Flow cloud copy

 

 

　　"Beginning with the unforeseen, then lament, sigh, destruction, mystery, fear, steadfastness, dream."

 

　　"Streaming Clouds" is the young writer Lee Yat-hong's first collection of essays, compiling twenty recent pieces. The book takes "the unforeseen" as its theme, but what it focuses on is not dramatic natural or man-made disasters. Instead, it delves into the gradually unfolding scenes of breakdown within everyday experiences. He stretches and magnifies "a fleeting moment," reassembling it into an infinite chain of destiny. Thus, in "Nara Electrical Fantasy," there are waves of scripture guardians, dedicating their lives over long years to protect fragile scriptures; in "As White as Snow, Like a Baby," an innocent dog is repeatedly sold, and a young mother's trust in humanity gradually crumbles; and in "Sketching Before Heian Shrine," during a popular festival, the author's gaze falls upon the victims left behind one by one in the vast current of history.

 

　　Studying abroad in Japan brought Lee Yat-hong not only cultural shock but also the threat of natural disasters: earthquakes, floods, and heatwaves recurred. Living on a shadowed island prone to disasters forced him to confront impermanence. Yet, his experiences in a foreign land invariably mirrored and overlapped with a scarred Hong Kong, transforming as they merged with local memories. In the vast human world, there are transients with no place to belong; this could be the northern library of an island nation, or in a flash, a bustling, desperate minibus.

 

　　Unlike typical travel essays, the author's vision is not limited by geography but views life as a broad journey. In this long journey, he has visited real foreign lands; he has been to the homeland described by a Muay Thai coach, and the iron kingdom of the gym; he has heard the echoes of war from another end of history, dormant in everyday things, which will eventually reach the ears of the future.

 

　　"I cannot escape the endless hell, so I can only open myself up, letting things drift and scatter. This is not a perfect ending, but for now, we must find solace in this."