Since the first post made two friends really concerned with my mental health, I’d like to reintroduce you to the current me, so we are all on the same page. The current me is, for the most part, mentally stable, and a lot less often manic, still very substance-reliant but am getting better. Not too long ago, I had a depressive episode lasted almost 3 months. It brought me back the worst of memories, and got me back on Abilify which I was off for almost half a year. I doubled my sertraline dose, and now I feel fine. For the most part.
If I had to describe how I live my current life, it’d be I decide whatever I want to do each morning, and I do it. Sometimes I’m too ambitious, sometimes too lazy, but still basically all within a manageable range. Interesting enough, overwriting, but mostly not in English had me a little stressed out. I didn’t necessarily clock that as well as I should have.
Up until that point, I had barely spoken Chinese, whether it be Mandarin or other forms of it, letting alone writing in it, for maybe almost half a year, again. It prompted me to start listening to huge amounts of Mandarin podcasts. I was trying to practice Mandarin as much as I could. I wanted to make it a daily thing. But I’m not sure, am I holding onto the right things? Should I let it all go and let everything go burn in hell?
Last year, I found this musician duo called Sundial on instagram, as blunt as her lyrics might be, I think their stuff is quite nice. Because of all the TikTok ban drama, RedNote got a wave of its American users. Sundial joined Rednote, she posted about her feeling disconnected after returning back to Hong Kong, since a lot of her work pertains to her identity. Huge amounts of cyberbullying accusing her of being “dramatic” and “pretentious” flooded into her account. It made me quite upset. I don’t think any of these people know anything about the history of Hong Kong.
As upset as I was, I couldn't blame them, I didn’t know too much myself about it until recently. A half a year ago, I read “A Concise History of Hong Kong” by John M. Carroll, American, published in 2007 (https://hkupress.hku.hk/image/catalog/pdf-preview/9789622098787.pdf). I randomly picked this up from the Oakland Public Library, Asian Branch. Apparently this version was a popular one. If I remember correctly, it talked about how “barren” Hong Kong was before the British took over, and how the British worked so hard over the 99 years to develop it, and how much the locals benefited from following their British counterparts social, legal and economic conventions, and how much the British helped Hong Kong grow. I thought that was it. It’s not until recently, I accidentally walked into a bookstore called Dog Eared (https://www.dogearedbooks.com) in the Mission. I realized this was where I got my first Ted Chiang book, so I took my time to look through everything I could until I got tired. I got a book on Hong Kong and a book on marriage. The Hong Kong book is called Indelible City: Dispossession and Defiance in Hong Kong by Louisa Lim (https://www.amazon.com/Indelible-City-Dispossession-Defiance-Hong/dp/0593191811), an Eurasian grew up in Hong Kong.
From what I’ve gathered, it is a completely different story from the one I read before.It’s a history that felt deeply personal, because she lived it, she knew it, she felt it. I got to know this performance artist who isn’t an artist really, just someone who’s gotten his land taken away by the British according to his family deeds. People ridiculed him, harassed him, followed him, embarrassed him, worshipped him, but he simply was, according to his account, the rightful owner of Kowloon. Nothing less, nothing more.
It was then that I understood the importance of narrative. The same event, completely different stories, which do you believe? Do you believe the seemingly well-researched, authoritative, cold, deadpan version? Or the one that’s deeply personal, filled with details and emotions? I’d believe the latter. And hopefully, I can give you enough details for you to know that I’m honest, I am telling the truth, this is who I am, this is how I am, to avoid further confusion. I’d like to take ownership of my own narrative. I’m tired of people telling me how I am, who I am.
This time, let me tell you, how I am, who I am.
image: artwork by Tsang Tsou-choi (King of Kowloon)