Foreword I’m delighted to announce the publication of an important volume from the University of Mississippi Press, Teaching the Works of Eudora Welty Twenty-First-Century Approaches, which includes an essay of mine about teaching Eudora Welty in Hong Kong, with direct and attributed input (discourse, photos, storyboards, and images) from some remarkable young people who helped me…
Category: photography & art
“The Surrealist Art of Remedios Varo” by Anna Tham
Remedios Varo’s interest in nature draws on the idea that it inspires us to think of the world in relation to instinct and spirituality and that it also represents the part of the human mind which is not normally known—the unconscious, as represented in the universal emotions stimulated by the concept of nature. Adam Adamski…
“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….
“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: Suzanne Lai
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.] You heard the train before You saw it. “Mind the gap.” She warned You. Staring straight ahead…
“The Window” by Daisy Lam
One drunken night, people living on my floor decided that they wanted more windows. ::::: Daisy Lam is a third-year student studying at the Department of English and the Department of Education. [Read all entries by Daisy.]
Ongoing Moments: Anna Tham
Ongoing Moments: A series in which teaching staff and students from the English Department respond to a photograph of their choice. [Read all entries.] [Revisit the “Interrogative” series.] . My brother and me, at sundown chasing waves I lived by the sea in Sai Kung until I was four. It was a small village with…
Ongoing Moments: Tiffany Tsoi Wing Yan
Ongoing Moments: A series in which teaching staff and students from the English Department respond to a photograph of their choice. [Read all entries.] [Revisit the “Interrogative” series.] . After years and years in school, I am now classified as ‘Fresh Graduate’—a concise oxymoron revealing the trick of age. I am now old enough to…
Ongoing Moments: William Ng
Ongoing Moments: A series in which teaching staff and students from the English Department respond to a photograph of their choice. [Read all entries.] [Revisit the “Interrogative” series.] . “Gold Diggers Receiving Letter from Home” (circa 1860), attrib.William Strutt. Oil on canvas, 91.5 x 72.3 cm. Psst, can you feel his longing for a return?…
Ongoing Moments: Jason S Polley
Ongoing Moments: A series in which teaching staff and students from the English Department respond to a photograph of their choice. [Read all entries.] [Revisit the “Interrogative” series.] This is a photo of a photo of me. Believe it or believe it not. But this—this this—is not about me. Or, actually, meaning really, this is…
Ongoing Moments: Nicola Chan Oi Ching
Ongoing Moments: A series in which teaching staff and students from the English Department respond to a photograph of their choice. [Read all entries.] [Revisit the “Interrogative” series.] . Janet and me. If moments could be ongoing … . Together we live twenty-nine days, moving from Russia to France, France to England. . In response…
Ongoing Moments: Tammy Ho Lai-Ming
Ongoing Moments: A series in which teaching staff and students from the English Department respond to a photograph of their choice. [Read all entries.] [Revisit the “Interrogative” series.] . One of the songs that has been adopted by the protesters in Hong Kong during the Umbrella Revolution is “Do You Hear the People Sing,” from…
Ongoing Moments: Paulina Lee
Ongoing Moments: A series in which teaching staff and students from the English Department respond to a photograph of their choice. [Read all entries.] [Revisit the “Interrogative” series.] . This was one of the most extraordinary scenes that I saw in my journeys. Indeed, the mystery of nature has never failed to amaze me. ….
Ongoing Moments: Ivan Delazari
Ongoing Moments: A series in which teaching staff and students from the English Department respond to a photograph of their choice. [Read all entries.] [Revisit the “Interrogative” series.] . Nevsky Prospect, St. Petersburg, Russia, either the Indian summer of 1999 or the spring of 2000: in front of the long colonnade of the Gostiny Dvor…
Ongoing Moments: Christopher Chan
Ongoing Moments: A series in which teaching staff and students from the English Department respond to a photograph of their choice. [Read all entries.] [Revisit the “Interrogative” series.] . It is widely asserted that the Sun, with its all-dominating power, has received innumerable, worship-like appreciations throughout the history of men. In ancient China, or at…
Ongoing Moments: Janet Lau
Ongoing Moments: A series in which teaching staff and students from the English Department respond to a photograph of their choice. [Read all entries.] [Revisit the “Interrogative” series.] From left to right: me, Nicola, Julia and Jenny. This photograph was taken when Julia was about to leave and go back to Argentina. . In late…
Ongoing Moments: Suzanne Lai
Ongoing Moments: A series in which teaching staff and students from the English Department respond to a photograph of their choice. [Read all entries.] [Revisit the “Interrogative” series.] . The urgency of travel comes from the failure to stay. When activities have (slowly) become inactivities, the resistence lies in perpetual departures. You carefully craft that…
Ongoing Moments: Holden Liang Qichao
Ongoing Moments: A series in which teaching staff and students from the English Department respond to a photograph of their choice. [Read all entries.] [Revisit the “Interrogative” series.] The Incomplete History of a Yellow Bicycle Part One: The Origin Story Breaking news! Local junior high school was struck by what an insider calls “a bicycle…
Ongoing Moments: Jessica Siu-yin Yeung
Ongoing Moments: A series in which teaching staff and students from the English Department respond to a photograph of their choice. [Read all entries.] [Revisit the “Interrogative” series.] Whenever I sign my name or hear that my friends are creating calligraphic artworks or learning Chinese painting, I am reminded of when I practised calligraphy. Long ago,…
Ongoing Moments: Vinton Poon
Ongoing Moments: A series in which teaching staff and students from the English Department respond to a photograph of their choice. [Read all entries.] [Revisit the “Interrogative” series.] The picture was taken during a trip to Cramond Island. It was my first year studying in Scotland. A few friends, who I’d met in the halls…
Ongoing Moments: James Au
Ongoing Moments: A series in which teaching staff and students from the English Department respond to a photograph of their choice. [Read all entries.] [Revisit the “Interrogative” series.] “Before ‘youth’, if nothing was impossible, shades would be cleared, and one would surmount everything and become a sun that shines upon everything,” Japanese poet Yosano Akiko…
Ongoing Moments: Gary Lam
(1) The HP Series showcases excerpts from excellent Honours Projects by students from the Department of English Language and Literature. [Read all entries here.] | (2) Ongoing Moments: A series in which teaching staff and students from the English Department respond to a photograph of their choice. [Read all entries.] [Revisit the “Interrogative” series.] Supervisor: Dr…
Ongoing Moments: Louis Chung
Ongoing Moments: A series in which teaching staff and students from the English Department respond to a photograph of their choice. [Read all entries.] [Revisit the “Interrogative” series.] click image to enlarge Recently I had the opportunity to go to Penvénan, a small town in the Brittany region of France with some friends during my…
Ongoing Moments: Heidi Huang
Ongoing Moments: A series in which teaching staff and students from the English Department respond to a photograph of their choice. [Read all entries.] [Revisit the “Interrogative” series.] My Collection Of Notebooks Only a few pages used in each. Some have been there for years. Some new arrivals. “In the beginning was the written…
Ongoing Moments: John Wakefield
Ongoing Moments: A series in which teaching staff and students from the English Department respond to a photograph of their choice. [Read all entries.] [Revisit the “Interrogative” series.] . Chemistry your photograph: the chemistry of remembering fixed on the card your child: the chemistry of remembering folded in the flesh —by Brian Holton (a friend…
Ongoing Moments: Liu Yuwei
Ongoing Moments: A series in which teaching staff and students from the English Department respond to a photograph of their choice. [Read all entries.] [Revisit the “Interrogative” series.] It can never go back again. It had lived its life by routine ever since. Life came to a moment of peace. Happiness, fear and depression were…
Ongoing Moments: Douglas Robinson
Ongoing Moments: A series in which teaching staff and students from the English Department respond to a photograph of their choice. [Read all entries.] [Revisit the “Interrogative” series.] This photograph, taken by Tammy Ho in Venice in 2013, is titled “Caption”. I recently visited my childhood home, shown here, looking far better than I fondly remember…
Ongoing Moments: Lian-Hee Wee
Ongoing Moments: A series in which teaching staff and students from the English Department respond to a photograph of their choice. [Read all entries.] [Revisit the “Interrogative” series.] . This is the back of my 1991 class T-shirt. Koko did the graphics and I was to write all the classmates’ names on the back, so this was/still…
“Now Lost” by Lian-Hee Wee
Watercolour sketch in about 20 minutes, 8.3.2013. Accompanying Eunice who didn’t want to study alone. I playfully refused to make a gift of the painting, instead it went to the wall at a nearby restaurant. Later, Eunice offered to buy the painting from the restaurant owner who refused (I don’t know why). The owner sold…
Department of English, Hong Kong Baptist University 