Carrying her luggage, Jia Lili shuffled down the stairs. On the gravelled road, the luggage made a constant 'clank-clank'. Jia swallowed briefly. Although the Kapok and the Azaleas were in full blossom, Jia was not in the mood to admire the flowers. A flower dropped, unfortunately falling on her head. Jia let go of her luggage. While attempting to shove the flower away, she suddenly remembered that she was not out of sight yet. The house was still in view. She continued resentfully. Why was there no wind? She got angry and blamed the humidity for not allowing her dress to flutter in the breeze.

 

Moving in with Bi Shenming was a hasty decision. They took the same MA programme. They got together as they seemed perfect for each other and everyone else agreed. After the 1-year course, Jia had to find a job, get an apartment, apply for a visa, and so on. She felt devastated. Bi generously invited her to live with him and she accepted happily. That’s how her journey of living with Bi and his mother, the ‘Old Biddy’, in a village house in Fanling begun.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All her classmates told her she was very fortunate to date a ‘Gao Fu Shuai’ who was tall, rich and handsome. Jia didn’t think so. Who on earth with good luck would be as frustrated as she was? They were buying apartments, causing the increased market price in Hong Kong. To them, she was just a scapegoat. By the way, the fact that Bi was willing to marry her didn’t mean she wanted to marry him! Old Biddy was so scary that people took a step back when facing her. Her son, Bi, could be considered a Taiwanese. After his parents’ divorce when he was eight, Bi stayed with his mother, who then remarried, and started a business in mainland China. A few years later, his mother divorced again and returned to Hong Kong. She bought a house in a village and several apartments downtown. Occasionally, she would travel to mainland China, claiming it was for business. This woman was truly great, being able to achieve such standing. However, Jia had some character as well. She ignored the fact that the old woman was proving everything, paying the rent and bills. She would just leave the dining table after wiping her mouth clean and go back to her room to chat with friends online. This completely set the aged lady off.

 

Jia and Bi taught Putonghua and English at different institutions. Although they were both language teachers, they received totally different treatments from their students. When asked to speak in English, students chickened out, repeatedly stammered and apologized while blushing. When it came to speaking Putonghua, however, students simply didn’t care that much. Some were even proud of their mispronunciation. The nice pupils would get along well with Jia after school, but could never get close to their English teachers. Though embracing the feeling of intimacy, Jia could still feel an unconscious and hardly noticeable sense of contempt, which was not about her personally, but her background as a Mainlander.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bi could not feel the same because he was very popular among his students. He was Taiwanese — Hong Kong people wished to be Taiwanese. Hong Kong people scolded mainland people while they were boosting consumption in Hong Kong. When the Hong Kong dollar devalued, mainland people’s consumption was still scolded as a 'plague of locusts'. Mainland people were also to be blamed for their lack of self-respect. They were being looked down on while they consumed so much. Bi was elegant, and his English name was no exception: Benjamin. His students created a fan club on Facebook called ‘Babe Benjamin’. They snapped pictures of him and also talked about what he wore: his tweed coat with pin check pattern and cap in winter. While in summer, they enjoyed looking at his thin tie and dull-red socks under his formal cropped pants. They also paid attention to the women surrounding him. Bi shared everything with Jia delightedly. Not being jealous at all, she hung out and went shopping with him to match his outfit for the next day. Jia regarded Bi as a big kid — who would fall in love with such person!

 

Jia’s colleagues were nice. Those who taught Putonghua didn’t immigrate to Hong Kong in their early years. They stayed and worked in Hong Kong after graduation. The six people in Jia’s office came from different places, which made the office look like a university residence hall. They got along with each other well. They closed the door to dance Gangnam Style, did the horse trot. They also played YouTube songs and held their ‘solo concerts’. Although they were noisy, there were no conflicts among them. They were all uprooted people and after looking for house and job for a time, they all felt the same. Not only did they play hard, but also they were very strict in their own work and honest when sharing personal affairs. Regardless whether at school or downtown Hong Kong, they formed their own social circle and had their own sad and happy moments.

 

How did Hong Kong colleagues look at them? Jia had never cared about it – after all, everyone does his or her own job and they were just acquaintances. It was not until one day: Jia opened the door and heard from one of her male colleagues, ‘Wow! I can feel the scent of a mainlander…’ Did he imply that he could distinguish her scent or that she was a prostitute? Jia went back to her seat and zoned out. She waited until it was completely silent outside and walked out. She paid more attention since then. She realized that this place was not her Shangri-La. Her mistakes were exaggerated and deemed as bad behaviour and evil practices. Those colleagues, who immigrated when they were young, immediately severed their ties and claimed themselves ‘Hongkongers’. Immigrants from the mainland were representing their country, yet they were known for being ‘lazy, obstreperous, corrupt and putrefied’.

 

The Old Biddy was talking with a friend on the phone. She was speaking in Taiwanese Hokkien that Jia did not understand. Sometimes, she would add a few words in Taiwanese Mandarin, “Oh! You dunno! Money talks! Girls, oh, you dunno, they can buy anything… ” Then, she spoke vociferously again in Taiwanese Hokkien. Jia saw in the news that two Hong Kong men and two Mainland Chinese women quarreled about queuing up. They struck each other violently. What was the conflict about? Who was guilty? Jia was afraid of being a person who had no self-discipline. Matching her words with her deeds, she decided to relocate immediately. There was no future for Bi and her anyway. She didn’t love him, and neither did he love her. She wanted to live seriously and love a person seriously.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When Jia got off the bus, the rain was pattering continuously. Holding the luggage, she ran into the shopping mall. There were only a few customers in McDonald’s. Last week, in one of its branches, one customer was dead for six hours while the other customers did not notice. Jia was drinking her hot chocolate milk, thinking over and over again. People came and left, their feelings not affected by others. Only their family members grieved at them. However, as time went by, the sadness faded away as well. Life must go on. What kind of city was this? Hong Kong people blamed large companies for stifling creativity and driving out small businesses.  Only identical stores survived. Jia, however, felt warm because of this familiar pattern. The glass windows were mottled with raindrops. This morning, Jia went out in high spirits and great ambition, which was now replaced by tiredness and worry. She realized that she acted in a hurry again.

 

Carrying her luggage, Jia walked out from the McDonald’s and the mall. She then walked into the rain, heading towards her colleagues… She walked through one and another building, passed the parking lot, went around the garden and walked by the security post… She studied on Hong Kong Island, worked in Kowloon, and lived in the New Territories. Every piece of ground she stepped on was owned by the Li and Lee families, under the name of Li Ka-shing or Lee Shau-kee. Several mega corporations carved up whole Hong Kong. Wherever Jia went, she could not get out of the Li and Lee world. Standing in the rain, Jia saw pedestrians walking in a hurry, and the red light far from here looked like a kapok in the overcast rain and fog.

 

The rain hit everybody.