Our Tomorrows

「命裡有時終須有  命裡無時莫強求」

 「明日懶鬼理  最緊要宜家HAPPY  話知巨死」

許冠傑

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Dear Kate,

Do you know Sam Hui?

Not me, not really, because my parents didn't let me watch any TV beyond 30 minutes of strictly rationed daily cartoon.  And no movies of course--until the indulgent uncle came into our teenage picture.  I am thankful for the polarizing elders, stretching our worldview and moral fibers, showing us the saints and sinners and how we can't really tell which is which even in ourselves.

Sam is a HK music legend, doesn't sing that well, guitar skill about a notch above Elvis' (who used it more as a props), but Sam writes his own songs--and what beautiful songs!

I knew his songs mostly from a "greatest hits" compilation CD my brother had, and that was after we've come to Canada, the heydays of Hui's stardom well behind him, though the speaking power of his work lingered still.

If you were a "Honger" you knew these songs were about you.  It's not even that you couldn't speak for yourself with probably the same street eloquence (I have a few friends who can do that and with the benefit of colorful language), but it's quite another matter to have your faith statements enshrined in lore and lines and see yourself as part of an emerging heritage.  The mythologies are so beautiful that I literally memorized every single word in that album in no time and can write them out word for word even now.

The two lines above are from two different songs.  The first says, "If this is what Fate wills, then you shall have what you desire.  If not, don't resist, don't insist."  And the second, "Who cares about tomorrow?  All that matters is you're happy now.  Who cares if the world is going to hell?"

Stoicism plus hedonism, not entirely compatible yet, to our little island, totally practical and practicable.  The lines sound crude and cruel, don't they?  Yet the vulgarity was really what we lived by and thrived on.  Life was beautiful when everything and everyone was on the up and up.  But when our world goes to hell, well...it goes.

Last week Sam gave a free online concert to encourage people in HK.  I watched a bit of it.  His songs' speaking power was no more, to me anyway.  In fact, any "legendary" celebrity in HK who's ever to speak a word about politic now is bound to have his/her legacy tarnished before the night is over, doesn't matter which "side" one is on.

This sort of polarizing public discourse is too a part of the legacy the last generations have left us, by not speaking up meaningfully, prophetically when there was still a fertile soil to cultivate a robust heritage that could weather storms and schism.  The narrow zebra vision of the younger generations who can only see shortsightedly in black and white must have its root somewhere, from someone.

The saint that Sam is now is still the saint that he was.  His music will forever be neat and tidy and merely serviceable until we see the sinner in him.

Yours, Alex