HKU Bulletin May 2005 (Vol. 6 No. 3)

17 16 ARTS Becoming a Writer B ooker Prize winner, Alan Hollinghurst, delighted staff and students in March when he delivered the inaugural Man Booker Distinguished Lecture, at the University. The winner of the 2004 Prize was in Hong Kong as part of the city’s International Literary Festival and expressed great relief over not being asked to talk about his own work. “My record as a lecturer is not good” he said but he went on to engage listeners with his wit and good humour. In his talk, entitled Becoming a Writer , he spoke about his great love of architecture and his early ambition to become an architect. “I loved plans. As a child my most absorbing fantasy was to design houses.” But he went on to reveal his passion for poetry and literature saying that from a young age he was ‘always quiet and happy in solitude’, going on walks in his mind. A former deputy editor of the Times Literary Supplement Hollinghurst had originally hoped to write poetry but said the muse deserted him in 1985 when he signed a contract with Faber. “Poetry is more suited to youth,” he said. “But novels generally take years to write. Sometimes you grow out of them before you finish them.” Over the last 20 years Hollinghurst, who can spend up to five years writing a novel, has established a strong reputation as writer of gay fiction. He has said he ‘writes about gay life from a gay perspective unapologetically’. Earlier in the day he had spent over an hour talking to students in the Department of English about the art of writing. Taking the Tram G lance at any photograph of a Hong Kong street from the last hundred years and chances are a tram will be slowly rattling through the scene. The city’s trams have borne witness to a myriad of changes in the last century and continue to carry passengers like stoical elephants, ambl ing leisurely through a jungle of glass and concrete. They may not be Hong Kong’s oldest form of transport but they reek of nostalgia and have a wonderful capacity to take one back in time. The trams move through some of Hong Kong Island’s oldest districts offering a glimpse into a world that much of Central has long left behind. Old shops selling shark’s fin and Chinese herbs skirt the streets of Western and the lively markets of Kennedy Town still attract tourists. There was a time when trams clattered along the shoreline, before successive reclamations pushed back Des Voex Road from its harbour-front home and into the heart of the city. Now, skyscrapers screen the view of Kowloon and passengers indulge, instead, in people-watching. In celebration of the centennial anniversary of these enduring icons the University Museum and Art Gallery’s staging a nostalgic exhibition of Hong Kong tramways from a collection of fascinating photographs loaned by Mr Cheng Po Hung, who also wrote an accompanying book. The exhibi t ion runs alongside a col lect ion of more contemporary photographs by David Young, Rick Poon and Ellen Tam. Ear ly Hong Kong Tramways takes a look at the urban development along the tram tracks from their construction in 1902. The trams began operating through Hong Kong in July 1904, initially beginning their journey from the West in Kennedy Town and ending on the more Eastern part of the island at Causeway Bay. An additional route to Happy Valley ensured that enthusiastic punters could arrive at the races with the minimum of ef T fo w r o t. years later the tramways were extended to Shau Kei Wan and they have continued to evolve along with the urban landscape ever since. Al l these tramways were, of course, preceded by Hong Kong’s most famous, the Peak Tram which has been carrying passengers up into the clouds for a spectacular view of an ever- changing city for 117 years. Hong Kong’s trams stand as a testament to its enduring reputation as a city that takes pride in transporting its burgeoning population with the minimum of fuss and expense. The Exhibition will end on July 3, 2005.