失去影子的人

Originally published by the literary magazine Fleurs des lettres on June 16, 2019, Lau’s piece captures one of the earlier moments of the Hong Kong extradition bill demonstrations sweeping across the city for weeks on end. On June 16, 2019, an estimated two million people took to the streets to oppose the controversial bill and the infringement of individual rights, making it the largest protest march ever in Hong Kong. The color black, interpreted by the writer as a shadow formed by masses of people, is the dress code and a mark of solidarity among those who participated.

Whether fiction or criticism, Lau’s works are philosophical and deeply allegorical. In The Man Who Lost His Shadow, the crows and the ants refer to the frontliners and the general mass of the protest respectively, conjuring scenes that have been appearing in international headlines—defiant youth barricading roads with fences and rubbish bins, aerial shots of districts flooded with people, all in an unvaried shade of black. Literature is full of shadows: from Macbeth’s soliloquy before his fateful hour to the novels of Adelbert von Chamisso and Haruki Murakami, we are forever fascinated by the tension between subjectivity and subjection that shadows represent, shadows that are shackled to their subjects yet insinuate the subliminal threat of metamorphosis. This perhaps epitomizes Hong Kong’s current plight, a city at the brink of change or ruin, which strives for its identity as much as it does for freedom.  

It is hard to pin down an evolving social movement with writing, so the trick is to write continuously. Since “The Man Who Lost His Shadow,” Lau has written more about the demonstrations alongside numerous Hong Kong writers. In a new essay, Lau takes inspiration from Song Dynasty writer Su Shi’s poetry and compares the government’s dilemma to a snail that has run out of slime mid-climb on a wall, leading to a death by dehydration—another instance when Lau taps into his multiple literary references.