Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Non-Fiction 2020 | Page 45

Hong Kong Young Writers Awards 2020
Black and White Cats
Sha Tin College, Cheng, Yui Hang – 16
Surely, Deng wasn’t impressed when his ashes were brought back to life again. His
unmistakable frown was still there, but was he still functionally a human being? “That is the
fundamental question,” he proclaims triumphantly after emerging from his pensive stare, a
smile creeping across his morose complexion. Towering above Shenzhen’s skyline just like the
propaganda posters that once emblazoned the streets of the overachieving fishing village, a
sense of pride overwhelms him, a feeling that his efforts have not been in vain.
He was never the theoretical bureaucrat his predecessor was; as another of his sayings goes,
“seek truth from facts”. Presiding over a regime of extreme pragmatism, experimentation, and
setting down the foundations of an institutional praxis that continue to be legally codified in
the form of the PRC’s current constitution, his legacy lives on in the memories of those who
witnessed the changes precipitated by his Reform and Opening-up program.
Sidelining Mao’s designated successor, deposing leftist radicals and shifting culpability
for the cultural revolution from Mao to four of his loyal followers (the notorious “Gang of
Four”), legitimising his grip on power in the process, his political prowess is undeniable. It
is hard to imagine what it felt like to be purged twice from the upper echelons of a party he
helped create, to labelled an enemy of the state, and to have his family tortured by fanatical
mobs. Whether he ever wept for his son’s predicament is something we’ll never know,
permanently handicapped after years of torment from the Red Guards, but his reputation as
the architect of China’s unprecedented rates of modernisation is, as the Chinese saying goes,
imprinted into our bones and hearts.
Well, what a long digression. Deng hated verbose language, following in the tradition of
laconic diction adopted by the great thinkers of his youth. And accordingly, out of deferential
respect, it would be most befitting for me to skip all the bureaucratic gibberish about the 13th
Five Year Plan, the Hong Kong Steering Committee for the Development of the GBA, the
National Development and Reform Commission etc. etc. etc., and delve directly into how
the GBA took its present form and what this means in light of the status quo. And honestly,
Deng wouldn’t be impressed (or rather, appalled) by the level of progress Hong Kong is
making, especially when it was once seen as the paragon of a modern capitalist welfare state
and something tangible to learn from.
Somehow finding himself perched over a little knoll across the border, he turns around
and gets quite befuddled by the sight he beholds. A meandering river divides the two
territories; one side is sparsely populated by farmers with superiority complexes and the
other is a bustling CBD full of financial activity. “What a spectacular waste of land,” Deng
exclaims, expectedly. The ubiquitous officials that meticulously noted down any room
for improvement were no longer here with him, but so was the political factionalism that
catalysed his retreat from power. He liked the latter’s absence. Very much, in fact, as he nods
in agreement, reminding him of the strict discipline during his days as a guerilla fighter. But
the status quo kept bothering him.
And voilà, pathetic fallacy. Dark clouds and torrential rain. But as they say, there’s a silver
lining in every cloud. With pessimism comes a certain degree of optimism, and we hark back
to a fateful day 40 years ago.
228