Course:ASIA351/2022/Dung Kai-Cheung
Dung Kai-Cheung (Chinese: Dong Qizhang 董啟章) is a Hong Kong writer, journalist, playwright and essayist. He obtained his Master of philosophy in comparative literature at the University of Hong Kong. He writes about both fiction, reality and self-reflection[1], but is best known for his fiction work such as “Androgyny: Evolution of a Nonexistent Species” (1996), “The Atlas: Archaeology of an Imaginary City” (1997) or “Histories of Time” (2007). Currently, he is a professor at various Hong Kong universities, teaching creative writing and Hong Kong literature.
| Dung Kai-Cheung | |
|---|---|
.jpg) | |
| Born | 1967 |
| Occupation | Author |
| Education | University of Hong Kong |
| Genre | Fiction |
| Spouse | Huang Nianxin |
| Child | Dong Xinguo (son) |
Life
Dung Kai-Cheung was born to a wealthy family in Hong Kong in 1967. He is the eldest son and has a younger brother and a younger sister. His father opened a hardware workshop “Tong Fu Kee” in Tong Mei Road. At the age of six, his family moved to Cypress Street, in Sham Shui Po District, Kowloon, where he ended up living for more than 20 years.[2]
He attended La Salle Primary school, then La salle Secondary school. In middle school, he started to write in prose and studied liberal arts, Chinese history, world history, geography, economics and other subjects. He has excellent grades, except in Chinese. After examination, he went to the preparatory class of La Salle College, studying Chinese literature, Chinese history, Western history and English. During the preparatory course, he met fellow classmate Chao Liren, who greatly inspired him.[2]
In 1986, Dung Kai-Cheung started studying at the University of Hong Kong. During the first year, he studied Chinese, Chinese history and English. In the second year, he began to study modern and contemporary works. In his third year, he studied English and comparative literature. After obtaining his undergraduate degree, he went on to study for a Master of Philosophy in the Department of Comparative Literature at the University of Hong Kong. It wasn’t until 1992 that Dung Kai-Cheung started to write novels and publish articles. During this time the monthly commission for publishing a 10,000-word short story was $3,000 HKD (Hong Kong dollars), a considerable sum.[2]
The writer Ye Si received some of his novels and sent them to "Sing Tao Daily" which published them in the literary supplement "Literary Weather." In addition, Dung Kai-Cheung’s short stories were also published in "Literature and Art."
In 1994, Dung Kai-Cheung obtained his Master of Philosophy in Comparative Literature, with his thesis "The concept of the body in Marcel Proust's Remembrance of things past." The same year he won the first prize for Short Story Recommendation Award at the Joint Literary Novel Newcomer Award for "Youth Shennong" and won the First Prize of Novella for "Andrew Jenny." This officially started his life as a writer.[3]
Between 1994 and 1996, he also wrote many book reviews in newspapers to make a living.
In 1996, Dung Kai-Cheung took a job as a part-time lecturer at different Hong Kong based universities. One of them is the Chinese University of Hong Kong, where he taught the "Hong Kong Literature Appreciation" for more than ten years.
In 1997, he published Atlas, which will become one of his most important works which later won the Science Fiction and Fantasy Translation Award in 2013. [3]
In 2000, he created Guo Zhan Bao Creative Writing Workshop, which was present at multiple middle schools. Through this workshop he taught classic literature.
From 2005 to 2010, Dung Kai-Cheung continued to work on several novels such as "Natural History Trilogy," "Heavenly Creation. Lifelike" and “The History of Time – The Light of Dumb Porcelain.”
In 2019, Dung Kai-Cheung founded the "Hong Kong Literary Living Museum" in Wanchai to promote literature and gather literati, he provides literature courses and organizes cultural activities.[2]
Personal Life
Dung Kai-Cheung is married to Huang Nianxin, a scholar and a writer. She is currently an associate professor of the Department of Chinese Language and Literature at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. The couple met when they co-wrote an article "Speech Articles: Interviewing and Reading Ten Hong Kong Writers." They dated for two years and got married in 1997, after his marriage he left Sham Shui Po to settle in Fanling with his wife. In 2002, they had a son named Dong Xinguo.[4]
Despite winning awards, Dung Kai-Cheung did not earn enough as a writer to support his family. As a result, his wife was the breadwinner of the family while he took care of their son. They went through multiple financial difficulties and almost had to sell their house. He has mentioned his gratitude for his wife who never stopped supporting him. Dung Kai-Cheung has also suffered from anxiety since 2014.[4]
The writer Wang Yixing was one of Dung Kai-Cheung’s students at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Literary career
Interest in Literature
During the years when Dung Kai-Cheung was in secondary school, he studied Chinese literature[5] and continued with this interest by focusing on Comparative Literature studies when he was at the University of Hong Kong.[6] He started to gain interest in foreign literature after reading an abundance of literary texts from the Comparative Literature courses he took in post-secondary.[5] Following Dung’s success as an award-winning writer in Hong Kong, he also spends time teaching creative writing and literature in universities across Hong Kong.[7]
As a Writer
Dung Kai-Cheung started his writing journey at the beginning of his undergraduate studies with his first written work being in English, yet the piece was unsuccessful. In his writing, he constantly displayed the interplay between two approaches of thinking, theoretical and creative, which forms and characterizes his overall creative writing style.[5]
Dung is a prolific writer who wrote more than 30 books of various lengths, including essays, short stories, and novels. Some writers that principally influenced Dung’s works include Leung Ping-Kwan and Liu Yi-Chang due to their concern for Hong Kong culture and stylistic freedom respectively.[6]
Perspective on Hong Kong
As Dung Kai-Cheung’s works mainly focus on the city where he lived his whole life, he believes that Hong Kong is a convergence where it is open to change and capable of new creations, whether in the language, history, or literature.[6] In particular, when Dung describes Hong Kong in his works, he often presents the city as a combination of materiality and dreams, a composition of historical and imaginary, and a place with many layers yet to be unveiled. About his perspective on Hong Kong, he remarks that “My idea of Hong Kong is not inward-looking, it is outward-stretching. This is why Hong Kong is unique: because it is a combination of all the factors, a city that nearly didn’t exist, and was brought into existence in the middle of the 19th century. Before 1842 there was no such place, even if we are a product of Chinese history and Western history.” [6]
Writing Hong Kong
As a previous British colony and current post-colonial, or neo-colonial, condition of China, the complexity of Hong Kong’s colonial history makes it difficult to tell its story. Hence, Hong Kong was compelled to assert its subjectivity and identity beyond the Britain-China binary after the handover of Hong Kong in 1997. While the “mainlandication” of Hong Kong leads to the close relations between Hong Kong and mainland China, its political, economic, and cultural ties continue to burden the city’s development.[8]
Dung Kai-Cheung expressed his concerns about Hong Kong’s future developments and the meaning of writing Hong Kong for writers. He views the term “Hong Kong writer” as ambiguous and problematic because it excludes writers who write about the city of Hong Kong. Since the term expects the writers to be authentic Hong Kong natives and presumes that they have homogenized local identities, it limits the meaning of a writer within the word “local” and rejects every connotation beyond it. Hence, Dung clarifies that the act of writing Hong Kong defines anyone as a “Hong Kong writer” rather than being based on their ethnic, cultural, or national identities.[8]
Awards
- 1994 Unitas Fiction Writing Award for New Writers (台灣第八屆聯合文學小說新人獎)[9]
- 1995 United Daily News Literary Award for the Novel (第十七屆聯合報文學獎長篇小說特別獎)
- 1997 Hong Kong Arts Development Council Literary Award for New Writers (第一屆香港藝術發展局文學獎新秀獎)
- 2009 Award for Best Artist in Literary Arts from the Hong Kong Arts Development Council 香港藝術發展局獎「2007/2008年度最佳藝術家獎 (文學藝術)」
- 2013 Science Fiction and Fantasy Translation Awards Long Form[10]
- 2014 Hong Kong Book Fair Author of the Year 獲選為香港書展「年度作家」[11]
- 2017 Hong Kong Book Award《心》「第十屆香港書獎」
- 2018 Hong Kong Book Award 《神》「第十一屆香港書獎」
- 2019 Taiwan International Book Exhibition Grand Award《愛妻》台北國際書展大獎「小說獎」
English Translated Works
| Title | Year Published | Genre | Translators |
|---|---|---|---|
| Atlas: The Archaeology of an Imaginary City | 2012 | Science and Urban Fiction | Bonnie S. McDougall and Anders Hansson |
| Cantonese Love Stories | 2017 | Romance Fiction | Bonnie S. McDougall and Anders Hansson |
| The History of the Adventures of Vivi and Vera | 2018 | Fiction | Wai-Ping Yau |
| A Catalog of Such Stuff as Dreams Are Made On | 2022 | Urban Fiction | Bonnie S. McDougall and Anders Hansson |
Representative works
Writing Style
As a Hong Kong writer, a big aspect of Dung Kai-Cheung’s writing style involves the distinct nature of the Cantonese language. The language situation in Hong Kong can be quite complicated because when they talk and read aloud they use Cantonese, but when they write they use Modern Standard Chinese. This causes a division between speech and text.[7] However, many Hong Kong writers use this split between spoken and written language to their advantage by being open to possibilities for more linguistic innovation.[7] It provides them with much richer linguistic resources and allows for a more acute sense of reflection.[7] Dung Kai-Cheung is no exception. He is widely known for his blend of Modern Standard Chinese and Cantonese in his works. Since he claims that all factors that shaped Hong Kong are crucial in writing, the mixture of language is a form of respect to localism and the Chinese influences occurred throughout the history of this city.[6]
Dung Kai-Cheung uses the unique qualities of the Cantonese language in his work to help him better portray his stories. His writing style is both versatile and experimental as he tries to capture China’s rapidly evolving literary culture by blending aspects of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry in his literary works.[12]
Atlas: The Archeology of an Imaginary City
One of Dung Kai-Cheung’s most well known works is Atlas: The Archeology of an Imaginary City published in 2012. The story explores the idea of succeeding and failing to capture things we lose.[12] Told through the perspective of future archaeologists’ who are struggling to rebuild a thrilling metropolis, the entire story is set in the long-lost city of Victoria, which is a fictional world similar to Hong Kong.[12] The novel uses a mixture of real-world scenarios, events and analysis while incorporating fictional anecdotes and commentary to help portray Victoria through maps and other historical documents and artifacts.[12] It perfectly demonstrates how Dung Kai-Cheung uses a blend of fiction and nonfiction to bring his stories to life. Similar to some of Dung Kai-Cheung’s other works, this story also inventively explores the fate of Hong Kong as the British hand them back over to China in 1997, marking the end of colonial rule and the beginning of a new era.[12]
Cantonese Love Stories
Another one of Dung Kai-Cheung’s most notable works is Cantonese Love Stories published in 2017. This is a collection of twenty-five narrative sketches that Dung Kai-Cheung wrote after the handover of Hong Kong to China in 1997.[7] The stories offer an intimate look into what life was like in Hong Kong in the 1990s by discussing the cultural, commercial and romantic milieu of that time.[7] Each one of the characters in these stories inhabits a different corner of Hong Kong’s scenery, and all together they bring to life Dung Kai-Cheung’s imaginative vision of the city.[7] A notable feature in these stories is the relationship between the character and a particular object. It is this human-object relationship that shapes or breaks the love between the humans.[7] Through these stories it is evident how Dung Kai-Cheung’s writing style expresses the importance of the Cantonese language experience not only for Hong Kong writers, but also for the readers as well.[7]
Influence
Dung Kai-Cheung’s literature puts a great focus on Hong Kong and its undetermined fate following the Hong Kong handover as a British colony back to China after 156 years of British ruling in 1997. Dung believes that it is more preferable for Britain to rule Hong Kong instead of China. This is shown especially in “Atlas: The Archaeology of an Imaginary City,” which portrays a made-up city with circumstances much like Hong Kong. In an interview in 2021, Dung stated that “Hong Kong is a convergence”[12] suggesting changes in the city, such as passing the 2019 Extradition Bill proposal and 2020 National Security Law. These laws enforced by the Hong Kong government, which is strictly monitored by the Chinese government, threaten the Hong Kongers’ freedom of speech and takes away the city’s uniqueness for being autonomous. It is also noted that Dung openly supports the protestors who spoke out against the passing of laws and had forfeited a literature work being nominated in Yazhou Zhoukan (亞洲週刊) as the ten most popular novels.[13] This is because Yazhou Zhoukan praises the Hong Kong police who aided in oppressing protestors against the assimilation of Hong Kong into communist China.[13] These actions from Dung exhibits his strong values towards preserving Hong Kong culture, which goes back to the main subject of his literature.
In the same interview in 2021, Dung states that he was inspired from Xi Xi, a Chinese writer who grew up in Hong Kong, as she portrayed her characters as objects.[12] She presented Hong Kong as a main character and Dung greatly appreciated it, because Xi Xi’s inspiration can be seen in Dung’s “The History of the Adventures of Vivi and Vera,” where the characters have objects replacing their body parts.[12] Another writer that influenced Dung is Leung Ping-Kwan, who Dung admires especially for his emphasis on Hong Kong culture.[12] Finally, Dung states that he took inspiration from Liu Yi-Chang, for his “stylistic freedom.”[12] As a result, Dung highlights and illustrates the theme of Hong Kong culture before China’s political influence in his literature.
Further reading
Other English Translated Works
Dung, Kai-Cheung, trans. Bonnie S. McDougall, and Anders Hansson. A Catalog of such Stuff as Dreams are made on. New York: Columbia University Press, 2022.
Dung, Kai-Cheung, trans. Bonnie S. McDougall, and Anders Hansson. Cantonese Love Stories: Twenty Five Vignettes of a City. Melbourne, Australia: Penguin Group, 2017.
Dung, Kai-Cheung, trans. Wai-ping Yau. The History of the Adventures of Vivi and Vera: Written by Dung Kai-Cheung Under the Inspiration of the Ancient Chinese Treatise Celestial Creations and the Works of Man. Hong Kong: East Slope Publishing Limited, 2018.
References
- ↑ "董啟章". 香港年度作家展.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 馮, 珍今 (November 2, 2020). "認識我的，早已認識；不認識我的，可以從這裏開始". 灼見名家.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 郭, 玉洁 (May 19, 2015). "董启章：我想写出一个时代性的孤独". 界面新闻.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 "我寫故我在 董啟章". yahoo! news. June 24, 2014.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 "Dialogue With Dung-Kai Cheung: When the Theoretical and Creative Minds Meet". Department of Comparative Literature The University of Hong Kong.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 "Dung Kai-cheung's Hong Kong Convergence". Zolima City Mag. November 10, 2021.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 7.6 7.7 7.8 "June 2018: Dung Kai-cheung 董啟章". The Leeds Centre for New Chinese Writing. June 2018.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 Li, Fang-Yu (Spring 2022). "The Role of the Writer and the Making of Hong Kong in Dung Kai-Cheung's the History of the Adventures of Vivi and Vera". Rocky Mountain Review. 76: pp. 117-133 – via Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association.CS1 maint: extra text (link)
- ↑ "DUNG KAI-CHEUNG". Cha. June 28, 2018.
- ↑ "2013 Winners". Science Fiction & Fantasy Translation Awards. August 24, 2013.
- ↑ "董啟章". 聯經.
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 12.3 12.4 12.5 12.6 12.7 12.8 12.9 "Atlas". Columbia University Press. Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; name ":1" defined multiple times with different content - ↑ 13.0 13.1 "董啟章". August 3, 2022.
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