Canto Cutie - Volume 2

Having grown up in a multi lingual
and dialect household, you express
having a difficult relationship with
Cantonese. Can you share more about
how being able to express yourself
best in one language or the other
affects your feelings about identity?
I am finally starting to let go of the
idea that my lacking Cantonese
makes me an insufficient person,
mainly because so many Cantonese
diaspora friends have affirmed my
right to exist as I am. I o!en feel like a
"traitor" because English is not a
language indigenous to the geography
of Hong Kong. But I realize my life is
an outcome of many decisions and
political occurrences that pre-date
my existence for hundreds of years,
and I can only inherit my English
privilege with a sense of
responsibility to be sincere and open
to recognizing my biases, ignorances
and personal failures. I feel open to
ideas about identity in flux and in
fluid states, this helps me feel less
alien. The wonderful poet Mary Jean
Chan has written extensively about
her relationship to English, I highly
recommend her work.
Mary Jean Chan
In our conversation, we talked about
queer visibility in Hong Kong. You
mentioned seeing TBs at your school
has had an impact on your idea about
what it can look like to be queer in
Hong Kong. Can you share more about
how this experience has shaped your
imagination about your own
queerness?
*TB stands for “tomboy”. It is a
colloquial term used to describe butch
presenting females or lesbians in
general in Hong Kong.
queer visibility
TB
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