28/05/2020
The view from my dorm room, Hong Kong.
Initially, I didn’t plan to share this with anyone. Then I thought bits of it might comfort some of my friends in the same position. Then I wrote more and decided it’s a way for me to have the honest version of a conversation I keep avoiding.
I’ve spent the past couple of weeks trying to work on my final assignment of the year. Where I’m usually able to get into my essay-writing stride after a few days, this has certainly been my most sluggish attempt at academic writing. I’ve been slowly getting a few hundred words down every day, but it’s not the progress I’d hoped to make. Rather than forcing myself to churn out more poorly-written paragraphs on protest movements, I’m deciding to take a break and see whether a typical Yazz-splurge will do me any good. This is probably the kind of thing I should be writing in my journal, but my notebook is somewhere upstairs and I’m out in the garden.
I’m currently reading an article titled ‘Hong Kong and the art of dissent’. If you know me, then you’ll be aware that I was supposed to spend this year of university studying in Hong Kong, but was sent home after three months due to the political climate. It’s been very emotional and I still can’t really bring myself to go through my photos or memories from that time, even now. I found home in Hong Kong very quickly.
The article opens by setting the scene of mid-autumn festival. Of all my incredible days, nights and those early mornings in-between, the 24 hours from around 10am on Friday 13th September to Saturday 14th were my favourite. I think about mid-autumn festival and our celebrations constantly at the moment – my friends and I admiring the lanterns at Victoria Park, eating dinner together down an alley in Causeway Bay, trekking across the islands to go to a beach party, entering my dorm as my roommate's alarm went off the following morning.
Soon after this, the article reads: “when people feel helpless, we need to go back to something older…It’s important to connect our present moment to the past”. That made me cry. It’s exactly what I’ve found myself doing since lockdown began. I spend all my time on Twitter, have read a YA novel, listen to all the bands I was obsessed with at sixteen… It feels safe. If I revert back into teenage Yazz then I don’t need to worry because I know what is yet to come – I’ve already lived it.
At this point, it seems like I’ve answered all the questions, assured everyone that I’m fine and smiled through the sympathies long enough that I can be honest. I don’t like people worrying about me and I, myself, wasn’t really sure how to respond when people pressed. When asked "how are you doing?", my response became a rehearsed, "yeah, a bit gutted, but I'm fine". I'd also like to point out that saying things like "what an interesting time to have been there", "you got to live through history" etc. is insulting. I have no desire to fetishize the atrocities occurring in Hong Kong so that I can seem worldly or fascinating.
Moving around between various countries and continents the past year has me feeling a million miles from anywhere in particular. I don’t feel like I have a place anymore. I’ve made jokes about not being able to stay in one city for longer than three months – that’s the amount of time I spent in Canada, Hong Kong, the Netherlands, and presently, that’s about as long as I’ve been stuck in the UK. Despite meeting so many amazing people and now having friends all over the world, it’s a lonely position to be in. I’ve had to set myself up somewhere new and move away quickly twice now. In both, Hong Kong and Maastricht, I packed up my entire bedroom and belongings within hours. I only had the opportunity to say goodbye to a handful of friends and I still don’t know when I’ll be able to see anyone again – Australia, Taiwan and North America aren’t really mini-break, budget trip options.
I’m currently cooped up in a family house I never grew up in, and I haven’t had a good sleep since I’ve been here. Every morning, I check the news and feel more guilty for leaving Hong Kong. I know that realistically I couldn’t have stayed, but it’s incredibly difficult to come to terms with. Having the privilege of being able to fly away from a place so desperate for support makes me feel sick. Receiving messages from classmates asking me to spread the word in the UK was heartbreaking, and, although it wasn’t my choice to leave, I’m not sure when I’ll be able to forgive myself.
As I said, I’m still trying to process all the movements I’ve made. My current attempt is using songs to do so.
Weather With You – Crowded House
This song follows me everywhere I go. I’ve heard it in airports, on car radios, café playlists and I even found it on a compilation cassette I received. The lyrics mirror aspects of my own life which makes it all even more creepy-yet-comforting. It played one night in a Knutsford Terrace bar.
[Edit, 09/07/2020: I recently went back to Maastricht to bring the rest of my belongings home and, of course, this came on the radio as we were driving out of the city.]
This is the Day – The The
My favourite song of all time… Because I just absolutely have to try and make every aspect of my life like a film, I listened to this song roughly 8 times in a row as the plane descended; we were running behind schedule and I couldn’t work out how close we really were to the ground, but I knew I needed Matt Johnson to comfort me as I stepped out of the plane and became ‘Hong Kong Yazz’.
Roddy – Djo
Grace showed me this song when I went to visit her as part of our week-long big goodbye. Despite being released in July, it was definitely one of my most played songs of 2019. I didn’t realise how apparent my love for it was until my friends Sam and Adam played it on their radio show for me, unprompted. Their early morning show took a late afternoon slot for me in HK, their voices and awful dad jokes gave me a little bit of home in my dull dorm room.
Silk – Wolf Alice
It’s interesting because I never considered this song to be a favourite during my hardcore Wolf Alice fan period, but now it’s probably the ‘My Love Is Cool’ track I listen to the most. The album in general reminds me of being seventeen and how my friends and I would drink shit-mixes before gigs, each of us taking a few gulps just before we’d pass through security. Around the three-minute mark the song enters some ethereal realm, chanting the chorus until it comes to an end. Despite the blue lyrics, it comforts me to imagine myself back in Kentish Town clutching onto my best friends’ arms, dancing with them.
What Once Was – Hers
Another of my favourite songs ever. The title probably explains my love for it and why I hold it so close to me. It carries even more weight when my feelings of nostalgia are combined with sadness at the loss of the band. Such a delight, I feel incredibly lucky to have seen them live in first year.
Pines – Men I Trust
One of the other things that was so great about Friday the 13th, was that some of my favourite bands and artists released albums – MIT, Djo, Twin Peaks, Belle and Sebastian, Surf Curse, etc. Exhausted from swimming and dancing all night, I spent most of the following day listening to each in its entirety, but particularly connected with ‘Oncle Jazz’ and decided upon ‘Pines’ as my favourite of the new tracks.
This Must Be The Place – Talking Heads
What better way is there to make a new room feel like your own? One of my favourite bands, guaranteed cheeriness and a crowd-pleaser so housemates won’t complain. Where ‘Weather With You’ is the song that follows me, this is Alyx’s. This TH track reminds me of her and one of our favourite Brighton venues ‘The Hope and Ruin’ – the song title is displayed above its entrance. Playing it puts her in the room with me.
The songs can only do so much, which may be why I’m feeling the need to write this piece. Again, this wasn’t really for anyone other than myself initially, but now it feels like it could serve as explanation or insight into where I’ve been at recently. I feel very helpless and anxious seeing everything happening in Hong Kong at the moment. I’m trying to work out the best way for me offer help, but currently the best I can do is direct people to sources.
News:
Instagram Updates – my primary sources when I lived there:
