So far, so close: Acclaimed Hong Kong play puts diaspora and belonging back on centre stage in West Kowloon re-run

HKFP

7 days ago

Having left Hong Kong during the Covid-19 pandemic, Ah Yuen is suddenly back in her home city because of her father's unexpected death.
Her return goes against the current, as others from the city have started new lives in foreign countries – including a young scientist and his family, a weathered intellectual, and Ah Yuen's best friend since childhood. Each of them has had to adapt to living overseas and – for anyone who returns – to changes at home.
'If you're staying [in Hong Kong], you have to get this: Embrace the little joys,' Ah Yuen is told on stage by her estranged sister, who urges her to be prepared for the city's changing reality.
The fictional character, played by 31-year-old Hong Kong actor Chung Yik-sau, is the protagonist of veteran playwright Chan Ping-chiu's award-winning theatre play, Flowing Warblers. It debuted last year at the Cultural Centre and is set for a re-run at the West Kowloon Cultural District this month.
The three-hour-long play features five interconnected storylines of Hongkongers living in four locations across Europe as well as in Hong Kong.
The play is fictional in nature, Chan said. However, it is based on real stories of Hongkongers who left the city in recent years.
Chan made several trips to interview some of them in their newly adopted countries as the playwright attempted to capture the many facets of the city's diaspora.
'Very early on in my fieldwork, I realised I had to weave together multiple stories,' Chan, 65, said of how he conceived the screenplay of Flowing Warblers in 2022, when many of his friends departed the city.
'Any single story will likely be immersed in intense emotions and trapped in a specific situation. That's what I would like to avoid,' he told HKFP in Cantonese.
Flowing Warblers tells poignant stories about who Chan described as 'ordinary people' – drawing upon the interviews he conducted with some 30 people in and outside Hong Kong.
The play was soon sold out after its first show in June last year, with critics praising its storytelling and responsiveness to the collective experience of Hongkongers.
But others – especially those who had lived overseas – criticised the play as failing to capture the reality of the Hong Kong diaspora.
Chan said the criticism not only motivated him to improve the play for this year's re-run but also revealed the underlying rift between Hongkongers abroad and people at home.
'There is a subtle feeling of us failing to understand each other… Perhaps you won't ask them [overseas Hongkongers] how they are in their new homes, or their financial situation, things like that. Similarly, they won't ask you how Hong Kong is,' he said.
'Because, fundamentally, the two people have made very different choices,' he added. 'This conflict cannot be easily resolved by a single play… What I want to do is to tap into it.'
'Far from Hong Kong'
Hong Kong saw a major exodus during the Covid pandemic, with official data showing a net outflow of about 123,000 residents in 2020 and 2021.
It is believed the exodus was partly propelled by the city's political changes following the pro-democracy protests and unrest in 2019 and Beijing's imposition of a national security law in 2020 to quell dissent.
Many Hongkongers went to the United Kingdom, which ruled Hong Kong as a colony for over 150 years until 1997. As of March this year, 163,400 people from Hong Kong who hold a British National (Overseas), or BNO, passport have arrived in the UK since London started accepting applications in 2021, according to the UK's Home Office.
The country was Chan's first stop on his field trip. He spent a week in London in 2022, meeting friends who had moved there.
Chan went to the UK again in 2023, while also visiting Berlin on the same trip. Six months later, he flew to Girona, Spain, for another round of interviews with overseas Hongkongers.
He finished the first draft of the script in early 2024.
Chan made a conscious decision to leave out other popular migration destinations for Hongkongers, such as Canada and Taiwan.
'If I have to cover every destination, I am afraid it will give the impression that I am making a documentary drama,' he said.
He also opted to exclude people who left Hong Kong for explicit political reasons, saying his play may not be capable of addressing their situation and emotions.
'My goal is not to convey any powerful message about our society, it's not like that. I want to go back to the basics of people's lives, therefore, I choose to talk to ordinary individuals,' he added.
The most recent exodus has not been the same as that in the 1990s, when a large group of Hongkongers left the city in fear of the impending handover to Chinese rule, Chan said.
'The previous exodus was more stable… it was common for people to settle down in the new country and come back to Hong Kong, to visit family or things like that,' he said.
'But this time, a lot more people, who are in their youth or prime, left knowing they will not come back as easily even if they have the chance,' he added.
A question that Chan asked overseas Hongkongers in his early interviews was: 'How far from Hong Kong do you think you are now?'
'I remember most of them gave me the impression that they feel far from Hong Kong,' he said, adding that he met many in the diaspora leading lives in flux due to migration.
'Reality check'
Chung, the actor who plays the protagonist Ah Yuen in Flowing Warblers, was also Chan's interviewee.
She graduated with a degree in Chinese literature in Hong Kong before moving to the UK to study drama in 2016.
Much like her character Ah Yuen, Chung returned to Hong Kong towards the end of the pandemic, just as many others from the city were leaving.
Prior to her return in early 2023, she had not visited Hong Kong for more than three years. She said that, upon her return, she had to adapt to changes at home following the 2019 protests and the pandemic, despite having learned about the events in the news.
'I have received a lot of information through the internet, like how the government handled the pandemic and people's reactions and their moods. But knowing what happened is one thing, actually living it is another thing,' she told HKFP in Cantonese.
It created a 'delay' in understanding Hong Kong's changes compared with her friends at home. 'This delay… is really uncomfortable, because you see yourself as part of the community,' she said.
That experience was akin to a 'reality check,' Chung said, citing Ah Yuen's line in the script.
'When [Ah Yuen] returned, she had to observe what was happening in Hong Kong,' Chung said. 'From my reading of the character, she felt powerless to react when the reality hit her.'
Chan, the playwright, wanted to capture the stark conflict between people who stay and those who leave.
He created the character of Taai-co, played by actor Caroline Chan, who left Hong Kong in hopes of reuniting with Ah Yuen in Europe.
But Taai-co was left alone on a foreign continent because of Ah Yuen's return to Hong Kong. A freedom-loving spirit, Taai-co went on the journey alone, but slowly realised her roots as a Hongkonger.
The two best friends appear to represent the two groups of Hongkongers – those leaving and those staying. Ah Yuen and Taai-co 'cannot be easily separated, but they also cannot candidly communicate, as both of them are carrying intense emotions,' the playwright said.
Flowing Warblers 2.0
The five-night performance of Flowing Warblers last year sparked a rare debate in Hong Kong about the recent exodus and the city's diaspora.
In a widely discussed review, playwright Yan Pat-to opined that Flowing Warblers had failed to capture the reality of Hong Kong's diaspora, but also pointed to a mutual misunderstanding among people as the root cause of such failure.
'The people staying in Hong Kong cannot imagine the predicament of those who have left. Likewise… those who have left appeared equally incapable of understanding the situation of those who stayed,' Yan wrote in the Chinese-language review.
Asked about this mutual misunderstanding, Chan said it is inevitable that any artistic work cannot represent the full range of human experience. What he wanted to achieve, he said, was to provide the audience with an opportunity to see things differently.
'I think my strategy to write about different characters and their stances is to allow the audience a shift in perspectives, subconsciously,' he said.
For the re-run this month, with the play named Flowing Warbler 2.0, Chan and his crew have incorporated what they found missing in the play last year, enriching the details of each storyline.
He also hoped the West Kowloon performance, which will open on July 12 and run for seven nights, could spark further interest in the Hong Kong diaspora.
It was a pity that last year's debate was short-lived, he said, adding there have been fewer outlets for people to engage in the discussion.
Reflecting on Hong Kong's current creative environment, Chan acknowledges there has been uncertainty about 'taboos,' and that playwrights and artists alike have diverted their energy to writing about matters 'skilfully.'
'Frankly speaking, a lot of things could be banned instantly nowadays. But I think there should be a devotion to pushing the boundary and to continuing writing about matters, especially those important to our society,' he said.