因為飛紐約要十幾個小時，於是一口氣看了三部關於香港的電影，把之前沒空看的一次性補齊。
無論是《緣路山旮旯》、《飯戲攻心》，還是屬於比較官方宣傳類型的《一樣的天空》，講述的都是同一個主題：家是香港。
因為工作夥伴關係，之前多次去荔枝窩參觀，所以看完電影《緣路山旮旯》，其中有關荔枝窩的片段是我最有感觸的。至於《一樣的天空》，特別提到種族平等問題，在香港，社會對南亞裔人士仍然存在一定偏見，很高興能夠這部影片中有所反映。
《飯戲攻心》因為有子華，所以金句不斷，包括片尾的暗示”走遠一點”，可能也算是對近年來香港人選擇”用腳投票”的移民趨勢的一種認可？當然，無論去哪裡，屋企人在哪裡，哪裡就是屋企。
需要真的看明白這幾套戲還是最好能聽懂粵語，否則很難想像翻譯成普通話，其中的一些文化和背景會有所損失。以前港產片給人印象都是打打殺殺，最出名的包括鄭伊健、陳小春的古惑仔形象，乃至後來劉德華、梁朝偉的《無間道》。最近幾年，大家開始打溫情牌，家成為香港電影的一個新主題。
香港是大家的屋企，大家要繼續齊心支持香港電影！
（以上所提及電影都可在國泰航空航班上觀看）
(This is a tribute to my grandpa)
Every Chinese family can tell a fascinating story of contemporary and modern China. So does my family – I mean my roots in Shanghai.
The story about my birth in Shanghai should start with my grandparents, and perhaps their parents too. My grandpa Shao Shude was born in the early days of the young Republic of China. In Chinese characters, his name Shu (樹) literally means tree (or “plant something”, as a verb) and De (德) means virtue. I understand the name comes from an old Chinese saying: It takes ten years to grow a tree; It takes a hundred years to grow (several generations of) people (十年樹木，百年樹人).
For me, my grandpa did his job properly – to grow a few generations of us, my parents and his grandchildren.
The story about my grandpa has to start with the family name Shao, which is the shared name of a humble village in the eastern Chinese province of Jiangsu close to the city of Shanghai. Few outsiders actually know that my grandpa was adopted by the quite wealthy Shao family in the village right after he was born in a very poor family, of which we don’t even know the name to this day. My great grandpa Shao Jinhai has always been a businessman in my memory. Shortly after he adopted my grandpa, the whole Shao family decided to move to Shanghai for their new life, and they did very well.
In Chinese culture, a name means a lot. My great grandpa Shao Jinhai’s name literally means the “ocean (海) of gold (金)”. I know very little about my ancestors on my mom’s side prior to my great grandpa. But from the name of my grandpa I can guess that the Shao family must have set their life goals for being rich for a long time. My great grandpa turned the family goal into reality and proved himself a successful businessman in Shanghai.
I don’t remember if anyone told me how my great grandpa started to build his business empire in Shanghai, including his core business about the production of matches. Let me remind you what a match is. A match is something you use to start a fire, for example, to light cigarettes. Nowadays few people will think of matches because of technology and innovation, i.e. the invention of lighters. But in the old days, matches were important resources and there were also match boxes people did collect, especially those boxes printed with rare labels.
According to my grandma, at one point my great grandpa’s match business occupied about one fourth of the total market share in Shanghai, making my great grandpa well known as a “King of Matches” (火柴大王). He might not have been as wealthy as top-tier tycoons like Du Yuesheng (杜月笙) and Huang Jinrong (黃金榮), but it was good enough to have a high living standard in Shanghai, widely known as the “Paris of the Orient” in the Republican era.
My great grandpa used to have a very beautiful private house on Yu Yuan Road (愚園路), one of the most elegant streets in Shanghai. The neighborhood alongside the street is full of the elites including Wang Jingwei (汪精衛), a controversial Chinese politician who for many years served as the puppet state head of China under Japanese rule, and ex-Shanghai Mayor during the Kuomintang (國民黨) era, Zhou Fohai (周佛海). Later when my grandpa got married, my great grandpa gifted him a spacious apartment right behind the famous Park Hotel (國際飯店) near the old racecourse, which is now the People’s Park in Shanghai.
Fast forward. When I bought my first property in Shanghai in the early 2000s, I happened to buy on the same classic Yu Yuan Road, not too far from the former residence of my great grandparents. Their residence was unfortunately taken over by the Communist government during the Cultural Revolution, just like many others who were labeled as “Big Capitalists”.
I remember when I told my grandpa about my apartment on Yu Yuan Road. He told me he was happy and that the whole thing felt like a destiny of full cycle for our big family. What we lost in the older generation was regained in our own ways by the younger generation.
Not exactly the same beautiful private house. But it already meant a lot.
For the locals in Shanghai, location does mean a lot of things. Those areas in the city centre including the large former British and French concessions are known as “Upper Shanghai” (上隻角) and the rest are known as “Lower Shanghai” (下隻角). Location indicates your family background, your social status, and perhaps also your destiny - especially in the old times.
Nowadays the locals tend to be more polite and don’t discuss locations openly. But in many local minds, I know people still have strong opinions about Pudong (浦東, the eastern side of the Huangpu River, which is now known as the Pudong New Area of Shanghai) versus Puxi (浦西, the “old town” of Shanghai, on the other side of the Huangpu River).
Born into a rich family, my grandpa didn’t need to worry about life that much from the very start. He was not very interested in my great grandpa’s business, which eventually saved him from trouble during the disastrous Cultural Revolution that completely changed the development path of modern China.
My grandma sometimes joked to me that my grandpa was known in his circle as an “honest playboy”. Being a playboy means he used to attend many balls in those luxurious nightclubs and dance halls, like The Paramount around the corner of Yu Yuan Road. Of course, it was so close to his old residence with the big family. Being “honest” means my grandpa reported everything he did and saw in those dance halls to my grandma, and later he decided to fade out of his “dancing circle” after he got married.
Perhaps on the brighter side, my grandpa was lucky to have a good education during his youth. My great grandpa always encouraged his kids to study hard, as he believed in education that can change one’s destiny and make more fortune.
My grandpa first attended the Franco-Chinese School (中法學堂), established by French missionaries in 1886, which was taken over by the Shanghai government quickly after the end of the Civil War in the early 1950s and renamed the Shanghai Guangming High School (上海光明中學). Guangming means “brightness”, a popular name for buildings, factories, and almost everything in the era of Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong (毛澤東).
Perhaps it was just another coincidence that I was accepted by Shanghai Guangming High School – decades after my grandpa’s studies at the Franco-Chinese School – and I had quite bright memories of my schoolhood in Guangming.
After the Franco-Chinese School, my grandpa continued to study at St. John's University, a Christian university in Shanghai founded in 1879 by American missionaries. In the history of contemporary China, St. John’s University is often dubbed by scholars as the “Harvard of China”.
I don’t remember if my grandpa managed to graduate from St. John’s or not. It was an extraordinary time in China. First, the Japanese came, and then the Civil War broke out. I do remember my grandpa told me his father donated money to the National Government of Kuomintang to sponsor the Chinese military to buy planes to fight against the Japanese.
During the Chinese Civil War, my great grandparents were both already much older and they began to plan their retirement, including moving to a safer place like Hong Kong, still under British rule at that time and a popular destination for rich migrants from Shanghai.
Before the Civil War ended in 1949, some of the big Shao family moved to Hong Kong and Taiwan respectively. In the old days of Shanghai, a man was allowed to marry several wives legally, hence my great grandpa had several women, including a nurse-turned “second wife”, who eventually settled down in Hong Kong.
However, my great grandpa himself decided to stay in Shanghai partly due to the large scale of his assets, including properties, factories, and many workers who worked for him for almost their entire lives. So my grandparents, who come from the wing of the “official first wife” of my great grandpa, also decided to stay.
Such a life-changing decision quickly proved to be a big mistake that my grandma has complained about for decades.
When I told my grandparents about the opportunity for me to move to Hong Kong for a job with the British news agency Reuters in 2007, I still remember such a firm, direct, and short answer from both of them: “Go, of course you should go.”
In the early 1950s, the Communist government did show a lot of respect to the capitalists for social and economic stability in Shanghai. My great grandpa was allowed to keep most of his businesses, including the core match business, private and independent. Later the government declared matches should be included as part of “resources for military use” and proposed to form a new joint venture with my great grandpa.
My great grandpa had to accept the so-called peace-making deal, even though his stake of the company was sold to the government at a very cheap price.
The Cultural Revolution changed everything and everyone in China during its horrible ten years. It should be no surprise to anyone that my great grandpa’s business was eventually fully occupied by the government and his whole family, including my grandpa, became “enemies of the people”. The reason? Because they were rich so they were the opposite of the proletariat, i.e. the workers.
To make a living, my grandparents had to find ways to deal with the “Red Guards” who can rush to your home and search for everything again and again without any legal notice or permission. The “Red Guards” were the loyalists of Mao. They were the kings during the Cultural Revolution. My great grandpa, once upon a time known as the “King of Matches” in Shanghai, was suddenly nobody.
My grandma once told me some funny stories of how she managed to hide some assets during those random home searches by the “Red Guards”. One day she decided to hide some money in a big framed portrait of Chairman Mao. “I guess they don’t dare to touch anything that symbolizes Chairman Mao,” she said, jokingly.
How lucky. If she was caught, it could mean the death of my grandma. In those turbulent times, all families in China tried to save their own lives and only care about their own interests. The several generations of the “Cultural Revolution” eventually became the very selfish generations, which to this day I think still have some long term implications on Chinese society.
One of my favorite books about this part of Chinese history is “Life and Death in Shanghai”, an autobiography published in the United States in November 1987 by Nien Cheng. Cheng’s story was far more dramatic, but I know every Chinese family who survived from the decade-long Cultural Revolution can certainly share a lot of similar memories.
After the Cultural Revolution, my grandpa was invited by the government to return to work for the Shanghai Match Factory, which was the result of the merger of three or four private match manufacturers in Shanghai, including the one owned by my great grandpa. Apart from a job offer at the new state-owned enterprise, my grandpa didn’t get anything else for compensation. In fact, no one talked about compensation as if the Cultural Revolution never really happened.
My grandpa accepted the job and then he became an accounting manager at the factory, thanks to some financial knowledge he learned during his time at St. John’s. He worked in more or less the same role until he retired in his early 60s.
The rest of his life – for almost another three decades – was mostly content and fun, together with the big Shao family.I should say his post-retirement life was also quite “delicious” as my grandpa focused more on his hobbies of eating and cooking. In today’s popular language, my grandpa was quite a foodie.
Being a fellow foodie, I definitely inherited his DNA!
My grandpa was a big fan of spicy cuisine. The more spicy, the better for him. His passion for spicy food left a mark on my tastes too. I can add a few spoons of spicy sauce, especially the Chinese Sichuan-style chili sauce, to anything I eat, wonton, noodle, soup, beef, crabs, and almost anything else you can name. My mom is often worried if I add too much spice, which the doctor will warn you about lest you get stomach trouble.
One of the most popular dishes my grandpa cooked for the family was something we call “Eight Treasures in Spicy Sauce” (八寶辣醬) in Shanghai. It’s called “Eight Treasures” for a reason.
Eight is a really lucky number in Chinese culture. A dish with 8 main ingredients? It’s luck in a bowl. This is a common dish for any Shanghai family and different families cook in their own ways. The eight ingredients usually include pork, chicken, or both, and shrimp, mushrooms, bamboo shoots and so on. There is no strict rule on what the eight ingredients must be, as long as you get eight main things as you don’t want to miss the lucky number eight.
For me and my family, my grandpa’s “Eight Treasures” is always the best we can get in Shanghai. It had been a family tradition for many years that the big Shao family get together for reunion dinner on Lunar New Year’s Eve and my grandpa would cook “Eight Treasures” as one of the dishes. In more recent years, the Shao family began to choose to dine out on Lunar New Year’s Eve due to my grandparents’ age. I told my mom I did miss the good old days when the whole big family could sit around the table for dinner at home – usually at the residence of my grandparents – rather than in a hotel or restaurant.
The last time my grandpa cooked “Eight Treasures” for me was in the autumn of 2019 when I made a quick trip to my hometown Shanghai. My parents and I went to see my grandparents and it was a short visit as we didn’t want to bother them too much. However, my grandpa insisted I should stay for at least one hour and then he went to the kitchen to cook the “Eight Treasures”. He knew I liked to eat “dry noodle” mixed with the “Eight Treasures” and that became my quick lunch before we said bye to my grandparents.
One of my regrets is I didn’t get a chance to ask my grandpa to write down his “family secret” recipe for “Eight Treasures” and I don’t think I can have the same taste any more. Or perhaps it’s more about my memory than the taste of food.
Talking of “family secrets”, one of the “open secrets” for the big Shao family is my grandpa’s health situation since he was just a child.
Shortly after my grandpa was adopted, my great grandpa got a doctor to do full checks and the doctor quickly confirmed my grandpa may have some genetic heart problems. I don’t know the details, but I remember once my grandparents jokingly saying some doctors predicted my grandpa would not live long given his heart problem. This had been an open secret for the Shao family for decades while nobody really wanted to talk about it at all.
I still don’t know if my grandpa took his heart problem too seriously or perhaps just let it be. It may have some impact on his personality as my grandma sometimes complained that my grandpa was not an “ambitious man”.
“If your grandpa is a little bit more ambitious, he perhaps could take over more wealth and business from your great grandpa, and perhaps the whole family would have settled down in Hong Kong or Taipei rather than being stuck in Shanghai during the Cultural Revolution,” my grandma once said to me in front of my grandpa.
My grandpa laughed. In response, he jokingly said it was all about destiny and God knew how to deal with everyone and everything. Sometimes I wonder if his sort of Confucius approach to life was a result of his heart disease. If so, then it turned out my grandpa did enjoy a very big and open heart for the world and people around him.
When my grandparents knew my decision to move to Hong Kong, the only advice they gave me was “to take better care of myself from now on.” For them I may be like someone who can finally take over the torch from my grandparents and carry it to Hong Kong, a place where they almost decided to move, way before the perfect storm of Cultural Revolution hit all the capitalists on the Mainland.
My grandpa did visit Hong Kong a couple of times, accompanying my great grandpa for some business trips. That was before the end of the Civil War and my great grandpa felt it was important to diversify investments so he decided to move some wealth abroad. Hong Kong, just like nowadays, has always been the first choice for many rich Chinese to consider when it comes to diversifying their investments and wealth.
I once joked with my grandparents if they decided to move to Hong Kong in the early days, then my mom would be born in Hong Kong, and who knew whom my mom would meet and my dad would be, or perhaps I would not have been born into the world. They all laughed when I made such meaningless hypotheses.
Of course, life cannot afford to have so many “ifs”. Life is all about who, when and what happens. Like what my grandpa said, life was all about destiny.
At the age of 91, my grandpa made his life complete and concluded his destiny.
This is the story of my grandpa. I decided to write this because I want his story to be told and remembered. His life may seem like an insignificant one but he did live through all the significant changes of contemporary and modern China, for better or for worse.
Every Chinese family must have a story to tell. This is our story.
Farewell, my grandpa.
(February 28, 2023, Shanghai, China)
香港人喜歡「打邊爐」，也就是吃火鍋。套用一段很多年前香港某商場流行過的廣告語，開心的時候可以打邊爐，不開心的時候也想要打邊爐，全世界只有一個香港，香港人就是喜歡打邊爐。是的，香港人對火鍋這件事就是這樣的執著。
我也喜歡吃火鍋，而且我喜歡全世界找火鍋店吃。去年去愛爾蘭首都都柏林出差，忍不住問當地的同事，哪裏有火鍋，然後硬是拖着幾個同事（包括幾位在都柏林工作的香港同事在內）跑到都柏林的「中國城」一條街上的一間火鍋店吃火鍋。其實我已經忘記那天晚上吃了什麼，只記得那晚好像是我在都柏林吃的最開心的一餐。
要說火鍋的發源，我的一位蒙古朋友一定會和你滔滔不絕講起「一代天驕」成吉思汗的威猛歷史。火鍋的起源其實很難考證，坊間一直流傳很多不同版本，其中一個版本是說成吉思汗可能是火鍋發明者之一，眾所周知，蒙古自古以來盛產肥羊，作為遊牧民族，成吉思汗及部下為圖方便，走到哪裏，吃到哪裏，哪裏有羊，就馬上殺了羊並趁新鮮直接放入滾燙的熱水中，成吉思汗等人意外發現，如此一來他們就有了非常鮮美的羊肉湯喝，再後來又加入蔬菜等不同食材，火鍋的飲食習慣就此開始逐漸形成。在中國北方，吃火鍋是一定要有羊肉的，所以在北方吃火鍋其實也叫「涮羊肉」，最出名的「涮羊肉」包括如今在北京還有不少連鎖店經營的「東來順」。
我在蒙古首都烏蘭巴托吃過幾次火鍋，和當年成吉思汗一群人共享一鍋不同，蒙古人如今吃火鍋都是每人一小鍋。我覺得很好，非常衞生，而且自己想吃什麼湯底自己選，也不用考慮別人的口味。在蒙古吃火鍋，自然也少不了羊肉，而且這裏不僅僅是一種羊肉，基本上羊的不同部位都會用來吃火鍋。蒙古草原羊用來涮羊肉非常鮮美，我和當地朋友笑言，我在蒙古吃過涮羊肉，恐怕再去別的地方吃羊肉火鍋，我會變得非常挑剔。
還有一次我去中亞國家哈薩克斯坦出差，忍不住問當地的朋友，哪裏有火鍋，我說英文「hot pot」，對方是哈薩克本地人，居然一開始沒聽懂，然後拿出手機用Google搜索了一番，終於搞明白我說的「hot pot」是什麼，於是便開車帶我去了一間所謂的「火鍋店」，入店一看，感覺更像是串串燒專門店。原來哈薩克斯坦的火鍋店都是這樣的，肉和菜都是一件一串事先串好的，肉菜也都是同一個價格，結賬時候老闆看你拿了幾串，這樣就知道總共多少錢了。
新加坡人也喜歡吃火鍋，海底撈的創始人張勇早年發達後移民新加坡，也把海底撈成功帶入新加坡，有一段時間，海底撈在新加坡幾乎成為火鍋代名詞。當然，新加坡也有自己原創的膠原蛋白「美滋鍋」，據說喝富含膠原蛋白的湯對皮膚好，很多新加坡女孩子都喜歡結伴去吃「美滋鍋」。後來新加坡的「美滋鍋」還在台北開分店，開業初還引發大家連日來排隊等吃火鍋的盛況。
台北本地的火鍋店也絕對不是「吃素的」，競爭程度非常激烈。我在台北的朋友知道我喜歡吃火鍋，喜歡到幾乎要把全台北的大小火鍋店吃遍，從劉德華、郭富城當年都愛光顧的「太和殿」，到豆腐和鴨血可以一直免費加的「無老鍋」、已經在香港開設分店的「鼎王」、打着「吃到飽」旗號（包括吃完火鍋還有無限量哈根達斯雪糕供應）的馬辣火鍋，還有號稱火鍋界愛馬仕的「橘色」⋯⋯
喜歡吃辣的朋友，一定不會錯過只有在台北才能吃到的「老四川」。總之我每次去台北，一個星期就算每晚都吃火鍋，我也不會有絲毫不滿。
其實我最喜歡的台北火鍋店並非那幾家連鎖店，真正的心頭好都是朋友帶我去的那種本地小店，那種一進門只有四五張桌子的小店，然後老闆一邊幫你準備食材，一邊有空就過來和你乾一杯。最近一次去台北，和幾個好朋友找了一家他們喜歡的小店吃火鍋，要了幾瓶台灣啤酒，配火鍋最佳。臨走時，火鍋店老闆忽然跑來找我，然後送我一個小盒子，原來盒內裝着六個印有台啤logo的玻璃杯。老闆說，玻璃杯是商家促銷送的，雖不值錢，但今天我們有緣一起吃火鍋，這才是人生價值所在。送你杯子，希望你記住你在台北的一切美好。
老闆短短幾句話，情真意切，溫暖我心。原來我們有時候吃的不僅僅是火鍋，而是一種情懷。和誰吃，在哪裏吃，這和火鍋的用料一樣重要。
為什麼我喜歡吃火鍋？我覺得有打邊爐這件事確實不僅僅在於吃那麼簡單，吃火鍋有這幾個優勢。
第一，火鍋食材很豐富，牛羊雞豬肉任選，牛肉還分澳洲的還是日本的和牛，不同牛肉下鍋時間不同，可見吃火鍋也有大學問。香港人打邊爐還喜歡選很多海鮮，魚和蝦是基本款，有錢就再買幾個鮑魚下鍋，朋友面前也很有面子，也可以表示自己日子過得還算不錯。
其次，一頓火鍋可以吃好長時間，大家一邊吃，一邊聊，聊吃的，聊穿的，聊開心的、不開心的，聊工作，聊社會，聊人生。忽然之間，火鍋拉近了你我的距離感。一頓火鍋下來，新朋友變老朋友，老朋友變知心朋友。
當然，以我自己為例，不是隨便拉幾個人一起就會去吃火鍋，能夠一起坐下來吃火鍋的朋友應該至少都算是說得上話的。正所謂道不同而不相為謀，如果只是為了商業應酬，我們大可以去吃西餐，你點一份牛排，我點一份牛排，各吃各的，禮尚往來，冠冕堂皇。吃火鍋，那才真的算是把你當朋友。大家吃的是火鍋，見的是人心。
以前許多港產片都會有這樣的故事情節，某個大佬收工，然後叫了一幫小弟跑到一個自己熟悉的路邊排檔吃火鍋，大佬坐主桌，身邊坐的都是最賣命的兄弟，然後其他小弟圍着坐其他幾桌，場景很是氣派。我想可能也只有吃火鍋才有這樣的氣場。
記得下次再有香港的朋友找你打邊爐，那也可能是人家把你當真朋友的一種表現。香港人鍾意打邊爐，其實也是因為香港人愛交朋友，愛談天說地，有口福，有人生。
（原文首發於香港《大公報》副刊，2023年2月22日。）
I'm very saddened to know a same-class fellow of our Yale World Fellows program passed away recently due to cancer. He was still relatively young. I still remember how passionate he was about life and the world.
I won't say we were the two closest friends in our class. He was more like an artist, a very creative one with focus on multimedia and the interplay between art and technology. Frankly I can't really understand many things he talked about in class but I remember his (loud) laughters, his smile, and sometimes he tried to play some Italian jokes that we didn't get it but anyway he laughed very hard. We were just so happy at that time when we were altogether in New Haven, in the historic Betts House, our home and office.
Life is short, isn't it? You think you can control and change a lot of things. No, you can't. We are all on our destiny. There is the beginning. There is the end. So what's the meaning of life really? To make impact? To make others happy? Or to make yourself happy? But how to define "happy"?
If you read Dalai Lama's famous book "The Art of Happiness", he teaches you to focus on your mind, see things in different perspectives, and be compassionate. I'm a very ordinary person. All I know is the world is crazy and I have a lot of bulls*** to deal with everyday. Shall we pause? And pause for what? To purse your happiness? And what is "happiness"?
I don't remember I asked my Italian friend about "happiness" but he seemed to be always very happy. Even when he found he was diagnosed with cancer, he decided to make his treatment like a journey, an inspiring open-sourced journey to welcome everyone to examine his body and find the cure together. How creative.
Now I miss his loud laughters, our time together, and those Italian jokes that I didn't really get (but I still laughed too). We are always destined to meet different people during our journey, for better or for worse. And then at some point we say goodbye. We move on. Everything becomes our memory.
There is the beginning. There is the end. And the meaning of life is in between. That's why we laugh, we cry, and we keep exploring.
Goodbye, Salvatore!
Lau Zone 撈鬆
Do you know when the British forces first occupied Hong Kong Island in 1841, there were only less than 8,000 people living in Hong Kong?
That is to say almost every Hongkonger we know today is the next generation(s) of migrants — migrants from Mainland China (Shanghai, Guangdong, Fujian etc), India, South Asia, Vietnam, Britain, Australia, and the whole world! That is also what “Lau Zone” (撈鬆) — presented by the multi-talented trio of Yuri Ng, Anna Lo and Rick Lau — taught me tonight when I enjoyed the poignant yet playful cabaret on the rich variety of Chinese dialects at Hong Kong’s very own culture spot, Tai Kwun in Central.
“Lau Zone” is the Cantonese colloquial term used towards non-Cantonese natives, which essentially includes most Hongkongers of previous generations, as most of them were immigrants to the former British colony. All the immigrants made Hong Kong a unique place in the world where you may be often curious to know where s/he (and her/his families) originally came from. And of course sometimes you may be asked the same question too, especially when you travel or move abroad.
I was born in Shanghai, and I was relocated by my former baron, then the British news agency Reuters, to Hong Kong about 15 years ago. I have called Hong Kong my “home” since then. After all, home is where your heart belongs.
I learned Cantonese after I moved to Hong Kong and I truly love learning and speaking Cantonese (btw, you can also write in Cantonese, which has many special characters!) but I do speak Cantonese with my Shanghai accent as all my friends can tell. It’s hard to speak like a native of Hong Kong and I never intend to do so. Accent tells people where you originally came from and no one should hide that. It’s about your origin, just as a matter of fact, and it’s about your root. Everyone has his/her root.
Perhaps due to my Shanghai legacy, I know quickly that I became a fan of “Lau Zone” when Anna began to sing the traditional nursery rhyme in Shanghai dialect at the beginning of the drama.
I know there must be still a lot of Shanghainese people (and of course, their second or third generations) living in Hong Kong, though it is a very rare chance you will speak to someone in Shanghai dialect in Hong Kong nowadays unless you are really sure. I once bumped into former Chief Secretary Henry Tang at a private party and we began to talk about Shanghai. Once he realised my hometown is Shanghai, Henry began to try to show off his Shanghai dialect, well, just a few sentences. But that was fun and I still remember how quickly just a few sentences in Shanghai dialect got us connected emotionally.
“Where are you from? Where did you really come from?” This is the question asked again and again in the drama. As the official introduction of “Lau Zone” explains, this trivial bit of information seems to be useful only while filling in application forms. However, what else does our place of ancestry represent? Other than a few slang words, Hong Kong people are all but detached from the dialects spoken fluently among the older generations. It feels like a bittersweet relationship, doesn’t it?
Congratulations to Anna and the crew of “Lau Zone” to remind all of us about the uniqueness of Hong Kong and our “hometowns” — aka our 鄉下, not Japan or Korea, which I know many Hongkongers often joke about for their holiday time.
Hong Kong has been always a dream place of migrants. Migrants then became “Hongkongers”, who created what Hong Kong is today and the legend of Lion Rock will go on. So will the spirit of Hong Kong.