Gingerly
by Cheng Tim Tim
1.
「夠薑就搞林鄭屋企,做乜搞地鐵。」
‘Mess with Carrie Lam’s home,
not train stations, if you dare.’
Your way of saying Geong1, Ginger
leaves a crooked resonance, as if
the word itself has the same shape
as your oft-overdone, oft-smudged
winged eyeliners, after a long day at work.
「搞到地鐵閂哂閘。我坐巴士番工會暈囉。」
“All the gates in the MTR were closed.
I got carsick taking the bus to work lor.”
Your Cantonese is almost perfect,
thanks to the amount of tabloids
you read. Sometimes though, when
you say Close, Saan1, as Clothes
Saam1, the Fujian ghost betrays
your origin.
2.
Tonight, we disagreed with what’s on TV.
‘Go back if you don’t think Hong Kong
should be different from China.’
I forgot how my biological father called you
‘Hong Kong beggar’ when you took an 8-month-old
me back to Fujian, forgot how you washed dishes
at Maxim’s without knowing any Cantonese,
forgot about your dismay when step-dad
called you and granny ‘Chinese Swines’ jokingly.
‘Emigrate then, if you’re not happy.’
‘I don’t have enough saving.’
‘Stay here then. Marry a rich guy and be happy.’
When you were my age, you raised me
instead of study and travel. Perhaps, like you,
I will carry the debris of my hometown
in my suitcase one day, always nostalgic
for a new place, always wondering
if I could have stayed.
Cheng Tim Tim currently teaches at HKICC Lee Shau Kee School of Creativity. Her poems have been published or are forthcoming in Voice & Verse Poetry Magazine, SAND Journal, The Offing, Cordite Poetry Review, among other places. She is one of the co-founding editors of EDGE: HKBU Creative Journal.