by Brian Hioe
語言:
English
Photo credit: Studio Incendo/Flickr/CC BY 2.0
CJ ANDERSON-WU’S Endangered Youth is best read as an ensemble work, comprising a series of vignettes and micro-fiction about young activists in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Ukraine. The book draws heavily from reality, referencing a number of real-world figures with slight alterations to their names. This is also true of many historical events referenced in the book.
Predominantly, it is the shadow of Hong Kong that looms large over the collection of stories. Stories about Ukraine, or digressions to the United States, stand out less prominently. Most stories about Taiwan are historical, drawing from the White Terror, rather than more recent events such as the 2014 Sunflower Movement or the last decade of electoral contention in Taiwan.
Endangered Youth is at its most interesting when the book ventures into the fantastical. One story, for example, features a Joshua Wong analogue in dialogue with literal ghosts haunting him from the White Terror. Another story explores what could have occurred had any of the Hong Kong activists who sought to flee to Taiwan by speedboat had failed to make it and instead drowned at sea.
Indeed, the stories that hew closer to reality do not fare as well. The range of contemporary activists from Hong Kong referenced, whether that be Nathan Law, Joshua Wong, Gwyneth Ho, or Sebastian Lai, the son of Jimmy Lai, is to be noted. But sometimes the effect comes off as fanfiction about real-world people. It is generally the stories that are willing to depart from reality that are the most interesting.
Likewise, there could be more exploration of the disparate settings of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Ukraine. Instead, when presented together, the specificity of these locations is compressed together. And while it is easy to put Hong Kong and Taiwan side-by-side, Ukraine suffers when it does not easily fit alongside the other two.
Still, the effect as a whole does sum up the experience of a generation. And if the attempt is to treat a group of individuals, united beyond time and space, within a single work, that is successful.