名人教英文：a shimmering sea
this book a shimmering sea is a rare collection of fascinating short stories about old hong kong. the author is sophronia liu, whose greek name symbolises prudence, sophistication and wisdom.
sophronia, or sophie for short, was indigenous to hong kong (她是香港的原居民). she was born in 1953 and unfortunately passed away early this year. she was a descendant (子孙) of the liu (廖) clan. as recorded in the book, the liu clan is one of the five big clans in the new territories: the man (文); the tang (邓); the hou (侯) and the peng (彭) clans.
early life in a village
through a sequence of narratives, the book chronicles (叙述) sophronia's life in hong kong in the 1950s and her growing up in the 1960s.
in the first story forked hollow, the sights and sounds of char hang (叉坑), an old tai po village, come vividly to life:
"on the other side of the road, on an embankment, the railway tracks ran parallel to the road. the rattle of the box cars and the whistle of the daily trains to and from kowloon could be heard throughout the valley, especially at my mother's home in char hang village."
through sophronia's skillful simplicity of description, we could also sense what life was like in the tough days of yesteryear when there were few creature comforts:
"a few wooden benches, haggard (枯槁的) and browned with age, sat against the two side-walls. an old table, with its leaves folded down, was leaning against one wall on which some tools were hung: a hoe, a sickle, and a large black rod and round iron weight used for weighing goods and rice."
straight-forward expression of feelings
all the stories in a shimmering sea have that pleasing straight-forward honesty about them, untainted by artificial embellishments (人工修饰) or melodrama (夸张情感). take for example the tragic suicide story of a sixth-grade boy (sophronia's school mate) who killed himself because he had failed in the secondary school entrance examination, the pithy (简洁的) and cogent (切实的) terseness of the story bring tears to our eyes:
"when his father scolded him, so tsi-fai left the house. when he showed up again, late for supper, he announced, 'i don't need any supper. i have drunk enough insecticide.' just like another one of his practical jokes. the insecticide was stored in the field for his father's vegetables. he was rushed to the hospital, dead upon arrival."
in the book, there is a story about the old queen mary hospital where sophronia's father worked. she wrote about the morgue (停尸间), a place which inspired her endless fascination and fear. her power of observation is shown in the following two lines:
"all i saw was a head of greasy, disheveled (凌乱的) hair, ashen grey skin; closed eyelids and an unnaturally limp neck twisted at a funny angle."
display of raconteur talent
her gift of raconteur cannot be more evident than in her description of corruption in hong kong which was then a mecca for bribes before the setting up of hong kong's independent commission against corruption (icac). there is a scary story about corruption which describes how a plainclothes policeman was trying to extort money from her family when her brother was in trouble with the law.
the plainclothes policeman said, "i mean, we can talk like family. for a little bonus, a little tea money, we will make sure that he will not have to rot in jail. he will be exonerated from all the charges against him, so long as you are willing to cooperate with us."
from the excerpts in italics above, one can see sophronia's extraordinary talent as a writer steeped in the chinese tradition with an eye for fascinating details. all her stories are written with such honesty and intensity that it is small wonder sophronia liu won many international prizes in her time, including the prestigious international proverse prize last year in 2012 just before she passed away.
background information
sophronia liu pursued her university studies in the american midwest before she returned to hong kong in 2006 to be with her people and to write. she died on 24 january 2013, one day after her 60th birthday. the university of minnesota awarded her a posthumous phd in april this year for her project in writing this book.
publisher of the book is proverse hong kong.