Foreword: Speaking Existence

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Embracing the Angel: Reading Shirley Geok-lin Lim’s Hong Kong Poetry with Hannah Arendt’s The Human Condition

In 1999, after having moved to America for nearly thirty years, Chinese Malaysian poet and scholar Shirley Geok-lin Lim began her sojourn in Hong Kong. In addition to being a research professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, Lim has been accepting invitations to teach at the University of Hong Kong and the City University of Hong Kong as chair professor or writer-in-residence for almost twenty years, and has published several collections of poetry in and about Hong Kong. This paper analyzes Shirley Lim’s Embracing the Angel: Hong Kong Poems, a poetry collection inspired by the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong, 2014. The major issues for discussion include: 1) how Hong Kong is under the shadow of Chinese culture and hegemony; 2) how Hong Kong has been striving for democracy and freedom after the Handover; and 3) how literature enacts to construct history and authorize hope. Similar to college students who have adopted the Umbrella Movement as their “space of appearance” (in Hannah Arendt’s term) for the ideal of democracy, Lim published Embracing the Angel as her “space of appearance” to offer support and indicate hope for Hong Kong

Embracing the Angel: Reading Shirley Geok-lin Lim’s Hong Kong Poetry with Hannah Arendt’s The Human Condition

In 1999, after having moved to America for nearly thirty years, Chinese Malaysian poet and scholar Shirley Geok-lin Lim began her sojourn in Hong Kong. In addition to being a research professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, Lim has been accepting invitations to teach at the University of Hong Kong and the City University of Hong Kong as chair professor or writer-in-residence for almost twenty years, and has published several collections of poetry in and about Hong Kong. This paper analyzes Shirley Lim’s Embracing the Angel: Hong Kong Poems, a poetry collection inspired by the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong, 2014. The major issues for discussion include: 1) how Hong Kong is under the shadow of Chinese culture and hegemony; 2) how Hong Kong has been striving for democracy and freedom after the Handover; and 3) how literature enacts to construct history and authorize hope. Similar to college students who have adopted the Umbrella Movement as their “space of appearance” (in Hannah Arendt’s term) for the ideal of democracy, Lim published Embracing the Angel as her “space of appearance” to offer support and indicate hope for Hong Kong

由哈金詩作談華人離散及文化翻譯

[[abstract]]哈金喜歡把玩中英文不同的語言特色，在創作中將兩者合而為一。他以本土化的英語論述重塑中文的諺語、譬喻與句構，翻譯、挪用並重組中文的語法，創造出饒富中文色彩的英語創作。閱讀哈金的詩集《殘骸》(Wreckage)，受過中文教育的讀者很容易就可以發現詩中有許多中國古典詩詞的翻譯及改寫。作品中的詩人引述古典詩詞，以抒發個人情懷，而讀者不禁會思考：哈金的詩作源頭到底有多大的成分是來自中國文學？我們能夠依據哪些特點以及哪些標準來辨識所謂的創意？我們要如何區分「創新」與「改造」？而這樣的區分是否會改變我們對於哈金詩作的解讀與評斷？在哈金的詩作中，對中國古典詩詞的引述與對美國現今情境的感觸，二者或並置、或融合、或相互對照、或互相影響，這其中透露著何種訊息？被翻譯的是什麼，是中國詩詞還是美國情感？被移植的又是什麼，是文學還是文化？當中國的詩文被翻譯成英文、移植至美國之後，意義是否會有所轉化？是否會因應哈金複雜的美國移民經驗而呈現出某種迥異於以往的新義？而哈金的三重身份－詩者、評者、譯者－是彼此互補或彼此衝突？而這種種文學、文化再現，又訴說了何種華人離散的意涵，這些將是本文討論的重點。 Ha Jin's works bespeak an impressive linguistic creativity. Reconfigurating Chinese language through a nativized discourse of English, Ha Jin has translated, appropriated, and reconstructed Chinese linguistic norms and specifics into English-language literature in remarkable fashion. Studying Ha Jin's ＂Wreckage＂, a reader with Chinese education will be ready to identity fragments of renowned Chinese classical verse. Thus the reader is invited to ponder: To what extent does Ha Jin draw his poetic inspiration from the corpus of Chinese literature? How shall we measure accredited creativity? How do we distinguish innovation from renovation, and do those distinctions change our reading of the poems? Although Ha Jin has written exclusively of the reality of Chinese politics and society (with ＂A Free Life＂ the only exception so far), this material does not obviate the possibility of reading his works as belonging to a tradition of US immigrant literature. In Ha Jin's poetry, the juxtaposition, interaction and fusion of classical Chinese verse and contemporary American sensibility can be telling. Which has been translated, the Chinese verse or the American sensibility? What has been transplanted and translated? Have the Chinese poetry texts, after being transplanted into the English verse, undergone a transformation of meaning and resurfaced with new significance corresponding to the complexity of Ha Jin's immigrant experiences in America? This paper aims to explore how Ha Jin's Chinese poetry texts show significance corresponding to the complexity of his immigrant experiences in America

[[alternative]]Reading Milton Murayama

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[[alternative]]Diaspora Reconsidered in Shirley Lim's Joss and Gold

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Haunting Books and Stories in Janice Kulyk Keefer’s Honey and Ashes, Story of Family

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