An insider’s account of Hong Kong–from its tenacious counterculture and robust underground music scene, to its unique history of youth-led protest–that explores what it means to survive in a city of broken promises.
Nothing survives in this city. But in a place that never allowed you to write your own history, even remembrance can be a radical act.
Hong Kong has long been known as a city of extremes: a former colony of the United Kingdom that today exists at the margins of an authoritarian, ascendant China; a city rocked by mass protests, where residents once rallied against threats to their democracy and freedoms. But it is also misunderstood and often romanticized, its history and politics simplified for Western headlines. Drawing richly from her own experience, as well as interviews with musicians, protesters, and writers who have made Hong Kong their home, journalist Karen Cheung gives us an insider’s view of this remarkable city at a critical moment in history—both for Hong Kong and democracies around the world.
Coming of age in the wake of Hong Kong’s reunification with China in 1997, Cheung traverses the multifold identities available to her in childhood and beyond, whether that was her experience at an English-speaking international school where her classmates would grow up to be “global citizens” struggling to fit in with the rest of Hong Kong, or within her deeply traditional, multilingual family. Along the way, Cheung gives a personal account of what it’s like to seek out affordable housing and mental healthcare in one of the world’s most expensive cities. She also takes us deep into Hong Kong’s vibrant indie music and literary scenes–youth-driven spaces of creative resistance. Inevitably, Cheung brings us with her to the protests, where her understanding of what it means to belong to Hong Kong finally crystallized.
Weaving together memoir, cultural criticism, and reportage, The Impossible City transcends borders to chart the parallel journeys of both a young woman and a city as they navigate the various, sometimes contradictory, paths of coming into one’s own.
- Title: The Impossible City: A Hong Kong Memoir
- Author: Karen Cheung
- Publisher: Random House
- Publication Date: 2/15/22
- Genre: Memoir
- Content Warnings: Depression, Suicide, Police Brutality, Suicide Ideation, Anxiety, Child Abuse, Death, Death of a Grandparent
- Rating: ★★★★★
I’m always conflicted about reviewing memoirs — after all, what makes me qualified to rate and review someone else’s life experiences? I could always write about the stylistic choices, the way it’s written, if it makes me feel a certain way, but ultimately, does that matter in the grand scheme of things? My lived experiences and perspective are bound to be different from other people’s, molded and shaped by my identities, my upbringing, among thousands of other factors. A memoir that resonates with me might not resonate with someone else, so please take this review — which may more just be me processing this book, and my experiences — with a grain of salt.
I was born and raised in Hong Kong and moved to the states when I was nine, although sometimes it feels disingenuous to call myself a Hong Konger, after living in Seattle for so long. But the impact that Hong Kong has had on me is undeniable, and sometimes I question if Seattle will ever feel like “home”, whatever that may mean. I purchased The Impossible City: A Hong Kong Memoir earlier this year, but only got around to reading it this month.
Even after moving to the states, we spoke Cantonese at home, predominantly watched TVB for our entertainment, followed Apple Daily for our news; I’ve always felt more connected to Hong Kong than I have to Seattle. A lot of what’s covered in The Impossible City: A Hong Kong Memoir isn’t particularly new to me — in fact, I might even say that I know more about Hong Kong’s history now than if I had stayed in Hong Kong, in my little bubble at that international school. Perhaps, it’s these experiences, and a shared understanding of what international school is like — and what it’s like to leave international school, that made me connect so deeply to Karen Cheung’s memoir. Or maybe, I’m simply grasping at straws, trying to find someone who understands the pain and grief that I hold for a city that I once called home.
I knew I’d get emotional reading this — how could I not? But reading the preface only solidified that for me. I can’t adequately summarize the preface, so I’ll borrow Cheung’s phrasing here:
“This book is about the many ways a city can disappear, but also the many ways we, its people, survive. It is a portrait of life in a particular time and space. A story about how we uncovered a Hong Kong that had existed here all along—a place where we, against all odds, made a home. I did not want to write a book about Hong Kong. But I had thought we would have thirty more years to build a body of stories, to archive our way of life so that it would be remembered after 2047. Then the walls began closing in, and we were running out of time. I didn’t want to write about this place after everything had already disappeared, when I would have only me and my unreliable memory to reconstruct how I remembered this place. And so I wrote you this. Documenting disappearances is a defeatist line of work: I can never write fast enough to keep up with the changes of my hometown. Nothing survives in this city. But in a place that had never allowed you to write your own history, even remembrance can be a radical act.”
In The Impossible City: A Hong Kong Memoir, Cheung recounts her childhood, her experiences at international school, and the events that led her to becoming a journalist. And yet, The Impossible City feels more of a love letter to Hong Kong, what was and what could be, what makes Hong Kong Hong Kong, and what defines a Hong Konger. Cheung never claims to speak for all Hong Kongers, even saying: “But how could a person, any person, write a single story that could embody this city and all its beautiful, chaotic contradictions? Do not read this and believe that I am the one who can give you the story of Hong Kong. Never trust anyone who holds themselves out as such.”
Still, I found her words, experience and perspective to be incredibly relatable. Cheung paints a vivid picture of Hong Kong, never shying away from the good, and the ugly aspects of it. The Impossible City is Cheung’s memoir, and at times, feels a little voyeuristic — like we’ve been given someone’s journal, and we’re reading about not just the deepest, ugliest parts of them, but of their lover, too. There’s no denying the love that Cheung has for Hong Kong; it’s recounted again and again. But Cheung doesn’t only remind us of her love for Hong Kong, but rather, the love that Hong Kongers have for a city that once had so much potential.
In between stories about fellow protestors and activists, Cheung poses the question: “Why are we still trying to fight for [our ways of life] rather than to flee?”. Again and again, we read about why people choose to stay, why people fight, despite all that’s at risk. For what Hong Kong was, for what it could be; for the people who don’t have the luxury to leave, for the people who have never known anywhere else. There are so many reasons for why one would stay — which isn’t to say that fleeing is an act of cowardice, because it isn’t.
I really appreciated the nuance in this book; Cheung’s experiences are undoubtedly affected by her identities, and she doesn’t shy away from discussing topics like class, mental health, language, culture, gentrification/the housing crisis, lack of democracy and freedom, and widening wage gaps, with her own identities and privilege in mind.
The Impossible City reads a bit like a eulogy and a celebration of life, and in a way, it is both. It’s a candid and emotional recount of Hong Kong and of one’s relationship to it. It’s simply Karen, telling her story, trying to do justice to the people and the place she loves the most. And maybe that’s what makes it the most heartbreaking; that at the end of the day, it really is just a girl trying to hold onto her home as it vanishes before her eyes. It just happens that I, like Karen, am another one of those girls. The Impossible City leaves me wondering if I’ll ever get to see Hong Kong the way I remember it fondly from my childhood; it left me hopeful and heartbroken and homesick all at once.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t stress once again, that this memoir contains trigger warnings for: depression, suicide ideation/suicide, hospitalization, police brutality, anxiety, child abuse, death, death of a grandparent. I would also like to stress that depression, and suicide are recurring themes in the book, and can be triggering for some. If you’d like any detailed information, or have any questions, feel free to send me a message on any of my socials, or reply in the comments below.
If you’d like to learn more about Hong Kong, I’d also recommend reading Mark Clifford’s Today Hong Kong, Tomorrow The World.
Links for The Impossible City: A Hong Kong Memoir: Goodreads | TheStorygraph | Bookshop | IndieBound
