Canto Cutie - Volume 2

To this day, the sound of Cantonese
music puts me at ease, even though I
barely speak the language. But hearing
the rising and falling tones brings close
to a warm part of my childhood.
When I was young, not yet in grade
school, I had a hard time falling asleep
by myself. My parents recognized I was a
creature of ritual. My dad would sit close
and would play Cantopop as I fell asleep.
One day, he turned on some music to
listen to during the day, just for himself.
But I told him that I wasn't ready to
sleep yet.
-
"Transgenerational trauma," my
professor said during our seminar. We
were discussing Lacanian
psychoanalysis, and the displacement of
trauma through unspoken linguistic
signs. The idea is that trauma is
transmitted through generations by
overdetermining the language that the
parent uses to talk to the child, the child
to grandchild, and so on. A lifetime of
scars is tucked into the limits of our
speech.
What an abyss it must be for a
grandparent and a grandchild to not
even share a common language. What
kind of trauma is belied by the fact that
everything goes unspoken?
I grew up reading through my Je Je's
comic books. Wong Si Ma () was a
famous cartoonist in Hong Kong and his
characters are still remembered
fondly. The first time I read them they
gripped my imagination. Over time, I
realized that those cartoons carried the
same sense of humor that my father had
taught me, the same love for puns and
physical comedy and light-hearted
pranks.
Wong Si Ma had time for everyone in his
life, but not enough time for his family
before he passed away.
-
Even though I'm not religious, Hong
Kong for me is a site of pilgrimage. So
much of my diasporic experience is tied
to a homeland that exists more in
stories than it does in world.
I feel regret, as if I have failed in a duty,
by not properly learning the language.
But I suppose now is as good a time as
any to start.
-
In the summer of 2019, the people of
Hong Kong protested against the
Extradition Law. The law would formally
permit the extra-legal disappearances
the Chinese state was already
committing (albeit covertly) to
eliminate political dissidents without
trial. It was a successor to the Fishball
Revolution, the Umbrella Revolution,
the 2013 Hong Kong dock strike, the 1967
Riots, and many other examples of
direct political action. The people of
Hong Kong have a long history of
fighting against state power and
showing that profit can never be
allowed to take precedence over human
life. I need to be careful not to impose
my own dreams and political desires
onto these people who look so much like
me an ocean away. But I send them my
well wishes. I hope that all people, in
Hong Kong and around the world, will
be able to live in a self-determined way
and heal from the traumas of
imperialism.