My shoulder aches a little from carrying a heavy bag while walking around this morning. My sister gave me three packs of instant mashed potatoes mix to give to our 婆婆 por por because our 公公 gong gong has been in the hospital for over a month and she likes plain smooth mashed potatoes; nothing fancy. My sister, my partner and I met up at the Central Ferry Pier No. 4 to go for a walk listening to the same thing: a 62-minute audio piece I had only finished editing and exporting the previous night (3:00 am, so technically this morning).
This year’s audio is a revision of last year’s piece, which was 71 minutes long.
The numbers don’t have a symbolic meaning but the duration is important because that’s roughly the time it takes to walk from Central to Causeway Bay, retracing 34 years of protest marches: down Queensway, which changes into Hennessy Road, past the High Court, Pacific Place, Police Headquarters, under the Canal Road flyover, past SOGO, on to Great George Street, across Gloucester Road to reach the Victoria Park football pitches, where the annual candlelight vigil commemorating June 4th was held each year until 2020.
2021 was the first year I put together some text and clips, arranged into a one-hour programme, something to read and listen to, something to meditate on quietly. So this is the third year I’ve put something together. You would think that having an immovable deadline and knowing it a year in advance would mean that I’d have plenty of time to deliberate on revisions, but this year I threw the whole thing together in 48 hours—maybe out of laziness, but also because of avoidance. I cry too much.
Notes on changes to this year’s audio, A Perfectly Ordinary Day:
- New intro that’s less sentimental, more current, more inclusive
- Addition of a clip from a 30 May 2023 press conference with Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee
- Addition of several clips from an RTHK broadcast (thank you to a friend for this) about June 4, 1990 (creators and exact date of broadcast unknown)
- Re-recorded narrations that sound more natural and relaxed
- Cut two book readings
- Cut one poem reading
- Cut last year’s message from the Tiananmen Mother’s Group
- Cut Tom Chang 張雨生’s song 《沒有煙抽的日子》(1989)
- Addition of a snippet from the “I am a Journalist, My June 4 Story” project
- Addition of Denise Ho 何韻詩’s song 《是有種人》(2015)
- Addition of a June 2021 BBC interview with Chow Hang-tung 鄒幸彤
- Improved loudness matching, transitions, and mixing
- Less adherence to previous vigil programming
- Reversed the order of the walk to go from Central to Causeway Bay instead of Causeway Bay to Central
- New conclusion that points more towards possible action
How to cite: P, Charis “Just Another Day: Charis P.” Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, 4 Jun. 2023, chajournal.blog/2023/06/04/charis.
Charis P does many different things. She used to design websites and apps, before working as an editor and creative strategist. She is interested in inclusivity, intimacy, care, and collective practice within groups and between individuals, poetics in communication, experimentations in audio, and comics. Hong Kong is home for her. Visit her website for more information.
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