Pet Sounds: A series in which teaching staff and students from the English Department reflect on a piece of music or song. [Read all entries.] [Revisit the “Headspace” series.] [Revisit the “Ongoing” series.] [Revisit the “Interrogative” series.] (Y)ears – after Joe Brainard’s “I Remember” I remember the incessant minimal waltz of exit A’s escalator in…
Category: diaries
Pet Sounds: John Wakefield
Pet Sounds: A series in which teaching staff and students from the English Department reflect on a piece of music or song. [Read all entries.] [Revisit the “Headspace” series.] [Revisit the “Ongoing” series.] [Revisit the “Interrogative” series.] Bertrand Russell The philosopher Bertrand Russell said, ‘There are two reasons for reading a book; one, that you…
Pet Sounds: Ivan Delazari
Pet Sounds: A series in which teaching staff and students from the English Department reflect on a piece of music or song. [Read all entries.] [Revisit the “Headspace” series.] [Revisit the “Ongoing” series.] [Revisit the “Interrogative” series.] One Time Music is a time machine. Proust knew it. Even though there were no pop songs in…
Pet Sounds: James Au
Pet Sounds: A series in which teaching staff and students from the English Department reflect on a piece of music or song. [Read all entries.] [Revisit the “Headspace” series.] [Revisit the “Ongoing” series.] [Revisit the “Interrogative” series.] It was yesterday, if my memory did not fail me, yes, it was yesterday that I first heard…
Pet Sounds: Victoria Ip
Pet Sounds: A series in which teaching staff and students from the English Department reflect on a piece of music or song. [Read all entries.] [Revisit the “Headspace” series.] [Revisit the “Ongoing” series.] [Revisit the “Interrogative” series.] The first time I listened to Marvin Gaye’s “I Want You” was in 1995, when Madonna did a…
Pet Sounds: Lian-Hee Wee
Pet Sounds: A series in which teaching staff and students from the English Department reflect on a piece of music or song. [Read all entries.] [Revisit the “Headspace” series.] [Revisit the “Ongoing” series.] [Revisit the “Interrogative” series.] I know there is Impressionist music like Debussy etc which I enjoy, but there’s something else too, more…
“The Dark Room” by Leo Lau
. *’Ethnic Minority’ refers to a group within a community with different national and cultural traditions from the main population. In Hong Kong, the term ‘Ethnic Minority members’ refers to citizens whose origins are in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and other subcontinental Asian countries. The phrase ‘dark room’, linguistically speaking, is polysemous—a literal ‘dark room’…
“More of How You See, Less of Where You Be” by Nicola Chan Oi Ching
Dear “Insert Your Name”, Once you have left home, nothing will ever be the same. You will experience many of your first times. You might be wide-eyed or excited, homesick or disappointed, but you will probably taste them all. It was three years ago when I first left home for Turku, Finland, for an exchange…
“Stress Caused by Unrealistic Expectations” by Lam Man Tsun
The news reports of three young secondary school students committing suicide after the Lunar New Year holidays is alarming. There have been a number of these tragedies over the past few years. Some people put the blame on the education system in Hong Kong. As a teacher, I completely agree that students face too much…
“The Ineffable” by Lian-Hee Wee
“Back to Basics” by Tim Kranz You know, it’s like …, but the blanks never get filled, even if the response were Yes, absolutely, I know it’s really, you know? When I was growing up, I didn’t know what was ineffable, nothing was. I said anything I damned pleased except when I can’t find…
“A Letter from Essen to Hong Kong” by Gary Lam
Dear Tammy, Life here is full of love and wonder, as much as my life in Hong Kong. Thank you for your books, I just love them. My work here is rewarding. My organisation is called Franz Sales Haus, a community for people suffering from mental handicaps. Some of them live in the centre, while the…
“Cohesion” by Tammy Ho Lai-Ming
This was the speech I gave at the inauguration ceremony of Eminence on 19 February 2014. Thank you for allowing me to speak to you today. It is a great honour indeed. I am glad to see that so many of you managed to come tonight and gather together as one group. This is a…
“Thoughts from Edinburgh” by Grace Wong Hiu Yan
Looking out from where I am sitting at my desk, I count 46 other windows, a lone yellowing tree surrounded by dumpsters and an 11-sided slice of sky framed by sandstone walls and the occasional line of roosting pigeons on a slate roof. Clouds move quickly here. The weather is almost unbearably volatile. On a…
“Three Observations” by Cheng Tim Tim
Curtain breathes. It makes a silent mosquito on my skin. I can’t always tell the hour from the filtered sunbeam. I grasp a corner of the curtain and pull. A strip of morning sky is to be scrambled by more buildings and cranes. I must get up. My hand feels its way to the windowpane….
“An Overdue Sentiment” by Helen Hao
“Coffee Thing” by Ricky Garni It was a delightful March day spent on Lamma Island this year. Whenever stress threatens to do me in and I come close to buckling under, my mind invariably endeavours a course back to that lovely day when the wind stood fair and the ray of the sunshine was perfect….
“In and Out of Cambodia” by Zabrina Lo
15 February 2016 What is the point of going to the Louvre to look at the Mona Lisa when you can simply Google it? Thus two years ago a friend of mine challenged my high hopes for my travels. All I insisted was that I needed to see it with my own eyes. ‘It’s about…
Headspace: William Ng
Headspace: A series in which teaching staff and students from the English Department write about a place or space they go to write, read, study or create. [Read all entries.] [Revisit the “Ongoing” series.] [Revisit the “Interrogative” series.] The arrival of my double-decker bus affords its own simple pleasure on my daily commute. I scan…
Headspace: Minnie Chung
Headspace: A series in which teaching staff and students from the English Department write about a place or space they go to write, read, study or create. [Read all entries.] [Revisit the “Ongoing” series.] [Revisit the “Interrogative” series.] ‘I have an idea that some men are born out of their due place. Accident has cast…
Headspace: Pamela Wong
Headspace: A series in which teaching staff and students from the English Department write about a place or space they go to write, read, study or create. [Read all entries.] [Revisit the “Ongoing” series.] [Revisit the “Interrogative” series.] How to Turn the Dining Table into the Ground of Ideas This is not even your dining…
Headspace: Grace Wong Hiu Yan
Headspace: A series in which teaching staff and students from the English Department write about a place or space they go to write, read, study or create. [Read all entries.] [Revisit the “Ongoing” series.] [Revisit the “Interrogative” series.] General sloppiness, or rather, selective organizational skills, have left my room the way it is now. Bookshelves…
Headspace: Lam Man Tsun
Headspace: A series in which teaching staff and students from the English Department write about a place or space they go to write, read, study or create. [Read all entries.] [Revisit the “Ongoing” series.] [Revisit the “Interrogative” series.] It’s the twenty-first century so it is inevitable for most people to write, read, study or create…
Headspace: Teresa Shi Xiaobo
Headspace: A series in which teaching staff and students from the English Department write about a place or space they go to write, read, study or create. [Read all entries.] [Revisit the “Ongoing” series.] [Revisit the “Interrogative” series.] I see the word ‘sympathy’ and I hear Lily Briscoe wailing ‘Mrs Ramsay! Mrs Ramsay!’ But the…
Headspace: Nicola Chan Oi Ching
Headspace: A series in which teaching staff and students from the English Department write about a place or space they go to write, read, study or create. [Read all entries.] [Revisit the “Ongoing” series.] [Revisit the “Interrogative” series.] I did not pick the Northern Line, the black route on the London Underground map, for reading…
Headspace: Chau Cheuk Man Charmaine
Headspace: A series in which teaching staff and students from the English Department write about a place or space they go to write, read, study or create. [Read all entries.] [Revisit the “Ongoing” series.] [Revisit the “Interrogative” series.] I am not sure if I have a place to write. Most of the time, I think…
Headspace: John Wakefield
Headspace: A series in which teaching staff and students from the English Department write about a place or space they go to write, read, study or create. [Read all entries.] [Revisit the “Ongoing” series.] [Revisit the “Interrogative” series.] No phone. Only natural and mental distractions. natural The glare of the sun. Pounding rain. Cracks of…
Headspace: Vinton Poon
Headspace: A series in which teaching staff and students from the English Department write about a place or space they go to write, read, study or create. [Read all entries.] [Revisit the “Ongoing” series.] [Revisit the “Interrogative” series.] I often suffer from insomnia. Part of the reason, I believe, is that I have a “wandering…
“The Rest” by Jason S Polley
The eulogy. A genre in itself. A lamentation, a recollection, a commemoration. And, in too-rare circumstances, such as this one, a relief, and I hope, a celebration. I suspect that most of us gathered in this citadel of mercy, of forgiveness, and above all of communion, of community, have already travailed through certain stages of…
Headspace: Lian-Hee Wee
Headspace: A series in which teaching staff and students from the English Department write about a place or space they go to write, read, study or create. [Read all entries.] [Revisit the “Ongoing” series.] [Revisit the “Interrogative” series.] At the work table, my mind is occupied with trying to make my hands materialise what is…
Headspace: Buster Leung
Headspace: A series in which teaching staff and students from the English Department write about a place or space they go to write, read, study or create. [Read all entries.] [Revisit the “Ongoing” series.] [Revisit the “Interrogative” series.] It’s like 4 o’clock in the morning. What is it watching? I ask myself. What does it…
Headspace: Ivan Kahei Au
Headspace: A series in which teaching staff and students from the English Department write about a place or space they go to write, read, study or create. [Read all entries.] [Revisit the “Ongoing” series.] [Revisit the “Interrogative” series.] This is where I got punished for my constant procrastination. The place looks different now but it’s…
Department of English, Hong Kong Baptist University 