“In June, it’s raining last year’s rain” by Woo Sai Nga, translated by Audrey Heijns

The rain beats down, cultivating flowers that can fly
while waiting for the rain to stop, people look around
their pupils filled with pools of water,
they let themselves waver
more easily by the rain

The umbrellas are in dire straits, hems are about to fly
Tree trunks that got soaked appear deeper
and tougher than human beings

The sun sets, the sun rises
and it still keeps on
raining

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

〈六月，天空下著去年的雨〉／ 胡世雅

雨擊落，種出會飛的花
等雨停的人東張西望
把水窪都納進眼瞳
讓自己更容易
被雨動搖

傘很狼狽，衣擺欲飛
被淋濕的樹幹比起人
擁有更深沉堅硬的神色

日落下去，日升上來
而雨
還在下

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

● Woo Sai Nga, born in Hong Kong, is a member of Fannou Poetry Society. She graduated from the Chinese Department, Baptist University of Hong Kong in 2017 and is now teaching at a secondary school. She publishes poems in literary magazines in Hong Kong and Taiwan, and has won the Youth Literary Award (青年文學獎) and the Award for Creative Writing in Chinese (中文文學創作獎) in Hong Kong. She was the leader of the workshop “Literary Convergence ⸺ May Fourth Hong Kong”, Theatre-in-Education Project (Reading and Writing), held at the Hong Kong Literature Research Centre, The Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2019/20.

● Audrey Heijns, based in Hong Kong, is working at Shenzhen University. Her translations of Chinese literature have been published in literary magazines, including Het Trage Vuur, Twee Ronde, KortVerhaal, Terras, Renditions, Exchanges and Poetry International.

From A Sip of Tea by Ye Si, translated by Audrey Heijns (6)

327, Tung Ping Chau

I read in the newspaper that Tung Ping Chau has become severely polluted, and this makes me sad. Tung Ping Chau used to be such a beautiful place, now some of the large rocks have been moved to Ocean Park and tourists have make a mess of it.

＊   ＊   ＊

Is it better for a place to remain unknown? In the past, Tung Ping Chau was a quiet and clean place. Recently, we visited it again and there were mahjong tables everywhere, radios blaring, chicken bones and soft drink cans strewn all over the place, as well as scraps of paper and plastic bags . . .

＊   ＊   ＊

The government has done a good job of cleaning up the beaches this year. Could it be that they have begun to pay some attention to cleaning up the outlying islands? Otherwise their beautiful scenery . . .

 

327 東平洲

閱報得悉東平洲的污染十分厲害，讀來真是傷心。東平洲原來是那麼美麗的地方，現在岩石搬了一部份去海洋公園，地方又給遊客弄糟了。

是不是一個地方不著名還好呢？過去那是清靜乾淨的地方，近年我們再去，已經是一桌桌的麻將，已經是收音機吵耳。雞骨和鐵罐扔了一地，廢紙和膠袋……

市政事務署的海灘清潔今年已做得不錯。可否開始留意一下離島的清潔？不然，那些美麗的風景……。

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Other poems from this series:

21, Cold after the rain
46, Taste
83, Winter
183, Weather
186, Hong Kong

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Ye Si, pen name of Leung Ping Kwan (1949-2013), is a celebrated Hong Kong poet, essayist, fiction writer and photographer. He has published many volumes of poetry, essays and stories, including: Paper Cuts (1982), City at the End of Time (1992), Foodscape (1997), Travelling with a Bitter Melon (2002), Postcards from Prague (2000) and Postcolonial Affairs of Food and the Heart (2009). He was Chair Professor of Comparative Literature and Director of the Centre for Humanities Research at Lingnan University in Hong Kong.

Audrey Heijns, based in Hong Kong, is working at Shenzhen University. Her translations of Chinese literature have been published in literary magazines, including Het Trage Vuur, Twee Ronde, KortVerhaal, Terras, Renditions, Exchanges and Poetry International.

 

Photograph: 香港東平洲：沙灘 Beach on Tung Ping Chau, Hong Kong (2016)

From A Sip of Tea by Ye Si, translated by Audrey Heijns (5)

186, Hong Kong

A German woman, who had lived in Paris for ten years, said: ‘I spent the best ten years of my life there.’ Then she came to Hong Kong and said: ‘This looks like a very lively place, so many people!’

＊   ＊   ＊

There’s a foreigner who has lived in Hong Kong for more than ten years. He can order dishes in a restaurant, but the only words in Chinese he can say are: ‘I’ve got an upset stomach.’

＊   ＊   ＊

A foreigner in Hong Kong once said that the existence of a colony is an absurd reality. He wants a writer from abroad to suggest a method to change that. This type of person always wants someone else to come up with a solution. Thereby forgetting that there are people who live here. And forgetting that he too exists in this absurd reality, that he’s a part of it.

 

186 香港

一個在巴黎住了十年的德國女子，她說：「我最好的十年全在那裡度過了。」來到香港，她說：「這似乎是個很有活力的地方，這麼多人！」

一個在香港住了十多年的外國人。他會點菜，他唯一懂用中文說的幾個字是：「肚子不好。」

一個住在香港的外國人說，殖民地的存在，是荒謬的事實，他要一位外來的作者提出一個方法改變它。這種人總是要求人提出答案給他。本身卻忽略了住在這兒的人，忽略了他自己也是存在於這荒謬的事實中，是其中一份子。

 ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Other poems from this series:

21, Cold after the rain
46, Taste
83, Winter
183, Weather

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

● Ye Si, pen name of Leung Ping Kwan (1949-2013), is a celebrated Hong Kong poet, essayist, fiction writer and photographer. He has published many volumes of poetry, essays and stories, including: Paper Cuts (1982), City at the End of Time (1992), Foodscape (1997), Travelling with a Bitter Melon (2002), Postcards from Prague (2000) and Postcolonial Affairs of Food and the Heart (2009). He was Chair Professor of Comparative Literature and Director of the Centre for Humanities Research at Lingnan University in Hong Kong.

●Audrey Heijns, based in Hong Kong, is working at Shenzhen University. Her translations of Chinese literature have been published in literary magazines, including Het Trage Vuur, Twee Ronde, KortVerhaal, Terras, Renditions, Exchanges and Poetry International.

Photograph: Hong Kong in Darkness and Light (Audrey Heijns)

From A Sip of Tea by Ye Si, translated by Audrey Heijns (4)

183, The Weather

The weather is changing. Wet floors. People slip. A feeling of stickiness is everywhere. Birds are chirping. Spring has not yet taken shape.

＊   ＊   ＊

Moisture on the walls. Something is going mouldy. Hazy mountain tops. Gazing into the distance at a patch of grey. A brightness behind the clouds. Something’s building up in my chest.

＊   ＊   ＊

Trivial. Wronged. Misunderstood. Unworthy. The flashing of screens, the flickering of shifting images, someone faraway is talking. Hens clucking. Wet carpets, in the hall of a building. Wood waste. Metal pails. Soft cloths are stretched out in the wind, so far out that they stroke someone on the face.

 

183天氣

天氣的轉變。潮濕的地面。有人不小心摔倒。四周黏黏膩膩的感覺。鳥兒的叫聲。未成形的春天。

牆上的水份。發霉的什麼。迷濛的山頭。遠望一片灰色。天空雲後的明朗。胸中積著的一點什麼。

煩瑣。委屈。誤會。不值。熒光幕的閃閃，畫面變幻不定，有人在遠遠的地方說話。雞啼了。濡濕的地毯，在大廈樓下。廢木。鐵桶。柔軟的布幅，迎著風飄起來，仿佛拂到人的臉上去。

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Other poems from this series:

21, Cold after the rain
46, Taste
83, Winter

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

● Ye Si, pen name of Leung Ping Kwan (1949-2013), is a celebrated Hong Kong poet, essayist, fiction writer and photographer. He has published many volumes of poetry, essays and stories, including: Paper Cuts (1982), City at the End of Time (1992), Foodscape (1997), Travelling with a Bitter Melon (2002), Postcards from Prague (2000) and Postcolonial Affairs of Food and the Heart (2009). He was Chair Professor of Comparative Literature and Director of the Centre for Humanities Research at Lingnan University in Hong Kong.

●Audrey Heijns, based in Hong Kong, is working at Shenzhen University. Her translations of Chinese literature have been published in literary magazines, including Het Trage Vuur, Twee Ronde, KortVerhaal, Terras, Renditions, Exchanges and Poetry International.

Photograph: Hong Kong Cloudscape (Audrey Heijns, 2020)

From A Sip of Tea by Ye Si, translated by Audrey Heijns (3)

83, Winter

When the weather is cold, a plate of lap-mei rice can make you particularly warm. After such a meal, you feel a warmth all over. If it’s even colder, you’ll see hotpot and claypot rice for sale in the street. The flickering flames resist the cold.

＊   ＊   ＊

I don’t much like winter, it’s like I am more slow-witted, more sluggish in winter. Someone says: ‘you’re always sluggish, it’s got nothing to do with winter!’ When I think it over, that does make some sense.

＊   ＊   ＊

No matter what, when the hot weather is gone, the cold weather comes along, and the street scene changes. Winter, whether you like it or not, always arrives on time, just like TV commercials, debt collectors, toothache, and bad luck.

Note: lap-mei rice is a traditional Cantonese dish of preserved meat with rice cooked in a clay pot.

 

83 冬天

天氣寒冷的時候吃臘味飯，特別感到暖。吃了彷彿整個人就暖和起來。再冷一點，你在街頭就可以看見火鍋和煲仔菜。晃動的火光，對抗寒冷。

我不大喜歡冬天，在冬天裡，人也好像呆一點，遲鈍一點。有人說：「你平時也是那麼遲鈍的了，關冬天什麼事？」想想又有道理。

不管怎樣，每年熱天去了冷天就來，街頭又有一番景象。冬天，不管你喜歡不喜歡，照樣準時來臨，像電視的廣告、像收賬的人、像牙痛、像噩運。

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Other poems from this series:

21, Cold after the rain
46, Taste

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

● Ye Si, pen name of Leung Ping Kwan (1949-2013), is a celebrated Hong Kong poet, essayist, fiction writer and photographer. He has published many volumes of poetry, essays and stories, including: Paper Cuts (1982), City at the End of Time (1992), Foodscape (1997), Travelling with a Bitter Melon (2002), Postcards from Prague (2000) and Postcolonial Affairs of Food and the Heart (2009). He was Chair Professor of Comparative Literature and Director of the Centre for Humanities Research at Lingnan University in Hong Kong.

●Audrey Heijns, based in Hong Kong, is working at Shenzhen University. Her translations of Chinese literature have been published in literary magazines, including Het Trage Vuur, Twee Ronde, KortVerhaal, Terras, Renditions, Exchanges and Poetry International.

Photograph: Lam’s Cha-siu, Tai Po (Audrey Heijns)

From A Sip of Tea by Ye Si, translated by Audrey Heijns (2)

46, Taste

The taste of coffee has gone bland. In the past one spoon of powder was enough for one cup of coffee. Now with one and a half spoon the coffee is still weak. Has the quality deteriorated? Or am I losing my sense of my taste?

＊   ＊   ＊

The taste of coffee has gone bland. The taste of films is getting salty. The words in the newspaper are getting sour. People’s talk is getting spicy.

＊   ＊   ＊

As time goes by it’s getting difficult to trust your own taste buds. Have you changed or has the flavour of things changed? In the restaurant, someone is madly putting salt on everything, someone else pours a thick layer of ketchup on his steak. Take a bite and you can’t tell whether you are eating vegetables or meat, if it’s carnivorous or vegetarian.

Note: In Cantonese 鹹 hàahm or “salty” can also mean “pornographic; lecherous”.

 

46 味道

 咖啡的味道淡了。以前一匙的咖啡粉便夠味道，現在一匙半還是淡淡的。是不是咖啡粉的質素差了？還是我的口味變了？

咖啡的味道淡了。電影的味道越來越鹹了。報刊的文字越來越酸。人的說話越來越辣。

日子久了，你越來越不相信你的味蕾。是你變了，還是事物的味道變了？在餐室裡，一個人拼命灑鹽，一個人在牛排上倒下厚厚的番茄醬。嚼一口，你分不出是菜還是肉、是葷是素。

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Other poems from this series:

21, Cold after the rain

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Ye Si, pen name of Leung Ping Kwan (1949-2013), is a celebrated Hong Kong poet, essayist, fiction writer and photographer. He has published many volumes of poetry, essays and stories, including: Paper Cuts (1982), City at the End of Time (1992), Foodscape (1997), Travelling with a Bitter Melon (2002), Postcards from Prague (2000) and Postcolonial Affairs of Food and the Heart (2009). He was Chair Professor of Comparative Literature and Director of the Centre for Humanities Research at Lingnan University in Hong Kong.

Audrey Heijns, based in Hong Kong, is working at Shenzhen University. Her translations of Chinese literature have been published in literary magazines, including Het Trage Vuur, Twee Ronde, KortVerhaal, Terras, Renditions, Exchanges and Poetry International.

From A Sip of Tea by Ye Si, translated by Audrey Heijns (1)

21, Cold after the rain

There’s a glass pane in the restaurant facing the street. The people sitting inside can see a middle-aged man walking past slowly. He turns his head to one side, and casts a slanting glance inside. From the outside one can see a man sitting in a compartment seat staring out the window.

＊   ＊   ＊

Outside the delivery van is unloading soft drink. Women, who bought groceries, carry baskets passing by. A Pakistani with a turban also walks by. It’s busy in the street, and crowded, the road is wet after the rain. The humid feeling indoors is the lamp light reflected in the glass of water that is half-empty.

＊   ＊   ＊

People outside can’t hear the gentle music inside. People inside can’t feel the cold after the rain.

 

21 雨後的寒意

餐室有一副玻璃，對着大街。坐在裡面的人，看見外面一個中年男子緩緩走過，側着頭，斜斜地往裡面睨一眼，在外面走過的，看見裡面卡座位上一個男子，呆呆地望着外面。

外面汽水車正卸下汽水。買菜的婦人，挽著籃子走過，一個纏着頭的巴基斯坦人走過。路上熱鬧、擠擁，下過雨的地面，濕漉漉的。室內的濕意，是燈光反映在喝剩的半杯水上。

外面的人，聽不見裡面輕柔的音樂。裡面的人，不知道外面雨後的寒意。

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

● Ye Si, pen name of Leung Ping Kwan (1949-2013), is a celebrated Hong Kong poet, essayist, fiction writer and photographer. He has published many volumes of poetry, essays and stories, including: Paper Cuts (1982), City at the End of Time (1992), Foodscape (1997), Travelling with a Bitter Melon (2002), Postcards from Prague (2000) and Postcolonial Affairs of Food and the Heart (2009). He was Chair Professor of Comparative Literature and Director of the Centre for Humanities Research at Lingnan University in Hong Kong.

● Audrey Heijns, based in Hong Kong, is working at Shenzhen University. Her translations of Chinese literature have been published in literary magazines, including Het Trage Vuur, Twee Ronde, KortVerhaal, Terras, Renditions, Exchanges and Poetry International.

 

Photograph: Rainy Mong Kok (Audrey Heijns)

“The Paranormal Minibus Driver” by Wong Leung Wo, translated by Audrey Heijns

 

Please scroll down for the Chinese text!

While I was walking to the bus stop from my place, a minibus 28K sped by like the wind from behind. When I got to the stop, I was wondering how long I would have to wait for the next one. To my surprise, there was another one, no two more minibuses approaching. The first one was 28K and so I immediately waved at it. The female driver did not stop, probably because the minibus was full. I felt disappointed, until I realized that the next minibus was another 28K. It was not full and it opened its doors right in front of me. I got on the bus, and a man wearing a mask also got on. I only just sat down, when he swiped his octopus card and the driver said: “Sir, you with the mask, I recognize you! There’s no need to call out, I know where you want to get off.” My heart beat loudly when I heard the driver’s voice, surprised that I got on his minibus.

The man who just got on the bus, took his seat right behind the driver. He pulled off his mask and laughed: “You’re amazing!” Then he made a remark about the fact that the minibus in front of us did not stop.

“The lady driver in front is my “apprentice”, she knows I am right behind her, so of course she lets the “master” pick you up,” replied the driver.

“Of course: you’re the True Master of the Road!” The man who had removed his mask imitated the tone of Jacky Chan reminding drivers to drive carefully in the government ad shown on TV.

“No, not “True Master”! In our profession we’re called “senior apprentice”, when my apprentice greets me they call me “Senior Apprentice”. Nowadays the meaning of words change all the time and you have to be careful. In the past in mainland China everyone was Comrade this, Comrade that, but that’s no longer used. Those guys in Lan Kwai Fong who fancy men are now called comrades!”

That was the first time I caught his bus in the direction of Tai Po. In the past I had only been on his bus from the market in Tai Po to go back home. The first time I took his minibus, he abused me; the second time, he and a passenger were shouting at each other; the third time, I wanted to file a complaint about him; the fourth time, I wanted to get off early; the fifth time….

The first time I was on his minibus, we had just set off when I suspected something was wrong. The driver was constantly talking, mumbling to himself, swearing at passengers who had called out twice where to get off. In the past, it happened to me, that I had told the driver where to get off, and the driver had forgotten where to stop, thereafter I made it habit to remind the driver when we were approaching the place where I had to get off. Then he told me off: “You have already told me where you want to get off, there is no need to repeat yourself. You eighteen people just tell me once where to get off, and I will remember!” By the time I got off, I was still annoyed by his swearing in public. To my surprise, not long after this incident, another passenger who told him his destination “Care Village” when getting on, also got told off when he repeated it when we almost arrived at “Care Village”. The passenger reacted: “There’s no reason to get angry, when I remind you.” The driver said: “Why do you have to repeat it? You already said “Care Village” when you got on, didn’t you? I remember all of your destinations. Hey, the young lady there with the long hair has to go Deerhill Bay. Ask her if that’s right? How could I forget? Anyway, once is enough!” The young lady in the back stared pokerfaced without making a sound. He insisted that passengers tell him only once. It was an offense to say it twice.

Notes on Thick Brown Paper: In Tibet • Yu Jian (1994)

Photograph by Yu Jian

The etymological root of the Tibetan world is “origin”. There is nothing static about this notion of origins, for this world in its vital energies is originary. It is not only a spiritual quality; it is also immediately apparent in the land, in the architecture, in the way of life. For someone who comes from a world of which the etymological root is “progress”, it is simply not possible to make use of the word “backward” in the case of Tibet. Tibet rejects the outlook of Darwin’s theory of evolution so widespread in our world. Everything in this world takes place in an untrammelled time-space, an integrated whole, a powerful consciousness of life and history. Here you might gain an immediate sense of what is known as “eternal life”. When you discover that the time shown on your watch is totally out of sync with that of the Buddhist elders seated on the stone slab at the Jokhang Temple, you begin to suspect that the time of your “progress” is in fact regressing this moment in the direction of death.

In no sense is Tibet a place where spiritual beings are ethereal like the wind. This is pure conjecture on the part of atheists living in the world of “progress”. In Tibet, a spirit is something you can meet with on the road. They are not insubstantial air: they are tangible and have all the intense reality of stone. They are things capable of inflicting injury on the wind and its ilk.

A materialist visiting Tibet who did not become—if only for a split second—a mystic would, I believe, have to be devoid of any feeling.

I do not like discussing the supernatural. Nor am I fond of poets given to liberally sprinkling their works with the word “soul”. I am certain that there is no spirit to speak of in those places where the word “soul” is spoken of with such gusto. I didn’t hear the word once during my stay in Tibet, nor did intellectuals there debate its loss. But the spirit was everywhere.

Prior to my trip to Tibet, an avant-garde friend back from New York told me that he found it surprising that there were people still wanting to go there. Surely such behaviour was well and truly passé? I didn’t quite know what he meant. Could the progress of time mean that places such as Tibet were out of date? To which parts of the globe would future ages travel? No, I felt hopelessly out of step with fashion—I had always imagined the Tibets of this world to be timeless.

Opus 4 • Yu Jian (1983)

I have been re-reading Yu Jian’s second book of poems, The Naming of a Crow (《对一只乌鸦的命名》) from 1993, just to see if there was anything in it that I hadn’t really appreciated in earlier encounters. Here is one poem that suddenly struck me with a force that I had never noticed on previous occasions: without any clear idea of why, I decided just to get to work and translate it, and I was pleasantly surprised by the way the text seemed to open up as I went along. I’m a terrible reader sometimes; I rely on translation to do my reading for me!

If you read Chinese and are interested in how the language works in this poem, there are a few points of grammatical and lexical interest: I’ve listed these after the Chinese version.

“Opus 4 • Yu Jian (1983)”

One half of that white snake of stones is wound around the mountain
basking in the sun, while the other half
crawls through the legs of a pine forest.
A crow watches me grow up out of a field of grass:
it circles overhead to investigate
before hitting the road once more with the clouds ―
it thinks I’m a tree.
A herd of cows keeps a 12-year-old king company
as he dreams beneath Spring’s regal new canopy.
He sees a red bee in his dreams.
I pass as quietly as I possibly can but he wakes suddenly with a start.
In the spaces between mountains and towering trees between grass and the squirrels between sunlight and streams
we have swapped eyes forever.
He stays put far away in his mountains like a fairtytale about a forest spirit.
I spend the rest of my life trying to imagine the sound of his voice.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

《作品第4号》

那条石头的白蛇缠着山晒太阳
另一半身子爬进松树林的腿
乌鸦看见我从一片草地上长出来
侦察了一圈又和云一起上路
它视我为树
一群牛陪着一个十二岁的国王
在春天新织的华盖下做梦
他梦见一只红蜜蜂
我轻轻地轻轻地流过去但他突然惊醒
在山和大树在草和松鼠在阳光和小溪流的空间中
我们永远交换了眼睛
他远远地留在山中就像一个有林妖的童话
一生中我都在想象他的声音

• The particle 着 can be used to indicate that a verb serves as a “background” or “accompanying” action to another main verb. So in 白蛇缠着山晒太阳, the main action is the basking in the sun, while 缠着山 gives us some more information about how this basking is done. Basic Chinese by Yip Po-Ching and Don Rimmington has a brief explanation of this point.
• You don’t see the noun 华盖 hua2 gai4 very often. It has two meanings: (1) canopy (as over an imperial carriage) and (2) aureole, a meteorological term referring to “a ring of light around a luminous body”. Fortunately, “canopy” in English is a common metaphor for the sky.
• I’m a bit unsure of the meaning of 交换眼睛. It may be an idiom, but it’s not one I’m familiar with. There’s a hint of swapping places with another person, of exchanging (if only imaginatively) lives: I suddenly saw everything around me with his eyes . . .
• I guess one would expect the poem to say: he was like a forest spirit. Yu Jian makes a delightful modification here, by suggesting that he was not just like the spirit but the whole mood or atmosphere of a tale for children: 像一个有林妖的童话.