The new awareness of Hong Kong history as a source for Cantonese fiction can be dated to around 1984 with the appearance of Yanzhi kou (Rouge), by Lee Bik-Wah (also known as Li Bihua and Lillian or Lilian Lee). Lee’s novel, which has not been translated into English, is available in all Hong Kong bookstores, and the film of the same name (1988) is also a longtime Hong Kong favorite. The main narrative of the novel is in Mandarin, although parts of the dialogue are in Cantonese. Together with its strong sense of place, its street names, building names, and so on, the novel targets a local audience. Rouge contrasts Hong Kong in the present (1980) and fifty years earlier (in the 1930s), linked by the ghost whose hopeless love is the basis of the plot. Written at the time of negotiations on retrocession, it resurrects a Hong Kong past that is neither British nor mainland but uniquely Hong Kong, and it has contributed to the development of local pride in the territory’s historical relics. It is fitting that a ghost is responsible for this awakening sense of the past, since much of that past was already destroyed and can live on, ghostlike, only in museums or in the loving re-creations of the film studios.
Eileen Chang’s much earlier Qing cheng zhi lian (Love That Topples a City; translated as Love in a Fallen City) (1943) has met a similar fate.4 The location is again central to the plot: Hong Kong is a place where personal dreams of liberation as well as wealth can be realized by its Shanghai immigrants. When the film version of Love in a Fallen City appeared in 1985, the Hong Kong audience was enraptured once again: the nostalgic re-creation of historical sites then already reduced to rubble, the décor, costumes, and hotel settings, all appealed to the audience’s expectations and memories. Outside Hong Kong (and fans of Hong Kong), the film, like the novel itself, made little impact.
The nostalgia of the 1980s persists but is accompanied by more robust contributions. Xi Xi and Wong Bik Wan (writing in Chinese) and Xu Xi (writing in English) in present-day Hong Kong fiction, and Louise Ho (writing in English) and Leung Ping-kwan, Wong Kwok-pun, and Ng Mei-kwan (writing in Chinese) in poetry are among many writers highly regarded in local literary circles but hardly known beyond them. To many readers and critics, Atlas not only is one of the most captivating works to come out of Hong Kong in recent years but also points to the maturity of Hong Kong in the world of letters. Quite apart from its conspicuous wealth, urban excitements, and tranquil countryside, Hong Kong has a strong claim on the attention of readers in China and in the rest of the world. Given that censorship of literary works in Hong Kong is virtually nonexistent, Hong Kong literature provides documentation from the margins on the values of diversity, individual autonomy, and imaginative freedom.
4
My first acquaintance with Dung Kai-cheung’s work came through translating chapters of Atlas for undergraduate classes in literary translation at the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2006 and 2007. The students were a mixed group of Hong Kong residents and mainlanders who had come to Hong Kong for university studies. The local students were keen to include Hong Kong literary texts in the course, and the mainlanders were willing to agree, so the final selection included poetry by Leung Ping-kwan and fiction by Dung Kai-cheung as well as mainland writing. The chapters from part 3 of Atlas raised challenging translation issues and were also of suitable length and level of difficulty for class translation. First “Spring Garden Lane” and the following year “Ice House Street” were great hits for the students and teacher alike. All of us owe much to Wong Nim-yan, who first recommended Atlas to me and then patiently explained the meanings, the background, and the fantasies: for this and very much more I am deeply grateful.
The final version of “Spring Garden Lane” by Wong Nim-yan and me was eventually published in the Hong Kong journal Renditions, a magazine for translations of Chinese literature into English. A delay was caused by the journal’s policy of romanizing all Chinese words and proper nouns in the Hanyu Pinyin system (the PRC’s replacement for foreign-based romanization for standard northern Chinese, such as Wade-Giles in English-language works). This policy had its origins in the journal’s mission when it was founded in 1973 during China’s Cultural Revolution but was not appropriate for works written in Cantonese about Hong Kong, and it was changed under the editorship of Anders Hansson from 2006 to 2008. “Spring Garden Lane” duly appeared in 2006 with its Cantonese words and names in Cantonese romanization.
It was during this drawn-out process that Anders Hansson and I became acquainted with Dung Kai-cheung and drew up plans to translate Atlas. Each of us took responsibility for one or two parts, and each of us read and checked each other’s drafts. It took about two years, partly because of the density of the writing, in particular the complex intertwining of fiction, fact, and theory (or anti-theory). It culminated in a four-hour meeting in a café in a Sha Tin mall where we debated the final harmonization of names of people, places, and even a Spanish ship. It was at this meeting that Dung Kai-cheung decided to alter his Chinese text to accommodate some of the questions raised in the translation. I think each of us found the process exhausting, but for Anders Hansson and me, it was also a revelation of aspects of Hong Kong that we’d not previously encountered.
Our common goal all along was to reach a general readership, not just students and academics in Chinese studies. With this in mind, we chose not to give notes (apart from those in the original text) or to rewrite our working glossary into a formal index. The pleasure of this work lies in its literary imagination and historical reflections, qualities we hope will appeal to all of its readers.
Bonnie S. McDougall
Donnini
June 2011
NOTES
This introduction was written while I was a fellow of the Santa Maddalena Foundation. I am most grateful to the director, Beatrice Monti della Corte, her assistants Ted Hodgkinson and Emma Hamilton, and fellow writers Terry Tempest Williams, Kamila Shamsie, and Javier Montes for their generosity and warmth.
1. First published in 1972; English translation 1978. If comparisons must be drawn, then W. G. Sebald’s Die Ausgewanderten (1992; published in English translation as The Emigrants, 1996) is closer although not named in the novel itself.
2. Belcher compiled the 1841 “Hong Kong Nautical Chart,” the first scientific survey map with Hong Kong Island as its object and also the first map of Hong Kong under British rule.
3. “Diversity as Value: Marginality, Post-colonialism and Identity in Modern Chinese Literature,” in Belief, History and the Individual in Modern Chinese Literary Culture, ed. Artur K. Wardega (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, 2009), 137–65.
4. Translated by Karen Kingsbury in Renditions 45 (spring 1996): 61–92.
PART ONE
Theory
1
COUNTERPLACE
“Macao Roads,” drawn in 1810, demonstrated for the first time the possibility of a theory of counterplace. According to an ancient and almost forgotten saying, every place that appears on a map must have one or more counterplaces. This knowledge had been invalidated in the development of scientific mapmaking, and it regained attention only recently through extended researches into ancient maps.
“Macao Roads” was jointly produced by Daniel Ross and Philip Maughan, lieutenants of the Bombay Marine, for the British East India Company. At its center are the waters around what was later known as Hong Kong (including Hong Kong Island, the Kowloon Peninsula, the New Territories, and the Outlying Islands), while Macao only appears at the far left (west) of the map.
Placed in the middle of “Macao Roads” is an island named Hung Kong (literally, “red river”), and to its southeast lies a bay called Tytam (big load). To the north of Hung Kong, across a natural harbor, is a peninsula attached to the mainland. A place called Cow-loon (nine lanes) lies to the northeast of the peninsula. East of the harbor dividing Hung Kong from the mainland are two entrances, called Ly-ee-moon (gate of ceremonial garments) and Fo-tow-moon (gate of the fiery head), respectively, while the entrance to the northwest of the harbor is called
Cap-sing-moon (gate of quick thought). Southwest of Hung Kong lies an island called Lama (blue hemp), and to its west lies another island called Tyho (big inlet) or Lantao, which has an area three times bigger than Hung Kong. A bay called Ty-po-hoy (big cloth opening) is located in the northeast of the mainland.
If we compare this map to other maps with similar topographic characteristics produced around the same time, we will discover numerous corresponding pairs in the local pronunciation, like Red River and Incense Harbor (also known as Fragrant Harbor), Big Load and Big Pool, Nine Lanes and Nine Dragons, Gate of Ceremonial Garments and Gate of Carps, Gate of the Fiery Head and Gate of the Buddhist Hall, Gate of Quick Thought and Gate of Pumping Water, Blue Hemp and Southern Fork, Big Inlet and Big Oyster, and finally Big Cloth Opening and Big Land Sea. This is evidence that, in the mimetic world of maps, a place will inevitably find its counterplace in another, parallel space. A Platonic relationship exists between counterplaces, that is, both (or more) are copies or simulacra of a common “reality” or “idea.” Or, to put it in other words, both are translations of an “original text.” The mutual reliance of counterplaces is built on their common connection with the same origin. Yet this connection only points at another name. The name “Hong Kong” allows both Red River and Fragrant Harbor to become distinct but not mutually exclusive “really existing” places.
Going further, Hung Kong (empty harbor), Tai Dam (big mouthful), Kow Lung (leaning on), Lai Yee Mun (gate of the little rascal), Fai Dau Mun (gate of the quick knife), Kap See Mun (gate of timeliness), Lan Ma (blocking the horse), Lan Tau (broken head), and Tai Bo Hoi (taking big strides) all become possible names (and as such possible places) on the “Macao Roads” of my memories and longings.
2
COMMONPLACE
When we study ancient maps, we find repeatedly that places with the same name appear in different forms. These places lumped together under one name are not in fact the same place but common places. Although they are not the same place, they have something in common. This is how the term “commonplace” is defined.
Examples of commonplaces are numerous. Take, for example, a place called Hung Heung Lou Shan (literally, “red incense burner mountain”). There is a small island called Hung Heung Lou shown on a map of San-on County (an area roughly corresponding to the Pearl River Delta) in the 1819 edition of the San-on County Gazetteer. Here the island is situated at the near southwest of the Kowloon Peninsula, to the north of Yeung Suen Chau and Kap Shui Mun. In an anonymous map drawn before 1840, entitled “A Map of the China Coast,” however, Hung Heung Lou Shan has been moved to the south of Yeung Suen Chau and its distance from Kowloon increased fivefold. This island is long and narrow, lying crosswise from the northwest to the southeast. Another “Map of San-on County” in the 1864 edition of the Guangdong Provincial Gazetteer shows a regularly shaped island called Hung Heung Lou Shun smack in the middle of waters south of Kowloon.
Given the similarities in their names and their overall relationship with landmarks in the general vicinity, it is safe to conclude that Hung Heung Lou, Hung Heung Lou Shan, and Hung Heung Lou Shun are commonplaces. Nevertheless, we must be on our guard against taking it for granted that they are the same place, for no place on any map can ever be the same place as any other place on any other map. Every map has its own set of places, and every place belongs exclusively to its own map. Therefore, no one single place could ever transgress the map to which it owes its existence and become one with another place. If similar configurations appear on different maps, it is because of the fact that these places are commonplaces to one another. The Red Incense Burner of 1819, 1840, and 1864 cannot be the same Red Incense Burner, but each of them can only be the Red Incense Burner of the maps labeled “1819,” “1840,” and “1864,” respectively.
As a matter of fact, these Red Incense Burners are commonplaces to the place called Hong Kong at a later age (or in another time and space), so that we come to the conclusion that Hong Kong is also a commonplace. It follows that when every place has its commonplaces, each of these places loses its distinctive character and becomes simply a common place. No place can transcend itself to attain an eternal and absolute state. When each and every place reiterates its existence through common means, replicating one another’s commonality and vainly attempting to raise this commonality to the highest degree, its repetitive self-affirmation may end up as a stale convention. This is the reason that modern maps of high precision lack imagination.
By making people forget that places can relate to one another only as commonplaces, these conventions fool us into believing that any place has always been the same—forever fixed and immutable.
3
MISPLACE
In the map in the 1819 edition of the San-on County Gazetteer, Tuen Mun Shun (garrison gate high water) is situated among a group of islands in the sea to the west of Kowloon Shun, standing next to Pui To Shan (cup crossing mountain). On the “Map of San-on County” in the 1864 edition of the Guangdong Provincial Gazetteer, however, Tuen Mun O (garrison gate bay) appears among the mountains on the eastern side of the mainland, to the north of Ma On Shan (saddle mountain), facing Pui To Shan from afar. Further, if we consult the 1897 edition of the Guangdong Provincial Gazetteer, we discover that Tuen Mun Shun has been relocated to the western side of the mainland, inside a bay called Tuen Mun (regiment gate), written with a different character for Tuen.
There are two questions that concern us here: first, the misrepresentation of the location of the place signified as Tuen Mun; second, the misrepresentation of certain locations on the maps as Tuen Mun. These two points imply that a misplaced place will always deprive another place of its correct representation, resulting in a double misreading. That is to say that, first of all, Tuen Mun is not where it “should be,” and second that Tuen Mun occupies a place where it “should not be.” Therefore, the prefix “mis” in “misplace” carries both the meaning of “wrongly taking one thing as another one” as in “mistake” or “misunderstand,” and the meaning of “should not be” as in “misbehavior.” As for the concept of “place,” in this school of thought, it can be understood as “representation” from the perspective of production, or as “reading” from the perspective of reception. In fact, “representation” and “reading” are just two sides of the same coin.
We can, for convenience’s sake, call this school cartocentric, since its members do not believe in any objective reality outside maps. Cartocentric scholars are totally unconcerned about the correct location of Tuen Mun and even deny the legitimacy of such questions. Their investigation is wholly preoccupied in how the “place” called Tuen Mun is being represented and read. According to this view, all representations of places are simultaneously both right and wrong: in whatever place Tuen Mun appears, it cannot be invalidated by factors exterior to the map. By the same token, anywhere that Tuen Mun appears is destined to be wrong. From this is derived the thesis that “all places are misplaces, and all misplaces are misreadings.” The map is regarded as the only operational field of spatial senses.
Investigations from this angle suggest that Hong Kong is also a misplace. Its appearance and evolution in the history of cartography inevitably imply meanings of mistakes, misunderstanding, and misdoing. However, it is also owing to this very inevitability and actuality that it earns legitimacy and correctness, at least literally so.
It is evident that the passion of the cartocentrics in rejecting and rebutting empirical knowledge does not necessarily elevate them above other schools of thought. It remains but one of many competing theories, all perhaps motivated by the desire to control the object of knowledge by seizing the ultimate power of interpretation.
Scholars, in truth, are no different from suspicious and possessive lovers whose derangement only increases the more deeply they probe, since lovers always fix their eyes on misplaces.
4
DISPLACE
The term “displace” can be understood in a narrow and a br
oad sense. In the narrow sense, it means that the position of one place is taken over by another place in the diachronic development of mapmaking. A good example can be found in “A Coastal Map of Guangdong” in A Comprehensive Account of Guangdong Province, written by Guo Fei in the late sixteenth century. This map is oriented in such a way that it faces toward the South China Sea from the mainland with the south at the top. It shows a big island across the water to the south of the Kwun Foo Guard Post (Kowloon Hills), on which Chek Chue occupies the center and is surrounded by places named Wong Nai Chung, Tai Tam, and Shau Kei Wan. To the southwest from the big island (by its upper right on the map), a small, lonely island named Hong Kong stands in the sea. Comparing “A Coastal Map of Guangdong” with some later maps, however, we discover that the location of the big island opposite Kowloon is taken over by Hong Kong or Hung Heung Lou. In the 1819 edition of the San-on County Gazetteer, Chek Chue has clearly been pushed farther south into the sea by Hung Heung Lou, becoming itself a small, isolated island. In “A Map of the Waterways of Guangdong Province” produced by a magistrate by the name of Chen in 1840, Chek Chue returns for the last time to a central position in the harbor. Nevertheless, Chek Chue is again displaced by Hung Heung Lou Shun in “A Map of San-on County” in the Guangdong Provincial Gazetteer of 1864, and it even disappears from the map.
Atlas Page 3