WRITERS ABROAD MAGAZINE: THE THIRD SPACE
I also find the summers here very hard because it’s so hot. From June onwards the
temperatures are mid to high thirties and the humidity can be up to 99%. It usually starts
cooling down in October, so we also take our longest holiday in the summer months to
escape the heat.
What impact did Hong Kong have on you emotionally, sensorally or intellectually and
did you incorporate this into your writing?
Despite having lived abroad for nearly ten years, I find that most of my stories are set in the
UK. I want to write more stories set in Hong Kong, but I don’t want to force it. I’m waiting for
it to come naturally. A couple of years ago I went to a talk with the writer Xu Xi (an English
language novelist from Hong Kong) and she said that she often wrote about places once
she’d left them. Hopefully that will be the same for me. Having lived here this long I feel I
owe it to Hong Kong to write about it.
What are local attitudes to writers?
There is a very active expat writing community in Hong Kong, comprised mainly of two
groups: the Hong Kong Writers’ Circle (HKWC) and Hong Kong Women in Publishing
Society (HKWiPs). Those members who are locals write in English.
What have you learnt from living in Hong Kong?
I’ve learned what it’s like to live amongst people and within a culture that is totally different
from your own. As a child I lived in Holland and before coming to Hong Kong I lived in
Germany. These countries are obviously different from the UK, but not hugely. However, in
Hong Kong there are things that people do or don’t do, which can seem very strange, even
rude, to expats. It is a constant reminder of the differences in culture.
Also, Cantonese (the local language in Hong Kong) is
extremely difficult to learn. There are nine tones and unless
you have extremely good hearing – which I don’t – they’re
almost impossible to distinguish. Trying, and failing, to learn the
local language has been hard for me to accept. When I lived in
Holland, I learned Dutch. When I lived in Germany, I learned
German. I thought it would be the same here, but it was so
much harder. And with so many people speaking English the
need for it dwindled. There are times, though, when it would be useful and then I berate
myself for not persevering.
Describe a typical day in your life in Hong Kong including your writing.
I have a young son, so the majority of my day is taken up looking after him. He wakes up
early and in the mornings we always go out, either to the playground, the library, a park, or
we meet up with friends. After lunch he has a nap and this is when I write. I’ve had to adapt
my writing routine, because I was always the most productive when I wrote in the morning.
That’s just not possible now. The first few times I wrote during his naptime were very
unproductive, but I kept sitting down at the table with my pen and notepad (I always write
first drafts by hand) and slowly the habit formed. Now I don’t have any problems writing in
the afternoon. Sometimes I also write in the evenings after he’s gone to bed, or type up my
work from earlier in the day or do other writing related things, such as critiquing.
34 | May 2016