City at the End of Time (review)

i84 China Review International: Vol. 6, No. i, Spring 1999© 1999 by University ofHawai'i Press Leung Ping-kwan. City at the End ofTime. Translated by Gordon T. Osing and Leung Ping-kwan. Cultural Studies Series no. 3. Hong Kong: Twilight Books Company in Association with the Department ofComparative Literature, University of Hong Kong, 1992. 185 pp. Paperback, isbn 9627495 -04-2. The subject of Hong Kong has never been an easy one for discussion, except perhaps within the usual, purely economic parameters. Considered by some to be the "last emporium" ofBritish colonialism until the dramatically staged "homecoming " (huigui) ceremony orchestrated by People's Republic of China in 1997, Hong Kong nevertheless continues to occupy a unique position culturally as well as historically when compared, for example, to the fate of other colonies. For starters, Hong Kong actually began its colonial life on "borrowed time" (when it was leased for ninety-nine years to the British Government in 1898), and, ironically, juxtaposed against the threat of communism, the colonized state offered an almost attractive alternative. Second, although the British colonial educational system was English-language based, Cantonese has continued as the dominant mode of communication among the island's majority population of ethnic Han Chinese, and overall literacy in Chinese remains high. Third, the end ofcolonial rule in Hong Kong has not automatically translated into a state ofpostcoloniality, with all the promises ofpolitical independence and individual freedom. Although Hong Kong now enjoys tiie status ofa special administrative region in the PRC constitution, it still remains to be seen whether such terminology simply serves as political rhetoric or whether it will truly promote a greater sense of democracy. Given all these unusual circumstances, it is perhaps not surprising that, in the eyes ofmany a cultural critic, Hong Kong is seen as an "aberration" par excellence, and learned characterizations vacillate between dowrnright dismissal ("cultural dessert") or emblematic endorsement ("postmodern pastiche"). Within these scenarios, needless to say, Hong Kong literature has been relegated to a marginal, ifnot nonexistent, position. City at the End ofTime, a collection ofpoems by Hong Kong poet Leung Ping-kwan (known also under his pen name Ye Si), challenges almost all previous assumptions and interpretations of Hong Kong. Along with the introductory essay by Ackbar Abbas and an interview with Leung conducted by the translator, American poet Gordon T. Osing, this volume is as complex and intriguing as the infamous port city itself, and, at the time of its publication, certainly one of the first serious attempts to offer an alternative approach to the subject ofHong Kong and, in particular, Hong Kong literature. This is obvious from Abbas' introduction, a theoretically informed and intellectually creative reading, which Reviews 185 situates Leung's poems within a postcolonial framework ofinterpretation, albeit one that potentially rewrites existing definitions. Conceptually speaking, this is accomplished by focusing on such notions as the "local" and "negative aesthetics" that are central to how one might begin to articulate a postcolonial space and sensibility. The local in Hong Kong, for Abbas, is captured in the expressions "port-mentality" (p. 4), "boom and doom," and "decadence" (p. 5) (in die sense of a one-dimensional development in the field). As for the theoretical emphasis on "negative aesthetics," terms such as "deja disparu" (p. 4), "violence ofdis-appearance and indiscernibilities" (p. 8), and "dissonance" (p. 13) concisely illustrate Abbas' conceptual framework. However, the innovative part ofAbbas' postcolonial exploration lies not in his faithful application ofpoststructuralist theory but rather in a materialist historiography exemplified in his use of the term "arbitrage." Using what was originally a financial term, which "refers to the profit that could be made by capitalizing on the price difference between stocks and currencies that exists in different markets" (p. 16), Abbas explains how this can be brought to bear on Leung's poems and postcolonial sensibility Hong Kong-style: "To be sure, it is not a question ofusing differences to turn into a quick profit, but of turning the cultural and historical differentials that exist in a mixed space to positive use, instead of allowing them to remain as mere source of disorientation and confusion" (p. 16, italics added). While few would doubt the theoretical ingenuity...