Tongueless: Lau Yee-Wa's Thrilling Commentary On Social Changes In Hong Kong

Tongueless follows two rival teachers at a secondary school in Hong Kong who are instructed to switch from teaching in Cantonese to Mandarin—or lose their jobs. Apolitical and focusing on surviving and thriving in their professional environment, Wai and Ling each approach the challenge differently. Sharp, darkly humorous, and politically pointed, Tongueless presciently engages with important issues facing Hong Kong today during which so much of the city’s uniqueness—especially its language—is at risk of being erased.

An Excerpt From Tongueless By Lau Yee-Wa

It was as if nothing had happened.
Summer vacation had passed, and Wai’s cubicle remained
untouched. Even the custodian hadn’t asked about it. A
perfectly ordinary seat, a desk full of exercise books, a pen
holder packed with red pens, a partition tacked with scattered
notes in Mandarin pinyin romanisation, reminiscent
of a poor bird whose feathers had been plucked from its
body. What stood out was that the area was extremely neat,
the exercise books on the desk arranged by height from
tall to short, each angle precisely ninety degrees. Similarly,
the pens in the pen holder were categorised by colour: red
in front, black and blue in back, resembling a national flag
from a distance. Although it had been two months since
anyone had sat there, there wasn’t a speck of dust on the
surface of the desk. Another peculiarity was that Wai’s
desk and bookcase were covered in mirrors – a small round
convex surveillance mirror, a mosaic-studded vanity mirror,
a small mirrored decorative box, and on and on, all of them
connected like one mirrored sea. Even the four sides of the
computer screen were besieged by mirrors, leaving only a
small rectangular frame. Ling had always wondered: when
Wai turned on the computer, what else could she see other
than her own image?

Wai had died by suicide on the first day of summer break.
News of Wai’s suicide had generated a lot of buzz. Facebook
comments flew everywhere, and the foreign media scrambled
to report it. It was absolutely spine-chilling, bloodier
than a family massacre – surely it would be selected as one
of the top ten news stories at the end of the year. There
were people online using the incident to promote their
own views, calling for the government to advocate for
smaller class sizes and abolish the territory-wide system
assessment and contract teacher system. . . The teachers’
office, however, was like a sealed-off structure; no one mentioned
Wai unless they absolutely had to. At the start of
the new school year, as she’d done previously, the head of
the department reviewed past papers of the International
English Language Testing System (IELTS) exam during
her free period. Miss Wu and Miss Ip huddled together to
browse the gossip pages, information on group buying and
pet photos. The other Chinese-language teachers had their
hands full teaching classes, issuing announcements, disciplining
students, contacting parents, grading homework
and planning lessons. No one had time to think about what
had happened to Wai – everyone had long forgotten this
person, except for her mirrors.

In the Sing Din Secondary School teachers’ office, colleagues
who taught the same subjects sat together, forming
their own communities. None of the colleagues in the
Chinese department could bring themselves to look at
Wai’s mirrors. The array of mirrors reminded the head
of the department of the Eight-Trigram battle formation,
giving off an evil aura that made her scalp tingle at the very
sight. Miss Au, who sat behind Wai, was separated from her
cubicle by a corridor. Whenever she sat down, she scooted
her swivel chair forward, unable to feel at ease until her
body was pressed tightly against her desk. The other teachers
steered clear of Wai’s seat whenever possible, as though
something ominous would happen if they got too close.
Ling was the one who sat closest to Wai. Their seats were
divided only by a partition the height of half a person. Each
afternoon, Wai’s sea of mirrors reflected the piercing glare
of sunlight. Whenever she passed by Wai’s seat, even if
she avoided looking at her mirrors, Ling nevertheless felt
countless oncoming blades dismembering her entire body.
Even on cloudy days, Ling deliberately kept her head down,
but the light from the mirrors still flashed in her peripheral
vision like the useless tail of a gecko that remained in place
even after the gecko had scurried off, giving a false impression
of power.

But no one ever considered clearing out Wai’s cubicle,
Ling included. They just wanted it to be out of sight, out of
mind.

Excerpted with permission from Tongueless, Lau Yee-Wa, Profile Books/Hachette India; translated by Jennifer Feeley.