Leung Ping-kwan
Leung Ping-kwan, ( Chinese: 梁秉鈞, 12 March 1949 – 5 January 2013) whose pen name was Yesi (Chinese: 也斯), was a Hong Kong poet, novelist, essayist, translator, teacher, and scholar who received the Hong Kong Medal of Honor (MH). He was an important long-time cultural figure in Hong Kong. Life. Yesi was born in Xinhui District in Guangdong during 1949. The same year, his family settled in Hong Kong, and he was raised there. His father died when he was four. He began writing in the 1960s and quickly became known as a translator of foreign-language  literature and for his editorial work on a number of literary publications targeted at young Chinese readers in both Hong Kong and Taiwan. After graduating from Hong Kong Baptist College, now Hong Kong Baptist University, with a bachelor's degree in English (BA in English Language and Literature), Yesi got a job first as a secondary school teacher, then as the editor of the arts supplement of the South China Morning Post (SCMP). In 1978, he went to America for further studies. In 1984, Yesi obtained his PhD degree in comparative literature at the University of California, San Diego. His  thesis was entitled "Aesthetics of Opposition: A Study of the Modernist Generation of Chinese Poets, 1936-1949". Yesi returned to Hong Kong after earning his doctorate. He taught at the Department of English Studies and Comparative Literature at the University of Hong Kong. In 1998 he obtained a position as a professor in comparative literature in the Chinese Department at Lingnan University. Later on, he also became director of the Research Institute for the Humanities. He specialized in teaching literature and film, comparative literature, the literature of Hong Kong, modern literary criticism, and Chinese literary writing. Yesi had achievements across  many areas of literature, including poetry, prose, novels, drama, and literary and cultural criticism. He wrote mostly in Chinese. However, his English works were also published in the Hong Kong magazine "Muse" and his poetry and prose have been translated into English, French, Korean, Japanese, Arabic, Portuguese, and German. In 2010, Yesi stated publicly that he had been diagnosed with lung cancer. He died on 5 January 2013. Section::::"Yesi". "Yesi" is a combination of two meaningless words, both interjections, in Chinese. According to Yesi, people usually adopt a pen name that contains meanings, which would give the readers a fixed  feeling or impression towards their works before they read them. Yesi wanted to break out of this, hence, he used the combination of two meaningless words, which usually appear in classical Chinese literary works, as his pen name. Prominent themes and concerns. "Images of Hong Kong" This poem embodies the spirit and concerns of Yesi's work, including tone and recurrent themes. Later, this poem would be used as an example for further analysis of Yesi's style. We need a fresh angle, nothing added nothing taken away, Always at the edge of things and between places. Write with a  different color for each voice; So now, once again, they say it’s time to remodel and each of us finds himself looking around for –what? Observation, perception, and angle. Many of Yesi's works are concerned with the way we look at the world, and also how we are perceived by other people—trying to discover new angles for observing the world, while inevitably the object of others’ perception as well. The opening sentence of “Images of Hong Kong” clearly declares: “I need a new angle”. In many of Yesi's works, the narrator wants not only to see  the world, but also to look at it in a unique way, different from mainstream perceptions. However, Yesi's narrators are introspective and aware that they are part of what's happening. The novel "Paper Cut-outs" (剪紙) is composed of two story lines, each about the narrator's interaction with a female friend. The two story lines can be read as separate stories, yet, they contrast and complement each other in details and contents. Both his friends faced a catastrophe nearly at the end of the story, and the narrator says: 人與人之間的關係互相牽連，混合了我們這些其他人的感情。我們這些旁觀者一下子也牽涉其中了，我們可以指責某種偏激行為…但當不幸的事發生了，我們可以置身事外嗎?” (161) The narrator feels sorry for  what happened to his friends, and for not being able to do anything, except narrate and watch the problem grow, and turn into a catastrophe. Flânerie. Observation in Yesi's poems almost always associated with "flânerie". More precisely, the narrator is very often a "flâneur". Yesi writes about different places and even "flânerie" itself. "Images of Hong Kong" includes many different locations: Guangguang studio in Nathan Road, Star Ferry clock tower, Aberdeen, China Club, and so on. In the poem "On a Road, A Wanderer": I choose my own direction big fish glide in the aquariums food stalls offer whopper  fishballs I'm not lured I don’t have to see so clearly if by chance the city glare blinds me I glance away, keeping my own pace The above describes how the narrator strolling unaffected by the surroundings. He observes and sees “big fish glide”, “food stalls”, and so on, yet uses the outer appearance of the city, to search his heart. It is notable that he “[doesn’t] have to see so clearly”. Again, the narrator keeps himself different from others. Nostalgia and history. There is very often a sense of pity for the disappearing past in Yesi ’s works. For example, in "Images of Hong Kong", the people do not paint on photos “any more”, and the “old portrait” cannot be reproduced. Like this portrait, in many of Yesi's works, we can see things that are disappearing with the past. Also, the narrator says that history is a “montage of images”, and evaluates if Hong Kong's past is only figures of famous buildings like the Star Ferry. He suggests that the past should be read with “a fresh angle" and reviews the way to looking into the past. Hong Kong. Yesi is recognized as  a Hong Kong poet, not only because he grew up in the city, but more importantly due to his concern for it. "Images of Hong Kong" show such concern, as the narrator wants to find a new angle to shoot Hong Kong. Moveover, Some of Yesi's other poems are about places in Hong Kong, such as "Winter Scene from Tai Mei Tuk", "Reclaimed Land in Tai Kok Tsui", and "Midway, Quarry Bay". Apart from the sense of place, Hong Kong serves as an important context for Yesi's novels. Again, take "Paper Cut-outs" as an example; the narrator 's two female friends actually symbolize Hong Kong people's identity. This is also how Chinese culture and Western culture failed to understand or merge with one other in Hong Kong. For example, Qiáo 喬, a modern women, is a character showing that Hong Kong people do not understand their Chinese origin very well, but on the other hand, are not completely westernized. She cannot understand or grasp the feelings in traditional Chinese poems. Moreover, her face is so pale that it would reflect the color of her surroundings: 外面廣告牌上的一大幅粉藍色填滿所有窗口，喬的臉孔染上一片粉藍。…經過一片淺黃，她的臉又泛上淺黃。 This symbolizes the cultural identity of Hong Kong , actually quite fragile. Without rooting in Chinese or Western culture, Hong Kong does not have, or has not created, any distinct culture. They are easily affected by others, and reflect others’ colors. Even in the most seemingly unlikely sphere to be associated with Hong Kong, Yesi shows his concern for the city. For him, travelling has a lot to do with home. The book "Leung Ping Kwan (1949 – 2013), A Retrospective" 回看.也斯, says that “[e]very foreign place he visited invoked in him even deeper thoughts about Hong Kong. He wrote copiously about his cross-border experiences, in prose and in  poetry, from eastern culture to western culture, from literature and art to cultural observations, from old ideas to new concepts, posing questions that would not have been formulated if he had not left Hong Kong, and trying to portray, to a Hong Kong wallowing in old habits, new sets of emotion and knowledge in hope of a change.” In short, Yesi's works are deeply concerned with Hong Kong, no matter what the topic or context. Characteristics of Yesi's works. Personification of places and objects. Yesi often personified places and objects in his poems. Some of these poems include  Central, "Europe After Rain", and "Bittermelon". Yesi would talk gently to the personified objects, as if they were his friends. In "Europe After Rain", the narrator walks into a church, and talks to the place: “I shiver in the cold. You don't seem to have heard my prayer. Your four walls are mottled, the ancient stories have turned into reliefs, in the flickering light and shadow your magnificent and inevitabilities of history.” Very often, there are interactions of “I” and “you” in Yesi's works, but the latter is sometimes an object or a place. Voice, tone, and narrative . There is a sort of double voicing in Yesi's poems, multiple layers of meaning. In the poem "Bittermelon": he says: You're not worn-out or beaten-down, you're just resting. The loudest song's not necessarily passionate; the bitterest pain stays in the heart. Is it because you've seen lots of false sunlight, too much thunder and lightning, hurt and hurting... The narrator not only converses with objects and places but also to the reader. He asks “[i]s it because you've seen lots of false sunlight…too many indifferent and temperamental days” that you have  stopped talking about your sufferings? The questions give us a feeling that the narrator sympathizes with us, the readers, and gently inquires as to our situations. Instead of readers reading the poem, the poem seems to read us as well. Your silence is much to be admired; you keep the bitter taste to yourself. in the wind, our bittermelon, steadily facing worlds of confused worlds of confused bees and butterflies and a garden gone wild The narrator seems to be talking to himself and also to the author. Yesi's narrators often try to position and view themselves in a  way different from the mainstream. Above “our bittermelon” is described as “steadily facing worlds of confused bees and butterflies and a garden gone wild”. This seems to describe the narrator, or perhaps Yesi himself, trying to walk in “[his] own pace” ("Images of Hong Kong") without being distracted by the world, or by mainstream values. Some of Yesi's first and second person narrators do interchange with each other. In "Paper Cut-outs", when the narrator refers to his friend Yáo 瑤, he always uses second person narrative “you”. The book's narrative sometimes changes, and the narrator refers to  readers, characters, and himself with the plural pronoun “we”. Similarly, in the above poem, in the end the bittermelon becomes “ours” at last. Influences on Yesi's works. Latin-American magical realism. Yesi “was the first to bring in Latin American literary icons such as Gabriel Garcìa Márquez, Pablo Neruda, Jorge Luis Borges and Mario Vargas Llosa before they were widely known”. His works are also heavily influenced by magical realism. Many critics have noted how Yesi used magical elements to interpret reality in his novels. For example, a critic analyzed magic realism in Yesi's novel “Shih-man the  Dragon-keeper” 《養龍人師門》. Another example: the description of Qiáo's room in "Paper Cut-outs" demonstrates features of magic realism. The narrator visits Qiáo, who is a psychotic. In her room, “many red birds are drawn on the white walls, approximately thirty” 白色牆壁上畫滿紅色鳥兒，一共有好幾十隻. She “walks close to the walls, between the red birds” 她走近牆邊，走入那些紅色的鳥兒中間. The “birds listen to and obey her!” 鳥兒是聽話的！ “Each of her birds have names. Good Bò Bò. Fā Fā was naughty yesterday, and Wá Wá hasn’t eaten for a few days” 她的鳥兒都有名字。柏柏乖，發發昨天淘氣，娃娃幾天不吃東西了. The birds fly in the room. “She touches the wings of one of  the birds” (喬撫著一頭鳥的翅膀), and a bird “stops on [the narrator’s] fingertip” (停在我的指尖). Although the birds are painted on the walls, Qiáo regarded them as alive. Imagination becomes reality in this passage. Modernism. Modernism seeks to write novels in a way that reflects a human being's inner thoughts, which are often fragmented. Yesi's novels also write about different moments in life that are perhaps not consistent. In the novel "Paper Cut-outs", linkage between the two seemingly separate story lines is imagined and drawn by readers. There is no clear message imposed by the author. Paper cut-outs  are like fragmented moments, words, and phrases, which are all broken into parts. The connections between the fragments are vague; ambiguity is an important feature of modernism. Chinese literature. Chinese literature also heavily influences Yesi's work. Elements of Chinese culture, like folk and opera, can be seen in his works. Elements of Cantonese opera can be seen in his work "Paper Cut-outs". Also, he inherited some of the traditional Chinese forms of writing. For example, his "Bittermelon" poem praises this plant, which symbolizes virtues stressed in Chinese culture – patience and endurance. The narrator credits bittermelon for its “silence ”, saying it "keep[s] the bitter taste to [itself]”. This means being willing and able to endure suffering and not making others feel pity. The poem echoes the Chinese literary tradition of praising an object that symbolizes virtue and good people. Other art media. Yesi was not satisfied with just language. Other art media were also sources of inspiration; for example performance art, photography, and film. He “entered into countless dialogues with artists of different media”, and even collaborated with them to write literary works. For example, dancer Mui Cheuk Yin performed the dance “Kikikoko”, and Yesi wrote a poem inspired  by her performance – "Ladder Street". Yesi's work is also influenced by his interest in film. He often writes as if he is shooting a scene with his camera. For example, the narrator keeps looking for an angle in "Images of Hong Kong" and in another poem, "City of Films" is introspective in evaluating the best way to capture Hong Kong like a movie shooting: ...then in the second half, find you're your enemy's sonlife goes on without knowing what’s happenedif reality's too hard, there’s always soft focusthe world's still out there, the PR  guy’s at the doorwith new schemes for artful promotionand for the film a new title Achievements. Yesi was recognized as both a writer and a scholar, received various literary awards, and was invited as visiting scholar to universities across the globe. The German professor Wolfgang Kubin commented that Yesi was “a rare Hong Kong writer with a global vision”. Some examples of recognition are provided as follows: Publications. Creative writing. Books (in Chinese) Prose Poetry Fiction Selected Works Books. (in English) Books (in French) Books (in German) Books (in Japanese) Books (in Portuguese) Stories, poems and essays (in various  foreign languages) Critical Writing. Books (in Chinese) Books a1n9d8 5C iti《《書與城市》("Books and Cities"). Hong Kong: Xiangang; reprint: OUP,2002, 299pp. Articles (in English) Articles (in Chinese) Editorial WorkCo-editor (with Andrea Riemenschnitter), "Legends from the Swiss Alps", Hong Kong, MCCM Creation.