FEATURE
“ People live far away from their family ... one of the results of this is a feeling of disconnection , of not necessarily feeling like you fit into certain boxes .”
imperfect English led to him being “ fascinated by broken English ” and the way people can “ communicate through accent and language boundaries .” The linguistic melange is spattered throughout . Elements of italian , cantonese , and gaelic garnish the poems . It is reminiscent of the tower of Babel , only as a celebration rather than punishment .
Still , it is not a perfect model by any means . You can believe in the abolition of divides all you want but that won ’ t make you immune to them . There is a sense that the poet is still struggling to place himself and still feeling the pressure to conform and tick boxes . In the UK the rejection takes a more overt form as racial prejudice , whereas the sense of unbelonging in Hong Kong is more internal .
In baaibaai he details his attempts to learn Cantonese . But speaking it in Hong Kong , he finds people respond to him in English . He gives up on learning the language and takes up gaelic instead because “ after all I dont [ sic ] know anyone who only speaks gàidhlig / without english .”
As with the food , the poems evoke the notion of mixing to create something new . Something that is whole on its own . Not defined as fragments of others .
In 1967 Henri Chopin wrote : “ The mimetic sound of man , the human sound , does not explain , it transmits emotions , it suggests exchanges , affective communications ; it does not state precisely , it is precise .”
This is beautifully echoed in the poem “ yabbadabbadoo ” where he recalls watching “ The Flintstones ” with his grandfather and joining in together with Fred Flinstone ’ s whoop of “ yabbadabbadoo .”
“ Sometimes I wonder how much of the tv back / then you really understood and how much of it / was just you copying the sounds I reacted to most / does it matter ”. Here , he celebrates the connection they find outside of their respective languages in a phonetic whoop of joy . It is perhaps significant , too , that they draw their communication from a TV show about prehistory . Harking back to a time before languages , races , and nations .
Sean Wai Keung presents us with a vision of coexistence . It is not utopian as it already exists , neither is it idyllic as it is fraught with pain . With a poet ’ s eye for finding significance in the everyday he shows us how much we overlook . The book ’ s title now reads like an invitation . Sikfan Glaschu . Come and eat , Glasgow .
40 SLEUTH ISSUE 4