Transculturalism and Modernism in Leung Ping-Kwan´S Writing

Transculturalism and Modernism in Leung Ping-kwan´s writing

Author: Ingegerd Andrén

Master´s Programme in East Asian Studies Master Thesis 30 credits Spring 2021 Supervisor: Monika Gänssbauer Department of Asian, Middle Eastern and Turkish Studies Stockholm University

Abstract

More than 45 million ethnic Chinese are settled outside China and about 20 % among them live in America. The aim of this study is to investigate how a Hong Kong writer in the diaspora has been influenced in his writing in a transcultural and modernist direction and in what way translation can be a part of transculturalism. In this study, the author 梁秉鈞 Leung Ping-kwan (1949-2013) has been selected as an example of this. The study is based on prose and lyrical texts by him. Studies of Chinese in the diaspora have long been neglected, but in recent years, Chinese American academics have begun research into Chinese diaspora literature from a transcultural perspective. This study aims to contribute to transcultural literary studies. In the study of Leung Ping-kwan´s texts, a comparative literary analysis is used which is based on theories of identity and transculturalism. I argue that Leung Ping-kwan's writing is characterized by transcultural and modernist features.

论文摘要

超过 4,500 万华人定居在中国境外，其中约 20％居住在美国。这项研究的

目的是调查一位香港作家如何在跨文化和现代主义的方向上影响他的写作，

以及翻译以何种方式可以成为跨文化主义的一部分。在本研究中，以作家

梁秉钧 1949-2013）为例。这项研究基于他的散文与诗文。长期以来，对

海外华人文学的研究一直被忽视，但近年来，美国华裔学者已开始从跨文

化的角度对华桥华人文学进行研究。这项研究旨在为跨文化文学研究做出

贡献。在对梁炳宽的著作进行研究时，采用了基于身份和跨文化主义理论

的比较文学分析。我认为梁的著作具有跨文化和现代主义的特征。

Acknowledgements

This thesis would not have been possible without all the help I received from my supervisor, Monika Gänssbauer. She has supported me enthusiastically from start to finish, providing literature connected to my subject, several close readings with valuable feedbacks. I would also like to thank Ewa Machotka for all master seminars that gave me more guidelines in academic writing. At last I need to thank my friend Tan Ran who helped me with some difficult Chinese expressions.

Table of contents.

1 INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………………...…..1

2 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK…………………………………………………….….2 2.1 General literature…………………………………………………………………….…..2 2.2 Previous studies about Chinese in America…………………………………………...…3 2.3 Research questions………………………………………………………………………4 2.4 Research method…………………………………………………………………………5 2.5 The concept of identity…………………………..………………………………………5 2.6 Transculturalism……………………………………………………………………...….6 2.7 Modernism…………………………………………………………………………….…8 2.8 Translation ………………………………………………………………………………9 2.9 Limitations……………………………………………………………………………...10

3 BACKGROUND…………………………………………………………………………..11 3.1.History of Chinese diaspora……………………………………………………….…....11 3.2 China´s policies on Chinese overseas………………………………………………..…14 3.3 From sojourning to settlement to transnationalism………………….…………………..14 3.4 New family and gender roles …………………………………………………………..15 3.5 Chinese immigrants become American citizens…………………………………..……15 3.6 Diasporic Chinese media……………………………………………………………….16 3.7 Chinese diaspora literature………………………………………………………..……16

4 LEUNG PING-KWAN……………………………………………………………………18

5 SUBJECTS OF INVESTIGATION IN LEUNG PING-KWAN´S WRITING…….…20 5.1 Literary style……………..……………………………………………………………..21 5.2 Everyday things…………………………………………………………………...……27 5.2.1 Introduction……………………………………………………………………..……27 5.2.2 Food……………………….………………………………………………………….28 5.2.3 Medical treatment………………………………………………………………….…31 5.2.4 Fashion……………………………………………………………………………….32 5.3 Travel and home…………………………………………………………………..……35 5.4 Human, social, and political relations………….…………….…………………………37 5.5 Translation…………………………………………………………………...…………41

6 DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION…………………………………………………….44

7 OUTLOOK…………………………………………………………………………….…..47

8 REFERENCES………………………………………………………………...………….48

1. Introduction

The migration from China to North America can be divided into three stages based on the migrants' settlement in the new country: Sojourning, Settlement and Transnationalism. Sojourning (1848-1943) points to Chinese people who went to America to make money and then returned home. Due to the Chinese Exclusion Acts in the 1880s, which caused humiliation and terror against the Chinese, many migrants returned to China. Since Chinese people could not become North American citizens until the 1940s, it was impossible to create permanent housing. After 1943, China had a stronger role in the world and Chinese Exclusion Acts were removed which allowed Chinese to reunite with their families. After the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, Chinese people could settle as American citizens. More liberal immigration opportunities led to a massive immigration from China. Many Chinese migrants were highly educated and aimed for a better standard of living and personal freedom. In recent years, Chinese migration has become more mobile and has been subsumed under the term immigrant transnationalism. The term transnationalism refers to cross-border relations. The transnational migrants live across national borders in two or more countries where they live and move to gain maximum opportunities.1

The cross-border relations led to transcultural identities where different groups of people interact with each other and create new cultures. Transculturalism is characterized by diversity and mobility which can also be found in the literary movement of 20th century ´s modernism. Through the experience of mobility many modern diaspora authors are crossing literary borders. One of them is Leung Ping-kwan 梁秉鈞 pen-name Ye Si 也斯 (1949-2013) whose global perspective permeates his literary works. The aim of this study is to investigate the transcultural and modernist features in his works.2

1Tan, Chee-Beng Routledge Handbook of the Chinese Diaspora, New York 2018, 122-136 2 Gilsenan Nordin, Irene/Edfeldt, Chatarina/Lung-Lung Hu/Jonsson, Herbert, Andre (eds.), Transcultural Identity Constructions in a Changing World, Frankfurt am Main 2016, 11-13

Previously studies of the diaspora have been a neglected field, but in recent years, Chinese American academics have begun research into Chinese literature from a transcultural perspective. This study aims to contribute to transcultural studies.

Leung Ping-kwan had been extensively literary active. I have chosen to examine his most famous works mentioned by academics who have written about his literature. The books I have chosen include both prose and poetry such as “Travelling with a Bitter Melon, Selected Poems (1973-1998)”, “Islands and Continents, Short Stories”, “City at the End of Time”(2007),” Fly Heads and Bird Claws”(2013), “Wilde Gedanken bei bewölktem Himmel. Notizen aus Hong Kong” (2016), “Dragons: Shorter fiction of Leung Ping-kwan”(2020), “Lotus Leaves: Selected Poems” (2020), “Von Jade und Holz. Gedichte” (2009), “Paper Cuts” (2015) and 游離的詩 Youli de shi (A Poetry of Moving Signs) (1995).

The thesis is divided into the following parts: It presents a historical as well as a theoretical background followed by an introduction of the author Leung Ping-kwan. Thereafter the examination and results are presented, and finally there is a discussion and a conclusion with suggestions for further research.

2. Theoretical framework

2.1 General literature

In order to create a historical background for my literary study, I have read academic books, articles, and literature dealing with various aspects of the Chinese diaspora such as their history, China´s policies on Chinese overseas, Chinese ‘coolie’ emigration, sojourning, settlement, and transnationalism. The “Routledge Handbook of the Chinese Diaspora” (ed. Tan, Chee-Beng) has given me a broad perspective on these questions.

I have studied academic articles and books on identity, transculturalism, modernism, and analyses of Leung Ping-kwan's writing in order to build a theoretical basis for my study

2 of Leung Ping-kwan's writings. Some important books dealing with these issues are “Exploring Cultural Identities in Jean Rhy`s Fiction” (Voicu, Cristina-Georgiana), “Transcultural Identity Constructions in a Changing World” (eds. Gilsenan Nordin, Irene/ Edfeldt, Chatarina/ Lung-Lung Hu/ Jonsson, Herbert/ Leblanc, André), “The Transcultural Streams of Chinese Canadian Identities” (Li, Jessica Tsui-yan), “The Oxford Handbook of Modernisms” (Brooker, Peter, Gasiorek, Andrzej, Longworth, Deborah and Thacker, Andrew) and “The Hong Kong Modernism of Leung Ping-kwan “( Au, Chung-to). Au Chung-to´s analysis inspired me in my own investigation of Leung Ping-kwans writings. My sources in Chinese are essays, poems and short stories of Leung Ping-kwan, Fúshì Bāha 浮世巴哈 (The transient world of Bach)(2013), Xiānggăng wénhuà shí lùn 香港文化十论，(Ten essays on Hong Kong) (2012), Yě Sī de Xiānggăng

也斯的香港 (Ye Si´s Hong Kong) (2005), Yóulĭ de shī 游離的詩 (A poetry of moving signs)(1995) and Lĭ, Wèizuì, 李未醉，Jiānádà huárén shèhuì nèi bù de hézuò yŭ chōngtū yánjiū (1923-1999) 加拿大华人社会内部的合作与冲突研究(1923-1999) (Research on Cooperation and Conflict in the Canadian-Chinese Society) (2007).

2.2 Previous studies about Chinese in America

The history of the Chinese in America was long ignored in academic research. The first scientific book "Chinese immigration" by Mary Roberts Coolidge about the Chinese was published in 1909. It describes the lives of Chinese immigrants. However, the source material is based on outside observations of missionaries and government reports and not on the Chinese people's own statements. In the 1960s, several historians wrote about Chinese immigrants, but even here there was a lack of primary source material. At the same time, another sociological focus of research on Chinese life emerged in which academics with Chinese background were involved. They were inspired by writing the new social history "from the bottom up". They used oral and written stories of the Chinese themselves, Chinese newspapers, and personal papers. Through their research, they were able to find out more about the Chinese people's work, their social and family life and how they perceived America's culture, politics, values, and attitudes. They were interested in how the Chinese treated other ethnic groups and how they reacted to racial

3 discrimination. Other questions that were investigated were reasons for such strong transnational family ties and political and cultural ties with their home country. An example of such studies is “The Chinese in the United States of America”, written in 1960 by Rose Hum Lee. The experiences from early immigration have also been compared with the following generations born in America and the large influx of Chinese people to America after 1965. In recent years, Chinese American academics have done extensive work in collecting large amounts of documents, e.g.. immigration papers, business papers, legal documents, testimonies, letters, interviews, stories, etc. One example is “Chinese American Voices: From the Gold Rush to the Present” ( Yung, Judy, Chang, H. Gordon, Lai, Him Mark). This has helped to create a more nuanced picture of Chinese Americans. The new research has tried to challenge stereotypical images of Chinese Americans as "silent sojourners" by showing social and political activity throughout Chinese American history. Studies on the current transcultural stage of migration have just started. An example of this is the book "The Transcultural Streams of Chinese Canadian Identities" (Li, Jessica Tsui-yan). There is a need of further studies on how transculturalism affects people with Chinese backgrounds in the diaspora socially and culturally.3

2.3 Research questions

The aim of this study is to examine how life in the diaspora has influenced Leung Ping- kwan's literary production and to investigate the features of transculturalism and modernism in some of his most famous literary works. How does his specific work with translation contribute to transculturalism? Which methods and topics does the author use to create a global literature that is inspired by different artistic genres and by the author's experience of travelling in the world?

3 Yung, Judy, Chang, Gordon H, Lai, H. Mark, Chinese American Voices: from the gold rush to the present, Berkeley: University of California 2006, xv-xx Li, Jessica Tsui-yan, The Transcultural Streams of Chinese Canadian Identities, Mc Gill-Queens University Press 2019

2.4 Research method

I began my study with reading Leung Ping-kwan´s above mentioned literary works together with academic articles and books that deal with the subjects transculturalism and modernism. I have also read academic articles that discuss problems and possibilities in translation work. I will be applying a comparative literary analysis in my examination of Leung Ping-kwans writing where I present similarities and differences in terms of influences from traditional Chinese literature, Westerns authors and modernism. The study is based on the theory of intertextuality that was introduced in the literature of Julia Kristeva in 1966. She develops further Mikhail Bakhtin’s' theory of dialogue, a concept that emphasizes that stories do not exist in a vacuum but are based on other stories. By this, Kristeva points out that texts are written in a context. Examples of intertextuality are adaptions i.e., transfers of a story from one medium to another with allusions, quotes, imitations, and parodies. 4 The literary scholar Julie Sanders has addressed the concepts of adaptation and appropriation which implies that one takes an element from a culture and transforms it into a new cultural context, a practice that usually can be observed when it comes to classical works. One typical example is Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Julia” which has been appropriated into many different performances, for example into “West Side Story”. My research questions are based on theories of identity, transculturalism and modernism.5

2.5 The concept of identity

Cristina-Georgiana Voicu discusses the complex concept of identity in her book “Exploring Cultural Identities in Jean Rhy´s Fiction” (2014) based on different theories of identity. According to the Oxford Dictionary (1999), identity is "the distinct personality of an individual regarded as a persisting entity". An individual's cultural identity consists of several aspects such as race, ethnicity, social, economy, geopolitics, gender, religion, ability, inability, language, profession, etc. Each aspect represents a particular category

4 Kristeva, Julia,” Word, Dialogue, Novel”, in The Kristeva Reader, ed. Toril Moi Columbia University Press New York 1986, 34, 37- 39 5 Sanders, Julie, Adaptation and appropriation, London, and New York, 2016, 1-7

5 to which a person belongs. Identity is not a finished product but an ongoing process that is never completed. Cultural identity belongs to both the past and the future. It transcends place, time, and culture. Identity linked to assimilation, diaspora and hybridity are other ways of analysing identity. Diaspora identity is based on diversity and hybridity. The collective identification family, kinship, nation, race is constantly present and excludes those who do not belong to ‘us’ . Voicu believes that the collective identity cannot win over the individual identity because the loyalty to the latter is greater than the former.6

The cultural identity is not static, it arises, is adapted, and adopted. Travelling is a start to this process. Hybridity is perceived as a process of cultural mixing where the diaspora changes different aspects of the host culture and creates a new hybrid culture or hybrid identities. Usually, identity is linked to a place, but the place is not a stable concept and is not adequate when describing the modern diaspora where people travel back and forth across many borders. Through their shared experience of mobility, diaspora poets express questions about boundaries that are both barriers and bridges. There is a tension between the culture in different places that challenges and defines the diaspora's self.7

2.6 Transculturalism

The concept of transculturalism was first formulated by the Cuban anthropologist Fernando Ortiz in the 1940s. His concept described the new mixed cultural and social society that emerged after Spanish colonialism on the Latin American continent. Ortiz argued that transculturalism would replace the term acculturation because the latter concept is limited to describing the transition from one culture to another and it creates a false dichotomy between native and colonizer. 8 The philosopher Wolfgang Welsch believes that all modern societies in our globalized world are transcultural at both the micro and macro level. Even earlier in history, there have been encounters between different cultures, so one must re-evaluate the concept of delimited cultures, especially in

6 Voicu, Cristina-Georgiana, Exploring Cultural Identities in Jean Rhy`s Fiction, Warsaw/Berlin 2019, 15-22 7 Zhang, Benzi, Beyond Border Politics: Article excerpt “The problematics of Identity in Asian Diaspora Literature”, Studies in the Humanities Vol.31. No.1, 2004, 69-70 8 Ortiz, Fernando, Cuban Counterpoint: Tobacco and Sugar, Durham and London 1995, 102-103

6 our time of globalization with rapid changes and a diversity of cultural exchanges. Transculturalism goes against the perception of a traditional culture that develops from the nation state and it does not recognize borders. This contrasts with multiculturalism which strengthens the ties with the cultural heritage.9

According to Richard Slimbach transculturalism is based on the search for common interests and values. When you recognize yourself in others, you get a feeling of a global citizenship. He gives examples of different transcultural competencies: 1. Ability to question one´s own cultural values. 2. Ability to observe social behaviour, establish friendships across cultural boundaries and explore topics of global importance. 3. Awareness of transnational conditions that affect man and nature. 4. Experience of contrasting political stories, family patterns, social groups, art, religion, and cultural directions based on interaction with a non-English speaking environment. 5. Know a foreign language spoken, non-verbal and written. 6. Be able to show personal qualities such as empathy, curiosity, initiative, flexibility, humility, sincerity, kindness, justice, and joy in the social context in which one lives. Slimbach believes that social scientists have devoted too much time to studying human differences instead of similarities. In his view there are obvious universal elements in human nature such as the life cycle, the division of labour between sex and age, social networks, language as a means of communication, along with institutions such as marriage, education, religion, economics, government, and health.10 Jeff Lewis believes that transculturalism is a fluid state in which people can adapt and adopt new discourses and values. In transculturalism, there is both stability and instability in social encounters, which can lead to the dissolution of groups and cultures. It implies an acceptance that language and material are integrated within an unstable place in specific historical circumstances. Through critical thinking, power relations are discovered in language and history.11

9 Li, Jessica Tsui-yan, 3 Cuccioletta, Donald, “Multiculturalism or Transculturalism: Towards a Cosmopolitan Citizenship”, London Journal of Canadian Studies, 2001/2002 Volume 17, 8-9 Gilsenan Nordin, Irene/Edfeldt, Chatarina/Lung-Lung Hu/Jonsson, Herbert, Andre (eds.), 13 10 Slimbach, Richard, “The Transcultural Journey”, Asuza Pacific University, Frontiers Journal Aug 2005, 206-209 11 Lewis, Jeff, From Culturalism to Transculturalism, Iowa Journal of Cultural Studies, March 2011, 4

The concept of transculturalism has become a way of understanding how human identities are created where one sees change and diversity instead of borders and differences. The term transculturalism is increasingly used in several disciplines to understand the processes that shape culture and societies, as well as the formation of transcultural identities. Traditional analytical categories such as migration, multiculturalism, cosmopolitanism and postcolonialism have been reconsidered. Transcultural identities arise when different groups of people interact with each other and create new cultures. The transcultural culture is characterized by diversity and mobility. Chinese immigrants in North America are constantly negotiating their transcultural identity. The identity is not stable it changes over time and space. The cultural identity contains many elements such as class, gender, sexual orientation, level of education and religion. The Chinese diaspora in North America is a heterogeneous group with different backgrounds.12

2.7 Modernism

Modernism emerged in the late 19th and early 20th century (1880-1930) as a new direction in culture as a reaction to the earlier natural realism. In the literature, experiments were made with new forms as well as structures, and new subjects were developed. There is a connection between modernism and science with new discoveries in medicine and technological development in society with new media such as photography, film, and telephone. The art of photography made it possible to depict reality in a more precise way than paintings, therefore realistic art becomes uninteresting for the modernist artists who in their art show how they perceive reality from within themselves. The same applies to modernist literature. Everyday life is the main subject, but the objects are not described from a realistic perspective but from a person's subjective experience. One seeks the unconscious as in Freud's psychoanalysis which is a source of inspiration. Modernist authors saw themselves as cosmopolitans and they wanted to broaden their perspectives by travelling. There are many travelogues that depict life outside the Western world.13

12 Li, Jessica Tsui-yan, 3 Gilsenan Nordin, Irene/ Edfeldt, Chatarina/ Lung-Lung Hu/ Jonsson, 11-13 13 Au, Chung-to, The Hong Kong Modernism of Leung Ping-kwan, London 2020, 5-7 Brooker, Peter, Gasiorek, Andrzej, Longworth, Deborah and Thacker, Andrew, The Oxford Handbook of Modernisms, Oxford University Press 2010, 21,25, 63-64, 87, 410-411

Leung Ping-kwan also has everyday life as his major subject. He writes about love, weather, food, fashion, medicine, home-place, travels etc. It is not the everyday objects themselves that count but the thoughts around them. Like the early modernist writers, Leung Ping-kwan has an international perspective due to life in the diaspora where one is forced to live with many identities. He wants to communicate with other cultures to find common ground. Since he is a previously colonized person, his travelogues differ from the outside perspective of Western writers' travelogues. Many of the modernists devoted themselves to translation and this is also something that Leung Ping-kwan has worked with from the beginning of his literary career. Translation makes it possible to discover other ways of thinking. In my research, I want to see how Leung Ping-kwan deals with various topics such as food, fashion, home-place, medicine, travel, translation and in what way his writing does apply a transcultural and modernistic perspective.14

2.8 Translation

Translations contribute to transculturalism in various ways. Translations help to transfer ideas and cultures across borders. Several modernist writers, e.g. Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, and James Joyce, worked on translations to get new impressions and inspiration in their writing.15 In English, translation can have double meanings, on the one side the actual result of the translation from one language to another, on the other side the actual translation process. The word translate comes from Latin and means to carry over. Many languages have similar words, like German "übersetzen" (to put across). Japanese has different words for translation depending on what is translated e.g., word for word translations, translations that are presented alongside the original on the opposite page and translations that are better than the original. Translation is not just a mechanical work but an interpretation that can provide an understanding between different cultures. 16 Translations have led to new knowledge and reform movements e.g., in China in the 19th

14 Au, Chung-to, 36, 54,74, 82, 85, 97, 135-136, 160-161 15 Au, Chung-to, 159-160 16 Bellos, David, “Why Do We Call It ‘Translation’? in Is That a Fish in Your Ear”? in The Amazing Adventure of Translation, London 2011, 21-25 Kubin, Wolfgang, “To translate is to ferry across: Wu Li´s (1632-1718) Collection from Sao Paolo”, in Mapping Meanings, The Field of New Learning in Late Qing China, eds. Lackner, Michael and Vittinghoff, Natascha, Leiden/Boston 2004, 579-580

9 century when translations of Western scientific literature were started to achieve knowledge and development for China which could save the country from Western aggression.17

Translations have often been associated with limitations and shortcomings. If the original is seen as the only true text version, each translation is a forgery. Nowadays, translation is seen as an interpretation, which means that the author of the source text loses control of his/her work. Rosemary Arrojo talks about the author's death and the birth of the translator and the reader as active creator of meaning. She believes that every translation is unfaithful to the source text because it is placed in a different place, has a different language and culture. The translator determines the meaning of the text. According to Martha P.T. Cheung translation can be seen as a dialogue and interaction between opposing parties. To increase the understanding of a work in a different cultural environment, the translator can try to use known values in the target country. As translator one always has a choice how far away one goes from the source text. The work leaves its original identity and assumes a new cross-border form. Many transcultural writers try to find universal human traits in their different identities, and translations can increase understanding instead of emphasizing cultural differences.18

2.9 Limitations I have restricted my research by selecting one of the authors with Chinese background namely Leung Ping-kwan that literary scholars consider representative for transculturalism in the Chinese Diaspora in North America.

17 Lung, Rachel, “The Jiangnan Arsenal: A microcosm of Translation and Ideological Transformation in 19th-century China”, Translators´ Journal, vol. 61, 2016, 39-40 18 Arrojo, Rosemary, ´The ‘death’ of the author and the limits of the translator´s visibility”, in Translation as Intercultural Communication, Selected Papers from the EST Congress – Prague 1995, eds. Snell- Hornby, Mary, Jettmarova, Zuzana and Kaindl, Klaus, Amsterdam/Philadelphia 1997, 21-23, 27, 30-31 Venuti, Lawrence, “Translation as cultural Politics: Régimes of domestication in English”, in Critical Readings in Translation Studies, ed. Baker, Mona, London/New York 2009, 65-66, 69 Cheung, P.Y. Martha, ´The mediated nature of knowledge and the pushing-hands approach to research on translation history´, in The Pushing Hands of Translation and Its Theory, ed. Robinson, Douglas, New York, 2016, 24-25

3. Background

3.1 History of Chinese diaspora

The Chinese migration is based on trade, work and settlements outside of China. In the 12th century trade travel was initiated but declined during the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) in the 17th century. After the Opium Wars (1839-1860), many Chinese ports and trade were controlled by western countries. A famous term for Chinese overseas is 华侨 huaqiao. This term was coined in the 19th century but was not used much by the Qing administration, which referred to them as 华民 huamin (Chinese people) or 华人 huaren

(Chinese). Other terms were 华工 huagong (workers abroad) and 华商 huashang (merchants abroad). In the 20th century, the term huaqiao became the term for all overseas Chinese. Nowadays, many academics use the word Chinese overseas. In China, the terms 海外 haiwai and huaren are used for Chinese who are citizens in other countries, while huaqiao is used for those who have retained their Chinese citizenship.19

Chinese migrants are concentrated in Southeast Asia, Australia, New Zealand, North America, and Europe. Migration to Southeast Asia expanded China´s trade relations, while the migration to the West was mainly caused by Western need for cheap labour. In Southeast Asia, Chinese have been discriminated due to race. In the Western societies, race was a problem but political changes after the Second World War created acceptance for multiculturalism. The majority of the Chinese that have come across the Pacific to America since the 19th century came from Guangdong Province. The gold rush in California in the 1850s attracted many young men. They believed that they could make fast and easy wealth. They left China with the help of relatives' loans and worked hard to repay the loan. They usually worked on construction, in agriculture, forestry and mining. When loans were repaid, they returned to China to marry and went back to America and engaged in business like restaurants, laundries, and grocery stores. Not everyone succeeded, many remained indebted. When the Chinese workforce no longer

19 Tan, Chee-Beng, 15-18

11 was needed in the 19th century, immigration was reduced through anti-immigration laws. Laws prevented Chinese women from coming to America which created a Chinese bachelor community.20

Besides from the needs of cheap labour, domestic causes led the Chinese to emigrate, too. Overpopulation, recurring natural disasters with floods, droughts, and the Taiping rebellion 1850-1864 caused poverty and starvation. Many were recruited by ‘coolie agencies’ that were under western control in coastal cities between 1856 and 1874. During the crossing on overcrowded ships, lack of basic supplies led to a high mortality. In the new country, they were sold like slaves on a market. They worked in plantations, agriculture, and mines, sometimes up to 18-20 hours/day and were subjected to harsh physical punishments. The payment was so bad that they could not save for a return trip. The trade deteriorated China's reputation and the Qing regime started consular activity to stop this trade.21

Anti-Chinese laws in North America in the 1920s, wars in the Pacific and the Great Depression caused migration to be largely shut down until the end of World War II. Then laws changed and Chinese migration increased. Highly educated Chinese came to North America which changed the general perception of Chinese in the American society from "dirty, poor working class" to successful academics. Associations in Chinese society in Canada have acted to get an apology from the government for historical discrimination against Chinese in various forms e.g. head taxes. There has been disagreement between various Chinese associations about how the financial compensation should take place.22

20 Ibid. p. 108-113 Hsu, Madeleine Y, Dreaming of Gold, Dreaming of Home, Transnationalism and Migration Between the United States and South China, 1882-1943, Stanford University Press 2000, 54 Li, Jessica Tsui-yan, xi-xii, 37 21 Tan, Chee-Beng, 73-87 22 Ibid. 109 Li, Jessica Tsui-yan, xiii Lĭ, Wèizuì, 李未醉，Jiānádà huárén shèhuì nèi bù de hézuò yŭ chōngtū yánjiū (1923-1999) 加拿大华人社会内部的合作与冲突研究(1923-1999) (Research on Cooperation and Conflict in the Canadian- Chinese Society) ，北京 2007, 282- 285 The Chinese head tax was a fixed fee charged to each person entering Canada which was meant to discourage Chinese migration to Canada. The tax was abolished 1923.

一位华裔报人指出，为平反，人头税，华联会和”平权会”都做了不少的工作，大家分歧

在于解决问题的方式不同。如果双方为了维护华人权益的共同目标，事先能有一个良好

的沟通和磋商，用一个声音说话，这个问题恐怕会解决得更加圆满，也会更快一些。

(Translation Ingegerd Andrén) A Chinese newspaper reporter pointed out that a lot of work has been done to rehabilitate the head tax, the Hualian Association, and the "Affirmative Rights Association”, the difference lies in the different ways of solving the problem. If the two parties have a good communication and consultation in advance for the common goal of safeguarding the rights and interests of the Chinese, and speak with one voice, the problem will probably be resolved more satisfactorily and faster.23

After 2000 Chinese people came from other parts of China. Chinese are now the dominant migration group in North America. Many Chinese with Canadian and American citizenship can move freely around the world and work elsewhere and contribute with investments in the host country. Canada has one of the highest immigration rates in the world. About a third of students in Canada are born in Asia. Toronto and Vancouver have become the new "Asian Canada" where half of the residents have Asian origin as of 2006. When the negotiations for Hong Kong´s transfer to mainland China began in the 1980s, many Hong Kong businessmen were welcomed by Canada, but from the mid-1990s, Hong Kong migration diminished due to improved economic opportunities in Hong Kong. After a few years, the same thing happened with mainland China immigrants. However, the number of Chinese youths in higher education in Canada increased.24

加拿大是一个年轻的资本主义国家，是西方七大工业国之一，她也是世界上最大的移民国家之一，每年有几十万移民从世界上 100 多个国家，包括美国，法国，英国这样发达的资本主义国家移民加拿大。

(Translation Ingegerd Andrén)

Canada is a young capitalist country and one of the seven largest industrialized nations in the West. It is also one of the largest immigration countries in the world. Every year, there are hundreds of thousands of immigrants coming from more than 100 countries in the world, including developed capitalist countries such as United States, France and the United Kingdom to Canada.25

23 Lĭ, Wèizuì, 李未醉, 284 24 Tan, Chee-Beng, 117-120 Li, Jessica Tsui-yan, xii-xv Lĭ, Wèizuì, 李未醉,1 25 Ibid. 1

3.2 China´s policies on Chinese overseas

China's policy towards Chinese overseas until the end of the Qing Dynasty is connected to trade. China established trading settlements in East Asia. The Ming Dynasty had a contradictory policy, while officially banning foreign trade, the court profited from trade. In the late 16th century, many Chinese emigrated to Southeast Asia. The Qing Dynasty in 1644 put up restrictions on maritime trade and migration. They saw Chinese overseas as rebels that had failed their traditional duties of cultivating the land when dealing with immoral trade. However, corrupted officials looked between the fingers of foreign trade. The Opium Wars opened Western trade routes. The Qing government realized that the Chinese overseas could contribute to China`s modernization. After the fall of the Qing Dynasty in 1911 interest in Chinese overseas became even greater. The Kuomintang came to power with the help of Chinese overseas. The Chinese Republic saw them as a part of China and wanted to exploit their knowledge and investments.26

3.3 From sojourning to settlement to transnationalism

During the sojourning stage, the ‘bachelor community’ made it impossible to create a permanent settlement. When Chinese Exclusion Laws were removed 1943 Chinese could reunite with their families and settle down. After the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, many highly educated Chinese wanted to become American citizens. Nowadays Chinese migration is referred to as immigrant transnationalism with different types of transmigration, like business, workers, and employees in companies and educational or social institutions, representatives of international organizations, political activists in the home country's political campaigns, associations and financial support for relatives.27

26 Tan, Chee-Beng, 31-36 27 Ibid. 122-136

3.4 New family constellations and gender roles

In the early family formations, the husband left his wife in China. Nowadays, families live in a globalized world where the husband works elsewhere while the wife stays in the host country and takes care of the children. Another family type is when parents leave their child in America for education and the opposite, the parents stay in the host country to work while the children are left with the grandparents in the home country. The Chinese woman's position is strengthened in America because they have work and do not need to submit to the man's family. When the husband works in China women are more independent. In China, they had professions such as doctors and professors, but their previous educations are not recognized in America. However, many women see this as a challenge one must overcome. Women´s greater freedom can lead to tensions in marriage.28

3.5 Chinese immigrants become American citizens

Well-educated immigrants want to be citizens and participate in society. This is called 落地生根 luodi shenggen (take root). Another term is 安居乐业 anju leye (establish home and a business career). Many Chinese think that one must have a successful company to be respected in the USA, high education is not enough. Therefore, they start companies and engage globally and are called 太空人 taikongren (astronaut workers). Chinese migrants play an important role in the American-Asian transnational economy and are increasingly participating in political life. They also want to maintain the Chinese local connection expressed in terms like 台美人 Tai Meiren (Taiwanese American) and 美籍

华人 Meiji Huaren (Chinese-American citizen).29

28 Ibid. 240-243 Li, Jessica Tsui-yan, 95, 99, 102-106 29 Tan, Chee-Beng, 294-304

3.6 Diasporic Chinese media

The media in the Chinese diaspora is based on local areas but is distributed globally. Entrepreneurs started newspapers to promote their products, but this also strengthened the Chinese diaspora. Nowadays, the media has an educational role in Chinese society and culture. In connection with the Beijing Olympics 2008, protests in the west against China's treatment of Tibet were met by resistance from Chinese abroad which revealed a strong Chinese nationalism in contrast to how the Chinese overseas reacted after Tiananmen in 1989 which shows the ambiguity in the Chinese diaspora. The new generation is not as critical as the generation after the Tiananmen. China influences the diaspora media to improve its political image and to form a transnational identity among Chinese overseas.30

3.7 Chinese diaspora literature

Some early literary works in the Chinese diaspora in USA are poems in classical Chinese written on the walls of the immigration station on Angel Island in Francisco Bay between 1910-1940. The poems talk about hardships, homesickness and how to survive a difficult life. The first known Chinese American author who wrote in English was Lee Yan Phou (1861-) who wrote his memoirs "When I Was a Boy in China", comparing China with America. Edith Maude Eaton， pseudonym of Sui Sin Far (1865-1914) was the first Chinese American author who wrote fiction. Louis Chu (1915-1970) is known from his only novel "Eat a Bowl of Tea” describing a Chinese bachelor´s life. Some Chinese writers wrote while staying in the US eg. Hu Shi (1891-1962). Many Taiwanese writers came to the US after the 1960s eg. Nie Hualing (1925 -) and Yu Lihua (1931 -), whose novels tell of terrible conditions in the diaspora. They represented 留学生文学 liuxuesheng wenxue - foreign students' literature. Some modernist writers showed a diversity in literary style eg. Yu Guanzhong (1928 -) and Yang Mu (1940 -). Most of these authors were published in Taiwan. Before World War II, many Chinese writers of the May Fourth Movement studied in Europe and wrote during their stay there eg. Xu

30 Ibid. 433-440

Zhimo (1897-1931), Lao She (1899–1966) and Ba Jin (1904–2005). Most of the writers wrote in the modern language baihua. After 1949, many migrant writers returned to China to participate in the construction of the socialist society. The People's Republic considers Chinese overseas writers as a part of China´s culture. During the Cultural Revolution (1960-1970), the attitude towards Chinese overseas changed. They were linked to foreign conspiracy. After 1978, China opened up and wanted to use the Chinese overseas to modernize China. The diaspora Chinese literature is described in a simplified way as expatriate literature – 海外华文文学 haiwai huawen wenxue by the officials in China. Subjects related to China e.g., leftist, and anti-Japanese literature was popular before 1949 and authors wrote emotionally about their home country. Sojourning literature 侨民文

学 qiaomin wenxue was a term used during this time. After World War II the orientation towards China changed. Several migrant writers wanted the literature to reflect local conditions in the country where they lived. After the Chinese Revolution, China became less of a political center and more of a cultural homeland. Many Chinese writers in the current European diaspora mix Chinese and Western styles. Some writers are not recognized in China such as Bei Dao (1949-) and Nobel Laureate Gao Xingjian (1940-).31

Zhang Ailing (Eileen Chang 1920-1995) wrote about the difficulties of love life in the feudal society. Her works were immensely popular and inspired many writers. Her novel “The Song of Rice Sprouts” criticized the Communist land reform, which led to her not being recognized in China until after the Open Doors policy in the 1980s. Writers who came in the 1980s enjoyed more recognition in terms of literary skills compared to previous ones, for example Yan Geling (1958-). Eleanor Ty claims that Japan and Chinese minorities have been highlighted as a “model minority” compared with other minorities due to their successful achievements in their new country. These demands can cause mental illness. Jan Wong, a journalist, tried to find a different identity than that of a minority model. She wrote about school shootings performed by migrants that in her view were caused by exclusion and racism which provoked threats against her which led to a depression. Wong describes her depression from a feminist perspective. She believes that women are more likely to be depressed than men. She finds solace in music, travel, and

31 Ibid. 460-462, 466-469, 480-482 Yan, Phou Lee, When I was a boy in China, Boston 1887

17 luxury shopping. With her expensive habits Wong has become a symbol of #Asian fails, a website that deals with Chinese stereotypes, by not following Confucian rules.32

Putonghua is now the most common spoken language among Chinese people in Canada although many writers are from Hong Kong. The poem "An old Man in Hong Kong" (1983) by Ho Hon Leung, a Hong Kong Canadian poet, reflects on Hong Kong's surrender to China in 1997. Hong Kong is compared to an old man waiting to die and who does not care about Hong Kong's future. Laurence Wong is a Hong Kong Canadian poet who writes poems that reflect a shared identity between Canada and Hong Kong. Andrew Parkin deals with the identity of ‘astronaut families’. The mobility between Hong Kong and Canada has contributed to a diversified and fluid identity among Chinese Canadians and created a transcultural literature.33

4. Leung Ping-kwan

Leung Ping-Kwan 梁秉釣 (1949-2013) is a transcultural writer in Canada/Hong Kong with the pen name 也斯 Ye Si. He published most of his works under his pen name. In that way he wanted to avoid being identified based on a particular cultural background. The name Ye Si consists of two Chinese words that have no special meaning. He travelled to different parts of the world during his lifetime and his global perspective permeates his literary works. Instead of emphasizing differences in cultures, he advocated convergence, inclusion rather than division. He describes the identity of Hong Kong Canadians in a more pluralistic way. There is an ongoing negotiation between the different cultures. The author does this in different ways. Ye Si translated and adapted the Chinese language, literature, and culture to the Canadian counterparts and vice versa. He places Cantonese and modern Chinese literature side by side with everyday life in contemporary Chinese Canadian society. These linguistic and cultural elements coexist in a transcultural third

32 Tan, Chee-Beng, 467-468 Ty, Eleanor, ”Identities in Public: Cultural Translation in Jan Wongs´s Out of the Blue” in, Li, Jessica Tsui-yan, The Transcultural Streams of Chinese Canadian Identities, 83-93 33 Ibid. 19, 67, 69-70, 74

18 space where Hong Kong's Canadian identities are products of Canada's ever-changing transcultural modernity.34

香港文化的特色，見諸文化空間的混雜變幻。身處其中亦不得不發展了不同的方法去應對周旋。 (Translation Ingegerd Andrén)

The special character of Hong Kong culture can be seen in the mixture and change of cultural space. To be situated in the midst of it, you have to develop different ways of coping with the situation.35

Ye Si began studying English in Hong Kong and did his PhD in comparative literature at the University of California. He worked as a professor of literature in Hong Kong and as a visiting professor in Toronto. His work is cross genre in that he collaborates with other artists such as painters and photographers. In his work he unites Chinese and Western cultures and seeks an alternative global modernity. Ye Si travelled to Canada in the 70s, 80s and 90s where he was inspired to write several poems. His wife and children immigrated to Canada in the 1980s and he travelled all the time between Canada and Hong Kong. He showed how Hong Kong people with different cultures and identities build new identities. His travel literature advocates new transcultural perspectives where he uses both classical Chinese conventions and Western romanticism and modernism. He often examines the ethical and philosophical values of everyday material in contemporary times.36

Ye Si's poetry often deals with his life in Hong Kong, a city that has both preserved Chinese tradition but at the same time developed a modern material society. Ye Si has been extremely critical of how Hong Kong is described by outsiders who think they are more qualified to tell stories about Hong Kong than the residents themselves. In movies, Hong Kong becomes a background to absurd stories. Even official institutions use old stereotypical images as sailboats to symbolize Hong Kong. According to Ye Si one has to remove clichés and add new images to tell a true story of Hong Kong. His poems are placed between past and present, between Hong Kong and the United States where he

34 Ibid. 50-51, 64 35 Leung, Ping-kwan,” Hòujì: shūxiě yóulí 後記:書寫游離 Afterword: writing free” in Yóulĭ de shī 游離的詩 (A poetry of moving signs), Oxford 1995, 139 36 Li, Jessica Tsui-yan, 51-54

19 studied and cities in Europe that he visited. The author acts as a tourist who views daily life in a new country. His poetry is very concrete. The details, places and relationships between living beings described have a special radiance that is enhanced by the sound of the words. In his later works, Ye Si develops a political commitment and behind his random sentences and minor events, the sufferings of others are revealed. He often alludes to Chinese traditional poetry, but his narrative is modern and timeless, free from trends. The poems describe a world in change where everything is temporary, what is built up is destroyed and rebuilt again. Ye Si is looking for that which is temporary and only lasts so long that you can observe it and remember it in a poem. The poems show the fragility of human relationships with their encounters, separations, and reunions.37

5. Subjects of investigation in Leung Ping-kwan´s writings

Leung Ping-kwan shows in his literature that his own and other Hong Kong residents' identities are fragmented and are constantly changing instead of being stable and unified. This creates a diverse perspective on the transcultural identity. In addition to transculturalism, his work has many modernist features. An example of this is the renewal of the literary tradition. Leung Ping-kwan experimented with mixing traditional and modern writing style. He highlights everyday things like home, medicine, food, fashion, and love to shape his identity. Travel plays an important role when the author describes border crossings, separations, and reunions. The author also shows a great interest in how human relationships change in a social and political context. Leung Ping-kwan has worked extensively with the translation of literature into and from Chinese to create understanding between different cultures. In my study of the transcultural and modernist features of Leung Ping-kwan's literature, I have examined the following subjects: 1) Literary style 2) Everyday items 3) Traveling 4) Human, social and political relations 5) Translation.38

37 Marchand, Sandrine, Leung Ping-kwan (Yě Sī), Travelling with a Bitter Melon; Selected Poems (1973- 1989), bilingual publication with a preface by Martha P. Y. Cheung (ed.) and an introduction by Rey Chow Hong Kong, Asia 2000 Ltd., 2002, China Perspectives March- April 2003, 2-3 Yě Sī 也斯，Xiānggăng wénhuà shí lùn 香港文化十论，(Ten essays on Hong Kong culture) Hángzhōu Zhèjiāng Dàxué chūbănshè 杭州浙江大学出版社，(Hangzhou Zhejiang University Press), 2012, 1-28 38 Au, Chung-to, 174-175

5.1 Literary style

There have been different directions in modernism, including those who try to bring to light the past to show that it is relevant to the present and those who see modern society as completely different and therefore want to create a completely different literature. Leung Ping-kwan and other Hong Kong writers have argued that the Chinese tradition has played an important role in the creation of Hong Kong modernism. In the Chinese literary tradition, poetry is the highest form of expression. Writing fiction was long considered a lower art form. Nowadays, more novels than collections of poems are written. Leung Ping-kwan tried to write "lyrical novels" by mixing poetry into prose. The lyrical novels he wrote have a lose structure and the different paragraphs are not always connected. The mood and atmosphere in the stories are more important than persons and actions. An example of this is Leung Ping-kwan's short story collection "Islands and Continents" which contains stories written in the 1980s. The author describes in the afterword to the book how the short stories came to be. He began writing them while studying in the United States, where he encountered contemporary American poets and Chinese from the mainland and Taiwan with whom he exchanged life experiences. He returned to Hong Kong in 1984 just as Britain and China had agreed on Hong Kong´s return to China. He found it difficult to readjust to Hong Kong's atmosphere and wanted to write about it. In the book he wants to show the connection that exists between different islands and continents. The new continent is America, and the old mainland is China. In his writing, Western modernism mixes with Chinese literary tradition in a kind of lyrical and cultural fiction. He believes that lyrical fiction emphasizes atmosphere and moods that produce reflections on history and culture rather than personal feelings. In the short stories he wanted to use different expressions such as poetry, prose, experimental drama, monologue, visual art, and critical discussion. Leung Ping-kwan does not express any judgments about the situations he writes about. When he writes fiction, it is a way for him to explore his constant sense of seclusion. He expresses this in the afterword to “Islands and continents”: “I constantly experience an underlying sense of temporal disjuncture in my life, I suffer from a chronic condition of cultural jetlag – even when living in my own

21 society.”39 In fiction, he feels freer to place characters in ambiguous situations than when writing academic essays on Hong Kong culture. In the short story "Islands and Continents" there are three main characters, two men and one woman. We do not learn more about their background other than that they studied or maybe still study in the United States. The men were once close friends but when they meet again after some time they feel like strangers. One of the men has had a love affair with the woman who now rejects him. It is not possible to follow a plot in the story, but one experiences different situations and emotions that occur in both the United States and Hong Kong. The story goes back and forth in time and space like scenes in a movie. Leung Ping-kwan also used techniques from other art forms, such as film in his writing. The short story expresses feelings of alienation upon returning to Hong Kong. The author expresses this in various ways, among other things the one man's unhappy love story represents sad feelings of not recognizing the homeland that is now so different from the memories of Hong Kong that the migrant has cultivated in exile when he comes back. The following quotation from the short story illustrates this.40

He´d come back to the East his heart bursting with cherished memories. He had failed to find the person he´d been longing for night and day during his absence. He had lost the only means of realizing his dreams. He had nothing left to hold on to. He was stepping into a void. He walked slowly down a small brightly lit street full of hawkers with no local money in his pockets and without even knowing what the correct exchange rate was. There was no way he could exchange his emotions for actual currency, so when he bought simple everyday articles or snacks, he was either badly ripped off or bad people screaming at him. He seemed to be quite incapable of any normal form of transaction with this world.41

In the short story "Postcolonial Affairs" Leung Ping-kwan brings out the plot and characters of the story and he considered it not to be a lyrical novel. Au Chung-to thinks that it is related to the Chinese literary yongwu 咏物 tradition which Leung Ping-kwan claims could be traced back to Shijing 诗经 and Liji 礼记(The book of Songs and The

39 Leung, Ping-kwan, “Afterword Writer´s Jetlag” in, Islands and Continents, Short Stories, edited by John Minford with Brian Holton and Agnes Hung-Chong Chan, Hong Kong University Press 2007, 124 40 Ibid. 121-124 Au, Chung-to 24-32 41 Leung, Ping-kwan, Islands and Continents, Short Stories, edited by John Minford with Brian Holton and Agnes Hung-Chong Chan, Hong Kong University Press 2007, 82

Book of Rites- two of the Confucian five classics). Yongwu emphasizes objects and their relationship to humans. Leung Ping-kwan and other Hong Kong writers sought to renew yongwu and create modernist works. He wrote yongwu poems in the 1970s before writing lyrical novels. The relationship between man and object can be divided into three types: 1) Man is emphasized 2) Neither man nor object is emphasized 3) Man is treated as or controlled by the object. In "Postcolonial Affairs" there are strong relationships between people and objects, especially food. In the Chinese tradition, there is not that division between subject and object as in Western tradition, ideally the relation between man and nature is in harmony tian ren he yi 天人合一. The plot in the short story takes place around the time of Hong Kong's transition to China and the changes in society are reflected, among other things, in changed food cultures that affect the characters in the story. A love story is doomed to fail due to a conflict between different perceptions of fine food culture and this becomes obvious when the couple meets the woman´s father in a restaurant. The woman Marianne in the relationship has been raised by her father in French cuisine. The man Stephen identifies with her mother who according to the daughter has bad taste and which she looks down on.42 … While they smoked, I was relegated to the role of her mother, who had always been, in Marianne’s own words, an ordinary woman with no knowledge of the culture of food and drink. Like her, I was now just a non-speaking extra, supporting the true epicures, father, and daughter.43 … From Marianne´s drunken, exaggerated description, I could just imagine the two of them, father, and daughter, with their goose liver pâté, their oysters and lamb chops, emptying their bottle of wine, then each of them with a cigar, sucking the smoke in and blowing it out again. The dishes would be left scattered all over the long table, while at the far end sat this wizened old ghost in worn clothes from the Manchu dynasty, alone chewing her steamed minced pork with a little salted fish, and a bowl of plain rice …44

42 Au, Chung-to, 10,15,25, 48, 59, 64-65 43 Leung, Ping-kwan, Islands and Continents, Short Stories, 103 44 Ibid. 105

After writing “Postcolonial Affairs”, Leung Ping-kwan devoted most of his time to writing poetry. The author says that he was influenced by the Song poet Su Dongpo (1037-1101) who expressed that a friend's text was like running water.45 Leung Ping- kwan also strives for a fluidity in his poems by avoiding punctuation. The rain flows and prevents meaningful activity in the poem “Su Dongpo in Huizhou”. 46 He went back to classical Chinese poetry in “Shi Jing – The Book of Songs”, which is the oldest collection of Chinese poetry written around 1000-700 B.C. The poems talk about everyday life. Leung Ping-kwan said that they were not sentimental and non-aggressive. They open up opportunities for the reader to discover new things. He was inspired by their spirit but kept free from the strict form even though he could use the double rhyme method and repeat words to reinforce the feeling in the poem. When he adapted poems from the Shi Jing, he redesigned the content, so it related to a modern society. An example is “Big Rats” from Shi Jing.47

Big Rats! Big Rats! Don´t eat our millet! For three years we´ve spoiled you but none of you requited us. It´s got to the point where we´ll leave you, and go to that happy land! Happy Land! Happy Land! There we´ll find a place . …48

The poem is allegorical. The rat symbolizes the authority that exploits the people. This is also the case in Leung Ping-kwan's version, but in his poem the people do not leave but defy suppression in the last verse.49

45 Gänssbauer, Monika and Tang, Wei “Eine Einführung”, in Leung, Ping-kwan, Wilde Gedanken bei bewölkten Himmel. Notizen aus Hong Kong, Bochum/Freiburg 2016, 12-13 46 Kubin, Wolfgang, ”Nachbemerkungen” in Leung, Ping-kwan, Von Jade und Holz. Gedichte, Wien 2009, 38, 130 47 Au, Chung-to, 41 -43, Kubin, Wolfgang, 38, 130 48 Mair, Victor H., ed., The Columbia Anthology of Traditional Chinese Literature, New York 1994, 158 49 Au, Chung-to, 41

… Huge rat, O huge rat most people have already left. We cannot let things go on this way we have to stop your wrongdoing.50

In his collection of poems “Liaozhai Poetry”, Leung Ping-kwan goes back to the storyteller Pu Songling (1640-1715) who wrote “Liaozhai zhiyi” (Strange tales from a Chinese studio). The stories were widely circulated in China through storytellers. They focus on everyday life but contain many supernatural phenomena. There is an indirect social critique, and the stories often contain some moral message. Classical Chinese literature has a different view of objects than Western literature and accepts magic. Leung Ping-kwan´s “Liaozhai s Poetry” are adaptions of “Liaozhai Stories”. They contain plants, animals, insects, and supernatural beings. There are different forms of relationships between people and objects. "The Painted Skin" by Pu Songling is a well-known story that has been adapted into several forms, including film. The story is about a married man who falls in love with a beautiful woman who becomes his mistress, but under her beautiful shell (skin) she is an ugly demon who cuts out the heart from the man's chest. With his wife´s sacrifice the man is resurrected and a Taoist priest kills the demon. The title The Painted Skin -Huapi 画皮 has become an expression in Chinese of a dual nature. Pu Songling lets a Taoist priest give moral comments on the husband´s behaviour.51 … A few days later , in the marketplace, Wang ran into a Taoist priest who studied his face with grave concern. ‘What strange thing have you encountered?’ ‘Why nothing!’ replied Wang. ‘Nothing? Your whole being is wrapped in an evil aura,’ insisted the Taoist. ‘I tell you, you are bewitched!’ Wang protested vehemently that he was speaking the truth. ‘Bewitched!’ muttered the Taoist, as he went on his way. ‘Poor fool! Some men blind themselves to the truth even when death is staring them in the face! …52

50 Ibid. 41 51 Ibid. 44-45, 49 Hui, Luo, The Ghost of Liaozhai: Pu Songling´s Ghostlore and its History of Reception, University of Toronto 2009, 251 52 Pu, Songling, Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio, ed. John Minford, London 2006, 127

Leung Ping-kwan´s version is as follows:

In truth Are you a fair maiden wandering alone, Or a foul ghoul clad in human skin? … When you leave me, I still seem to see you, Changing into a host of apparitions, things I´d rather not see.

When you return, you´re like a different woman. Are you the woman I love? am I the man you love?

You press your gentle hands on my chest to soothe the pain. Or are you just hungry and want to gorge yourself on my heart and lungs?

You say you love me: with my chest open and scooped out. Will you cross a myriad mountains and rivers to get it back?

Foul phlegm from another’s throat transformed my pain, And through your love made my heart throb anew.

But would you just rather have another pretty painted face? Would you rather wander forever ‘twixt light and shade? …53

In Leung Ping-kwan's poems, several elements of the original story are found, such as evil spirit, enchantment, cut out heart and revival through another person's love. Here questions are asked about what is hidden behind the facade even in the new love. Leung Ping-kwan uses magical realism in several of his works, for example "Shimen" and "Paper Cutouts" written in the 1970s. He used different literary styles to examine reality and was influenced by Latin American magical realism which provides an opportunity to have an alternative perspective on the reality.54

53 Leung, Ping-kwan, Lotus Leaves: Selected Poems, The Chinese University of Hong Kong 2020, 154- 155 54 Au, Chung-to, 117-119

5.2 Everyday things

5.2.1 Introduction

Leung Ping-kwan has stated that he wants to see the world from simple, everyday things. This element can also be found in modernism. He was a pioneer of everyday poetry in Hong Kong and many Hong Kong writers were inspired by him. The author is of the opinion that everyday life is not stable. In his essay “Liangzhong huanxian” (Two Kinds of illusion) which Au Chung-to refers to, he thinks that he found it difficult to express his past, his place and identity due to the colonial situation he has lived through. This means that one cannot take anything for granted. Hong Kong is a place without any special life style, it is a hybrid of a fragmented society. Leung has written about his relationship to the material world in his essay "Notes on the Thing Poem". The interest in the material world is based on both classical Chinese poetry and modern Western literature. Through his interest in film, the author uses film technology in his narration where the room is zoomed in and out. An example of this is the posthumously published "Transmigration of the Soul of Someone who Drowned". Rey Chow says that Leung Ping-kwan often refers his way of writing to Shuqing 抒情 – lyricism which is on the one hand a poetic and cinematic formalism on the other hand an exercise in self-control as opposed to free emotional expression. The objects have the opportunity to speak for themselves. Leung invents dialogues between different imaginary voices. The words you and I are often used in dialogue. For Leung, it is important to show that there is always a different perspective on reality. Examples of this can be found in the poem "Flame Tree", "You do not have to see me in a fixed way," and "I do not have to see me in a fixed way". Other words in his writing used to express a relationship are he 和, yu 与, and, along with. This reappears in many of the author's book titles e.g., "Islands and Continents", "Thunder and Cicada Songs", "The Book and the City", "Postcolonial Affairs of Ford and of the Heart", "The “Visible and the Invisible" and "Fly Heads and Bird Claws". Through the conjunction, Leung draws attention to problems such as exile and diaspora. Some of his favourite themes are anchoring, breaking up, chance, hybridization, and involuntary cohabitation. Examples of this can be found in the essay "The Strange Big Banyan Tree" from 1987, where a strange banyan tree is found on a street in Hong Kong. The tree grows

27 on other trees and has here grown into an abandoned house. The house looks like a tree but is not a tree. In this way, the author shows that our existence is unstable. Leung Ping- kwan tackles several everyday topics in his literary works such as food, medicine, home, travel, and fashion.55

5.2.2 Food

Food is an important part of daily life and can be a part of one´s identity. It plays a significant role in Leung Ping-kwan's writing in both poetry and fiction. The author is inspired by taste, colour and the character of food and embodies his feelings in it. The food is personified, and the author speaks on behalf of it. He uses food as a way to convey the identity of people in Hong Kong. In a colonized society like Hong Kong, the colonizer's eating habits can be seen as superior to the domestic ones. The poem "A taste of Asia" in 2004 does not describe the food but the jar with pickled garlic, which was probably sent from a friend in Indonesia, and its bitterness expresses the difficult circumstances inflicted by the tsunami that year.56 … I open the tightly-sealed jar. Pickled garlic. What is this taste? Bitterness Buried deep in layers of mud? Harshness of trees torn apart? Stench of ocean, shattered coral, fish floating belly-up? What does it mean, your message, wafted my way this sunny afternoon? Something brewing in the dark? Something growing in turmoil? Pity and cruelty, glimpsed in the heaving motions of nature? Can a drop of sweetness temper the infinite brine of this world´s woe?57

Tea-coffee is a popular Hong Kong drink where tea and coffee are mixed. It was first sold on the street. In the poem with the same title, it can be assumed that Leung Ping-kwan wants to express the hybridity of Hong Kong´s local culture.58

55 Ibid. 69-72 Chow, Rey, “Leung Ping-kwan: and Reveries of Space”, in The Oxford Handbook of Modern Chinese Literatures, eds. Rojas, Carlos and Bachner, Andrea, Online publication, Oxford 2016, 4-9 56 Au, Chung-to 54-55, 101-104 57 Leung Ping-kwan, Lotus Leaves: Selected Poems, 115 58 Au, Chung-to, 56

… Pour the tea

Into a cup of coffee, Will the aroma of one Interfere with, wash out the other? Or will the other Keep its flavour: at roadside foodstalls Streetwise and wordly, From their daily stoves, Mixed with a dash… Of daily gossip and good sense, Hard-working, a little sloppy… An indescribable taste. 59

The poem "Comprador Soup" also shows Hong Kong's mixed identity. The merchants who are usually assigned negative human qualities such as dishonesty and greed represent how one blends ingredients from different cultures to make money.60

Taking pride in your creamy face? Underneath the smooth surface one wonders what lurks in secrecy To whom is shark´s fin offered? Dragging out old time legends of the ancestors delicacies easily taken as common stuff

Between the differences in prices how´s sweet profit gained? …61

When one is far from home, the familiar taste of something one has eaten at home can remind one of one´s identity. In the short story "Postcolonial Affairs", as previously mentioned, food is crucial in a love relationship because the couple likes different kinds of food. The man likes both traditional Chinese food and mixtures of Chinese and Western

59 Leung Ping-kwan, Lotus Leaves: Selected Poems, 111 60 Au, Chung-to, 105-106 61 Leung, Ping-kwan, Fly Heads and Bird Claws, Hong Kong 2013, 46

29 food while the woman does not like mixtures. The tastes reflect their identities. The poem "Eggplant" conveys a meeting where the way of cooking eggplants creates an identity in the author's memory.62

茄子 …

想起我們初次見面

不知怎的會說到茄子

記得你說小時候在台灣長大

爸爸是廣東人，媽媽來自北京

我可忘了間你們家怎樣吃茄子

煮熟了涼拌，加上芝麻和麻油

是加了辣味的漁香茄子

還廣東的茄子煮魚，茄子雞煲 …

Eggplant (translation Ingegerd Andrén)

Remembering the first time we met somehow talking about eggplant I remember you said that you grew up in Taiwan your dad being Cantonese, your mother from Beijing I forgot how your family ate the eggplant Cooked with cold dressing, sesame seed and sesame oil added as spicy eggplant Cantonese eggplant with boiled fish, or eggplant chicken pot63

Ye Si refers in his writing to shuqing 抒情. In the Chinese language, the word bitter ku

苦 is associated with a variety of expressions and usages in several human contexts. In Yasi's poem "Bitter melon" (1988-1989) one can see some important features in the author's writing. Here the protagonist is a bitter melon, which is often used in Chinese cooking. The bitterness is related to pain and tragedy in life. Looked at from the outside the bitter cucumber is not attractive. The lived life is hidden in the furrows, while the

62 Au, Chung-to, 108 Leung, Ping-kwan, Yóulĭ de shī 游離的詩 (A poetry of moving signs), Oxford 1995, 120-121 63 Ibid. 120

30 inside is light. The author produces contrasts and juxtaposes external visible phenomena with internal imperceptible ones. This also reveals that the author values the content before the surface.64

Wait until this moody weather is over- That´s all that matters. Some can´t stand your lined face. But I don´t look for a smooth landscape there. All the past is folded in your furrows; It never goes away. Old melon, I know that in your heart There are soft fresh things. …65

5.2.3 Medical treatment

Western medicine and treatment have not always been welcomed in the colonies and the colonizers brought with them diseases that hit the population hard. Western doctors often had to modify their treatments based on domestic medicine. Leung Ping-kwan describes mental health in Hong Kong in the 1970s in "Paper Cut-outs" (1977). There are two women, Qiao and Yao, who are mentally ill. According to the author, their madness is caused by colonialism. Their illness manifests itself in different ways, but what they have in common is that their illness is ignored by those around them, family, and friends, perhaps because they are also mentally ill. Qiao's home is mysterious. Here one cannot separate a wall from a door. Her company are parrots that she has drawn on the wall. The birds create a surreal, magical world.66 … Qiao was stroking one bird´s wing and teasing another´s beak with her finger. Those were here playmates, the things that gave structure to her world. It seemed I was slowly beginning to understand a little better how things were for Qiao. I could hear the birds twittering, too.

64 Chow, Rey, “Leung Ping-kwan: and Reveries of Space”, in The Oxford Handbook of Modern Chinese Literatures, eds. Rojas, Carlos and Bachner, Andrea, Online publication, Oxford 2016, 2-4 65 Leung, Ping-kwan, Lotus Leaves: Selected Poems, 204 66 Au, Chung-to, 85-88, 130-132

Sometimes they´d flap their wings and fly off the wall to land on my finger like little red flames. After a bit, they´d fly away. …67

Yao's home is an ordinary Chinese low middle-class home full of things everywhere, mostly books. Yao gets her knowledge of the world through literature. The outside world does not meet her expectations because the old area in which she lives has changed rapidly and become foreign to her. This may have triggered her mental problems.68 … If I went out there, I didn´t know where I might find you among the roar of the traffic and the crowds. I stopped by a stretch of waste ground where another building had been demolished, where once a famous-old-style Chinese tea-house had stood, that had been named after a well- known tea aficionado in the Tang dynasty: it had moved to a bustling area up the hill from the old back streets, and was now primped out like some fancy modern eatery. …69 The stories are reminiscent of Lu Xun's "A Madman's Diary" where the main character sees reality more clearly than the surroundings. The question is who has mental problems? Qiao symbolizes Western culture and Yao traditional Chinese culture and Leung Ping- kwan maybe wants to show that neither Western nor Chinese culture fits for Hong Kong. If colonial dis-ease or mental disease is something inevitable and normal in a colony, medical treatment will be something extraordinary.70

5.2.4 Fashion

Fashion is another part of our daily lives that Leung Ping-kwan deals with. Clothes can reveal which social group one belongs to, one can also hide one´s origin by using clothes that people in a higher social strata wear. One can choose to express oneself with an individual clothing style or follow the collective fashion. In a series of poems "Clothink" (1998), fashion represents what happens to the individual in colonial and postcolonial Hong Kong. Six of the poems were part of a 'non-fashion' happening at the Hong Kong Visual Arts Center in collaboration with designer Wessie Ling (Professor of Transcultural

67 Leung, Ping-kwan, Paper Cuts, The Chinese University of Hong Kong 2015, 16 68 Au, Chung-to, 89, 130-133 69 Leung, Ping-kwan, Paper Cuts, The Chinese University of Hong Kong 2015, 23 70 Au, Chung-to, 89-91

Arts and Design at the School of Art, Architecture and Design, London Metropolitan University) where the models performed in ropes, chains, and sacks. This is an example of the author´s collaboration with other art forms. He uses the tale "Alice in Wonderland" as a metaphor for what happens when one constantly tries to change but still remains an outsider as a person a in colonized land. Fashion changes quickly and for those who want to keep up, it leads to increased consumption. The poem's Alice falls into a huge closet that has no end and she and other creatures take different forms. She cannot recognize herself when she is constantly changing.71

Alice falling down

Falling down! Down, down! Down I fell into an enormous wardrobe. Would this falling never end? … Suddenly I grew larger till I hit the walls of both sides. And as my fan and my gloves changed, so did I. I had no idea what I was: …. A butterfly changing into a caterpillar, … Sometimes I fell slowly, sometimes I fell fast, Was that my head, or was it my foot? …. I couldn´t even explain myself, I couldn´t recognize myself. Down, down, down!72

In the poem "Barbie Doll", Leung Ping-kwan shows how one loses one's identity in a soulless body when one changes oneself according to a conformist norm of beauty. The person is aware of what is modern and is transformed with new clothes and plastic surgery.73

71 Ibid. 91-96 Leung, Ping-kwan, Lotus Leaves: Selected Poems, 163-164 72 Ibid. 165-166 73 Au, Chung-to, 97

Barbie Doll I´m a Barbie Doll I´m a Barbie City! I wear Barbie wig, Put on a different Barbie suit every day. …. Check out other people´s clothes during Happy Hour, …. I have all-over plastic surgery from time to time.’ I don´t mind changing my image. … I´m so glad to be living In a Barbie City.74

Leung Ping-kwan thinks that Hong Kong has become a monster city where everyone looks the same. The city has turned into a scary place since joining the mainland. In the poem "Monster City", Alice represents a living human being that the monsters want to exterminate.75 … Somehow Alice seemed to recall that she had another identity, So how had she become embroiled in this murky legend of a world? Escaping at breakneck speed From this city in facial metamorphosis, One could so easily crash straight into the zone of darkness, The monsters were working on her, Injecting their miasmic claustrophobia- They thought she was the sole survivor of the human race. …76

In order not to become a slave to things, the victim of a burglary can express gratitude to the thief who clears away unnecessary things so that one has the opportunity to learn more about one´s living space. This is expressed in the poem "Irma Vep". The poem alludes to

74 Leung Ping-kwan, Lotus Leaves: Selected Poems, 176-178 75 Au, Chung-to, 98-99 76 Leung Ping-kwan, Lotus Leaves: Selected Poems, 172

34 the French film Irma Vep (1996) of the same name. Hong Kong movie star Maggie Cheung plays Irma Vep, a beautiful burglary vampire.77 … I really should thank you For ransacking my place, And emptying it, For giving me the chance to examine more closely The space I live in.78

5.3 Travel and home

The modernists travelled and got new perspectives on the non-western world. Travelogues were popular in the 19th century, and they were often based on the assumption that the West was the center and the world outside was the periphery. It was through the eyes of people with Western values that the stories were written. They were in many cases very ignorant about culture and custom in the countries they visited and wrote about. When those who have been colonized start writing their travel stories, new dimensions emerge. Several authors write coutertravel writing as a protest against Western travel stories. Many Chinese writers have travelled to and settled in various Western countries and lived a life with multiple identities. When Leung Ping-kwan writes travel stories, it is not guidebooks but fiction. The author examines the relationship between the observers and the observed. He wonders if one can trust one´s travel experiences and grapples with the question of what is real and not real. The stories deal with the search for identity and the question what is home? There he asks himself whether homelessness is a bad thing and refers to the fact that those who lived in Hong Kong did not feel at home there because they lived in a distorted reality. Leung writes in the afterword to the book "Islands and Continents" that Hong Kong is home to him, but the feeling of home is always chased by feelings of exclusion and feelings of being uprooted. This reflects the transcultural mobility that exists in the author's cosmopolitan life and in

77 Ibid.173 Au, Chung-to, 99 78 Leung, Ping-kwan, Lotus Leaves: Selected Poems, 175

35 his stories. But he is not autobiographical as he is interested in people's basic lives e.g., how they eat, and love and he approaches political issues by depicting people´s lives.79

The modernists praised mobility and cross-border, which was in contrast to stagnation and home. Leung Ping-kwan also experienced rootlessness, so even though he believed that Hong Kong is his home, he had feelings of exclusion when everything changed all the time. In "Regen und Woodstock", Leung Ping-kwan expresses how business Hong Kong has made people cold. People hope that money falls from the sky, not smiles.80He believes that one can find feelings of home in strange places and in everyday things such as food, drink, and in family members. A home is a place where you can work and meet friends. When he visits the former homes of famous people like Kafka and Brecht in Europe, he marvels at how well-preserved they are, unlike Hong Kong, which is constantly changing shape. The author presents a homely feeling in Brecht´s house in Berlin.81

What plan, I wonder, orders this mixture? What´s to be found here and what´s not? Noh plays, Confucius, Marx and Agatha Christie- I can imagine you coming home to these, taking off the cap and putting up the cane, within these walls, taking notes of the books and paintings, dozing on the cot. A simple study belies the large matters implied. Even a mask of evil is not left out. You were Puritan to no heresy, living with such ordinariness. Hundreds of human demons you received in relative calm. …82

Leung Ping-kwan expresses similar thoughts about what a home is in the poem below. The important thing for him is a place where one can live and work and even if the dream of this is destroyed, a new dream can be built.

79 Au, Chung-to, 113-115, 134-139, 141 Freadman, Richard “Never Quite at Home: Leung Ping-kwan´s Stories of Personal Disjuncture”, Review, Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, February 2008 80 Leung, Ping-kwan, Wilde Gedanken bei bewölktem Himmel. Notizen aus Hong Kong, 24 81 Au, Chung-to, 75, 82-84 82 Leung, Ping-kwan, City at the End of Time, Hong Kong University Press 2012, 191

大地的居所

在大地上尋找居所可以生活和工作的家人們來到圍牆旁邊停下來，向遠方眺望不僅是可以托庇的樹蔭還望有隋意舒展的天空 …

一個夢碎了又好像有新的夢

Dwelling place on earth (translation Ingegerd Andrén)

Find a place on earth a home where you can live and work people come next to the fence stay and look in the distance this is not only a tree shadow that gives shelter one can still hope to stretch out freely into the sky … one dream is broken, but there seems to exist a new dream83

The poem could possibly be an allusion to Tao Yuanming´s (365-427) poem “After drinking wine (No.5)”.

I built my hut beside a travelled road Yet hear no noise of passing carts and horses. You would like to know how it is done? With the mind detached, one´s place becomes remote. Picking chrysanthemums by eastern hedge I catch sight of the distant southern hills: The mountain air is lovely as the sun sets And flocks of birds return together. In these things is a fundamental truth I would like to tell but lack the words.84

5.4 Human, social, and political relations

In several of his works, Leung Ping-kwan has associated historical and political events without expressing any moral stances. Many authors have written about cities, such as Kafka about Prague and Baudelaire about Paris, but few writers before Leung Ping-kwan has written about Hong Kong. He writes about everyday Hong Kong and not the exotic

83 Leung, Ping-kwan, Yóulĭ de shī 游離的詩 (A poetry of moving signs), Oxford 1995, 33 84 Mair, Victor H, ed, The Columbia Anthology of Traditional Chinese Literature, New York 1994, 180- 181

37 city that is written from a western perspective. In his poems about Hong Kong, he wanders through the streets and sees great social and political changes. The author describes buildings, constructions, and streets by bringing up everyday features. He also writes about political phenomena outside of Hong Kong e.g., the Tiananmen Incident in 1989, Auschwitz, the political changes in Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall 1989, eg. the transition from socialism to capitalism in Czechoslovakia.85

In the poem "Fabric Alley" which is written in connection with Hong Kong's transfer to mainland China, Leung Pingkwan describes the fabric of the clothes sold on the famous shopping street. The silk may represent the historical that has been transferred to postcolonial Hong Kong, while the question is asked whether the new identity is not still colonial and only disguised in a new style.86 … We pass on In this alley famous for fabric stalls, half in deliberate play, half in unfinished feelings. We touch easily the thin, translucent silk, the cotton that drags its touch in the fingers, the coarse wool that alters growing body, the provocations in the toes of shoes, the seductions in collars. All these stock images, the layers of colors superimposed to make old patterns, their many lyrics gone sour, also their erotic suggestions: can we really see ourselves remade in any of these? Yes these are all we see in front of us. How to go about tailoring something new, to make it so it wears the body well?87

Leung Ping-kwan has written three poems about the incident at Tiananmen. These are not strong protest poems, but hints where authorities' statements are imitated, and comments

85 Cheung, Ester M.K. “Introduction” in Leung, Ping-kwan, City at the End of Time, Hong Kong University Press 2012, 4-5 Gänssbauer, Monika and Tang, Wei, “Eine Einführung”, in Leung, Ping-kwan, Wilde Gedanken bei bewölktem Himmel. Notizen aus Hong Kong, Bochum/Freiburg 2016, 10-12 86Abbas, Ackbar, “Introduction to the 1992 Edition” in Leung, Ping-kwan, City at the End of Time, Hong Kong University Press 2012, 53-54 87 Ibid. 85

38 made. The first poem "In the Great Square" tells about a spring cleaning and ends in a disaster in which the home is destroyed.88 … We´d begun again housecleaning, sorting importances, but we´d lost the roof and our parlor´d been ransacked. …89 The second poem "Broken Home" looks back on the event that remains as a shocking feeling of betrayal.90 … Here we sit dumb, hardly trembling in the chilly night. You say it was always a temporary home, we can build another. Sure we can, our own hearts are the furniture. … The earth shakes and spirits are shattered like glass, broken like flower pots, I bend down to lift you from the trampled ground but find you and your promises of rebuilding a home with me can´t stand up.91

In the third poem "Refurnishing" the story is rewritten by once again using cleaning as a metaphor, but now it is the authorities who restore the former stability.92 … They cleaned the floors till they shone like trackless water; they soaped away every cutlery, until nothing had happened, the last smoke went up to the ventilators, … The great old furniture, hauled into the parlor, is History, solidly in place today, with the usual words in the New Year´s couplets trimming every safe and silent and locked front door.93

88 Abbas, Ackbar, “Introduction to the 1992 Edition” in Leung, Ping-kwan, City at the End of Time, Hong Kong University Press 2012, 49-51 89 Leung, Ping-kwan, City at the End of Time, Hong Kong University Press 2012, 115 90 Abbas, Ackbar, “Introduction to the 1992 Edition” in Leung, Ping-kwan, City at the End of Time, Hong Kong University Press 2012, 50 91 Leung, Ping-kwan, City at the End of Time, Hong Kong University Press 2012, 117 92 Abbas, Ackbar, “Introduction to the 1992 Edition” in Leung, Ping-kwan, City at the End of Time, Hong Kong University Press 2012, 50 93 Leung, Ping-kwan, City at the End of Time, Hong Kong University Press 2012, 119

Leung Ping-kwan's visit to Auschwitz is related to in the poem "The remains at Auschwitz" where he, by telling about the prisoners' belongings left behind, creates a frightening understanding of the concentration camp prisoners´ indescribable fate.

Finding in these buildings names etched into the walls you step hesitant across the threshold indoors it seems colder than the snow outside … the suitcases will never again be used to carry clothes the clothes will never again be used to warm human bodies the baskets will never again be used to hold vegetables …94

In the poem "Postcards from Prague" the author receives a postcard from a friend who is in Prague. He sees his friend in front of him and how he is dressed at the city's famous places. It seems as if they have been there at the same time without having met each other.. In the everyday description of what is recognizable to the poet of the friend and the places, there is at the same time a feeling of insecurity with no conclusion in the face of the social change of the country from socialism to a market economy.95 … I can just see you in Chopin Park, listening to a viola, sending others to stand in line for champagne wearing surely a checkered, flannel cap made in Prague, … I´d been there at almost the same time. That old world was shifting, to market economy, to multi-party politics. People´s lives were riddled with uncertainties and changes. Who knows? Maybe we were in Wenceslaus Square the same day, maybe glimpsed each other´s shadows across the Charles Bridge, the river always slipping between us. One evening a few years ago we argued into the night about poetry and politics, about dignity and freedom, with similar beliefs but opposing conclusions.96

94 Leung Ping-kwan, Travelling with a Bitter Melon, Selected Poems (1973-1998), Hong Kong 2002, 199 95Cheung, Martha M.K. “Introduction to the new edition” Leung, Ping-kwan, City at the End of Time, 4-5 96 Ibid. 193

The short story "Drowned souls" by Leung Ping-kwan is inspired by the tragic events at Dover in June 2000 when 58 illegal Chinese migrants died, trapped in a container, and 21 mussel pickers drowned in the tide in Morecambe Bay. The author writes with a style of magic realism while using old Taoist ideas about wandering souls where drowned souls try to lure living people into the water so the drowned souls can be redeemed. Leung Ping-kwan believes that we all have old legends with us in our lives.97

We all live in the shadow of ancient legends. As we follow shifting course of our lives, we invent variations of them.98

5.5 Translation

Like other modernist writers, Leung Ping-kwan has also worked with translation. He read translations, translated foreign literature and his own works. Through translations he could look at his own culture with new eyes. When translating Latin American writers, he could more easily identify with them than with Anglo-American writers because they had also experienced a colonial situation. He started a cross-cultural collaboration with the American poet Gordon T. Osing. Together they translated Leung Ping-kwan's poems as an attempt to find common ground for their respective cultures. Leung Ping-kwan believed that when one reflects on one's own culture through others, one can possibly develop a bicultural consciousness. Since Osing did not know Chinese, he had to rely on Leung Ping-kwan's explanations. It became a process of giving and taking where the cross-cultural process was more important than the faithfulness to the original. An example of their collaboration is the poem "At West Lake", a lake in Hangzhou which is a popular tourist destination. Leung Ping-kwan mimics the zigzag shape of the bridge in his written form of the poem. When people walk over the zigzag bridge, they see the surroundings from different angles and the sharp turns can refer to changes in society where old traditions are fading away. Osing's translation has a normal form, but it captures the meaning of historical changes at the lake.99

97 Minford, John, “Introduction” in Leung, Ping-kwan, Dragons: Shorter fiction of Leung Ping-kwan, The Chinese University of Hong Kong 2020, 93-94 98 Ibid. 94 99 Au, Chung-to, 160-165

… 寬敞的手掌在風中輕輕揮動

我想提筆告訴你，在西湖，如何

從擁擠的遊人間繞路走近一池

舒展自如的花葉，我不打算用

古典的言語敘述阮公墩上擬古的

戲劇，在這充滿了典故的名勝

我想給你講我的故事，左拐右轉

相信越過那些矮樹叢我們終會接近

心中安靜的池塘，隋意俯仰舒伸

…100 … Picking up my pen I note immediately the faint imprint of veined flowers -there are patterns hidden in the paper. Why should I sully these with words? How shall I reveal human changes across the context of flowers? With each rubbing, elegant calligraphy becomes fainter. …101

Leung Ping-kwan dedicated the poem "Notes on Translation" which expresses his view on translation as a process of joint thinking, to Martha Cheung, who translated his collection of poems "Foodscape". … A new life, thoughts conceived in silence from another, begun in solitude and taking new form

the unfinished words retained, leading to what follows Not only the finished line, but the process of thinking

Thank you for wandering these meandering paths with me walking together through these meandering lines in silent negotiation 102

100 Leung, Ping-kwan, City at the End of Time, 110 101 Ibid.111 102 Leung, Ping-kwan, Fly Heads and Bird Claws, Hong Kong 2013, 196-197

In the poem "Leaf of Passage" (1998) he first wrote in English, then switched to Chinese halfway. After that, he translated Chinese back into English again. This writing process challenges the hierarchy between translation and translated text and is consistent with his travels between Hong Kong and Canada. It undermines a one-dimensional picture of immigration and cultural transfer. In the poem he has been inspired by a bronze sculpture at Vancouver International Airport, based on a myth from the aborigine people of Haida where a father bear looks back and the mother bear looks forward to their journey. They travel from one place to another, symbolizing the existence of migrants. Yasi appropriates the Haida culture and reworks two lines from Tang Poet Li Bai's famous poem "The river Journey". In several works, Ye Si uses the literary technique of "defamiliarization" to maintain a children's perspective on everyday objects and cultural habits that people take for granted. In this way one can see the usual things for the first time.103

103 Li, Jessica Tsui-yan, 55-59 Cheung M.K., Esther, Foreword in Leung, Ping-kwan, City at the End of Time, Hong Kong University Press 2012, 10-11

6. Discussion and conclusion

The aim of this study has been to investigate how life in the diaspora has influenced Leung Ping-kwans literary study production and to find features of transculturalism and modernism in some of his most famous works. Which methods has the author used to create a global literature? I have looked into Leung Ping-kwan's literary style, translations, his everyday subjects such as food, medicine, home, travel and fashion. In my investigation, I have found that Leung Ping-kwan's writings contain both features of transculturalism as well as modernism.

Transculturalism is a fundamental part of Leung Ping-kwan's writing. He identified himself as a Hong Kong writer but was at the same time a traveller, migrant and cosmopolitan who constantly questioned stereotypical identities and prejudices about national characters. The identities in his literature are constantly changing through the transformations of society. The individual must constantly relate to external influences such as migration, colonialism and modernization in society. In this way, transcultural identities are created.

The modernists in the west invented new literary styles and broke with old traditions. Leung Ping-kwan also created new literary styles, but at the same time he used ancient Chinese literary traditions, which he transformed to suit current topics.

Several modernists worked with translation to gain new perspectives. Translation is a form of transculturalism where ideas and cultures cross borders. It has also been an important part of Leung Ping-kwan's literary work from the beginning to discover new thoughts and thus transcend boundaries. He sometimes collaborated with translators of other national origins trying to find common ground for their cultures.

Everyday life was an important subject for the modernists, but the objects were not described in a realistic way but from their subjective experiences. Leung Ping-kwan also uses the everyday life to investigate reality. Through the everyday phenomena, he shows in an indirect way how society and the individual change.

Through travels outside of the Western world, several modernist writers wanted to broaden their perspectives and saw themselves as cosmopolitans. But their travelogues have an outside perspective because they often did not have knowledge of the culture they visited. Leung Ping-kwan's travelogues have a different perspective because he has experience of being a colonized person. According to Leung Ping-kwan, you gain experience in other parts of the world when you travel. On a trip to Switzerland, he was inspired to compare people's living conditions and legends in the mountains of Switzerland with those in Hong Kong, and he reflects on environmental destruction in mountains and forests in Switzerland and Hong Kong.104

看看別人的例子，也可以叫我們反省該怎樣對待自己的山林?

(Translation Ingegerd Andrén)

Looking at other people's examples can also help us to reflect on how we should treat our mountains and forests?105

When Leung Ping-kwan writes travelogues, he does so in the form of fiction and not as guide books. This is a way to explore what home can be for him. Leung Ping-kwan said that Hong Kong was his home, but since the city is constantly changing, he often felt alienated there. Although he wrote that Hong Kong's society was fragmented, he opposed to stereotypical and exoticizing images of Hong Kong. He expresses this when he writes about Hong Kong's history on a postcard with pictures of Hong Kong that he does not want to acknowledge.106

我們如何在往昔俗豔的彩圖上寫出此刻的話? 如何在它們中間描繪我? (Translation Ingegerd Andrén) How can we write the words of this moment on vulgar coloured illustrations from the past?107

Clichés need to be removed, but Leung Ping-kwan says one may not have to tell a totally new story about Hong Kong.

104 Yě Sī 也斯，Fúshì Bāha 浮世巴哈 (The transient world of Bach)，Oxford University Press 2013, 302-305 105 Ibid. 305 106 Yě Sī 也斯，Yě Sī de Xiānggăng 也斯的香港 (Ye Si´s Hong Kong)，Xiānggăng 香港 (Hong Kong), 2005, 56-57 107 Ibid. 57

却使我们未必一定可以说出全新的故事，我们也可以改写和重组，把旧故事注新的意思吧。

(Translation Ingegerd Andrén)

We may not necessarily be able to tell a totally new story, but we can still rewrite and restructure and add new meaning to the old story.108

Leung Ping-kwan collaborated with other art forms that, according to him, could help open new rooms and discover new lives. He writes about the German photographer Martin Zeller who photographed other parts of Hong Kong than the well-known tourist routes. Through his compositions where two images overlap, the concept of a definite decisive moment is challenged, and the ever-changing reality is shown.109

馬田的攝影，以它們密集的意象和豐當的細節，彷彿在邀請觀眾進入書面，留連其中，但另一方面又拒絕給予觀眾一個單一的容易消費的視點。

(Translation Ingegerd Andrén)

Martin's photography, with its compact images and abundant details, seems to invite the audience to enter the text and stay in it, but on the other hand, it refuses to give the audience a single perspective that is easy to consume. 110

Through his transcultural and modernist writing, Leung Ping-kwan has contributed to a greater understanding of the ever-changing life in Hong Kong, the diaspora and the world. Leung Ping-kwan concludes what writing is:

We use language because we want to change things. We learn to write fiction because we are interested in human life, we want to understand how people live their lives, how they see themselves and the world, how they create themselves from their connection to other people, and why they do all of that. People live, love, create, and destroy, changing for better, or for worse. Not all of us write fiction, but we all write letters and have conversations. People often find grounds for hope in their love for another person, and the distance between desire and its object engenders writing, allowing someone to nurture the foundations of their own humanity.111

108 Yě Sī 也斯，Xiānggăng wénhuà shí lùn 香港文化十论，(Ten essays on Hong Kong) Hángzhōu Zhèjiāng Dàxué chūbănshè 杭州浙江大学出版社，(Hangzhou Zhejiang University Press), 2012, 28 109 Yě Sī 也斯，Fúshì Bāha 浮世巴哈 (The transient world of Bach), Oxford University Press 2013, 110-119 110 Ibid. 117 111 Leung, Ping-kwan, Paper Cuts, The Chinese University of Hong Kong 2015, Afterword, 158

7. Outlook

There is a need for further research on transcultural literature and how the diaspora has influenced other modern Chinese writers. The importance of translation for negotiating a new transcultural identity could also be subject for further research. As for Leung Ping- kwan, who is a well-known author in Hong Kong but not in Sweden, translations of his works into Swedish would be a welcome contribution to the understanding of transcultural identities in our global world. Comparative studies on Western modernism and Hong Kong modernism are needed since they have emerged from different conditions. Chung-to Au points out in her book "The Hong Kong Modernism of Leung Ping-kwan" that much research has been done on the relationship between Western modernist literature and medicine, while research is largely lacking on the relationship between medicine and Hong Kong's modernist literature. Further studies are also needed on the question how modernists in Hong Kong treat and view everyday objects compared to modernists in the West because everyday life in a colonial society is constantly changing.112

112 Au, Chung-to, 86

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