Review: Indelible City (by Louisa Lim)

My Rating:  4 stars

I had read Louisa Lim's previous book about the Tiananmen Square Massacre a few years back and one of the things I remember most was how succinctly Lim was able to convey the "collective amnesia" approach that China used to essentially "erase" the incident from its history. Even though that book was written in 2014, I never actually knew of the book's existence until June 2019, when I accidentally stumbled across it and decided, given the familiarity of the subject matter, I just had to read it.  As I mentioned in my review of that book, reading it couldn't have been more timely, since it happened to be right in the middle of the protests in Hong Kong over the extradition law. Coincidentally, now 3 years later, Lim has come out with yet another timely book, this time about those exact events that occurred in Hong Kong in 2019, but also covering the historical details that led up to it. This new book, titled Indelible City, obviously hit much closer to home for me, since I'm from Hong Kong and continue to be intimately connected to the city where I was born, even though it has now became a place that I no longer recognize.

To say that this book is about the protests though is a bit inaccurate, as it's actually about much more than that.  The first half of the book covers the history of Hong Kong, from when it became a British colony in the late 1800s up through the handover back to China in 1997 as well as the immediate years after through the early 2000s.  Interwoven throughout this narrative are background details related to Lim's own experiences as a mixed race Eurasian child who wasn't born in Hong Kong, but grew up there and also lived most of her life there.  Also woven into the narrative is the story of the King of Kowloon, which most Hong Kongers are likely familiar with, but not to the level of detail portrayed in here.  This first half of the book I actually loved because of the way Lim was able to clearly convey the unique history, culture, and identity of Hong Kong — which, to me, is important due to the lack of books out there (written in English) that authentically tell the story of Hong Kong (case in point: I've been searching for these types of books most of my reading life and continue to do so).  Up to this point, the majority of the narratives out there about Hong Kong are either told from the Western perspective or from the Mainland Chinese perspective — both of which are tremendously flawed and rife with biases that favor the side telling the story.  This book is unique in that it is one of the few books out there where the narrative is actually from the Hong Konger's perspective (and Lim definitely did a great job in the book explaining why this is of such huge significance).  I can't emphasize enough how satisfying it is to read about something I'm so intimately familiar with (in this case, the story of Hong Kong) and to see it actually done right — the details from the geography of the city, to the people, the culture, the language, the values that we hold dear, etc — things that someone from the outside who isn't connected to the city would have a difficult time truly understanding. 

Having said all that, the second half of the book was more of a tedious read for me, especially the section that covered the politics-heavy period from the Umbrella Movement in 2014 up through enactment of the national security law in November 2020.  Of course I understand the necessity of including these events due to the outsized role they play in Hong Kong's identity and history, and I definitely appreciate the amount of detail that Lim uses to relay the story — but for someone like me, who 1) hates reading about politics, and 2) was already more than familiar with all the details of those events as they occurred due to my connections to the city (it's not an understatement to say that I lost countless hours of sleep endlessly monitoring the protests and everything that was happening on the ground in Hong Kong at that time) — so seeing all those details rehashed all over again made my head hurt, to be honest.   Again though, this is strictly just me — others who may not be familiar with Hong Kong or the events that occurred the past couple years will likely find these details useful.

I could actually go on and on about this book, as there is so much in here worth bringing up, especially in the context of how much of what Lim writes about actually echoes my own experience of Hong Kong.  But I will refrain, as I prefer that people read this book for themselves first — if anything, for the foundational knowledge that it provides about a city that is often misunderstood.  This book is rare in that it actually gives voice to people whose opinions, throughout history, aren't usually heard or counted: those living in Hong Kong who have no choice but to accept (whether willingly or unwillingly) their fate of forever being rendered invisible.  To me, this aspect alone makes this book worth reading.