Serena’s Struggle with National Identity

At her young and adolescent age, Serena, Tak Sing’s daughter, registers discomfort and fear of communist China when she is at home awaiting Tak Sing.

During the Hong Kong 1967 Leftist riots instigated by the Cultural Revolution in China, she learns about the danger of being a policeman (Sze 169-70). The house she is living intensifies Serena’s horror of the communist rioters and worry about her father when she is informed of the horrific news happening on the street: “My

heart was pounding till it hurt” (170). One day after Tak Sing returns home from his duty, Serena hugs him and says, “The smell of his sweat at that moment was the sweetest smell on earth as I nudged my face into his back” (171). The sweat

symbolizes the hardship of Tak Sing, a civil servant of the Hong Kong government, fighting against and winning over communist China. Serena understands that only British rule can guarantee peace and stability, while communism is always

associated with brutality and trepidation in the society. When she grows older, she realizes that the Cultural Revolution is a horrifying nightmare that “the country being turned into a cultural wasteland as literary and artistic works were destroyed, and those accused of hiding such were punished” (169). Mao Zedong endeavors to brainwash every Chinese through his little red book of commandments and

thoughts and to promulgate them “at the cost of destruction of lives and legacies,”

and by “media reports disguised as news” (169, 171). According to Lefebvre’s proposition, the everyday life of the Chinese people, which is called the mediatised everyday, “is simultaneously the prey of the media, used, misunderstood,

simultaneously fashioned and ignored by these means that make the apparatuses”

(Elements 50). Their everyday lives are at the mercy of the Mao’s government that emphasizes the promotion of Maoism through media but at the same time secretes the atrocities caused to China: Serena discovers that “people in Hong Kong had no real knowledge then of how people were living or dying in China during the Cultural Revolution” (171).

But Tak Sing’s talk-story establishes an incipient linkage between Serena and China when they are overlooking the border. At the age of fifteen, Serena is

brought by Tak Sing to take a look at Lok Ma Chau, another border station between China and Hong Kong, from a hill with a panoramic view. Tak Sing recollects his memory of seeing the influx of refugees incurred by the Great Leap Forward in

early 60s and shares his story as a border policeman with Serena (153).³⁶ Tak Sing describes the Chinese refugees as “a stream of skeletons in rags,” devouring the food provided for them. For them, this border represents not only a space of legal prohibition that tolerates no leniency and negotiation, but also a space of hope that promises a better living if “they might get lucky” to cross the border (154). Tak Sing shares another story of letting a young man go on one occasion, who looks similar to himself as a boy from China (155); this decision is legally unacceptable but morally right to him. As he connects himself with the young boy who is suffering from hardship in China, it brings him into tears. Tak Sing’s story is moving to Serena. Standing near the border and listening to her father’s story,

Serena shows sympathy to the Chinese although she still loathes communist China.

So when she is celebrating her sixteenth birthday, Serena is impatient and enraged at the uninvited visitor, Ming, Ah Chu’s son, to her party in her house.

Situated at a high-class residential area with elegance and affluence, the house is, Serena perceives, a space dedicated to stylish bourgeoisie. When Ming arrives, he knocks on the door instead of using the doorbell. Serena’s friend Josie, who is from similar background with Serena, scornfully responds that the person should have rung the bell (182). Because the doorbell epitomizes modern technology with which the Chinese intruder is unfamiliar, Josie’s reaction reveals her discrimination against someone who lacks the knowledge of using modern devices. Ming, the party crasher from China, dressed with “a samfu that was too short for him, and tattered rubber shoes,” arrives at the wrong timing, so he leaves a bad impression on Serena at the first place (183). In addition to annoyance, she feels embarrassed

36 The Great Leap Forward was an industrial campaign undertaken by Mao Zedong in late 50s to early 60s. This campaign mainly aims to catch up with or even surpass the steel production of the U.S. and Britain, eventuating in the overworking and the fatigue of peasants who are forced to relinquish farming. Thus, the country suffers from a widespread of famine and death that stimulates people to flush in Hong Kong for a better living.

in front of her friends as Ming’s father is an acquaintance of her father. She is even angered at her parents’ excitement: “I was exasperated that my parents could be so excited about the unexpected arrival of the stranger, who had crashed my birthday party and spoiled the whole evening” (183). This scenario could be analogous to Hong Kong people’s complex sentiments towards the impending hui gui, the handing over of sovereignty of Hong Kong to China. On the one hand, Serena’s family members, including Tak Sing, Lily’s maid Ah Lan (both are Chinese immigrants) and Serena’s mother Lily (a local born Hong Konger), are welcoming a new family member Chinese Ming from China (representing China) to come to their house (representing Hong Kong). On the other hand, for Serena, Ming’s arrival is a deed of intrusion that discomforts her. But after listening to the

conversation between Ming and Tak Sing, Serena realizes that Ming means a lot to his father, because this meeting is “the reclaiming of friendship gone awry [and] a reconnection to a buried past” (185).

Serena’s attitude towards Ming changes after he pays a visit to her school.

From Serena’s perspective, a school is a place for education and accommodates only educated people. Standing among nicely dressed and well-behaved students, Ming, who is unkempt in appearance and unusual in expression, looks weird: “the thick crop of hair closely cut above his ears, with bangs covering part of his

forehead, above his closely-knit eyebrows and high cheekbones, and the expression of amazement, and the unnecessary obliging look” (190). Because other students are verbally bullying Ming, he is sitting at the corner of the cafeteria like an outcast to have his meal alone. The school is a miniature of Hong Kong society where Hong Kongers refuse to welcome China. Yet, Serena’s attitude towards Ming suddenly changes when seeing two girls poke fun at him: “Suddenly, I was not ashamed of Tak Ming anymore. I was mad at the way the girls were behaving,

disgusted at their meanness shown to someone as innocent as Tak Ming” (191). Sze does not provide an account for her change of attitude, but it is perhaps the result of her father’s talk-story at the border station and interaction with Ming at home that rouse her sympathy and connection to the Chinese: Ming, like Tak Sing, is a victim of communist China.

But Serena’s link to China is shaken by her rejection of Ming at the Lee Theater. Once Ming settles down in Hong Kong, he invites Serena to go for a Cantonese opera of the Dream of the Red Chamber. Serena admits that she never enjoys the Cantonese opera as the music “jar[s] to [her] ears” (215); Serena is not fond of Chinese culture as it gives her unpleasant experience. But later she finds it enjoyable because of its props and stage. Serena’s mindset is consistent with the architecture of the Lee Theater: with a dominant Western exterior and a hidden Chinese interior. Ming implicitly confesses his love to Serena after the performance, but what is in Serena’s mind is that their relationship is nothing “more than

friendship and sisterly affection” (216). Within this space mixed with explicit Western and hidden Chinese elements, Serena convinces herself that she cannot love Ming: “I did not love Ming in the manner he would like me to. . . . I was not in love” (217). Her reservation suggests her feeble connection with the Chinese culture. A few years later, when Serena is informed that Ming is going to marry a Hong Kong girl named Kitty Chan, she feels upset with Ming’s marriage and is seized by a strange emptiness (220). Serena first rejects Ming’s love, but then the overwhelming sense of strange emptiness makes her realize that she has affection for him. The conflicting relationship between Serena and Ming reflects the same situation between her and China in the sense that she has loathed communist China since her childhood, but she sympathizes with the Chinese refugees running away from this land of authoritarian dictatorship and paradoxically connects herself with

it after listening to her father’s talk-story of his past.

The conflicting relationship with China is intensified after Serena gets to know Richard, a British journalist, when she goes to the Victoria Park to attend a vigil to show condolences for victims of the June Fourth Incident.³⁷ At the front gate of the park, there is a “dark bronze statue of the stern-faced British Empress who gave the park its name” (232). The park as a monumental space, according to Lefebvre, “embodies and imposes a clearly intelligible message. . . . [M]onumental buildings mask the will to power and the arbitrariness of power beneath signs and surfaces which claim to express collective will and collective thought” (Production 143). The stern-faced British Empress symbolizes authority and law that govern every individual in Hong Kong. This monumental space represents the collective will of Hong Kong people on surface—the exaltation of the British

governance—and could transcend death as “it seems eternal, because it seems to have escaped time” (Production 221). This monumental space is repressive in nature, Hong Kong people nevertheless hold a vigil here because they support freedom and democracy; they, including Serena, gather around to express their collective discontent to communism. When Serena first notices Richard, she deems that he is a “foreigner in solidarity with us” (Sze 233). She, as a Hong Konger, is on the same boat with him, a foreigner, fighting against communist China. While they are chatting, Richard leaves a good impression on Serena at the moment that she discovers his job as a reporter who divulges people’s negative sentiments towards China. After they depart from the park, the image of Richard hovers in Serena’s mind: “Richard Mills crept unobtrusively into my mind, the wavy brown hair, the keen dark eyes, and thin lips forming a tight smile” (235). The free flow of his

37 This incident was a student-led public demonstration at Tiananmen Square, Beijing in 1989.

Students appealed for political reformation and democracy, but were suppressed and killed by the Chinese central government.

image implies the establishment of the relationship between Serena and Richard.

This first meeting at Victoria Park brings Serena and Richard close to each other, and, at the same time, draws Serena closer to Britain.

Serena’s family moves to a new apartment after her mother’s death. For welcoming Richard’s visit, the new house is replete with mixed cultures, such as Ah Lan’s preparation of sweet and sour pork/stir-fried beef steak, and the existence of both Chinese immigrants (Tak Sing and Ah Lan) and a Westerner (Richard).

Richard pleases Serena when he sees the photo of her mother: “Richard stood in front of the photo and bowed, following the custom to show respects to the dead”

(250). While having dinner, Richard impresses Tak Sing by complimenting Hong Kong people: “Well, they [Hong Kong people] are resourceful, hard-working, efficient in whatever they do, from the peddler to the bank manager. Hong Kong people can weather any trouble and come out on top. The place is beautiful, but it’s the people that fascinate me most” (251). Ah Lan is also pleased when she is informed by Serena that Richard loves her cooking. Richard’s speech seems to resonate with Margaret Thatcher’s, when she compliments on the prosperity of Hong Kong during her term as Britain’s Prime Minister; she says, “The Chinese People of Hong Kong are some of the most enterprising in the world. Their vigor has worked wonders within the fabric of a free economy . . .” (qtd. in Wong n.16).

They both speak highly of Hong Kong people so as to please Hong Kong people and maintain good relationship with Hong Kong. This new house is a space where Serena leans forward to the British side while distancing herself from the Chinese side. Serena’s new house therefore becomes a space of acknowledging her

relationship with Richard and her affinity with British culture.

Serena’s embrace of Britain is confirmed when she and Richard go to Lantau Island for a weekend vacation after Tak Sing’s death. They stay in a villa, whose

window has a view of the giant Buddha, located at the foot of the Po Lin Hill.

Lefebvre points out that nature “enters into exchange value and commodities, to be bought and sold” (Right 158). The construction of the villa exemplifies Lefebvre’s claim that nature is commodified for commercial purpose. Lefebvre holds a pessimistic view of the existence of nature and believes that it will soon be lost in sight in the capitalist society. But what Serena cares about is not nature but the intimacy with Richard. By making love with him in the villa, it symbolically represents her embrace of Britain and the capitalist system. For Serena, making love “in the shadow of the great Buddha” is bestowed with perpetual blessing (Sze 277). The scenario is paradoxical insomuch as Serena builds connection with Richard (Britain) through the blessing from a Chinese deity. Buddha, representing the Chinese culture, will bless and remind Serena of her Chinese identity even if she clings to Britain.

Serena experiences a more explicit struggle of national identity than Tak Sing.

Serena is brought up with a strong affinity to capitalism and a fierce distaste for communism. But after reading Tak Sing’s biography and listening to his talk-story, she is gradually aware of her identity as a Chinese. The reason why Tak Sing documents his life-story is: “I want you [Serena] to know about my past, because it is also your past—my roots are your roots” (148). His biography concerns not only the past, but also the present and the future: “I want you to know and remember the past, that you may understand the present, and build the future” (7). Whenever she reads his biography, Serena deems that every single word written by her father is injected with life and conveys meaning (6). Knowing much more about the Chinese story of her father, Serena reveals her feelings when the date of hui gui, returning sovereignty of Hong Kong from Britain to China, is imminent: “Perhaps I am being drawn into the exhilaration, apprehension, uncertainties, and conflicting emotions

building up here in Hong Kong, pride in its reunification with China and fear of the Communist regime . . .” (3; emphasis added). These conflicting emotions are derived from the Hong Konger’s sense of in-betweenness of Britain and China: on the one hand, Tak Sing’s Chinese story links Serena with China; on the other hand, she has a propensity to capitalism as her fear of communism lingers. On the date of

hui gui, exulted by Tak Sing’s life-story, what she feels is “an inexplicable sense of

pride” (287). The reunification of Hong Kong with China is spiritually the

reunification of Tak Sing with China. Holding his biography in hand as a reminder, Serena is proud of her identity as a Chinese; but the conflict does not disappear;

soon afterwards Serena makes a decision to migrate to Britain with Richard, indicating her trust in capitalism and distrust in communism.

在文檔中 空間、國族身份認同、性別：閱讀Elsie Sze《回歸》 (頁 61-70)