Floating Projects 據點。句點

Hollywood Road west to east [Map 8a & b]

You have seen and heard enough of Dai Dat Dei大笪地 area. You now continue your stroll along the entire Hollywood Road which the No. 5 bus goes through. You’ll catch up with the bus later at one of the bus stops on Queen’s Road Central when you get there.

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Following Hollywood Road eastward, you enter what young intellectuals of the day call Hong Kong’s “cultural center” — as it is where newspaper houses, printing shops, schools and, most notably, bookshops concentrate. Almost half of all the local Chinese newspapers have their office here. In order of appearance, from west to east, we have: Wah Kiu Yat Po [華僑日報 hua qiao ribao; daily] (no. 110 Hollywood Road), Nam Chung Evening News [南中晚報 nan zhong wanbao; daily] (no. 108), Nam Keung Yat Po [南強日報 nan qiang ribao; daily] (no. 106), Tin Nam Yat Po [天南日報 tian nan ribao; daily] (no. 53), Eastern Daily News [東方日報 dong fang ribao] and Eastern Weekly [東方星期報 dong fang xingqi bao] (no. 52), and South China Daily News [南華日報 nan hua ri bao] (no. 49-51). As Hollywood becomes Wyndham Street雲咸街 further east, one finds the offices for four of the five local English-language papers: South China Morning Post 南華早報, China Mail 德臣西報, Hong Kong Telegraph士蔑報 and Hong Kong Sunday Herald, while Hong Kong Daily Press 孖刺西報 is just nearby on Ice House Street 雪廠街. Wyndham, often nicknamed “flower street,” has the YMCA as its landmark building. [Photo 8]

Old residents may recall the colony’s first local traveling, temporary theater, Hei Loi Garden 喜來園, screening silent shorts at no. 68 Hollywood Road, starting early December 1900. It was a unique moment in the history of local movie-going: traveling shows from the west came to Hong Kong and they traveled from one venue to the next, following the availability of vacant space, which could be a piece of unused open space left there after demolition, or a disused shop premise. The show at no. 68, with the temporary name of Hei Loi Garden, lasted for fifty days, and then in late October 1902, it moved to an empty space on the left of Man Mo Temple 文武廟 (no. 140 Hollywood Road, south side, at Ladder Street 樓梯街), lasting for about half a month.

Old residents may also recall the Bijou Scenic Theatre 比照戲院, a European club-house turned cinematograph in 1907, which was most famous for its mysterious interpreter, or, borrowing a Japanese term, benshi 弁士, the person who would translate inter-titles from foreign languages into Cantonese. No one had seen his face! For he would climb to the top of a long ladder set inside the theatre between the front and back stalls only after the house-light dimmed. He would impersonate the voice of many roles and improvise some sound effects with simple tools. Then about three minutes before the end of a show, he would quietly climb down the ladder to leave the theater on time to stay anonymous. [[1]] The wonderful performance of the “faceless” interpreters at Bijou was extremely popular and had sustained great business up till 1913. [[2]] A job advertisement for interpreters of foreign silent films for the Chinese audience states the candidate’s basic qualities: fluent in both Chinese and English, articulate, and with a sonorous voice. [[3]]

According to a writer of cinema history in Macau, Bijou “had the blessing of the then numerous Portuguese community” as the cinema was “heavily patronized by the Portuguese.” [[4]] Bijou, on Wyndham Street, was a longitudinal space without a second floor, carrying about 600 seats. It offered two programs per day: the 7:15pm program was for motion pictures only, whereas the 9:15pm show had movies accompanied by vaudeville shows with “popular artists.” [[5]] Coronet, Bijou’s successor, mis-translated in most existing literature as “the New Bijou” from its Chinese name, moved a block down-slope to D’Aguilar and Queen’s Road Central in 1917, which became King’s Theatre in 1931, and the best equipped theater by 1934. At no. 23 Lyndhurst Street 擺花街, a little digression from Hollywood Road before it becomes Wyndham, one finds the editorial office of Tan Hai Deng zhou kan [= search light weekly 探海燈週刊], which offers news on prostitutes and brothels.

A number of “avant-garde” bookstores stand out on Hollywood Road, where the young intelligentsia hangs out. One of them, in the mid-section of the road, is Hollywood Book Company [He Li Huo tushu gongsi 荷李活圖書公司], opened around 1928, majoring in “new literature” [xin wenyi 新文藝]. [[6]] You would enjoy browsing books here. Walk in, and you find a large table in the centre of the shop on which all books and publications are spread out on display. This is totally different from the standard practice of lining up books on bookshelves behind glass panels behind the salesperson. Hollywood Book’s arrangement facilitates free access. It signifies a form of “emancipation,” turning reading into a democratic, free and pleasurable activity. You can now save the trouble of having to ask the shopkeepers for a book in order to browse it. Next door you find Luk Po Book Store [[7]] [Lu Bo shudian, meaning “green waves” 綠波書店], which is even more ground-breaking. Luk Bo gives up school text-books altogether, and focuses purely on “new literature” and magazines/periodicals. When the store first opened, flyers were posted on the shop window and on the shelves inside the store, stating its commitment to the enhancement of Hong Kong’s cultural well-being and to encouraging customers to browse freely. [[8]]

You are walking further east down Hollywood Road away from the district of Sheung Wan 上環, now moving into the session in Central. You want to stop a few moments at Shui Man Book Room [萃文書房 Sui Wen shu fang, meaning “the book room for outstanding literature”], known to be the earliest of all the “avant-garde” bookstores. The first thing that catches your attention should be a portrait of Dr. Sun Yat-sen, founder of the Chinese Republic, hung on a prominent part of the wall. Other than that, Shui Man is an ordinary-looking shop that you may easily dismiss. Inside, it seems not much thought has been put into the aesthetics of display, or else, within the tiny shop space, you should immediately catch sight of an elderly man, a proclaimed Protestant in an outdated shirt and vest with a tie, a personal style he keeps throughout the year. He is Shui Man’s owner. You should also see a younger man, who is his son. There is no other shop assistant as the shop is really too small for any. Ask the elderly gentleman about political struggles in China these days. If he is in the right mood and he remembers your face, he will grumble a bit and relate to you the good old Chinese Revolution (completed 1911) of which he has some personal stories to tell. Shui Man sells school text-books and stationery. But look carefully and you will find “new literature” items and thought-provoking magazines and publications. Shui Man is explicit about its mission to introduce “new culture” to Hong Kong. But not everything progressive or about the “new culture” just lies around in the shop. One has to be a frequent customer. You want to ask the old gentleman if which issue of so and so publication has arrived or not, and he will certainly dig it out for you from a particular corner. Try him, for example, for Xiao Chilun 小齒輪 [= the little cog-wheel], just inaugurated on October 15, 1933. The publication has churned out only one issue that year. [[9]] Even if the publication is not around yet, he will be knowledgeable of the background stories and the contact persons. [[10]] You may also ask him when the first local poetry publication, Shi Ye 詩頁 [the poetic pages], may come out, as many who hang out in the progressive bookstores have been hearing about such a publication to be born between 1934 and the next year. [[11]] The old man may tell you that one of these days the young men who are working on it will bring the copies to the store as that is the way they usually distribute their new works. [[12]] This semi-open practice may not be the best business arrangement when compared with Luk Po’s exploitation of the “new” for publicity. But one can always rely on Shui Man for the most updated publications by the most active literary groups, as well as highly “thought-provoking” materials that other stores would not risk carrying. [[13]]

These bookstores and others are the instruments of a new force to nourish “new ideas” — initiated notably among school teachers. Lui Lun 呂倫, a frequenter of Shui Man, editor of various pages at South China Daily News and activist for local literature, points to a rather concentrated force to inaugurate new ideas despite the ruling presence of a pragmatic mindset that appears to stifle any progressive tendencies in the colony. Many years after 1934, he wrote in retrospect:

“Those unwilling to remain backward within the educational sector were not those stubborn preservers of `national heritage’ in the Chinese department of the university place or Chinese-language teachers in the secondary school, but those teaching in the primary schools.” [[14]] [my translation]

According to Lui, as early as 1923, there had been self-organized evening study groups that met twice or thrice per week. Although the prime subject matter was the learning of contemporary Chinese language and how to teach it in school, these groups were centers for the dissemination of progressive, modern ideas via the study of new literature. And Lui calls the bookstores “a complementary but not secondary force” for that mission.

Lui Lun’s workplace, South China Daily News, is not far from Shui Man on 49-51 Hollywood Road. South China runs Hong Kong’s most lively literary pages titled “Jing Cao” 勁草 [strong grass]. Because of its quality editorial work, it has attracted the more outstanding and serious young writers. The pages not only publish submitted literary works, but also publicize other artistic activities, such as a painting exhibition by a returning Chinese artist from France, or report on drama activities of Chinese overseas students in Japan.[15] In the summer of 1934, the editorial personnel of “Jing Cao” host the first meeting of their “literary tea-conversation” [wenyi cha hua hui 文藝茶話會], which they plan to take place twice a month. The initial gatherings soon give birth to a new literary bi-weekly, Xin Di 新地 [new ground].[[16]] In its debut issue, a series of essays are published to introduce Soviet films, which Hong Kong audiences have not had the chance to see yet, and essays on the works of Japan’s “New Literature” [xin xing wenxue]. [[17]] The publication only lasts for a little over half a year into 1935.

At the time of 1934, Hollywood Road is a somewhat freshly gentrified area. At the founding moment of the colony in 1842, the eastern portion of what is today’s Hollywood Road, together with Lyndhurst and Wyndham Street, used to be called the Middle Bazaar, whose Chinese settlers were somewhere between small business owners and those with a criminal element. And the particularly high number of young females in the area indicated active prostitution. By 1844, dismayed by the nuisance the Chinese population caused to its European neighbors, the Governor ordered a clean-up, and as a result, the Chinese population was moved westward to the Taipingshan area, around the western end of Hollywood Road. [[18]] Since then, the eastern portion of Hollywood, Lyndhurst and Wyndham emerged as the service centre where European prostitutes received European and upper-class Chinese customers (whereas the well-to-do Chinese in general could go to the Possession Point area in Taipingshan town to use the Chinese brothels there). That lasted for almost ninety years until 1932 when the order to end the licensing practice of prostitution houses and the abolition of prostitution in general took effect for both European prostitutes and Japanese ones (in Wanchai). [[19]] Hollywood east has been finally cleansed and sheds for good the identity of a red-light district.

Central was no doubt the cradle of the evolvement of any distinct Hong Kong culture. [[20]] But its history was more than the shift from a business center to an administrative center. It once, at least in the 1920s and 1930s, played a role in the nourishment of progressive sentiments, a mild power-centre of local culture.

Going down-slope from Hollywood Road, through Lyndhurst Street, D’Aguilar Street, Wyndham Street, or Ice House Street, one finds the way back to Queen’s Road Central to catch the next No. 5 bus. Watch out for a single-decker bus with the logo “Vulcan” at the front, and a sign that says “Causeway Bay” in English, but “Tai Hang” in Chinese.

[1] The anonymity of the interpreter in Hong Kong stands in stark contrast with the practice of “benshi”弁士 (interpreter in Japanese) in Japan in the early 20^th century. In the latter, the benshi pertained to a unique “cultural class,” often taken as those who could handle foreign languages and knowledgeable about the West. In fact, the benshis, not the movie performers, were the selling point of moving picture screenings. In the beginning of every screening, the main benshi would go on stage to give a grand introduction before he stepped to the side to start his interpretation. See Masterpieces of Japanese Silent Cinema (DVD-ROM) (Tokyo: Urban Connections/IPA, 2000), section titled “Research Centre.”

[2] Ha Lik 夏歷 (1995), pp. 227-8.

[3] See image of job advertisement from the 1920s in Tong Cheuk-man, David P.M. Toong, Alan S.K. Cheung and Mo Yu-kai (compilers), A Selective Collection of Hong Kong Historic Postcards (Hong Kong: Joint Publishing, 1993), p. 105.

[4] Henrique de Senna Fernandes, “Cinema in Macau: the ` Silent’ Years – I” in Review of Culture no. 18 (English edition), January/March, 1994, p. 159.

[5] See movie ads in SCMP (South China Morning Post), e.g. Tuesday, June 13, 1911, p.6. The manager and lessee of the theater was Bob Stephenson.

[6] “New literature,” and “new culture” later on in this paragraph, refer to the innovations of the new literary movement initiated in the Mainland as a result of the May Fourth Movement in 1919. Innovations include modernizing the Chinese language by adopting the vernacular, and revolution in principles and methods of literature.

[7] The English spelling “Luk Po” is this writer’s own translation based on the normal spelling practice for Cantonese names. My source only provides the Chinese name of the store.

[8] Lui Lun 呂倫, “Xianggang xin wenhua zizhang qi suo yi” 香港新文化滋長期瑣憶 [random thoughts in the recollection of the germinating phase of Hong Kong’s New Culture]; originally published in July 1966, collected in Lui Lun, Xiang shui wu bi yu 向水屋筆語 [notes from the “by the water” house], (Hong Kong: Joint Publishing, 1985), pp. 7-8.

[9] The founding issue was the only issue of Xiao Chilun ever published.

[10] Lui Lun 呂倫, p. 20. Xiao Chilun 小齒輪 was published with money from the pocket of its editor, Lo Hang [Lu Heng], an enthusiast of new literature. His legs became paralyzed due to hard labor in the United States when he was young. Not being able to walk, he made his living by writing to newspapers to earn the meager article fees.

[11] Ibid., p. 26. The title of the essay is “shi kangwu he huaju tuan” 詩刊物和話劇團 [poetry publications and drama troupes]; originally published in November 1977. Shi Ye 詩頁 [pages of poetry] is a 25-page square-size periodical, with a very Chinese folk-style cover, using rough red paper with gold speckles, stitched on one side. Except for the text which is printed by machine, each copy is hand-made and put together by a group of enthusiastic young people. However, based on another anthology, zao qi Xianggang xin wenxue zuopin xuan: 1927-1941 早期香港新文學作品選：1927-1941 [a selection of early New Literature works in Hong Kong: 1927-1941], William Tay, Wong Kai-chi, Lo Wai-luen 盧偉鑾 (eds.) (Hong Kong: Cosmos Books 天地圖書, 1998), the poetry magazine published in 1934 should be called jinri shige 今日詩歌 [poetry today]. The founding issue was published in September 1934, and seems to be the only issue ever published.

[12] Ibid., p. 26.

[13] Ibid.. The title of the essay is “Xianggang xin wenhua zizhang qi suo yi” [random thoughts in the recollection of the germinating phase of Hong Kong’s New Culture], pp. 5-6. Shui Man [Rui wen] was managed by the son of the boss, and closed down after the Second World War.

[14] Ibid., p. 4. For an official account of the status of literary development, epitomized by the situation at the Chinese Department, the University of Hong Kong, see Lo Hsiang-lin, Hong Kong and Western Cultures (Tokyo: Centre for East Asian Cultural Studies; Honolulu: East West Centre Press, 1963), pp. 225-234.

[15] Ibid., p. 22. Title of essay is “wenyi cha hua hui yu Xin Di” 文藝茶話會與[the literary tea conversation meetings and “the new ground”], originally published in October 1977.

[16] Ibid., p. 34. Title of essay is “dao shang de yi qun” [到山的一群; lit. the group on the Island], originally published on March 12, 1983. Xin Di [新地 new earth] was edited by To Gak-ling [Du Geling] and Lui Lun 呂倫.

[17] Ibid., p.24.

[18] Smith, pp. 42-7.

[19] Lo Yin, p. 107.

[20] Smith, pp. 42-7.

Linda Lai / Heterotopia as performative geography: strolling through Hollywood Road (2)