Leung Ping-kwan

Leung Ping-kwan, (12 March 1949 – 5 January 2013[1]) whose pen name was Yesi (also, Ye Si),[2] was a Hong Kong poet, novelist, essayist, translator, teacher, and scholar who received the Hong Kong Medal of Honor (MH) and was an important long-time cultural figure in Hong Kong.

Leung Ping-kwan
Native name 梁秉鈞
Born Guangdong, Xinhua
Pen name Yesi / Yasi (也斯)
Occupation poet, novelist, essayist, translator, and scholar
Nationality Hong Kong, China
Period 1949-2013
Spouse Betty Ng (pen name Ng Hui Bun, Xubin)
Website
http://leungpingkwan.com

Life

Yesi was born in Xinhui District in Guangdong during 1949. The same year, his family settled in Hong Kong, and he was raised there. His father died when he was four.

He began writing in the 1960s and quickly became known as a translator of foreign-language literature and for his editorial work on a number of literary publications targeted at young Chinese readers in both Hong Kong and Taiwan.[3]

After graduating from Hong Kong Baptist University with a bachelor's degree in English, Yesi got a job first as a secondary school teacher, then as the editor of the South China Morning Post (SCMP). In 1978, he went to America for further studies. In 1984, Yesi got his PhD degree in comparative literature at the University of California, San Diego. His PhD thesis was "Aesthetics of opposition: a study of the modernist generation of Chinese poets, 1936-1949".

Yesi returned to Hong Kong after earning his doctorate. He taught at the Department of English Studies and Comparative Literature at the University of Hong Kong. In 1998 he got a position as a professor giving lectures on comparative literature in the Chinese Department at Lingnan University. Later on, he also became director of the Research Institute for the Humanities.[4] He specialized in teaching literature and film, comparative literature, the literature of Hong Kong, modern literary criticism, and Chinese literary writing.

Yesi had achievements across many areas of literature, including poetry, prose, novels, drama, and literary and cultural criticism.

Yesi wrote mostly in Chinese. However, his English works were also published in the Hong Kong magazine Muse. His poetry and prose have been translated into English, French, Korean, Japanese, Arabic, Portuguese, and German.

In 2010, Yesi stated publicly that he had been diagnosed with lung cancer. He died on 5 January 2013.

Brief timeline / Highlight of Yesi’s life[5]

Time
early 1960s began his writing career
1960s actively introducing foreign literatures into Hong Kong, including the French New Novel, American underground literature, and Latin American literature writing in many genres, including poetry, prose, fiction as well as critical essays
1978 studies at the University of California, San Diego, specializing in modern Chinese poetry and western modernism
Later on, he returned to Hong Kong Taught at the Department of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Hong Kong (1985-1997) and then joined the Department of Chinese at Lingnan University as Chair of Comparative Literature, and as Director of the Centre for Humanities Research under the Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences (1997-2013)
2013 Leung died peacefully at Union Hospital in Hong Kong. His last wish was for Hong Kong Literature to receive the attention it deserves, and good writers from Hong Kong to be acknowledged, both locally and globally.

Background of the name "Yesi"

"Yesi" is a combination of two meaningless words, both interjections, in Chinese. According to Yesi, people usually adopt a pen name that contains meanings, which would give the readers a fixed feeling or impression towards their works before they read them. Yesi wanted to break out of this, hence, he used the combination of two meaningless words, which usually appear in classical Chinese literary works, as his pen name.

Prominent themes and concerns of Yesi's works

This poem embodies the spirit and concerns in Yesi’s works, including tone and some recurrent themes. Later, this poem would be used as an example for further analysis of Yesi’s style. Some other examples were also complimented and praised.

Images of Hong Kong[6]

I need a new angle
for strictly visual matters.
Here’s an old portrait shot originally in Guangguang studio in Nathan Road;
They don’t paint on them like this any more.
…
History, too, is a montage of images,
of paper, collectibles, plastic, fibres,
We need a fresh angle, nothing added nothing taken away,
Always at the edge of things and between places.
Write with a different color for each voice;
OK, but how trivial can you get?
Could a whole history have been concocted like this?
…
So now, once again, they say it’s time to remodel
and each of us finds himself looking around for –what?

Observation, perception, and angle

Many of Yesi’s works are concerned with the way we look at the world, and also how we are perceived by other people. The former tries to discover new angles for observing the world, while he or she is inevitably the object of others’ perception as well. The opening sentence of “Images of Hong Kong” clearly declares this intention: “I need a new angle”. In many of Yesi’s works, the narrator is eager to observe things that happen around him/her. There is a sense that the narrator wants not only to see the world, but also to look at it in a unique way, which is different from the mainstream perception.

However, being looked at in turn is unavoidable. Yesi’s narrators are quite introspective. They are aware that they are part of what’s happening. Another example would come from the novel “Paper Cut-outs” (剪紙). The novel is composed of two story lines, each about the narrator’s interaction with a female friend. The two story lines can be read as separate stories, yet, they contrast and complement each other in details and contents. Both his friends faced a catastrophe nearly at the end of the story, and the narrator mentions that:

“人與人之間的關係互相牽連，混合了我們這些其他人的感情。我們這些旁觀者一下子也牽涉其中了，我們可以指責某種偏激行為…但當不幸的事發生了，我們可以置身事外嗎?” (161)

(Translation: A relationship would be affected by other relationships. Observers’ feelings are mixed into the relationship of the observed. Outsiders and observers are also part of what he or she is observing. We can blame certain violent acts… However, when tragedy happens, who can be responsibility-free?)

The narrator feels sorry for what happened to his friends, and for not being able to do anything, except narrate and watch the problem grow, and turn into a catastrophe. Also, his action and care is also reviewed by other characters at times.

Flâneur

Observation in Yesi’s poems almost always associated with flânerie. More precisely, the narrator is very often a flâneur. Yesi writes about different places and even flânerie' itself. Images of Hong Kong includes different locations. In addition to Guangguang studio in Nathan Road, the poem also talks about different places such as the Star Ferry clock tower, Aberdeen, China Club, and so on. Another example would be the poem On a Road, A Wanderer:

Step after step, I walk the road
no matter how rushed those around me
I take my own time
whether cars turn left or right
I choose my own direction
big fish glide in the aquariums
food stalls offer whopper fishballs
I'm not lured
…
I don’t have to see so clearly
heading slowly toward my heart’s core
…
tracing my own mind’s map
walking slow
if by chance the city glare
blinds me
I glance away,
keeping my own pace

The above describes how the narrator strolls along the city in his or her own pace, not affected by the surroundings. He observes and sees “cars turn left or right”, “big fish glide”, “food stalls”, and so on. Yet, he walks in “[his] own pace”, not affected by environment. This flâneur is so special that he uses the outer appearance of the city, to search his heart. It is notable that he “[doesn’t] have to see clearly/ heading slowly towards [his] heart’s core”. Again, the narrator is trying to keep himself in a position different from others.

Nolstagia and history

There is very often a sense of pity for the disappearing past in Yesi’s works. For example, in Images of Hong Kong, the people do not paint on photos “any more”, and the “old portrait” cannot be reproduced. Like this portrait, in many of Yesi’s works, we can see things that are disappearing with the past. Also, the narrator says that history is a “montage of images”, and evaluates if Hong Kong’s past is only figures of famous buildings like the Star Ferry. He suggests that the past should be read with “a fresh angle" and reviews the way to looking into the past.

Hong Kong

Yesi is recognized as a Hong Kong poet, not only because he grew up in the city, but more importantly due to his concern for it. Images of Hong Kong show such concern, as the narrator wants to find a new angle to shoot Hong Kong. Moveover, Some of Yesi’s other poems are about places in Hong Kong, such as Winter Scene from Tai Mei Tuk, Reclaimed Land in Tai Kok Tsui, and Midway, Quarry Bay. Apart from the sense of place, Hong Kong serves as an important context for Yesi’s novels. Again, take Paper Cut-outs as an example; the narrator's two female friends actually symbolize Hong Kong people’s identity. This is also how Chinese culture and Western culture failed to understand or merge with one other in Hong Kong. For example, Qiáo (喬), a modern women, is a character showing that Hong Kong people do not understand their Chinese origin very well, but on the other hand, are not completely westernized. She cannot understand or grasp the feelings in traditional Chinese poems. Moreover, her face is so pale that it would reflect the color of the surroundings:

“外面廣告牌上的一大幅粉藍色填滿所有窗口，喬的臉孔染上一片粉藍。…經過一片淺黃，她的臉又泛上淺黃。”

(Translation:The billboard outside the bus filled the latter’s windows with light blue, so as Qiáo’s face…When the bus passes through a sea of light yellow, her face also reflects in yellow.)

This symbolizes that the cultural identity of Hong Kong people is actually quite fragile. Without rooting in Chinese or Western culture, Hong Kong people do not have or have not created any distinct culture. They are easily affected by others, and reflect others’ colors.

Even in the most seemingly unlikely sphere to be associated with Hong Kong, Yesi shows his concern for the city. For him, travelling has a lot to do with home. The book Leung Ping Kwan (1949 – 2013), A Retrospective (回看.也斯), says that “[e]very foreign place he visited invoked in him even deeper thoughts about Hong Kong. He wrote copiously about his cross-border experiences, in prose and in poetry, from eastern culture to western culture, from literature and art to cultural observations, from old ideas to new concepts, posing questions that would not have been formulated if he had not left Hong Kong, and trying to portray, to a Hong Kong wallowing in old habits, new sets of emotion and knowledge in hope of a change.”

In short, Yesi’s works are deeply concerned with Hong Kong, no matter what the topic or context.

Characteristics of Yesi's works

Personification of places and objects

Yesi often personified places and objects in his poems. Some of these poems include Central, Europe After Rain, and Bittermelon. Yesi would talk gently to the personified objects, as if they were his friends. In Europe After Rain, the narrator walks into a church, and talks to the place:

“I shiver in the cold. You don't seem to have heard my prayer. Your four walls are mottled, the ancient stories have turned into reliefs, in the flickering light and shadow your magnificent and inevitabilities of history.”[6]

Very often, there are interactions of “I” and “you” in Yesi’s works, but the latter is sometimes an object or a place.

Voice, tone, and narrative

There is a sort of double voicing in Yesi’s poems. To put this precisely, there are multiple layers of meanings. An example that illustrates this is the poem Bittermelon:[7]

You're not worn-out or beaten-down,
you're just resting.
The loudest song's not necessarily passionate;
the bitterest pain stays in the heart.
Is it because you've seen lots of false sunlight,
too much thunder and lightening, hurt and hurting,
too many indifferent and temperamental days?
Your silence is much to be admired;
you keep the bitter taste to yourself.
...
in the wind, our bittermelon, steadily facing
worlds of confused worlds of confused bees and butterflies and a garden gone wild

By talking to “you”, the narrator not only converses with objects and places. He is also talking to the reader or to the audience. He asks them “[i]s it because you've seen lots of false sunlight…too many indifferent and temperamental days” that you have stopped talking about your sufferings? The questions give us a feeling that the narrator sympathizes with us, the readers, and gently inquires as to our situations. Instead of readers reading the poem, the poem seems to read us as well.[8]

However, the narrator also seems to be talking to himself and to the author. As mentioned above in the “Observation, perception, and angle” section, narrators of Yesi's narrators often try to position and view themselves in a way different from the mainstream. In the above poem, “our bittermelon” is described as “steadily facing worlds of confused bees and butterflies and a garden gone wild”. This seems to describe the narrator, or perhaps Yesi himself, trying to walk in “[his] own pace” (Images of Hong Kong) without being distracted by the world, or by mainstream values.

Moreover, in some of Yesi’s works, first and second person narrators interchange with each other. In his book “the Paper Cut-outs”, when the narrator refers to his friend Yáo (瑤), he always use second person narrative “you”. The book’s narrative sometimes changes, and the narrator refers to readers, characters, and himself with the plural pronoun “we”. Similarly, in the above poem, bittermelon becomes “ours” at last.

Influences on Yesi's works

Latin-American magical realism

Yesi “was the first to bring in Latin American literary icons such as Gabriel Garcìa Márquez, Pablo Neruda, Jorge Luis Borges and Mario Vargas Llosa before they were widely known”.[5] His works are also heavily influenced by magical realism. Many critics have noted how Yesi used magical elements to interpret reality in his novels. For example, a critic analyzed magic realism in Yesi’s novel “Shih-man the Dragon-keeper” (《養龍人師門》).[9]

Another example: the description of Qiáo’s room in Paper Cut-outs demonstrates features of magic realism. The narrator visits Qiáo, who is a psychotic. In her room, “many red birds are drawn on the white walls, approximately thirty” (白色牆壁上畫滿紅色鳥兒，一共有好幾十隻。).[10] She “walks close to the walls, between the red birds” (她走近牆邊，走入那些紅色的鳥兒中間。) The “birds listen to and obey her!” (鳥兒是聽話的！).[11] “Each of her birds have names. Good Bò Bò. Fā Fā was naughty yesterday, and Wá Wá hasn’t eaten for a few days” (她的鳥兒都有名字。柏柏乖，發發昨天淘氣，娃娃幾天不吃東西了。).[12] The birds fly in the room. “She touches the wings of one of the birds” (喬撫著一頭鳥的翅膀), and a bird “stops on [the narrator’s] fingertip” (停在我的指尖).[13] Although the birds are painted on the walls, Qiáo regarded them as alive. Imagination becomes reality in this passage.

Modernism

Modernism seeks to write novels in a way that reflects a human being’s inner thoughts, which are often fragmented. Yesi’s novels also write about different moments in life that are perhaps not consistent. In the novel Paper Cut-outs, linkage between the two seemingly separate story lines is imagined and drawn by readers. There is no clear message imposed by the author. Paper cut-outs are like fragmented moments, words, and phrases, which are all broken into parts. The connections between the fragments are vague; ambiguity is an important feature of modernism.

Chinese literature

Chinese literature also heavily nfluences Yesi’s work. Elements of Chinese culture, like folk and opera, can be seen in his works. Elements of Cantonese opera can be seen in his work Paper Cut-outs. Also, he inherited some of the traditional Chinese forms of writing. For example, his Bittermelon poem praises this vegetable, which symbolizes virtues stressed in Chinese culture – patience and endurance. The narrator credits bittermelon for its “silence”, saying it "keep[s] the bitter taste to [itself]”.[7] This means being willing and able to endure suffering and not making others feel pity. The poem echoes the Chinese literary tradition of praising an object that symbolizes virtue and good people.

Other art media

Yesi was not satisfied with just language. Other art media were also sources of inspiration; for example performance art, photography, and film. He “entered into countless dialogues with artists of different media”,[5] and even collaborated with them to write literary works. For example, dancer Mui Cheuk Yin performed the dance “Kikikoko”,[14] and Yesi wrote a poem inspired by her performance – Ladder Street.[5] Yesi’s work is also influenced by his interest in film. He often writes as if he is shooting a scene with his camera. For example, the narrator keeps looking for an angle in Images of Hong Kong and in another poem, City of Films[5] is introspective in evaluating the best way to capture Hong Kong like a movie shooting:

we're making a film of this city
…
the scene’s a bit implausible, I admit
replacing the narrative with staged shots
young directors care for nothing but their own desires
…
cut from slow to quick motion
kidnappings, affairs, squabbles over family estates
car accidents, murders for love
then in the second half find you're your enemy's son
life goes on without knowing what’s happened
if reality's too hard, there’s always soft focus
the world's still out there, the PR guy’s at the door
with new schemes for artful promotion
and for the film a new title

In short, Yesi’s interest in arts also influenced the style of his literary works.

Achievements

Yesi was recognized as both a writer and a scholar, received various literary awards, and was invited as visiting scholar to universities across the globe. The German professor Wolfgang Kubin commented that Yesi was “a rare Hong Kong writer with a global vision”.[5]

Some examples of recognition are provided as follows:[5]

Awards

Visiting scholar, various universities

Publications[16]

Creative writing

Books (in Chinese)

Prose

Poetry

Fiction


Selected Works

Books

(in English)

Books (in French)

Books (in German)

Books (in Japanese)

Books (in Portuguese)

Stories, poems and essays (in various foreign languages)

Critical Writing

Books (in Chinese)

Books a1n9d8 5C iti《《書與城市》(Books and Cities). Hong Kong: Xiangang; reprint: OUP,2002, 299pp.

Articles (in English)

Articles (in Chinese)

Editorial Work
Co-editor (with Andrea Riemenschnitter), Legends from the Swiss Alps, Hong Kong, MCCM Creation.

References

  1. ↑ "周六病逝 也斯告別人間滋味 - 明報 - 新聞頻道 - 新浪網". News.sina.com.hk. 2012-11-07. Retrieved 2015-10-05.
  2. ↑ Riemenschnitter, Andrea Hong Anrui (2013). "LEUNG PING-KWAN (1949–2013)" (pdf). Asiatische Studien Études Asiatiques (AS/EA). Schweizerischen Asiengesellschaft, Revue de la Société Suisse – Asie. LXVII (1): 7–29. doi:10.5167/uzh-84968. ISSN 0004-4717.
  3. ↑ "Cha: An Asian Literary Journal - Leung Ping-kwan". Asiancha.com. Retrieved 2015-10-05.
  4. ↑ http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/rih/index.htm
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Leung Ping Kwan (1949 – 2013), A Retrospective. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Leisure and Cultural Services Department. 2014.
  6. 1 2 Leung, Ping-kwan (2012). City at the End of Time 形象香港: Poems by Leung Ping-kwan 梁秉鈞詩選. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. p. 79. ISBN 9789888139354.
  7. 1 2 Leung, Ping-kwan (2012). City at the End of Time 形象香港: Poems by Leung Ping-kwan 梁秉鈞詩選. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. p. 146. ISBN 9789888139354.
  8. ↑ Bennett, Andrew; Royle, Nicholas (2014). An Introduction to Literature, Criticism and Theory. Routledge. ISBN 9781317864318.
  9. ↑ 陳素怡 (2011). 也斯作品評論集: 小說部份. 香港文學評論出版社有限公司. ISBN 9789881511416.
  10. ↑ 也斯 (2012). 剪紙. Oxford University Press. p. 3. ISBN 9780195938401.
  11. ↑ 也斯 (2012). 剪紙. Oxford University Press. p. 6. ISBN 9780195938401.
  12. ↑ 也斯 (2012). 剪紙. Oxford University Press. p. 7. ISBN 9780195938401.
  13. ↑ 也斯 (2012). 剪紙. Oxford University Press. p. 8. ISBN 9780195938401.
  14. ↑ "Mui Cheuk Yin's dance performance: Kikikoko". Hong Kong Memory. Leisure and Cultural Services Department; Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust.
  15. ↑ Rebecca Lo (January 27, 2014). "Art that imitates his life's journeys". China Daily – via China Culture.
  16. ↑ "Official Website of Prof. Leung Ping-kwan". leungpingkwan.com. Retrieved 2015-11-05.
  17. ↑ Leung Ping-kwan (2007). Islands and Continents: Short Stories by Leung Ping-kwan. Hong Kong University Press. ISBN 9622098444 – via Google Books.
  18. ↑ Ping-Kwan Leung. Esther M. K. Cheung, ed. "City at the End of Time: Poems by Leung Ping-Kwan (Echoes: Classics of Hong Kong Culture and History)". Translated by Gordon T. Osing.
  19. ↑ "Mapa Refeito". July 15, 2015.
  20. ↑ Leung Ping-kwan (2013). Éditions de la MSH, ed. Enjeux et dilemmes de l’autonomie: Une expérience d’autoformation à l’université (in French). Collection PraTICs. p. 17. ISBN 2735115917 https://books.google.com/books?id=inqiYAacLY8C – via Google Books. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  21. ↑ Leung Ping-kwan. "Tasting Asia 亞洲的滋眛 (12 Poems)". "Modern Chinese Literature and Culture". pp. 8–30. JSTOR 41490931.

External links

Look up flânerie in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
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