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LiteratureCategory Jury Prize

司令漂流記 (Commander's Drifting Chronicles)

司令漂流記 (Commander's Drifting Chronicles)
Artist
司令
Artwork Title
司令漂流記 (Commander's Drifting Chronicles)
Medium
Essay
Creation Year
2024
Award
Category Jury Prize

Description

Foreword: Commander's Drifting Chronicles takes Forrest Gump as its blueprint, using the author's own life growing up and living in Hong Kong as the story's backbone, set against different eras of Hong Kong society. From the first chapter it has been published on the author's personal social media, originally written for friends to read—to encourage people to leave Hong Kong—though it garnered no attention and had zero impact. The Communist Party wants to eradicate our language, and through it eradicate us. A single essay cannot resist totalitarian power, but I believe that the accumulation of many grains of sand can build a tower. Hongkongers, keep fighting!
Creation dates: 2022–2024

Judge's Comment

This is a medium-length narrative literary work of nearly 40,000 characters, woven from two intertwining storylines. Written in a first-person voice that is plain yet vivid, emotionally present but not overwrought, it depicts the entanglement between Hong Kong's political, social, and economic development over the past forty-plus years and the personal coming-of-age of the author—Commander, a typical middle-aged, middle-class man who graduated from university and worked in factories and trade—ending with him "quietly departing Hong Kong International Airport on the last day of March 2021, with his wife and daughter, gently pressing the 'unfriend' button on Hong Kong" as he emigrated to Britain. The work is structurally complete and flows as a single breath, without any awkward transitions. Because it is written in Cantonese, reading it feels like listening to a long oral history recording. Writing large-scale works in Cantonese has a recent precedent in Hong Kong music icon Lau Yi-tat's "Abbot's Search for Roots"; one difference between the two lies in how each handles the question of what constitutes "Cantonese." A distinguishing feature of Lau's writing is its de-Anglicisation—except for certain musical (especially rock music) terminology (chord, fuzz, effector), proper nouns (Ibanez, Pink Floyd, Joe Junior), and abbreviations (OK, DIY, P.S.), more complex meanings are deliberately expressed without English words. That is clearly not the Cantonese that Hongkongers speak in daily life. Commander imposes no such taboo on himself, and the result reads as more intimate, more vivid, and more authentically Hong Kong. One purpose and direction of our advocacy for Cantonese is to allow Hongkongers to draw a clear line, in linguistic terms, from Chinese colonial culture—so that Cantonese differs not only from Mandarin but also from generic Yue Chinese; our culture is Hong Kong culture, not mainland Chinese culture nor Lingnan culture, though we do not object to absorbing the best elements of both. Our language must ultimately be its own distinct thing, different from Sinitic varieties. If Hong Kong is to differentiate itself from China, linguistic differentiation is the necessary path. Using software tools, I counted and found that English vocabulary accounts for 5% of the total word count in this work—a proportion that could in fact be higher. Taking Japanese as a reference, depending on content type, the proportion of kanji and loanwords in Japanese can exceed fifty percent; 5% is therefore quite low, with room to expand. Beyond that, other loanwords in Cantonese, self-made linguistic elements created by Hongkongers, and so on—the more these are used, the better, so that their use becomes natural. This can only be achieved through literary writing and reading. Furthermore, the historical and collective memory value of this work is clear: it records one "complete fragment" of Hong Kong society from the period of ascending achievement to the fall. If we had more such "complete fragments," future historians writing this chapter of Hong Kong's history would be on far surer footing.

— Lian Yi-zheng (練乙錚)

Original Work (原文)

作者: 司令
標題: 《司令漂流記》
類別: 短文

前言:司令漂流記其實係以電影阿甘正傳作為藍本,用本人響香港成長及生活點滴作為故事主幹,配以不同年代嘅香港社會作為背景。由第一回開始一直於本人個人社交媒體發表,目的係寫俾朋友睇,鼓勵人離開香港,不過一直冇人睇,全無影響力。共產黨想消滅我哋嘅語言,進而消滅我哋,我一篇文絕對唔可以對抗極權,不過我相信聚沙成塔可以!香港人加油!

創作日期:2022年-2024年

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一、尋根,漂流

開咗香港一年,寫啲嘢記錄一下人生嘅旅程,咁啱呢期興「方丈尋根記」, 唔係話斗膽搵方丈嚟比較,只係橫掂二創係我本行咁就唔爭在參考埋文字啦!

咁要改自己花名我就用「司令」呢個朵。關於個花名都差唔多成10年前,源於一套朋友拍嘅片,已經過晒時,冇乜嘢再好再詳細講啦,我反而想講吓果位對我人生都幾有影響嘅朋友,條片嘅導演 Ben。話說我哋就讀同一間小學,嗰陣成日上佢屋企打機,又一齊睇公仔書,志趣相投,好friend嗰隻。升中之後各奔前程,都有一輪冇聯絡,唔記得咗幾時開始佢成日捉我一齊去睇戲,再大少少就一齊出去夜蒲,讀完大學嗰排興玩「戰略高手」, 又成日出去打機打到屋企都唔返,呢條友正一損友不過我相信有好多人人生裏面最好嘅朋友s都係損友嚟嘅我曾經深信仲有keep住聯絡嘅小學同學會係永遠嘅朋友,不過響我做咗老竇之後就真係好少聯絡,仲要越來越少,整整吓一年都見唔到一兩次。Well,人生有唔同階段,呢啲嘢好正常,但係呢位仁兄Ben呢,就真係以一個非常別開生面嘅形式離開咗我嘅世界。放心佢唔係死咗,佢只係某年某月某日突然潛咗水,之後冇再蒲過頭,電話唔聽, message又唔覆,只係能夠從唔同朋友嘅渠道知道佢未死。Anyway啦,總之知道個人冇事就得啦。講多一個關於Ben嘅小故事。話說響中學年代,佢響樓下巴士站搭車返學校嘅時間成日都會撞到一條女同佢唱散紙。我哋之間5用嚟代表條女嘅暗語就係散紙妹。唔知係咪呢一個經歷啦,佢就好鍾意「早班火車」 呢隻歌,上車含情脈脈咁樣𥄫實條女,好想識佢,但係又心如鹿撞唔敢上,成個情景fit晒!小故事去到呢度就完,佢同散紙妹完全冇下文,持續咗一段好長嘅時間佢都唔敢上,為咗呢件事我成日都鬧佢,呢啲接近AV開場嘅情節我等咗一世都未等到。

咁咁小事又有乜好寫呢?其實同身邊嘅好朋友分道揚鑣我真係好感慨,仲要唔係單止佢一個,可以話出走英倫令我同我身邊最好嘅朋友們完全割裂咗,當中有政治上嘅分歧,亦都有對去留唔同嘅睇法。再過幾年我就五張嘢,回憶返當日認真討論條女搵你唱散紙「點算呀點算呀」真係恍如隔世。歲月催人,年紀大咗,我見到好多人大大吓忘記咗自己係邊個,我唔係要求人人出於污泥而不染,而且每一個人響社會裏面嘅經歷都截然不同,奢求不忘初心根本離曬地。但係至少,人唔應該連善惡都唔識分吓話?

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