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Ka Lili Moving to a New Home

by  Chan Hay Ching

Translated by  Julia Yu

                        Jane   Xie

                        Joy   Li

                         Venus Lai

                         Wave Liu

Carrying her suitcase, Ka Lili stumbles down the stairs from the second-floor. The suitcase creaks on the gravel road; she swallows. Lili is so upset that she doesn’t notice the blooming Kapok and the merry song of the cuckoos. A flower, however, impervious to her bad mood, falls on her head with a snap. Dropping the suitcase, Lili intends to kick the fallen flower, but she suddenly notices that she is still in full view from the house. Then, she rushes on in a huff. “Why doesn’t the wind blow my dress?” She thinks with resentment, cursing the wet April weather.

It was a hasty decision to live with Bat Samming. They were classmates from a taught postgraduate course. Friends urged the talented guy and the beautiful girl to be together. After the one-year course, Lili, who was then still adjusting to her situation, was puzzled by a bunch of problems -- finding a job, renting an apartment and applying for a visa. Samming generously invited her to live with him and Lili accepted delightedly. Subsequently, the days of cohabitation with Samming and his mother (Lili calls her the Old Shrew) began in a village house in Fanling.

 

Their classmates said that Lili had a good fortune to find such a tall, rich and handsome boyfriend, yet she never took it seriously. People with good fortune buy buildings carelessly, hyping up the real estate market in Hong Kong. Lili was just a scapegoat, who can’t even afford an apartment – her life was so depressing. Moreover, even if Bat Samming proposed to her, Lili wouldn’t immediately say yes. The Old Shrew is such a sophisticated woman that deters Lili. Bat Samming is Taiwanese. His parents divorced when he was eight. Then, his mother took him to the Mainland where she did business and got marry again. After a few years, she divorced again and returned to Hong Kong. She bought a village house and a couple of properties downtown. Still, she would occasionally travel to the Mainland for business. She was able to gain such an unexpected success in the Mainland -- such a shrewd woman! Ka Lili was not too bad herself either – She turned a deaf ear whenever the Old Shrew mentioned the rent, utilities and housework. After every meal, tossing the bowl aside and wiping her mouth, Lili returned directly to the bedroom and wechated with friends, which completely annoyed the Old Shrew.

Both Bat Samming and Lili are teachers at different colleges. One teaches English, the other teaches Mandarin. Students treat these two languages differently: they stutter English cautiously, apologizing all the time with blushing faces, while speaking Mandarin carelessly, even proud of inaccurate pronunciation. Students are friendly. They laugh and joke with Lili after Mandarin class, while they are more polite and keep a distance from their English teachers. However, Ka Lili felt an unconscious and imperceptible disdain from her friendly students because of her Mainland background.

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Bat Samming is so popular that he doesn’t understand this feeling. He is a Taiwanese. Hong Kongers are so eager to become Taiwanese. However, Hong Kongers abuse Mainland people as they buy things in Hong Kong: when the Hong Kong dollar devalues, people from the Mainland come to spend money, being called by Hong Kongers “Locust transit”. The more they spend, the less respect they receive. They shouldn’t have spent money here. Bat Samming is a gentleman; even his English name is gentle: Benjamin. His students created a Facebook fan page for him, named “Benjamin BB”. These students took pictures of him secretly; talked about his clothes; paid attention to every woman around him. Bat Samming shared everything with Ka Lili. Lili went shopping with him for new clothes and prepared his outfit for the next day. She never envies him. In her mind, he is a big child: who would love a big baby?

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Colleagues are also friendly: some have immigrated to Hong Kong in their childhood; others stayed in Hong Kong after obtaining their postgraduate degrees. Six colleagues from different parts of China are in good relationships, just like university students sharing a dorm. They closed the office door to dance “Gangnam style”, do splits and backbending, and use Youtube as Karaoke, loudly and excitedly. Being far away from home, they empathized with each other when it comes to renting a house and seeking a job. They are happy when they play, diligent when they work, and absolutely frank when they share private experiences. Whether in the school or after school, they share their joys and sorrows as a group.

 

What do the Hong Kongers think of them? At first Ka Lili paid no attention to it, as colleagues were just nodding acquaintances. Everyone was doing their own job. But one day, when Ka Lili opened the door, she heard the male colleague opposite her say: “Wow, It smells of Northern women.” She didn’t know whether he was referring to girls' scent of cosmetics or the derogatory meaning of "Northern women". Ka Lili returned to her seat stunned while everything became quiet. Since then she became sensitive. She realised that the office was not her paradise. If she and her Mainland colleagues made mistakes, their mistakes would be overstated and considered as "evil". They were representatives of the Mainland people, taking the blame for “siesta, desultoriness and corruption”. Even those colleagues who immigrated in their childhood drew a line immediately and positioned themselves as “Hong Kongers”.

Sometimes the Old Shrew called her friends, speaking Hokkien which Ka Lili didn’t understand. Occasionally she would speak Mandarin with a Taiwanese accent: “Oh dear, you have no idea, money can buy everything. Those girls! You have no idea. They can buy everything…” Then she switched to Hokkien again. Ka Lili read a piece of news about two men from Hong Kong who fought with a Mainland woman about queuing. Are they serious? Do they have a moral compass? Ka Lili was afraid of becoming the one who fails to behave. Said and done, Ka Lili decided to move away immediately. She has no future with Bat Samming. She does not love him and he does not love her. She wants to live earnestly and love earnestly.

Lili gets off the bus. The rain is pattering. She drags her suitcase and runs into the shopping mall -- only a handful of customers are at McDonald’s. Last week, someone suddenly died at another branch of McDonald’s. Although the event lasted for 6 hours, other customers knew nothing about it. Ka Lili drinks hot chocolate milk, chewing and pondering: people come and go, alone; only families grieve, but that sadness fades as time goes by. Everyone needs to move on. What a city! “The stores are uniform,” some Hong Kongers curse, “these big names kill creativity and wipe out the small businesses.” Ka Lili feels warm because of the familiar pattern. The rain beats against windows, leaving mottled drops. Ka Lili was vigorous and ambitious when she moved out this morning, now she feels tired and worried. “I’ve made a hasty decision again”, she thinks.

 

Ka Lili drags her suitcase, walking out of McDonald’s, out of the shopping mall, into the rain, to her colleagues… She walks through one skyscraper after another, across a parking lot, around a garden, by a guardhouse… She studied in Hong Kong Island, works in Kowloon, and lives in New Territories. Anywhere she sets foot, she sees the name LEE, either Lee Kashing, or Lee Shaokee ---- Hong Kong is carved up by these tycoons. Ka Lili could not walk out of the Land of LEE no matter where she goes. She stands still in the rain. Pedestrians hurry to and fro. The distant red light is like a kapok in the dusky rain mist.

 

The rain falls on everyone.

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