As I
mentioned in a previous post, one of things that had been keeping me busy in
Hong Kong was helping out at Hong Kong University’s Journalism and Media
Studies Centre (JMSC). A close friend introduced me to Ying Chan, the director
of the program, and I volunteered to help out with the JMSC’s work in any way I
could. This has entailed everything from writing press releases for their
website to writing the English language press kit for an Oscar Award-winning
documentary filmmaker. In exchange for my work, Ying has hosted me at one of
HKU’s residence halls for the last month and a half—an amazing and unbelievably
generous arrangement given housing costs in Hong Kong. I had to laugh when I
moved in, though—I would not have thought that so soon after graduation would I
be living in student dorms, eating in a dining hall, and shuttling to campus in
a school bus.
And then came High Table Dinner. For those of you who are unfamiliar, High Table Dinner is a tradition from the British education system in which students don robes and eat together at long tables overlooked by a ‘high table’ at the front of the hall where the distinguished faculty, masters, and tutors sit. (For those of you who are familiar with the Harry Potter dinners in the Great Hall—it’s the exact same concept, minus floating candles). I didn’t actually know any of this when Ying invited me to join the High Table Dinner at her residential college, but happily accepted the invitation, which instructed attendees to dress up or wear their national costume. Since draping myself with a large American flag or dressing up like the Lady of Liberty seemed fairly out of the question, I decided to wear someone else’s national costume and showed up wearing my newly acquired qipao (the high-necked ladies’ dress of China).
And then came High Table Dinner. For those of you who are unfamiliar, High Table Dinner is a tradition from the British education system in which students don robes and eat together at long tables overlooked by a ‘high table’ at the front of the hall where the distinguished faculty, masters, and tutors sit. (For those of you who are familiar with the Harry Potter dinners in the Great Hall—it’s the exact same concept, minus floating candles). I didn’t actually know any of this when Ying invited me to join the High Table Dinner at her residential college, but happily accepted the invitation, which instructed attendees to dress up or wear their national costume. Since draping myself with a large American flag or dressing up like the Lady of Liberty seemed fairly out of the question, I decided to wear someone else’s national costume and showed up wearing my newly acquired qipao (the high-necked ladies’ dress of China).
When
I arrived at the Great Hall, I was given a long black robe (denoting
post-graduates, distinguished faculty, and masters) and told to line up outside
behind Ying and the other faculty while the students took their seats inside.
Out of the blue I heard a trumpet fanfare, and the procession started to move.
Suddenly I found myself filing down the middle aisle past lines of students who
rose deferentially. I followed the procession all the way to the front, where I
stood by a seat miraculously marked with my name. Little did I know that Ying
had actually seated me at the High Table itself, seated among the distinguished
faculty members. A few days earlier, one of my friends who lives at the
residential college, a master’s student in music composition, had asked if I
was going to ‘crash the High Table Dinner.’ As I stood at the front regarding
the students in my regalia, I saw him rolling his eyes, gesturing with
mock-indignation as I smirked from the front. Ying introduced all of the very
accomplished college masters and tutors, and then introduced me.
“This
is Audrey. She just graduated from Wellesley College in the United States. She
has this very fantastic scholarship to travel to five countries and do nothing! Please talk to her so you
can find out how to get scholarships.”
So, quite the introduction! But the meal went on and I found myself chatting amicably with the student organizers and a professor of architecture. Ying had asked me to play violin at the dinner, so after everyone was done eating, one of the tutors set up a music stand immediately in the middle of the students and I launched into my piece. I had asked a good friend about something short and pleasing to play for this gathering, and he had recommended I listen to Swallow Song (燕子／Kharlygash), a very melancholy love song about two lovers stuck between the border of Xinjiang and Kazakhstan. The lyrics are simple but adorable:
燕子啊
请你听我唱一支燕子歌
亲爱的请你听我说一说
燕子啊
燕子啊
不要忘了你的诺言变了心
我是你的你是我的
燕子啊
啊
眉毛弯弯眼睛亮
脖子匀匀头发长
是我的姑娘
燕子啊
Swallow, ah…
Listen to me sing a swallow song.
Dear please, listen to me say a few words
Swallow, ah…
Swallow, ah…
Please do not forget your promise and change your heart.
I am yours, you are mine.
Swallow, ah…
Ah!
Eyebrows arched, eyes bright
Graceful neck, long hair
She is my girl.
Swallow, ah…
After
watching this video I was completely sold (on both the song and the outfit) and
transcribed it for violin. It seemed to go over very well with the High Table
dinner crowd, and I was glad because afterward it gave tons of students the
excuse to come talk with me. I felt so lucky—in that one night I made about
twenty new friends. (A large group of them invited me to come out partying with
them later that evening, another episode that again reminded me that I am no
longer in college.) In particular I got to know an entire floor of girls in the
residential college, with whom I relived my college experience through a couple
of rounds of late night snacking, watching videos and movies, and gossiping
about secret crushes. It was fun to witness their college experience now that I
am on the other side of it and having such a radically different experience—I
was just in their shoes a year ago, but now our concerns on a daily basis are
so radically different from each other.
I
scored a terrific gig writing classical music reviews for TimeOut Hong Kong, the city’s cultural and arts magazine and
website, and so had the tremendous good fortune to get free tickets to the
concerts I was planning to attend anyways, and then foist my opinions of them
on the general public. What’s not to love!? I felt lucky to have taken a class
at Wellesley partially devoted to writing concert, record, and book reviews,
but nonetheless, before writing my first review for TimeOut, I felt pretty
insecure to be judging musicians far more accomplished than myself. As I
attended my first concert, however, I found that my reaction to the performance
came easily—I didn't need to worry about coming up with the substance for a
review. I reviewed three concerts in total before my time in Hong Kong came to
a close, and the exercise of articulating what was successful and unsuccessful
in others’ performances was really illuminating for me as a performer. I think
in particular I came to appreciate how much of music performance is visual—the
audience wants to see the players onstage interacting and engaging with each
other and the music. It also became blatantly clear that even those
concert-goers who aren’t music aficionados can appreciate the difference
between players who are just playing the notes, and those who are so in touch
with the music that they can inflect their own interpretations naturally.
My
last days in Hong Kong were somewhat bizarre. There were some in the company of
close friends, enjoying each other’s company for the last time in the
foreseeable future. I went on a final junk boat trip, which was a beautiful day
devoted to relishing island life. I had my final erhu lesson with my teacher,
after which he took me to get lunch, erhu accessories, and my phone repaired. I
had a last night in the dorm, spent watching a terribly acted Cantonese movie
about prostitution in Hong Kong with my new friends from HKU. I went out with a
few friends and their mothers for amazing food, and had a really nice outing
with pals from the HKU gamelan ensemble I had joined for the last few weeks.
 |
| Hanging with the po' |
We
kept anticipating some dark turn for the protests, whether that be students
storming the Hong Kong Chief Executive's private
home or police using any means necessary to clear the highways for National Day, which commemorates the founding of the People’s Republic of China. There was certainly
was hostility, especially in the Mong Kok protest area, where paid thugs and/or
disgruntled locals used their fists and not their words to address the
protesters occupying the streets. But at least for now the prophecies of a
second Tiananmen Square massacre have not been realized.
Staying
up late every night and then trying to function during the day soon began to
catch up with me. I started forgetting small and big things. My mind became
occupied by the protests—I compulsively checked for reports and new
developments, thinking something would change and I would miss it. I felt
myself becoming consumed with worrying about the protesters, worrying about the
future of Hong Kong, worrying about the fate of Chinese citizens on the whole.
When I dragged some of my belongings I planned to send back home down the hill
to the post office in torrential rain and found out my ATM card had expired, I
basically lost it. I felt out of control of so many things. I confronted my
sudden destitution, impending separation from my newly familiar and comfortable
home and friendships in Hong Kong, and the fact that I could only observe the
course of the protests. My good friend came to the rescue, fronting me cash and
reminding me that I was cold, wet, hungry, and overtired.
My
last day in Hong Kong was a string of get-togethers with close friends, after
which I planned to go out for a last night of protest coverage. That evening Hong Kong's Chief Executive had publicly promised to clear the streets, and so tensions were
high as rumors flew that there would be a massive crackdown. Before I went out
I had one final ferry ride with a violin and erhu out to the island to see
Alexis. She and I played erhu duets as well as her music, Mozart, and Arensky
on violin and piano. We had intended to put on a final chamber music recital
together with her former composition student, a cellist, but the cellist
dropped out a few weeks prior, and then the protests took over my schedule, and
the space we were going to use for our performance was already booked, so the
odds were against us. Getting to see her and have a peaceful moment of music on
an island so far removed from the Hong Kong hullaballoo was a godsend—and in
many ways a final moment of calm before the storm.
LoadingAfter a lovely afternoon of playing Mozart, Arensky, Alrich, and erhu duets, a bittersweet farewell and "see you again" with Alexis on Lamma Island
After
seeing Alexis, I got together with Paiyu (renaissance man, Chinese linguist and
historian extraordinaire, and my very close friend and Mandarin teacher) for
dinner. He has been incredibly generous with his time and energy helping me in
Hong Kong, from editing a paper I am publishing to prescribing me traditional
Chinese medicine. Like me, he has strong feelings about the student protests,
but on that last night we agreed to not talk about politics. Instead, we talked
about classical music and inane topics over dumplings while we watched a
propagandized news report on the protests come on the TV, watching images of
students and police shaking hands flit across the screen. We parted ways, and
he urged me to stay safe that evening as I got in a cab heading toward the
protests. “Send me a progress report on your paper!” he called. “See you again
soon!”
I
arrived at the protests, where the number of protesters was significantly less
and the mood was palpably fearful. The ABC news team was prepared to stay out
until 6 am to witness the protests, and so we got to work. I spotted student
leader Joshua Wong in the crowd near Umbrella Man, the newly erected wooden
sculpture holding aloft a yellow umbrella that is to the Hong Kong protests what
the Lady of Liberty statue was to the Tiananmen Square protests. After a brief
interview and a quick report for one of the news programs, we were in a holding
pattern waiting for something to happen.
Loading
As the night dragged on I walked around the area, watching students drag trash cans to reinforce barricades meant to prevent attack by police buses and rogue taxi drivers. Others studied in an effort to keep up with the classes they had been skipping the entire week. Many were asleep, spread-eagle on the pavement or wrapped tightly in saran wrap or sleeping bags by highway medians.
At 4
am I found myself drifting off as well, curled up in the gutter next to a pile
of cigarette butts and the drain. It didn’t seem to matter.
At 6
am the producer woke me up. It was time to leave, and for me to travel to
Urumqi.
