Happy Home
Greg Girard, Woman at a tram stop, Central, Hong Kong, 1985.
I pass by a telly shop. The news is on, and I stop next to the owner to watch. He has a flimsy sort of fold-up stool he must have bought decades ago. He’s sitting on it again, in the same spot as yesterday, eating barbeque duck combo rice out of a Styrofoam box. He keeps his eyes down, glassy and non-committal, but turns up the volume to the daily blare of TVB’s news intro. I recently found out that it is remixed audio of a telegram message. A modern touch; I’ve come to love its sound. The new journalist is presenting again. I’ve begun to acknowledge we won’t be seeing the one from last month anymore. The segment documents the shopping strip a few streets down, where my mother likes to get her hair done — only the shops are all closed as protestors march against a new warden.
I dream my teeth are falling out. One by one, I spit them into my hands. Smooth, warm, almost alive. I try to put them back in my mouth, but a new skin has grown where my cupids bow once was, conjoining the middle of my top lip to the bottom, leaving two little mouth holes on each side. I manage to fit one tooth through the new orifice and plant it into my stringy, fleshy gum.
The week following, I begin to chew gum regularly, every morning on the walk to university. Every so often, another student in my course has a farewell party, a common event among friends and family. Many move to Europe. Though they’re not hostages here, like the old or penniless, the very idea of ‘home’ is held for a high ransom.
I have my teeth dream again, this time the fleshy mess of teeth have the faces of friends that have left, staring back at me from white bone frames. Gently cradling them all in my hands, I don’t try to punch my teeth back into their sockets.
Puncture punch jam jab stab attack
Ran ransom rich; cover your eyes the tear gas will sting
Careful not to farewell identity. Lonely without your human rights
I’m leaving Kowloon today. I’m not sure where I’ll go, but I have my film camera with me. I take photos of all my favourite things. I start with the sound of the news, the old man’s stool, the gate at the sterling mall entrance of Mei Foo MTR where I tap on every day, the taximan who knows my dad, aggressive Ip-man herbal medicine posters, the corner shop that just sells bathroom taps, the friendly kitten at the Mee & Gee, the traffic lights where I last saw an expat.
I pass my mum’s old hair salon and stop to take a photo. The shop is unrecognisable now, the steel roller door is plastered with the new government mandate, along-side it is tagged with protest speech that won’t last the night. Tomorrow it will be scrubbed clean. I bring my camera to my face, resting it on the crux of my cheek, but this insults the policeman standing within view shot. He shoves the camera at my face. My body topples at his overexertion of force, and I kiss the pavement. There’s a rock stuck in my throat. No, not a rock, a tooth.