001
Despite what all linguists have said, you have to agger
That the goodest English
Is the identity of our physical forms
Or that it is banal between lovers but it is not that
002
It is pretentious / 煩膠
To begin a poem with quotes
By Mei-mei Berssenbrugge or Anne Carson
003
“Why not? They’re serious poets”
Because 認真就輸了
004
回帶 : The goodest English
(According to Anagram Genius)
Is delights on egos
005
Now that we have laid the foundation
That poetry is about playfulness
Let’s move forward
“Agger”
006
Since June, two hordes of beasts
Are in conflict with each other
One accusing the other, “You’ve made a living seam”
While the other defends, “That’s a living sail”
007
中出 is what seems to be a solution
A middle exit a neutral exit a potential of witness and intent
008
(A group of 左膠 is nodding)
009
Yet, neutrality is not a compromise
The former is a disguise for one’s missing
Bells of shame, whereas
Compromise is very much like seeing
Remorse reflected in a shop’s window
And exposing yourself from an affair that way
010
Aren’t you worried
“No”
Aren’t you worried about those guys
“No”
Aren’t you worried that those guys came but had to sit alone
“Yes”
011
Companionship is comforting
As applesauce (fact-checked)
012
Though my arms my butt my guts
Are not J-able as those of the 巴打
On the front line
May they still take notice of me and my requests
013
Teach me HTML
Teach me how to sleep
Through the nights that have stopped
Their wrangle about rationality as they used to
014
To justify my hehe FF, allow me to bring in Bruce Lee
015
Who has once said, “If nothing within you stays
Rigid, outward things will disclose themselves”
And “water can flow or it can crash”
(So, #bewater, my friend)
016
One of those quotes is suspiciously homosocial
As in quote 已 J
As in J 已 cut
As in cut 已 done
As in done 已 done
017
When a narrative ends, be the hacksaw
Or hacksaw-ready
018
Not all water wants to drown. The plain one just wants to spill
019
The city’s walls and streets will soon grow
Immune to bullets invented and not
啪啪啪啪啪啪啪啪啪啪啪啪啪啪啪啪
020
Take a voluble selfie with someone’s spinal ink
The episodic work not only consciously plays with code-switching, but is also written with and out of internet Chinese slangs popular among Cantonese-speaking crowds in Hong Kong today. Most of the slangs are originated from two internet forums, namely GOLDEN(高登) and LIHKG(連登), which (especially the latter) play a significant role in the discussion on recent socio-political happenings in the city. Such slangs immediately become another form of “mystic code,” once they are extracted from their original contexts (often related to local and global popular cultures) and reapplied to suit the users’ needs. To use these slangs is a way to place a marker on one’s identity by excluding those who do seemingly and literally understand every word, but are unable to decipher the meaning because of difference in class, generation, or lacking internet literacy and the right cultural capital.
Notes on the slangs:
001 agger: originally the last name of Daniel Agger, a Danish footballer from the Liverpool Footfoot Club. Internet forum users adopted the word (by error at first, but with intention later) as a mutated form of agree. Goodest: an alternative, though ungrammatical, form of best, often used ironically to mock someone’s low English proficiency.
002 煩膠: a term coined and commonly used on GOLDEN, often referring to mean or ill-intended acts to provoke or cause annoyance. The term literally means “annoying plastic” in Chinese.
003 認真就輸了: originally from a novella of the same title by a Mainland Chinese author, in which characters use the phrase to describe transient romance. The phrase literally means “You lose when you’re serious about it” in Chinese.
004 回帶: an internet term referring to the act of reposting old news as if it was new. The term literally means “rewind” in Chinese.
007 中出: originated in Japanese straight pornography, the term refers to the act of ejaculating inside the woman’s body. It was later used by internet forum users to mean irresponsible acts or decisions that cause trouble to others. Despite the term’s sexual denotation, it has been used numerous times in Hong Kong’s pro-China newspapers as an abbreviation of The Hong Kong Chinese Importers’ & Exporters’ Association. The term literally means “middle exit” in Chinese.
008 左膠: leftard. The term literally means “left plastic” in Chinese.
012 J: short for jer, which, in Cantonese, refers to the male penis. The alphabet’s part of speech varies in its colloquial usage. It can be a verb, a noun or an adjective. When used as a verb, it means “masturbating over (something/ someone)” or, metaphorically, “showing intense admiration towards (something/ someone).” 巴打: a Cantonese homophonic translation of the English word brother, which refers to male internet forum users.
013 HTML: an abbreviation of How To Make Love.
014 hehe: a popular term on GOLDEN since 2013, referring to gay issues or individuals. FF: short for fantasy; inspired by the video game Final Fantasy.
016 y已x: a unique GOLDEN syntactical form that subverts traditional use of Chinese subject-verb collocation, which adopts the xy-structure (where x is a verb and y is a noun). The Chinese word “已” literally means already.
019 啪啪啪: an onomatopoeia originally referring to applause, but was later adopted by Hong Kong internet users as a metonymy for sexual intercourse.