The pleasant lifestyles on Hong Kong's outlying islands usually beat bottled medicine as a tonic for big-city stress, long-term problems or even family feuds. That's what Ann, the leading character in British author Christine Coleman's new novel, Paper Lanterns (Novel Press, 2010, Birmingham, England, 287 pages), learns in a life-changing one-week visit to her elderly mother on “beautiful” Lamma Island.
Driven by adultery and yearning hearts, the story swirls around love-starved characters of all ages, many of them Lamma Islanders. The multi-generational plot bounces from 2008 to the 1970s to the 1930s and back.
For most of her life, Ann, “a dumpy, plain, middle-aged woman with an over-large chin”, has simmered in resentment at Vivienne, the “irresponsible” mother who took a young lover, abandoned her family and resettled on far-away Lamma. Decades later, the lover forsakes Vivienne, and Ann reluctantly travels to offer comfort.
Ann's first impressions of Lamma can't be mistaken for anywhere else. She “blinks and looks around her as the track veers to the right along the waterfront and leads them under a yellow canopy between a shop front on the left with its displays of tanks full of large, colourful fish and, on the right, white-clothed tables overlooking the small boats in the bay. It's like walking through the middle of somebody's house.”
What happens next is “typically Lamma” too. “There's a squeak of bicycle brakes, a shrill ting-a-ling and two young Chinese girls on cycles speed by, calling out, ‘Sorree! So sorree!’ as Ann sidesteps out of the way, banging her thigh against the edge of one of the tables.”
Like most first-time visitors, Ann's surprised that Lamma has no cars or buses, only glorified delivery carts. There's no mistaking them.
“ ‘Watch out, Ann!’ Just in time, she presses herself against the railing as the rattle and clank of a noisy motor bears down on her. The narrow vehicle looks like a tall version of a go-cart, and is driven by a grim-faced man in a dark blue jacket, gripping the steering wheel and staring straight ahead as if to say to any pedestrian, ‘Live or die – it's up to you!’ ”
To Ann's surprise, Vivienne, a garment-shop proprietor on the Main Street, shows little despair. Even more remarkably, she shares an old diary and letters that reveal family secrets and lead Ann into a dilemma.
More than a nice setting, Lamma plays a greater role – almost like a leading character. “Far below, boats are slowly drifting on their moorings…. A ferry is chugging towards the pier. A couple of dark brown birds are circling above…. In between the distant screech of bicycle brakes, the twittering of birds, the sudden deep-throated bark of a dog, she registers the underlying hum of the power station. The heartbeat of the island, she thinks, and for a moment Lamma itself seems like a living entity.”
Coleman has spent enough time on Lamma to understand its ebb-and-flow and to accurately depict it. She knows that most Lamma Islanders show mild eccentricities. So do her characters.
“Poppy is no fool. She's a highly intelligent woman. We all have our little quirks….
‘Has her cat died or something?’
‘One of her cats has died. One of her 27 cats.’ ”
Like Poppy, Vivienne's half-sister, some real Lamma residents loom “larger than life” as “the life and soul of any party… well able to hold their own…, out-drinking, out-talking, out-dancing, out-playing”. The author has attended some Lamma house-parties. When Ann does too, a vaguely familiar crowd joins her:
“There's the German women who runs the deli and has lived on Lamma with her American husband for nearly 20 years. She's talking to the young English couple who stopped off at Hong Kong on their way back from Australia and decided to extend their stay for a few weeks. And there's that pleasant Dutch man who sells second-hand books from a roadside stall, taking to Julian's Chinese friend, Charlie. Among the disparate group of 30 or more guests, the one common factor is the lack of conformity: the ages range from late teens to 80 and there seem to be almost as many nationalities as there are people present….”
Suddenly, Ann recognizes what most Lamma Islanders instinctively know. “The realization strikes her like a revelation: everyone here is at ease with themselves. Tall or short, dumpy or scrawny, old or young – smart, scruffy, long hair, no hair – white, brown, black, pink, tanned and freckled…. Ann's mouth stretches itself into a wide smile. She feels almost dizzy as the words shout in her head: I'm the same as everyone else… because I'm different. Because I'm me.”
Ann also rides the Peak Tram and explores the Mid-Levels on Hong Kong Island, but she makes her most important spiritual discoveries on Lamma. The concrete jungle and its skyscrapers lack the same appeal. “Look at those huge blocks of flats over there – like vertical ant-hills. Some would say total eyesores. Only a very few years ago that was hillside – now, those few square yards, maybe as much as an acre, are home to tens of thousands, I guess.”
The book's title comes from a passage likening human souls to flames that flicker in gusts of wind. They need colorful paper lanterns as protection.
Coleman shows a nice touch with details, often inserting meaningful objects at suitable moments. For example, Ann recalls being an angry teenager who retreats to her bedroom and flips through Anne of Green Gables, a classic novel about childhood angst.
The cover of Paper Lanterns, showing three green lanterns on a lofty Lamma balcony, may cause confusion. Usually, Chinese lanterns are red. Do these green ones symbolize Lamma's trees and hillsides?
A former high-school teacher turned novelist and poet, Coleman toils part-time in a British adult-education program. Her idea for Paper Lanterns came from two directions. She found a collection of 1920s-era love letters written in China by two women to the same man. On visits to Hong Kong, she grew “fascinated by the contrasts between the busy urban districts and the beautiful scenery of the outlying islands”.
Coleman wrote one earlier novel, The Dangerous Sports Euthanasia Society, published in 2005. That's about lust for life as an escapee from a seniors home makes new friends on a quest to find her grandchildren.
More than most tales, Paper Lanterns satisfies its readers by drawing strength from the setting. When Coleman mentions Hong Kong “working its magic” on people, she really means Lamma-style serenity. Urban Hong Kong lacks that remedy, but the outlying islands deliver it in generous doses.
Approval rating: 82 per cent.
For more information: www.christinecoleman.net or www.novelpress.co.uk.
(March 23, 2010)
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