A stream-of-consciousness short novel on the inner worlds of a man and a woman over the course of a day in 70s Hong Kong.

The opening immediatedly showcases Hong Kong as an ever denser and vertical city,

Twenty years ago, Hong Kong’s populationwas only about 800,000; now, it was nearly fourmillion. Many of the remote districts had becomebustling resettlement areas. Old buildings had turned into skyscrapers.

and the cynical forces of capital.

Chunyu Bai had never wanted to to move there. There was only one reason for this: the stability of the Hong Kong dollar.

Themes of loneliness and escapism later emerge, containing much of the elements of the cyberpunk genre that suceeds it. It’s really no wonder such themes find their origins in Hong Kong—a city that epitomizes the allure and costs of urbanization. You find these themes in depictions of the degrading environment,

Odour assaulted her nose. It was the public toilet, which made every passer-by cover their nostrils with a handkerchief or their hand. Ah Xing did not like this side street because of the public toilet. Every time she passed it thoughts like this entered her mind: “When I get married and look for a flat, I must find one with a good location. There mustn’t be a public toilet nearby.”

the off-world colonies,

“Satellite towns will certainly develop quickly and that means the construction of an underground railway will become an urgent task. Without an underground, people who live in satellite towns can only take private cars, taxis, buses or mini-buses if they work in the urban areas and this in turn will generate another problem—traffic congestion,” he thought.

the escapism, whether into the past,

He could only look for his lost happiness in his memories. Yet, the memory of happiness was like a faded photograph, blurred and unreal. When he heard Yao Surong sing, he remembered those vanished years. Those bygone days were something he could only look at through a dusty window pane; something he could see, but couldn’t touch. And everything he saw was blurred and indistinct.

or into the present,

Staring at the wedding gown, her eyes filled with envy. After she’d been staring for some time, a smile appeared on the manikin’s face. A manikin couldn’t smile. The smiling woman in the wedding gown was actually herself. The window before her suddenly became opaque and turned into a mirror. Ah Xing saw herself in the “mirror”, dressed in a white gauze wedding gown, as beautiful as a goddess.

the capitalistic bravado,

“That guy has guts!” “Was he alone?” “He had a cleaver and a rock. He flashed the cleaver in front of the counter and smashed the showcase with the rock. He got away with jewellery worth tens of thousands of dollars!” “Tens of thousands of dollars!” “There were eye-witnesses. The robber only grabbed diamonds and jade.” “He sure has guts!” “If you’ve got the guts, you don’t have to pin your hopes on lottery tickets.” Ah Xing turned to look at the two men; one of them was holding a bamboo pole with lottery tickets fastened to it by clothes-pegs. He was a vendor of lottery tickets.

It all seemed to be there.

Originally serialized in Chinese in the newspaper titled 對倒 and later translated into English by Nancy Li, this work is available for free online. It was also later rewritten in a longer form here.