It happened when I was prepping for a roundtable on Hong Kong I am taking part in tomorrow, deliberately timed to be a day after this, just another day. My soundtrack for work was the YouTube livestream of Causeway Bay by the online media Channel C. For a while the sounds of Hong Kong streets motivated me as I thought about Hong Kong writing and the Hong Kong struggle: the live commentary on Channel C, the hustle-bustle of Causeway Bay Station, the shuffle of feet when journalists run after newsworthy material, and the occasional shouts made by those taken away by the police.
Intermittently, the livestream would pick up the automatic broadcast blasting all day from the police checkpoint on Great George Street outside MTR Exit E. When the stream started at about 5 pm Hong Kong time, there was only one loudspeaker. Two hours into the stream, as the cameraman walked back from Victoria Park to that exit, suddenly I could hear an incessant reverberation:
(Due to overcrowding at the above site … please follow police instructions … please leave the site as quickly as possible and do not loiter … Thank you for your cooperation …)
I stopped working and turned to the stream. The cameraman had gone to use the bathroom and left the camera facing the checkpoint where at least two loudspeakers were visible now, but I could hear at least three echoes, each starting half a second after one another, each repeating itself every 18 seconds. For a good seven minutes the mechanical recitation looped and looped like a curse.
This was supposed to be just another ordinary day, where white noise should help me focus on my work. Instead, we had a farcical paradox: the more deliberate the announcement, the more impossible to unhear, to forget.
So, to save my ruined day, I decided to make art out of it. To etch the moment into indelibility.
I recorded one cycle of the chant and made duplicate copies of the footage, twisting them, distorting them, playing with a different filter on them, using editing software. I channelled my irritation into making my first piece of digital art, the sort of thing one would do on any other ordinary day.
Those interested can watch the short video here.
How to cite: Tsang, Michael. “Just Another Day: Michael Tsang.” Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, 4 Jun. 2023, chajournal.blog/2023/06/04/michael-another-day.
Michael Tsang is an academic, a writer, and for the first time ever, he can call himself an “artist”. His creative works can be found in Cha, Wasafiri, Where Else: An International Hong Kong Poetry Anthology among other places. He teaches literature and popular culture of East Asia at Birkbeck, University of London. [Michael Tsang and chajournal.blog.]
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