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.