Wing Lam Chan

“The Braid Girl 庭⩏⣐⤗” It is said that the long-braided spirit was once a rural girl fleeing from mainland China to Hong Kong. Driven by the immigration policy, she tied her Hong Kong dream into her braid and boarded a train toward the city. Mistaking a passing station for the final stop, she abandoned everything behind and jumped prematurely. Her reckless leap—marked the tragic end of her journey. The piece reframes the rhetoric of the “Great Leap Forward” through bitter irony, reflecting on immigrant tragedies shaped by the Hong Kong’s Touch Base Policy during the 1960s.

“The Ghost Postman 樻忴Ⳮ” It is said that a ghostly postman unlocking gates and slipping blank letters into Wan Chai neighbourhood. Those who receive the letters are doomed to die within days. As death after accumulate, fear seeps into restless nights. The piece embodies a sense of intrusion upon land and life, reflecting locals’ anxieties and resentment toward outsiders during the 1960s refugee influx from Mainland China.

瀡The Haunted School 当⺶⩷㜠瀢 It is said that the abandoned Tat Tak School is haunted by spirits of Indigenous New Territories inhabitants killed by British and Japanese troops. Buried within a nearby mass grave, they wander through the ruined classrooms searching for their seats among nameless gravestones and rubble. The piece examines haunting as an act of reclaiming erased Indigenous identity and history under British rule and Japanese occupation.

“The Convenience House ⠦㺲㒸Ế敡” It is said that an unsettling hospice lies hidden among the stilt houses in Tai O, once serving as a burial site for dying elders whose bodies were never reclaim by their families. Within this dread space, an elderly man rests while imagining himself as a tilapia—an invasive species brought from Mainland—drifting among local fishes of the village. The piece depicts an inexplicable calm settling upon unstable land—a place shaped by sojourner mentality, yet one that became a lifelong shelter for many immigrants during the 1970s.

“The Mah-jong Demise ◚ᶹ㩷塾” It is said that four gamblers died while playing mah-jong after forming four tiles with the character "West". The piece explores numerical and directional taboos linked to death in Chinese culture and depicts debauchery, in response to the disappointment surrounding the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration, which marked the end of 156 years of British colonial rule.

“The Parallel Station ⠩⩏䧘⵲坋㕁䥹” It is said that a salaryman became trapped within the same station on his journey home, as if he had entered a parallel world. The piece explores anxieties surrounding the 1997 handover, portraying the city remains ensnared in historical recurrence and continued domination by shifting authorities.

“The Submerging Turtle 䛲溛敷㮈” It is said that a giant turtle deity lives within the mountains and descends gradually each year. Once it reaches the sea, the city will collapse into a violent red ocean. The piece portrays a disastrous landscape reflecting the erosion of Hong Kong identity and cityscape through the ongoing assimilation of Chinese nationalist ideals, reneging the promise of "One Country, Two Systems" since the handover.

Borrowed Absurdity