Walker

Ricky Hui left suddenly.
Everyone celebrates his comedies,
but few people know that he was a top class song-writer.
He wrote songs for Samuel Hui.
Cold Wind of the Heartless Night
is the one I love the most.
I found a CD of him singing.
It was brimming with the self-pity and helplessness
of the nobody he was portraying.
Last year, I came to Hong Kong.
As usual, I went to the Wing Wah Restaurant in Tsim Sha Tsui
to drink tea and eat bo lo yau.
Walking back and forth, I thought I must have taken the wrong street,
as I couldn’t find the old shop-front any more.
Dumbfounded.
I remembered that in Mong Kok,
hanging at the corner of the arcade in front of the long-queues for egg-tarts,
there had been photographs of stars and celebrities.
I had bought the youthfulness of Connie Chan and Josephine Siao,
and the beautiful girls of the Shaw Brothers Studio.
Now they are all like the egg-tarts—
gone.
Overseas Chinese born in the 60s and 70s
have some inescapable feelings towards Hong Kong.
Myself especially.
Ever since I was little, I had watched Cantonese films with my Grandfather.
So every time I come here
it’s like I’m searching for happy memories.
For just one more glance
at those beautiful tableaus
that have not yet faded away.—T.M.L.

Screens as part of Invisible Attributes – By Sky and on Foot.