艾瑞·卡爾的兒童繪本《畫一個星星給我》的最後一頁，最後一句話是「我有了一本書的開頭，和結尾，中間的部份就不難了！」。 《再見維多利亞之東》（2021-2022）是《維多利亞之東》（2017）的廷伸創作。在新增的部份尚未進行前, 我的腦海裡就浮出一個起首和結尾。首是王家衞電影《旺角卡門》裡，張學友飾演的烏蠅將一台原本要送給她母親的冷氣機，連包裝紙皮箱掉入調景嶺對出的海灣（維多利亞之東，即將軍澳，英文名「Junk Bay」）；尾是黄衍仁的歌《逆風吐痰》。
至於中間，似乎沒有多想，很直接地把近年在「維多利亞之東」鄰近土地及海域發生的社會運動所涉及的三個人物:「泅泳者」丶「渡海者」和「墜樓人」編入《再見維多利亞之東》的之中，作為對2017年的時間伸廷。陳智德（筆名陳滅）的《地文誌》把調景嶺形容得非常深刻：「調景嶺作為理想凝聚──也同時是停止的空間，這凝聚又停止的空間也就是香港：一個滯留的空間，一整代人的時間意義被停止丶被取消。」
烏蠅掉入海的紙箱是被母親拒絕的東西；逆風而唾是微小又帶輕蔑的對抗姿態。「同一個海上，莫講話無法回頭」，Goodbye, See You Again！是告別，或者重逢。「那一個擁抱，可有，或無」。對岸，郵輪上的「Hello Beautiful Hong Kong Dream」 廣告燈閃耀。
On the last page of Eric Carle’s Draw Me a Star, the author writes in the last sentence, ‘I had a beginning for a book, and an ending. The middle was easy!’ Goodbye Victoria East (2021-2022) is a sequel to Victoria East (2017). Before the extended creation came into existence, a beginning and an end had already emerged in my mind. The beginning is a scene from Wong Kar-wai’s As Tears Go By: Fly (played by Jacky Cheung) tosses an air conditioner, still in its cardboard box, intended to be a present for his mother,into the bay facing Tiu Keng Ling (‘Victoria East’ is Tseung Kwan O, its English name is ‘Junk Bay’). The end is Wong Hin-yan’s song Spitting Against the Wind.
As for the middle, I didn’t give it much thought. I directly bring in the three figures involved in the social movements that took place near the land and waters of ‘Victoria East’ in recent years. The three figures, ‘The Swimmer’, ‘The Sea-Crosser’, and ‘The Fallen’, are incorporated into Goodbye Victoria East in an attempt to extend the time of 2017. In Chan Chi-tak’s book Di Wen Zi: A Record of Place and Literature (地文誌), Tiu Keng Ling is vividly described, ‘Tiu Keng Ling is a space where dreams converge and time halts. This space of convergence and halting is Hong Kong: a space where things are held up and the meaning of time for a whole generation is involuntarily halted and canceled.’
The cardboard box Fly tosses into the sea is an object rejected by his own mother; the song Spitting Against the Wind is a small but contemptuous confrontational behaviour. The lyrics goes ‘On the same sea, let’s not talk about not being about to turn back’. Goodbye, See You Again! – it’s a farewell or a reunion. ‘That hug is but dispensable’. On the opposite shore, the luminous sign on a cruiser dazzlingly displays ‘Hello! Beautiful Hong Kong Dream’.
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