Friends and collaborators of Xi Xi, who passed on last December, remember the writer for her childlike, playful spirit. A series of events this month will honor her memory. Faye Bradley reports.
(PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)
On March 12, friends, family and fellow writers will gather at the Fringe Club in Central to celebrate the life and legacy of the iconic Hong Kong writer Xi Xi. The Hong Kong International Literary Festival (HKILF)-hosted bilingual event — Remembering Xi Xi | Her Life, Her Work, Her Hong Kong — will see novelists Dorothy Tse and Wong Yi and poet and literary editor Louise Law Lok-man pay tribute to a beloved literary predecessor.
Xi Xi died on Dec 18 last year. She was 85. The news was announced by her friends from Su Yeh Publications, a now-defunct enterprise cofounded by the writer.
In 2019, Xi Xi made history as the first Hong Kong recipient of the Newman Prize for Chinese Literature. She also won Sweden’s Cikada Prize the same year. Other recognitions include the Commitment Award at the Hsing Yun Awards for Global Chinese Literature in 2014; and the Ba-Fang Literary Journal Award for Creative Writing, back in 1990. She was tipped to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2022, according to The New Republic magazine.
“Xi Xi is probably Hong Kong’s most beloved author,” says Jennifer Feeley, the writer’s friend and translator. “I have no doubt that Hong Kong writers, scholars and artists will ensure that her legacy lives on.”
Xi Xi is flanked by her translator Jennifer Feeley and the writer and academic Tammy Ho at the 2019 Newman Prize ceremony at the University of Oklahoma. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)
Hong Kong calling
Born Cheung Yin in Shanghai in 1937, Xi Xi migrated to Hong Kong with her family in the 1950s. That same decade, she began writing about the city’s cultural and historical complexities, combining lyrical and poetic styles in a humorous, playful manner. Her stories explored themes of identity and cultural memory, with Hong Kong’s vibrant streets, crowded alleys and bustling neighborhoods frequently providing the backdrop.
Some of her best-known works include the novel My City: A Hong Kong Story (1979), which inspired the Fruit Chan movie My City (2015); and The Teddy Bear Chronicles, a series of essays about the soft toys Xi Xi began making in 2005 to improve the mobility of her right hand, after cancer treatments left her with nerve damage.
Xi Xi with composer Daniel Lo who has set the writer’s short stories to music several times for different stage productions. The last of these, the dance opera Love Streams, premieres later this month. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)
Feeley started translating Xi Xi’s poetry into English when she was a PhD student at Yale University. At the outset, she was doing it “for fun”, enjoying the thrill of translating between cultures. Some years later, her translations came out under the title Not Written Words: Selected Poetry of Xi Xi (2016), published jointly by Boston’s Zephyr Press and the Hong Kong-based MCCM Creations. Feeley met Xi Xi only after the book of translations was out. “The fact that Xi Xi trusted me with her words is one of the greatest honors of my professional life, and being able to call her a friend is one of the greatest honors of my personal life,” she says.
Such translations have helped put Xi Xi on the global literary map. The digital literary magazine Words Without Borders (WWB) also played a role in giving the writer an international platform. WWB has published two of Xi Xi’s short stories, Davin Chan Moves Out, translated by Steve Bradbury; and Apple, translated by Feeley.
“Davin Chan Moves Out is a deadpan, darkly funny portrayal of felines and family discord, and the other depicts an alternate Hong Kong in search of a fairy-tale solution to urban malaise,” notes the journal’s editorial director, Susan Harris.
Xi Xi displays the Cikada Prize that she won in 2019 in the company of friends from her literary circle. To her right is the novelist Wong Yi. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)
Great adaptations
Xi Xi’s massive fan base includes many writers, both aspiring and well-established. Law, who is cohosting Sunday’s event in honor of Xi Xi, says: “She provided a unique perspective on Hong Kong. Through metaphor and a surrealist perspective, she was able to untangle complex identity issues, reveal the beauty of Hong Kong’s cityscape, and address the city’s cultural hybridity and fluidity.”
Law’s fellow panelist Wong first encountered Xi Xi’s work at secondary school. “She looks at life with humility, dignity and childlike wonder, electing to be gentle and caring while being aware of the suffering in the world and one’s limited capacity to change things,” she says.
In 2021, two of Xi Xi’s short stories, The Cold and A Girl Like Me, served as the base for a Cantonese-language chamber opera called Women Like Us. Wong was the librettist. Later this month those same stories appear in a newer iteration, as the dance opera Love Streams, staged as part of the Hong Kong Arts Festival (HKAF).
Tammy Ho Lai-ming, founding co-editor of the Hong Kong-based Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, names Xi Xi as one of her biggest influences.
“Xi Xi had a way of creating a world that was both relatable and also uniquely hers. You want to immerse yourself in that world,” she says. “Having grown up reading her work, it was such a wholesome experience to finally meet her and talk to her.”
Award-winning composer Daniel Lo Ting-cheung adapted Xi Xi’s short story A Girl Like Me into the chamber opera A Woman Such as Myself. The work premiered in 2018 at the New Opera Days Ostrava festival in Czech Republic. Following its success, the HKAF commissioned Lo to score Women Like Us.
“There are poems inserted in between the story to punctuate the emotions of the protagonist,” notes Lo about the structure of The Cold. The poems remind him of a Greek chorus.
“Xi Xi’s stories touch on such soul-searching themes as the meaning of love; courage and cowardice; destiny and choice,” Lo adds. “These are themes that transcend time and culture.”
Music composer Daniel Lo adapted Xi Xi’s short story A Girl Like Me into the chamber opera A Woman Such as Myself, which was well-received at the New Opera Days Ostrava Festival in the Czech Republic. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)
Lasting legacy
The Hong Kong Poetry Festival Foundation has put together its own program, comprising five online and offline events, in honor of Xi Xi. Ho, together with Feeley, is preparing a special feature for Cha, titled Xi Xi: Can We Say. Writers are invited to submit creative pieces and personal reflections in response to Xi Xi’s works. New Xi Xi-inspired pieces will continue to appear on the journal’s website on a rolling basis until the end of June.
Feeley’s fondest memories of Xi Xi have to do with the latter’s capacity for childlike wonder. Once they were at the University of Oklahoma, where Xi Xi was to receive the Newman Prize. The writer was so excited to see squirrels on campus, she stopped to watch them play. “She loved toys, and even wrote a column about them for Ming Pao. Her essays about toys were later collected into a book,” Feeley notes. She had gifted Xi Xi a pair of Amish cloth dolls.
Left devastated by the unexpected passing of her mother in 2021, Feeley was touched when Xi Xi sent over two of her handmade teddy bears to her.
Xi Xi’s legacy will live on as fans continue to share their love and passion for her work. Wong reveals that a new volume containing some of Xi Xi’s hitherto un-anthologized works is due out soon. She believes as long as Xi Xi’s works continue to get adapted for the stage and discussed in reading groups, the writer will continue to hold a place in the hearts of the book lovers of Hong Kong.
If you go
Remembering Xi Xi
Date: March 12
Venue: Fringe Dairy, The Fringe Club, 2 Lower Albert Road, Central
Xi Xi: Spring Vista
Dates: Through March 31
Venue: Online and various (in person)
ipnhk.org/special-program-xi-xi
