Finding the balance between self-identification, love and success in the big city.
March 14, White Valentines day, is celebrated by the Asian community traditionally with partners gifting their loved ones gifts, and the usual Valentine’s “Aw Thank you!” and “I love you’s!”. This simplistic reciprocity is often what one yearns for in a relationship. Seemingly straight forward, to look for that one person that catches your eye, but in a bustling city full of endless faces, it often appears a complex and fruitless search. Historically, thinkers, poets, and artists alike have attempted to capture this most illustrious experience in appeal to the many in search of it. But in 2022, the search for love doesn’t seem nearly as clean cut.
We are often fed romanticised realisms of love being the fairy-tale ideal, but where love shines, often in its shadow lies the realities of our cynicism and insecurities. Modern media often supports a unilateral romantic ideal, featuring the protagonists being so in love they choose to pursue their lover against all odds, not caring about moving across the world, and starting a new life all over again. But is this still our ideal of unconditional love in 2022? Is it realistic to wish for your lover to be willing to do anything for you, and to imagine love being destined? Often the pressures of life forces us to accept the realities of being hopeless romantics, being pre-disposed to live out our romantic fantasies through movies and fantasies. Thus inciting the questions: how does one balance the yearning for professional success and emotional contentment in modern times? Can we pursue both at the same time?
“Our love language reflects our childhood upbringing- it’s important to know your attachment style.” is a commonly seen phrase on social media among discussions shared by other love-seeking singles. I haven’t paid much thought to that yet I have to admit, but reflecting in retrospect about my upbringing, I found myself learning about most of life’s lessons on love through Asian cinema. I learnt about the importance of vulnerability and a parent’s patience in Teddy Chan’s Wait ’Til You’re Older (2005), and about the emotional journey of leaving a toxic relationship in Wong Kar Wai’s Happy Together (1997). These movies helped me contextualise whatever I was going through during a specific period of my life. Now in 2022, reflecting upon modern times of mass emigration in Hong Kong and homesickness following my move to London, I find myself revisiting one movie in particular, one that aided my loneliness and reignited my hope in the pursuit of love.
Re-exploring the award winning movie, Comrades: Almost a love story (1996), director Peter Chan sensitively captures the angst of self-identity, loneliness, and hopelessness of an immigrant’s Leon Lai & Maggie Cheung star in Peter Chan’s Comrades: Almost a Love story, 1996 experience in 1980’s Hong Kong. Having aged 26 years since its release, the tropes and ideas surrounding Hong Kong’s “American” dream, and the difficulties of moving abroad still appear ripe and palpable to audiences in 2022. Written by Ivy Ho, the movie explores the story of young dreamers trying to make it in a city that is simultaneously heartless and brimming with potential for love.
Synopsis:
Set in 1986 Hong Kong, the film spans over 10 years, starting from March 1 in Kowloon railroad station, the heart of Hong Kong. We are introduced to one of the lead protagonists, Li Xiao Jun, played by pop star Leon Lai (Fallen Angels) as he arrives at from Tianjin, Northern China. Wide-eyed but charming through his naïveté, Xiao Jun navigates through the metropolis of bustling Hong Kong, visibly isolated by the language barrier as he narrates his adventure through the maze-like city in Mandarin. We follow him as he finds sanctuary and respite in a cramped flat shared with sex workers in courtesy of his aunt, Rosie. Called “Uncle China” by local Hong Kongers and lost in his new surroundings, he finds a job at a butcher shop. Having never seen a fast food restaurant in his hometown, Xiao Jun plucks up the courage to cross one thing off his bucket list, and visits the local Mcdonalds. As the film unfolds, he becomes best friends with Li Qiao, presented to the audience as a fervent money maker, on her shift at McDonald’s. In a frisson filled sequence, Li Qiao and Xiao Jun’s friendship crosses the line to physical passion. As the initial friendship morphs into an ambiguous love, it’s all too late when realised, and the relationship has turned sour. The two’s idyll comes to an end following October ’87’s Stock market crash, wiping out Qiao’s savings. Starting over, she finds a new job as a masseuse in a seedy parlour. With reality acting as a looming cloud, their relationship goes through rough waters. It’s undeniable how destiny acts as a constant overcasting force over Hong Kong, a city that has been swept along by the river of history, with little or no control over their eventual fate.
The Dreamchaser vs The Lover
How does one decide who’s a good match for you? Is it true that opposites attract? Chinese people often believe mention the phenomenon of “Yuen Fun” (緣分). The phrase encapsulates the belief of “fateful coincidences”, that ‘Yuen fun’ is the force that bring lovers together- or keeps them apart.
In Comrades, Almost a love story, we as the audience are faced with the stark difference between Li Qiao, a hard worker under the pursuit of financial success, and Xiao Jun, a fresh faced migrant trying to save up enough money to bring his girlfriend over to Hong Kong. Through ‘Yuen Fun’, the two cross paths, but their differing priorities and the hurdles of pursuing success in 1980’s Hong Kong makes them question if they’re meant to be together.
Throughout the movie, Li Qiao embodies a diligent migrant chasing the American Dream, ultimately believing anything is attainable given one works hard. Compared to the footage we’re given into Xiao Jun’s cramped living quarters, we rarely see Li Qiao at her home, she is often portrayed bouncing between jobs, trying to earn as much money as possible. Pursuing the ultimate goal of becoming a Hong Konger, she puts in the effort to learn English, she owns an ATM card, she invests in stocks, she’s saving up to build property in her hometown. Viewed as the metropolis where dreams come true, and where East meets West, there’s a sense of concealment of her own identity as a mainlander, reassuring herself that she’s not “comrades” with Xiao Jun in the early half of the movie.
She’s assures herself she’s ‘different’ to him, since she’s from Guangzhou, which is geographically closer to Hong Kong, she has access to Hong Kong TV, she’s somewhat more “local”. This desire of not wanting to be the sore thumb sticking out in a foreign place is an understandable sentiment widely shared among all migrants, ultimately wanting to settle into ones new home, and this internal conflict of finding a sense of belonging is echoed through both protagonists throughout the movie.
On the other hand, Xiao Jun holds a more simple-minded attitude to his experience in Hong Kong. Visibly an outsider, he’s seen initially wearing clothes that would be considered old fashioned in 1980’s Hong Kong, he rides a bike around the city, and is called “Uncle China” and a “Hick” by the other students in his English class, but pays no regard. Xiao Jun at times appears almost frustratingly simple-minded, acting impulsively and naively in response to the struggles Li Qiao faces.
The differences between the two encapsulates the compelling story of two people simply pursuing different things, and this fundamental difference is also what ultimately drives them apart. One career-driven, anxious about her future, whereas the other is simply looking to establish stability in the city. There’s a “Lelouchian” flavour to the way in which characters’ lives bump around the pool table of life, pursuing separate dreams while connected by threads even they cannot see (Yuen Fun). Is it possible to be career driven and also have your heart soften in the face of love?
Music offering a sense of belonging and closure:
As we follow the lives of Xiao Jun and Li Qiao, the cross pollination of the two characters is expertly shown through Peter Chan’s sensitive application of music. Acting as an allusion to reflect their budding romance and ‘Yuen Fun’ throughout the course of the film, the music functions as the glue that binds all scenes across the span of 10 years into a fluid sequence.
The Chinese title of the film, 甜蜜蜜 (Tian Mi Mi), refers to the hit song sung by Taiwanese singer, Teresa Teng, one of the greatest East Asian singers who reached her peak during the same time the storyline took place. Recounting the story of a young woman’s encounter with a man whom she had a dream about, (oh where, where did I see you before? Your smile is so familiar, it must have been a dream) the song not only expertly depicts the nuances of Li Qiao and Xiao Jun’s relationship, but hits a chord among the film’s Chinese viewers. A classic in Chinese households, the nostalgic sweetness of Teng’s voice, reminiscent of 1920’s Shanghainese singers, would echo out of our parent’s, grandfather’s, bus drivers’, and neighbour’s speakers.
Our first interaction with the song is shared with the two protagonists as they overhear the ballad playing on the street during a bike ride after Xiao Jun’s English class. Initially disappointed by Xiao Jun’s offer of a ride home being a bike ride, Li Qiao can’t help herself but to sing along. As the two sing along, once Stoic and distant, Li Qiao finds a friend in Xiao Jun as she lets down her defences and belts the song freely from the backseat of his bike. The warm melody is followed with a montage of the two’s gradually increasingly close-knit relationship. Xiao Jun would help Li Qiao with deliveries as she bounces from cleaning the English school to working as a florist, marking the “Honeymoon” stage of their flourishing friendship.
Furthermore, on a cold New Years day, Li Qiao invests her savings into a stall exclusively selling Teresa Teng’s cassette tapes and merchandise. Once again exploring the socio-political nuances of 1980’s Hong Kong and the desire to conform, sales remain stagnant throughout the night. Frustrated, cold and defeated, Xiao Jun attempts to comfort Li Qiao with a warm bottle of Vitasoy, a comfort drink to all Hong Kongers before admitting to her his aunt Rosie’s advice, “Only Mainlanders like Teresa Teng”.
Teng sang in Mandarin, whereas the majority of Hong Kong stars sang in Cantonese, marking her as a “Mainland” artist. The reluctance from the public to purchase their cassettes even though there’s a big population of Mainlanders in Hong Kong, acts a paradoxically isolating them from the mainland community, while bringing the two closer together as Teng’s music acts as their souvenir from home.
The two confess the loneliness they feel, and Li Qiao finally admits to Xiao Jun she originates from Guangzhou, Mainland China. Having admitted to each other they’re each other’s only friends in Hong Kong, we as the audience are faced with sympathy, and a deeper understanding of just how isolating life is as a newly planted migrant in a big city. It’s ironic, how one can feel loneliness in a city full of people.
Lastly, as the narrative comes full circle, their shared grief at her death in 1995 is the movie’s most touching expression of the often false hopes that power Chinese emigres. The story ends on May 8th, 1995, the date Teresa Tang died. It’s not just the day when the story comes to an end, it also marked an end of an era, bringing closure to the two’s relationship (without spoiling too much). Through the talks from the pedestrians, this movie tries to tell the audience that this society is no longer the same. All we can do is say goodbye to the beautiful era in Hong Kong.
Revisiting Comrades, Almost a love story in 2022:
Following a resurgence of mass emigration as a result of the current political climate, the movie gives insight into the lives of the migrants before and after leaving Hong Kong through the perspectives of Mainlanders. As it emphasizes the hardships of loneliness, endless yearning for success and love, the movie acts as a nostalgic hug for Hong Kongers at home and abroad.