by Louise Leung Fung Yee

Louise Leung: I grew up in a very traditional and religious household with my maternal grandparents. I remember watching my grandfather burn joss paper on the first and 15th day of every Lunar month and I have always wanted to write something about filial piety and the pressures it brings to bear on the younger generation. When I visited the graves of ancestors on my father’s side, I would hear at least 10 names of people I had never met. The number of ancestors will only increase, so our descendants will have to burn offerings for so many relatives. Another topic that I have been wanting to write about is the common Chinese deities such as the “Lord of the Soil and the Ground” 土地公. As mentioned, I came from a religious household, and from a young age I was taught, especially by my grandmother, to always pay tribute and respect to these deities. These two ideas clash when I jokingly translate 天地父母 as “sky land daddy mommy”. Essentially, my poem is a mixture of critique of Confucian filial piety and love for the playful Cantonese language.

Of course, ancestor worship is not an exclusively Chinese practice. But in Chinese culture, the concept of remembering one’s “origins” is very important. Children are instructed to show gratitude and respect for their elders and ancestors because they worked hard to bring generations into the world and raise them. If it weren’t for them, we wouldn’t have been born. So technically, we “owe” them, and this logic is seemingly understood and accepted by everybody. When people grow old, they treat the younger generation the way they were treated. Vicious cycle. On the first and 15th day of every Lunar month, the family would burn paper offerings in a metal container. They believe that fire is a gateway to the underworld and that the ghosts of their ancestors will be able to receive the “hell money” this way and continue living happily in the afterlife. In a way, ancestor worship is an expansion of the (still-living) family. This regular memorial ritual makes you think that you are not too far away from your ancestor.

Code-switching is fun. It happens when speakers switch between two or more languages in the same utterance. In my poem, I use both English and Chinese, following the principal of code-switching. Using Cantonese allows me to explore more linguistic variations such as homophones or words that create double-meanings (or more layers of meaning) and puns. In these instances, I don’t think footnotes are always enough, while direct translations may also not be ideal. For me, I code-switch for the puns and sounds of Cantonese, which itself employs a lot of borrowed pronunciations such as “的士 taxi” and puns like “獅子拉人”. I have always adored these examples of linguistic suppleness. When I first learned English, I also used Cantonese to help me memorise pronunciations. For example, “dictation 迪-t-A-唇”. So I guess I have always paid extra attention to linking the sounds of different languages.

“no 家用? then you mo lun yung” is pretty direct. “無撚用 mo lun yung” means “fucking useless”. So “no housekeeping money? then you are fucking useless!” I did not use the Cantonese version because I didn’t want to put the two repeating Chinese characters of “用” together. Besides, it sounds quirkier if you read the English version. The English version somehow has a longer sound than the Cantonese one. So instead of saying it as “/ / \” with all characters separate, the sound of “/- /- \-” adds more to the tone.

“no 香? then mo ching 港” has three meanings. “香 Heung” means fragrance or incense. “港 Kong” means harbour, and is a homophone to “講 Kong”. “香港 Heung Kong” means Hong Kong. It can be interpreted as “no fragrance? then no deal in the harbour!” which refers to the origin of Hong Kong as an entrepôt. It can also be seen as “no Hong? then no Kong!” which is a nod to the political or inner divisions between people. The last interpretation is the easiest. “no incense (offerings)? then shut up!” which criticises the corruption of filial piety from the original virtues to the demands of returns.

While I translated some names of the deities into English, such as “天地父母 sky land daddy mommy” and “土地公 dirt land grandpa”, I intentionally chose not to translate “雷公” as “thunder grandpa”. The reason is that my translations are meant to be sarcastic and to mock how ridiculous Chinese deities are under the Confucian influence. Not only are you required to pay respect to your parents and grandparents, but you are also required to pay additional respect to deities because they are family despite not being related to you at all. “門神 door gods” is another example. I like how “door gods” sounds together with “guard dogs” with the inversion of the “d-” and “g-” opening consonants. It literally reduces their statutes from holy gods to security guards. “雷公” is not translated because it will affect the flow of the line.「小心雷公劈你」 is a Cantonese slang meaning “Beware the God of Thunder striking you (because you are not filially pious!)” If I translated ”雷公”, the sentence would have been longer and delayed the comedic effect. People may not have got the reference if I’d put “thunder grandpa” next to it.

I should probably give some incense to the deities after writing this poem. I don’t want to vex them.

Published: Friday 29 April 2022

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Louise Leung is a young Hong Kong poet and a final-year student at the University of Hong Kong. She is one of the curators for OutLoud Hong Kong 隨言香港, Hong Kong’s longest-running English poetry collective. Their works have been published by Canto Cutie, Voice and Verse Poetry Magazine, and Cha: An Asian Literary Journal. They were featured speakers in Poetics of Home Festival: Voices in Hong Kong, What We Read Now: Home, and various Cha readings. The themes of Louise’s works circle around their life and Hong Kong’s cultural politics.