us that all that remains of the old hotel that would have inspired Richard Mason are the photographs on the lobby walls. We look at them and the old prints bring back images from the 1930s, a modest waterfront building, with no trace of Susie Wong.
The sleeping dragon
Aboard the Star Ferry, we reach the other side of Victoria Harbor. The view of Central from this side offers the city’s most famous postcard image, and is also a considerable part of the literary works set against the backdrop of Hong Kong.
In Dear Hong Kong, by Xu Xi, this is the narrator’s view from the window of her childhood home, and is also central to one of her memories of her father, who loved the port as a unique place in the world and praised its peculiarities, comparing it with others such as Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro, places that sounded exotic to the narrator, yet did not match this scene.
From the window of their apartment in Tsim Sha Tsui, father and daughter shared the images of the waters bathing the buildings of Central, intersecting their lives, and producing memories of the persons they used to be.
Down in the MTR tunnels, the subway takes us to Kowloon on Waterloo Road where Bunt’s father’s factory building in Paul Theroux’s Kowloon Tong would have stood. We return to this novel knowing that there is no precise indication of where the factory that originates the whole plot might have been, and that it is impossible to locate a building that exists only in fiction.
Still, it is essential to find a place from which we can see the mountains that rise above Kowloon, the dragon’s back described by the Feng Shui master consulted by Bunt’s father at the time of the initial factory purchase. This master suggested the most auspicious place to set up the fabric factory, based on the old beliefs and traditions associated with Feng Shui, introducing into the narrative a concept that is central part of Hong Kong culture.
Several other, not necessarily fictional Feng Shui masters have pointed out that the Bank of China building, the same building we saw in Le Carré’s book, would have been the fatal blow against the city’s harmony, forever striking into the dragon’s back made up of these mountains, a dragon that extends from Kowloon to the island of Hong Kong and whose mythological breath guarantees the elemental balance of the city. Perhaps here, and not so much in the architectural aesthetics of the building, is the explanation for the disparate public opinion about the Bank of China building, which was built between 1985 and 1990.
From the top of the pedestrian overpass that runs along Waterloo Road, we can only see the mountains to the north, a tiny part of the dragon’s back that was injured further south in Central. The full image of the animal may only exist in the words Theroux puts into the Feng Shui master’s mouth, but as we feel the thermal reverberations produced by the heat and the tiredness that is already setting in, a slight movement can almost be glimpsed in the distance on one of the ridges. Perhaps some dragon scale that is still reacting to past changes to the city.
Dystopias and fresh fruit
On the streets of Mong Kok, the movement of people and cars frames the buildings in a kind of Babel. The illusion does not result solely of the mix of languages, with Cantonese dominating English, Mandarin and various languages of other Asian countries; the buildings themselves seem to refer to a scene where a mythical past and a dystopian future intersect, allowing us to view fiction as a way of understanding the world – a world in which reality is just a mental construct.
There are echoes of Blade Runner on many corners… although without references or coordinates to gauge exact locations, this is the scene of several of the tales Dorothy Tse gathered in her Snow and Shadows volume. It is the author’s first book to be translated into English, and it intersects the shadows of a fairytale Hong Kong with many of the nightmares of contemporary times, here as in any major city in the world.
And down Nathan Road, between Mong Kok and Jordan, you can recognize the scenery by the space and the people who occupy it. On the street there is no trace of the violence that inhabits Dorothy Tse’s tales, but the ghosts that populate each paragraph seem to creep into the strangeness of certain facades, the contrast between tall buildings and hidden alleys, the raw way certain scenes unfold – a man pushing a cargo trolley, revealing a huge tattoo with skulls on his back; rubbish piling up on a corner right next to a glittering, air-conditioned jewelry store; a shadowy building entrance that may lead to dozens of perfectly cool shops and services that can’t be seen from the street.
Near Shanghai Street, one of Hong Kong’s oldest streets, we reach an open-air market. We look for the colours, odors and gestures described by Xu Xi in Evanescent Isles, when she points out the city’s markets as prime places to witness the Cantonese’s vitality and eternal renewal with new words, new jargon, a frenzy of communication.
We find the rows of stalls full of fresh fruit, vegetables from many origins, and some mountains of clothing, but our ignorance allows no more certainty than that we are hearing Cantonese. At one of the stalls, they sell us the sweetest and tiniest tangerines ever, and we can only ask the price and make no mistake in the coins we have to give in return.
Further on, a woman piles up plastic benches at the door of a food establishment, certainly to take advantage of market movement and extend the terrace a bit, while a cat takes advantage of those benches to climb to the sign of another establishment, installing itself up high. He looks at us with feline contempt and lets himself bask in the sun that, among stabbed dragons and recurring threats to the identity of a territory true to itself, also shines in Hong Kong.