In the 3rd of a 4-piece contemplation on her overstaying in home city Hong Kong, artist Cici Wu persists in grasping the complexity of the city’s colonial experience, but can’t help linking that to the impossibility of a definite denouement in life encounters. 《剪紙憶思》之三。讓流淌的思潮穿梭於殖民經驗的繁複性，以至生活機遇的沒有清晰的結局。
*feature image: courtesy of the author Cici Wu
| Cici Wu 武雨濛
「讓我們重新在中國民族主義視角之外，嘗試另一種理解英國殖民前期和辛亥革命前後一段香港歷史的不同解讀方式，打開了另一個了解當時複雜殖民境況（colonial conditions）的空間。在這種嶄新的殖民經驗敘事下，涉及構造當時殖民處境的，並不是兩方各自在內部具同質性的”殖民者”與 “被殖民者” 兩造的力量，而是各自內部都有不可隨便化約的異質性和內部矛盾。所以，與其簡化地把殖民力量看成一種入侵性的力量，不如將殖民入侵理解為一種對當地原來的權利格局的外部干擾。這種干擾必然會帶來新的交涉互動，其形式和後果，必然會是糾結曖昧，一言難盡。」 — 羅永生
“Let us try another way of interpreting Hong Kong’s history in its early British colonial phase, and that before and after the 1911 Revolution, from a perspective outside of Chinese nationalism, in order to open up another space for understanding the complex colonial conditions at that time. This brand-new narrative of colonial experience is not about the rivalry power of the colonizer versus the colonized constructed within a shared context, but the irreducible heterogeneity and internal conflicts within each [power cluster], which must not be simplified. Therefore, rather than simply looking at colonial power as an invading force, it is better to understand colonial invasion as an external force that disrupts the original local power paradigm, which necessarily leads to new negotiations between and within each side. The resulting forms and consequences are inevitably entangling and ambiguous, indescribable in simplistic terms.” — LO Wing-sang (translated by Cici Wu, adjusted by FP editor)
十一月十二號之前 (before 12 November 2021)
Rationality is far from me tonight
I turn to irrationality with
misunderstanding a cat or a star
你想要的不過是一份安全感
是一種消失了的陪伴
很普通很普通的一種感覺
也不過兩年而已
可是這兩年像是做了一個很長很長的夢
十一月十七號 (17 November)
一架飛機降落 (a plane landed)
十一月二十號 (20 November)
Karma means the residual impact of all the memories that you have.
How it impacts every thought, every emotion, every action, the very way you sit and stand.
Memory is the basis of boundaries.
姨媽的不快樂，讓我想到北京的天空和街道
還有一些 讓我害怕的東西 害怕回憶起一些已經快要忘記了的事情
有一些事物可能真的不太適合我
為什麼你不能自由呢
我想如果有一天你可以和我一起離開 那樣就好了
可是我真的可以想像你來香港 與我一起生活的樣子嗎
十年之前的日記裡可能也寫過一樣的句子
原來 每一次愛情帶來的 是想要一起離去的衝動 和渴望離去這個行動帶來的解放與自由
十一月二十一號 (21 November)
Transform the culture of violence
Kazu Haga
十一月二十二號 (22 November)
我在學習一個人與自己的衝動、不安、和想要化解遭遇，拯救世界的心情相處
如果有一件事情我必須學習 那可能就是更有耐心的對待自己
不需要依賴任何人或者希望他人可以幫我化解煩惱與遭遇
不合時宜的溝通也許就是 一種打擾
十一月三十號 (30 November)
Channelling with the White Snake and Leifeng Pagoda today
相傳白娘子被鎮在雷峰塔下。她頭戴孝頭鬓，烏雲畔插着些素釵梳，穿一领白絹衫，下穿一條細麻布裙。
At the same time, I am watching a talk by Achille Mbembe on the Idea of a “World Without Borders.” Speaking on the idea of human mobility in a context of global political struggle and the transformation of borders from the geographical to the technological, he compared borders to the presence of skin; a confinement: the mobility of skin, ethnicity, and culture in relation to oppression and nation-building.
I still feel sad after all. The impossibility of imagining a person to be happy and comfortable in my ‘hometown’. That is the distance we have. Somehow the failure to imagine a realistic resolution made me very lonely. We are not free. Will we ever be?
“So when I speak of the Other of the West, it is never only Asia. Within the Asian communities, if you speak to Chinese or to Japanese people, for example, what they know of Vietnamese culture is likely to be less widespread than, let’s say, what the Vietnamese know of Chinese and Japanese cultures. The ‘minorities’ are always socialized to see from more than one points of views. So my positioning in relation to Asia and within the Asian community is already slightly off and different. The tendency to locate me within a geographically specific fight-whether in Vietnam, in Asia or in the States-can be very confining and reductive.”
-Trinh T. Minh-ha
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