Donald Keene and Shiba Ryōtarō (authors), Tony Gonzalez (translator), Edo Japan Encounters the World: Conversations Between Donald Keene and Shiba Ryotaro, Japan Library, 2018. 137 pgs. Editor’s note: This review is cross-posted on Cha: An Asian Literary Journal. I remember when I was pursuing a Master’s in Japanese literature in London, my teacher in the first…
Category: reviews
“Instinctually Allegorising Ruth Hung’s Seminar on Wolf Totem” by Benjamin Lam
November 5, 2018 happened to be sandwiched between two significant “democratic” exercises—the previous day saw an “independence referendum” in New Caledonia, where the pro-independence indigenous Kanaks outnumbered by European and Asian settlers to legitimise the continued exploitation of their native land—home to a quarter of the planet’s nickel deposits—for the benefit of the French treasury….
“Eloquence, Anger, Sincerity: Henry Wei Leung’s Goddess of Democracy” by Jason S Polley
Henry Wei Leung, Goddess of Democracy: An Occupy Lyric, Omnidawn, 2017, 128 pgs. {☂} A banner: 我 要 真 普 選 Here’s a long opening-sentence: when I saw the Chinese characters quoted above in Henry Wei Leung’s piece “An Umbrella: Revolution,” characters I recall from the streets of Tsim Sha Tsui, Mong Kok and Admiralty, characters…
“On Kingsley Ng’s after the deluge” by Tammy Ho Lai-Ming
It is easy to forget, in a city as modern and seemingly functional as Hong Kong, how it has been shaped by a long succession of disasters, both natural and man-made. There have been outbreaks of plague, the notorious Happy Valley racecourse fire, which took place 100 years ago this month, other conflagrations such as…
“The Fragility of Our Benign Authentic Self” by Janet Lau
Editor’s note: This review contains spoilers. If you have not yet watched the Black Mirror episode “USS Callister” (or the entire show), please go watch it already. ‘William couldn’t find you, Dolores. But out there, among the dead, he found something else: himself.’ ─ Man in Black, Westworld The crew on USS Callister faces a…
“Impromptu Performances and Wild Exhibitions: Christopher DeWolf’s Borrowed Spaces” by Jason S Polley
Christopher DeWolf, Borrowed Spaces: Life Between the Cracks of Modern Hong Kong, Penguin, 2017, 100 pags. Pictured above: Jason S Polley. My best literary friend in undergrad, then in his early 20s, and, à la Beat and Bukowski imaginary, never to be seen sans burning cigarette, bottled beer and dog-eared book, said something like this when he happened…
“On Waiting for Godot” by Magdalen Ki
Directed by Wu Xing-guo, this production opens in heavy shadow and with brooding music. Two tramps then enter the stage, walking with a heavy gait. Godot (果陀) is sinicized to become the Buddha, the symbol of hope that can save humans from dukkha (suffering). The plight of Gogo (哭哭) and Didi (啼啼) is that nirvana…
“Philippe Parreno’s Films” by Tammy Ho Lai-Ming
The exhibit by the French-Algerian artist Philippe Parreno I went to see is made up of four video installations. While most video works presented in a gallery are continuously played on a loop, these four videos are projected in order and the viewers are led from room to room by lights turning on and off…
“(Post-)Diaspora Home-searching in Shelter (2016)” by Jeff Chow
Published in 2016, Jung Yun’s debut novel Shelter presents a gripping tale of suffocation and immobility within the illusion of familial comfort. The book starts off with Kyung, a thirty-six-year-old professor and his wife, Gillian, in the middle of a house deal. The meeting with the agent is cut short, however, when Kyung’s mother, Mae,…
“Subverting the Authentic Reality in Black Mirror’s Playtest” by Janet Lau
Editor’s note: This review contains spoilers. If you have not yet watched the episode (or the entire show), please go watch it already. Imagine you submit yourself to a world where you cannot differentiate the real from the artificial, where you can still feel physical sensation including pain, where you need to confront your greatest…
“Nostalgia, Sexuality and Existere in Black Mirror’s San Junipero” by Suzanne Lai
Editor’s note: This review contains spoilers. If you have not yet watched the episode (or the entire show), please go watch it already. ‘But tell me really’, he paused, ‘why are you still listening to vinyl records? It’s not even your era.’ Nostalgia is something hardwired into us homo sapiens. We are programmed to become…
“Every Me A We, Every We A Me” by Jason S Polley
rare indeed a man sent me an autograph from Beau Jack. he said that Beau Jack asked him to send it on to me. I told the man to tell Beau Jack that I was honored. have you heard of him? he was a prizefighter. many men box but he was a fighter, a terror,…
“A Universal Boyhood—Transcending the Borders of Age, Gender and Culture” by Suzanne Lai
It was really overwhelming the moment I braced the chill in the evening air outside Everyman Baker Street Cinema. I kept thinking about the level of association I had with the film I just saw. Boyhood, it was. Directed by Richard Linklater, Boyhood tells the coming-of-age story of a six-year-old boy in America. It records the becoming of the…
“Ten Years” by Lam Man Tsun
“Who wanted to deal with politics? I do it just for a living.” Explicitly or implicitly, the directors of the five stories in the movie Ten Years, a low-budget indie film made and released in 2015, tell us the same message: no matter what, we are doomed in the end. All set in 2025, I…
“Anti-Japanese Drama” by Benjamin Lam
‘A scene from a TV series that shows a Chinese man repelling a Japanese soldier with his fist.’ (Source: China Daily) Dr. Ruth Y.Y. Hung’s presentation on Monday 11 January 2016, entitled “Classic or Farce? Making a Spectacle of the Latest ‘Anti-Japanese Drama’” [abstract], touched upon the concept of the Anti-Japan shenju (神劇) — also…
“Traversing Urban and Rural Space: Sexuality and Bodily Presence in Under the Skin (2014)” by Suzanne Lai
The movie is divided by the moment of the woman’s awakening (Scarlett Johansson) when she, for the first time, is under her own gaze. She sees her own reflection in the mirror on the wall. That is the moment of epiphany. The group of extraterrestrial beings she belongs shares the same gender concept as human…
“Urban Youth” by William Ng
. It was inspiring for me to attend the English Department seminar “Urban Youth, Language and Literacy Development in the Digital and Global Environments” [abstract] delivered by Dr. Myrrh Domingo from the Institute of Education, University College London on Monday 26th January 2015. Recently, the image of me approaching the classroom of my future students has…
“The Concave and Convex of the Lovers’ Bodies: A Reading of Three Paintings” by Tammy Ho Lai-Ming
“Mushrooms by the Sea” (1931) by Filippo de Paris. Oil on canvas, 53 x 63 cm. I spent a long time looking at this painting, which has been compared to works by Salvador Dali. I was particularly interested in the large sky and beach in comparison to the relatively small sandwiched sea — an ungenerous…
“Don Yuan: A Review” by James Au
Don Juan is just as irresistible to writers as he is to women: both attractive and repulsive, courageous and honourable, yet entirely amoral and self-centred. We have all met someone like him, or at least someone who would like to be him. —Peter Gordon Two weeks ago, I had the pleasure of joining Dr. Tammy Ho to see Don Yuan (presented…
Department of English, Hong Kong Baptist University 