Postscript: From history to legend, from legend to myth
Hong Kong Type #33
On October 25, 2020, the Double Ninth Festival, I visited the exhibition “Between the Lines – the Legend of Hong Kong Printing” at the Hong Kong Heritage Museum. That night, I told my wife that I wanted to write a novel about Hong Kong Type. It was at this exhibition that I first heard about Hong Kong Type and saw them in their original form. At that moment, I was truly stunned. I became obsessed, as if a voice was calling me to tell its story. Through the introduction of the senior scholar Lo Wai-luen, I got in touch with the curator, Yung Sau-mui from the Hong Kong Open Printshop. Then through Yung, I learned about the past and present of Hong Kong Type. I began to collect information on Chinese printing history, Christian missionaries to China, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, early history of Hong Kong’s opening, history of Anglo-Chinese College, and early Hong Kong journalism, etc.
Then, the story gradually emerged in my mind - the story of Hong Kong Type itself, the story of a boy growing up in early Hong Kong, and the story of a girl discovering and uncovering the past of Hong Kong Type in the present. These three stories make up the three parts of the novel. ‘Séance’ is a historical account. To avoid a dull narration of facts, I turned the Hong Kong Type into multiple “character spirits”, letting them tell their own stories. ‘Six Records of a Resurrected Life’ writes of a desperate and bitter love. Because it adopts a pre-modern narrative style, it can also be regarded as a love legend. As for the longest part ‘Testament’, it depicts how an individual overcomes her personal mental predicament in turbulent times. The story of Hong Kong Type serves as the thread that ties the other two stories together, connecting the two main characters separated by a century and a half. This link is not only material, but also spiritual and psychical, so it is a kind of “mythical connection”.
In terms of human cultural development, myth generally comes first, followed by legend (or saga), and finally history emerges. In this book, I reversed these three stages - starting from history, creating legends, and then creating myths. This is the process of tracing the origin or seeking the root of the “soul”. Concerning the idea of “one’s own myth’ or “personal myth”, I was inspired by the works of Jungian psychoanalyst and psychotherapist Hayao Kawai. We can regard ‘Séance’ and ‘Six Records of a Resurrected Life’, that is, history and legend, as part of Lai Sun-fei’s personal myth-building project. So, rather than saying this is a historical novel, it is better to say it is a creation myth, or the creation of myth. Of course, the simplest interpretation is that this is a love story. A story of loving someone, loving words, and loving Hong Kong.
I would like to express my gratitude to everyone who assisted me in writing this book. First and foremost, to Yung Sau-mui from the Hong Kong Open Printshop. If it weren’t for her curation of the exhibition, I wouldn’t have known about Hong Kong Type. Without the foundation she laid and the way she paved, I wouldn’t have been able to undertake this research. The workshop hosted by another member of the printshop, Wong Lok-wan, gave me the opportunity to get a taste of typesetting and printing. Also, I want to sincerely thank the sisters Donna and Nicole from Ditto Ditto for accepting my interview, allowing me to understand how the new generation has transformed letterpress printing into a creative industry. Thanks also to young master Max, who demonstrated and explained to me the operation of the Heidelberg Windmill Platen Press.
I would also like to thank Mr. Su Ching, the author of From Xylography to Western Typography: Protestant Missionaries and the Transformation of Chinese Printing in the 19th Century. Mr. Su is the foremost expert in the area of the introduction of Western movable type printing into China. Unable to find one of Mr. Su’s early works, Morrison and Chinese Printing and Publishing, I asked for help from my editor Chen Yihua in Taiwan. Surprisingly, Yihua was able to contact the author himself. When Mr. Su learned of my purpose, he generously gifted me a copy of his precious out-of-print work. I used Mr. Su’s research as a starting point and went on to find and read related original resources. Without his guidance, it would have taken me a few more years to understand the basics of this topic. Of course, any historical errors or fictitious elements that appear in the novel are my responsibility.
I am extremely grateful to the Hong Kong Open Printshop for providing more than fifty Hong Kong Type prototype images for the artwork in this book, which are used for the book title, author name, and chapter titles. I am also delighted to have invited the young Hong Kong printmaker Jay Lau Ka-chun to create illustrations for this novel. He has used three different styles to represent the different qualities of the three parts of the novel, elevating the imagination of the book to another level.
Lastly, I want to thank my wife Nim-yan. She helped me borrow a large number of reference books from the Chinese University library, allowing me to enjoy thorough delivery services without having to leave home. I am not a scholar, but in the past year, I have slightly tasted the pleasure and hardship of academic work. I hope that I can write a good enough novel so that the efforts of all those who have enthusiastically helped will not be in vain.
Dung Kai-cheung
October 4, 2021
The English translation of Hong Kong Type: A Love Letter Late for One Hundred and Fifty Years will be published soon in dBook (NFT book) format. Stay tuned.