The wonder years
Great adaptations
Xi Xi's massive fan base includes many writers, both aspiring and well-established. Law, who is cohosting Sunday's event in honor of Xi Xi, says: "She provided a unique perspective on Hong Kong. Through metaphor and a surrealist perspective, she was able to untangle complex identity issues, reveal the beauty of Hong Kong's cityscape, and address the city's cultural hybridity and fluidity."
Law's fellow panelist Wong first encountered Xi Xi's work at secondary school. "She looks at life with humility, dignity and childlike wonder, electing to be gentle and caring while being aware of the suffering in the world and one's limited capacity to change things," she says.
In 2021, two of Xi Xi's short stories, The Cold and A Girl Like Me, served as the base for a Cantonese-language chamber opera called Women Like Us. Wong was the librettist. Later this month those same stories appear in a newer iteration, as the dance opera Love Streams, staged as part of the Hong Kong Arts Festival (HKAF).
Tammy Ho Lai-ming, founding co-editor of the Hong Kong-based Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, names Xi Xi as one of her biggest influences.
"Xi Xi had a way of creating a world that was both relatable and also uniquely hers. You want to immerse yourself in that world," she says. "Having grown up reading her work, it was such a wholesome experience to finally meet her and talk to her."
Award-winning composer Daniel Lo Ting-cheung adapted Xi Xi's short story A Girl Like Me into the chamber opera A Woman Such as Myself. The work premiered in 2018 at the New Opera Days Ostrava festival in Czech Republic. Following its success, the HKAF commissioned Lo to score Women Like Us.
"There are poems inserted in between the story to punctuate the emotions of the protagonist," notes Lo about the structure of The Cold. The poems remind him of a Greek chorus.
"Xi Xi's stories touch on such soul-searching themes as the meaning of love; courage and cowardice; destiny and choice," Lo adds. "These are themes that transcend time and culture."
