Resurrection 2 - 4

Hong Kong Type #28

Six Records of a Resurrected Life

IV. Love

Should I call you Heng-yi (Lucky Child), or Jiu-wan (Morning Cloud)? To my surprise, after more than a year of not seeing you, your identity had changed. You were no longer the daughter of the photo studio owner, but the courtesan of a prestigious brothel in Sheung Wan. I was detained in Jiangsu earlier, and encountered many difficulties. Whenever I had a moment of peace, I would remember your voice and face, and the Cantonese love song under the moonlight outside the window that eased my heart would ring in my ears. “Alas, everyone has their own troubles that must first be resolved; and everything will be clear once the worry is relieved. However, with a thousand troubles come a thousand symptoms, and it is mostly the word ‘silly’ that enters the symptom deeply and the word ‘love’ that becomes the affliction.” I, a dull man, came to understand what love was at the age of twenty-three. At the beginning of heading north, I was full of ambition, thinking that sending the movable type across thousands of miles could help Brother Hong. Unexpectedly, once the furnace was lit, the lead characters melted, the political reform all turned into nothing. Suddenly looking back, the person I was seeking was in the place where the lights were dimming. I was convinced in my heart that it was you. I wanted to come back to you, regardless of your background, and not fearing your father’s hindrance. I believed that it wasn’t too late, after all you were still young, and there was plenty of time to consider marriage. How could I have known that you had already fallen into the red dust, and submitted yourself to the streets of flowers and willows?

Upon my return to Hong Kong, I immediately went to Ah Chang Photography Studio, hoping to see you and express my feelings of longing. Yet, when I arrived at Flower Market Street, I found the studio deserted, without a person in sight. The street stalls were still in full bloom, the foreign brothels and pubs were just as bustling and noisy, but you were gone, your whereabouts unknown. I asked the neighbors and found out that Ah Chang, the studio owner, had always been a notoriously disreputable man, indulging in prostitution, gambling, drinking and smoking. When he initially inherited the studio from a westerner, suspicions arose of possible fraudulent dealings. His knowledge in photography was merely perfunctory, just enough to trick others. In recent years, he had accumulated massive debts, forcing him to sell his shop and move a few of his racks to a side lane in Sheung Wan. As for his so-called foster daughter, he was merely attracted to her half Chinese, half foreign beauty, seeing her as a profit-making asset. His original intent was to loan her to some successful foreigner as a mistress, but seeing the thriving condition of the local brothels, he found a favorable price and thus threw the poor girl into the fiery pit. Such rumors were rampant in the neighborhood, and I wasn’t sure whether they were true or not. But given Ah Chang’s regular propensity to bluster and boast, his immoral and wicked deeds were most probably widely known. Over the past few years, I was immersed in learning the art of printing, so focused and single-minded that I was wholly unaware of your father’s affairs. Now, thinking back, I’m deeply regretful for being ignorant and unacquainted with the ways of the world.