This summer, an event showcasing Hong Kong culture through books, comics, theater and other forms of art was held at a cultural facility in Tokyo.
Called Ikoku no Natsuyasumi (“A Summer Vacation in a Foreign Land”), the event was organized by Sharon Chan, who founded Mount Zero Books, an independent bookstore that also carried works by Hong Kong pro-democracy activists.
Chan, who is in her 50s, originally ran the bookstore in Hong Kong but closed it in 2024 after facing repeated harassment from the authorities. She subsequently moved her base to Japan.
Among those taking part in the event were artists regarded as “unwelcome” by the Hong Kong government.
Renowned 71-year-old Hong Kong cartoonist Wong Kei-kwan, better known by his pen name Zunzi, used his cartoons to sharply criticize the Hong Kong government’s shortcomings.
But in 2023, a newspaper ended his satirical cartoon series after nearly 40 years, apparently bowing to pressure from the authorities.
The move sent shockwaves through Hong Kong society, where even the freedom to laugh was seen as having been taken away under the National Security Law enacted in 2020.
Zunzi gave a talk on the history of newspaper cartoons in Hong Kong. He explained how, since the 1930s, newspaper cartoons had developed into a form of art that “stood from the perspective of ordinary people,” “lifted readers’ spirits” and allowed people to read a “concise history of society.”
Artists Under Pressure
Chan also invited renowned Hong Kong playwright Candace Chong and veteran Hong Kong actor Anthony Wong to the event.
“To me, the three of them are simply artists,” Chan said.
Candace Chong is known for plays tackling taboo subjects such as the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown and has drawn the ire of the Hong Kong government.
Wong, who has appeared in films including the Infernal Affairs trilogy, has long supported Hong Kong’s democracy movement. He, too, has been shut out of the Chinese and Hong Kong markets.
On July 16 and 17, Japanese actors performed a staged reading based on Chong’s play We Are Gay, followed by a conversation between Chong and Wong. More than 400 people attended over the two days, including many fans who had traveled from Hong Kong.
The play deals with homosexuality. A full stage production starring Wong had been scheduled to run in Hong Kong last year but was canceled following pressure from the authorities.
During the conversation, Chong spoke candidly about how she sometimes feels “terribly depressed” in the face of the reality that her works can no longer be staged in Hong Kong.
At the same time, she declared, “The blows I am taking are not only the ones that can be seen. There are invisible ones, too. I will write about them someday.”
Wong offered words of encouragement, saying, “Society moves forward and backward, developing like a spiral.”
Preserving Hong Kong’s Memory
Like Chong, Zunzi wants to preserve the history of Hong Kong’s cartoon culture before it is erased by Beijing. But for both artists, publishing their work in Hong Kong has become difficult.
Leticia Wong, who runs an independent bookstore in Hong Kong, had also been scheduled to take part in the event. But in late June, she was arrested on suspicion of selling books that incited hatred toward the government.
After being released on bail, she reopened her bookstore. This month, she shared a passage from a new book on social media:
“In an authoritarian society, people do not write for the sake of publication. They write because they have a responsibility to record the truth and express their thoughts.”
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(Read the article in Japanese.)
Author: Kinya Fujimoto, The Sankei Shimbun
