The water-pipe jungle: An imagined city space portrayed by post-1997 Hong Kong young writers
Abstract
Since the publication of Xixi’s My City in 1975, the literature works inspired by the topic of Hong Kong City Space gradually increased, majority of them were written by Post-1997 Hong Kong Young Writers. This group of Young Writers included Chan Chi-wah, Cheung Yuen-man, Li Wai-yee, Tse Hiu-hung, Hon Lai-chu, Leung Wailok, Mak Shu-kin. Their writing styles were creatively diversified, but they shared a common topic, Hong Kong City Space. This article aims at exploring the structure of feelings from the Post-1997 Hong Kong Young Writers’ group and examining the description about the Home City in their works. In addition, this study focus on discussing the characteristic of Hong Kong City Space and how the City Space is unprecedentedly threatened by hyper density, massive occupation of shopping malls and the invasion of City Space to Nature Space. Through discussing the word cities, such as “O city”, “Phantomcity” and “Area H” in the Post 1997 Young writers’ literature works, this study explores how their works express their worries about the Home City and the enormous impact on the restructure of City Space from the Global Capital.