Huiwen Shi

It is a book review for Wong's translation of the contemporary Taiwanese poet, Yang Mu's important work that combines literary criticism, poetics, creative and professional advice. Yang Mu's work, inspired by Rilke's "Letters to a Young Poet", was published in 1989. Wong's translation was published in 2017.

The Classical Gardens of Shanghai is a well researched, beautifully put together, and exquisitely detailed book. Shelly Bryant guides the reader through the five best-known ancient gardens in one of China's most modern cities. The book is structured around the city's five most representative gardens 1 (園林), each chapter picking up a specific perspective: Zuibaichi (醉白池) is told from a historical perspective; Qushui Yuan is explored through its space and text; Guyi Yuan is viewed from the angle of its restorations and revival; Qiuxiapu is presented through a literary lens; and Yu Yuan is narrated through the Pan family and its more recent urban uses. Chapter Six on Yu Yuan is perhaps the most effective, and is a must-read for people who wish to know more about Shanghai's old city centre. In this chapter, " Yu Yuan: Staging a Family Drama " , Bryant finds the perfect pitch for the garden's fantastic spectacle. The intricate narrative not only gives us a full picture of the Pan family who built this garden, its ups and downs, and also its interaction with the city people from the beginning to the present day. Bryant is convincing when she argues that we should not be overly critical of commercialization and rampant consumerism in ancient sites because the bazaar in Yu Yuan is " not a departure from tradition " (119). Through a full account of the garden's genesis and metamorphosis, she makes the persuasive point that, unlike other gardens or historical sites, Yu Yuan has always maintained a balance between " scholarly elegance and gaudy consumerism " (119). This chapter links the gardening, the family stories, the staging of operas, and the dramatic historical events so neatly and organically that I found myself wishing the other chapters were written in the same way. Bryant also blends splendid details such as the fight between the dragon and the toad on the famous dragon wall, as well as urban legends such as the emperor's dismay with the garden's extravagance. The anecdotes are done so well that they speak to each other not only on a socio-political level, but also on a philosophical level. 2 The major challenge of writing such a book is that these gardens have long histories that almost all of them have undergone damage and restorations, have embodied the rich interplay of text and space, and have inevitably witnessed dramatic moments, whether familial or historical. In only 130 pages, Bryant's ambition to encompass all these elements is successful. I am surprised that she 1 Among the five gardens, Zuibaichi, Guyi Yuan, Yu Yuan are better known to the general public and tourists. Qushui Yuan and Qiuxiapu are less well known but by no means less exemplary. 2 The fight between the dragon and the toad is supposed to be unending. The wall top where this scene happens also features the dragon about to eat the three-legged toad (the toad not yet eaten). The underlying philosophy is that neither heaven (symbolized by the dragon) nor the earth (the toad) can defeat the other; they must coexist harmoniously. This lovely image echoes the ongoing urban legends about the emperors feeling threatened by the Jiangnan literati's power and wealth, and their constant restrictions on the gardens' sizes and numbers of dragons. The message is that the ruler (heaven) cannot survive without his intellectual supporters (the earth).

The Nobel laureate Gao Xingjian, who won that prize in 2000 “for an oeuvre of universal validity, bitter insights and linguistic ingenuity”, is arguably best known for his semi-autobiographical novel, Soul Mountain. But in my opinion, Gao is first and foremost a playwright. Versatile as he is , his enduring passion has always been for drama. City of the Dead and Song of the Night are the first English translations of these plays, completed in 1991 and 2009 respectively .  Translators Gilbert C. F. Fong and Mabel Lee bring Gao’s distinctive language and “philosopher’s drama”  alive. In fact, I can readily imagine these two plays being performed in English to enthusiastic receptions.

Published by Asian Cha in Sep 2016
http://www.asiancha.com/content/view/2490/569/

A Book Review on Hong Kong's most recent short story anthology. 8 stories in English are collected, which provide a glimpse of the Special Administrative Region's current issues, preoccupations, and English writing landscape.

Marshall Moore and Xu Xi, ed. The Queen of Statue Square: New Short Fiction from Hong Kong.

Nottingham, UK: Critical, Cultural and Communications Press, 2014. 159 pages. ISBN 978-1-905510-43- 6.

The book's essence lies in its title, The Game of 100 Ghosts: it is ritualised, playful and haunting. Terry Watada models his poems after the long-lost Japanese parlour game of Hyaku Monogatari Kwaidan-kai (A Gathering of One Hundred Supernatural Tales), in which 100 candles are lit and 100 ghost stories are told.

The collection provides both the Chinese and English versions of the works, allowing the reader to compare Goodman's translations with the originals. Her translation doesn't always provide a literal rendition of the Chinese, but it has full awareness of Wang's poetic nuance, carries through the works' humour and sentiments and keeps the essentials of the music.

Diana Yeh's new book gives a detailed, critical account of the life of the Hsiungs, a couple that once had prominent international fame as Chinese cultural and literary ambassadors. Hsiung Shih-I is a very interesting and important figure in 1930s. Because he wrote a biography of Chiang Kai-Shek ("The Life of Chiang Kai-Shek", 1948) and made his stance against Communism, he was for a long time denied an audience in Mainland China. It was not until 2003 that the Mainland version of his most acclaimed work "Lady Precious Stream" appeared. Since then, however, scholarly attention has started to focus on Hsiung, whom Shu Yi has declared as "one of the three masters who greatly contributed to the cultural exchange between China and the West," alongside Lin Yutang and Chiang Yee. Given the rising interest in this forgotten literary figure, Diana Yeh's study of Hsiung is timely.

Andrew David Field’s Mu Shiying: China’s Lost Modernist, is an excellent book for a first-time encounter with this often ignored yet extremely talented Chinese modernist. The book translates six of the most representative stories of Mu’s art at its peak (1932-1934), providing a spectrum of Mu’s versions of metropolitan love. Field’s concise translations are accompanied by a substantial introduction and appreciation of Mu’s life and works, as well as the inter-war social and intellectual climate. A historian of Shanghai culture, Field delivers a discerning account of Mu which will further the discourse on Shanghai modernism established by scholars such as Leo Ou-fan Lee and Shu-mei Shih.

Little attention has been given to computer-assisted language teaching (CALL) lecturers in community colleges in Hong Kong. In this chapter, we present a novel study of CALL lecturers' emotions and well-being while coping with emergency remote teaching (ERT) at a community college in Hong Kong during the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, this study sheds light on emergency CALL teaching design and technical preparation, as well as synchronous and asynchronous online teaching and assessment in this context. We employed interviews to give vivid accounts of four CALL lecturers' inner voices. The resulting data were coded and grouped into themes, and we report the findings as narrative accounts from the representative lecturers and in-depth thematic descriptions. We found that, overall, the CALL lecturers were stressed and overworked, and their physical conditions, especially eyesight, were impaired due to long-term online activities. They were also concerned about the quality of delivery, student feedback, student learning outcomes, and privacy issues. The analysis further revealed practical strategies that the lecturers adopted to address the difficulties they faced during the pandemic. Based on these strategies and the interviews, we present a conceptual emergency adjustment (EA) model to help understand the experiences, emotions, and well-being of CALL lecturers in community colleges in Hong Kong under the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. This research offers a significant contribution to the EA literature and

In addition to linguistic and cultural mediations, Seamus Heaney’s work also situates itself between life and death. Often his poetry is perceived as elegiac, with the loss of rural life and agricultural crafts, the end of innocence and childhood, memories of late family members, and the deaths in the conflicts in Northern Ireland, all becoming subjects of his mourning. This paper examines Heaney’s unique treatment of a nonhuman death in “Widgeon”, one of his shortest and least examined poems. In this poem, the dead body is exposed, and its voice takes over the human elegiac cry. Importantly, the poem raises the ethical question of the living misreading the dead in elegy. Failing to reach consolation, the it arrives at an unexpected irresolution, unresting the dead as well as arresting the living.

The COVID-19 pandemic has prompted the education sector to explore dramatically different teaching modes. This article is a study of emergency remote teaching (ERT) in a community college in Hong Kong. It investigates the challenges that a cohort of 50 ESL lecturers encountered and the strategic responses they adopted in relation to ERT. Documents such as the college newsletter, post-teaching reports and meeting records were used to analyze the language teachers’ context of adjustment, and one-on-one interviews were conducted with four participants from the cohort to explore their firsthand experiences. The analysis revealed the variety of challenges that the participants faced, including the development of technological skills, the preparation of online materials, the implementation of online assessment and marking, as well as interaction with students. In response to these challenges, the participants adopted diverse strategies to achieve pedagogical development in facilitating their teaching practices with students in synchronic online teaching. This article argues that language educators need to develop technological and online interactional competencies so that new pedagogical activities can be developed to enhance students’ learning. In addition, training sessions should be provided to support their pedagogical adaptation and development of new skills. Accordingly, it concludes that adjustment requires both individual and institutional investments.

A published review for Hong Kong Arts Festival's Jane Eyre by Bristol Old Vic and the National Theatre.

Sally Cookson's Jane Eyre is imaginative, beautifully simple, boldly vulgar, and aggressively demanding on the cast. Excellent music by Benji Bower and postmodern device.

However, does it do justice to the original novel?

This review is written in Chinese.

A Review of Taiwan Contemporary Legend Theatre's "The Tempest". First appeared in Wenwei Daily, Hong Kong. Now archived by Taiwan Shakespeare Database. I argue that "The Tempest" incorporates too many elements, causing incongruity and leaving many loose threads. While the director toys with sets, costumes, and Peking Opera elements, the mystery and philosophy in the original text get lost.