Can You Hear Her Cry for Help?

The relationship between Hong Kong and me has been one of sentimental nature. I was born and grew up in the city. My attachment to the place has always been heartfelt. That fact alone is like an umbilical cord that ties us at birth, which, though physically cut moments later, will forever connect us emotionally in a mother-child bond. As a grown-up child, I spent many memorable years in the nurturing care of my imaginary parent in the prime days of her life. But her nightmare began thirteen years ago when she was forced to divorce her foreign partner. I have been watching painfully and helplessly her self-destructive behavior and her path to ruin ever since she reunited with her abusive and patriarchal first husband.

Initially she totally succumbed to her property addiction and decadent way of living given to financial gambling and consumerism. She now has lost all sense of orientation and has been leading a spiritless and aimless life, ducking her head behind a wall of self-denial. Her head, which is supposed to govern and guide her, is inhabited by a body of grey matter that is hubristic, ignorant and incompetent and which is controlled by a frontal lobe of property interests. Since she is powerless to change her brain, there is little else she can do to change her fate, although her heart is still faithfully guarded by a few righteous young fighters trying desperately to save her soul.

Recently, her faculty of speech has begun to deteriorate bit by bit as her cruel husband has continued to bash her self-esteem by ridiculing her rights to self-autonomy and freedom and by sending gangs of thought police to check and censor her web diaries. He sometimes would throw her a few sweets at her begging to keep her blood sugar level temporarily high. He even has plans in mind to reconstruct her whole body to his own taste via second-class plastic surgery.

As much as I have been screaming at the top of my lungs to call attention to the perilous condition she is in, I am, at best, just one single voice. No words can begin to describe my pain in seeing her in such an untenable and pitiable position. Across the thousand miles that separate us, I never fail to hear the muffled cry for help gushing forth from her heart.

Perhaps she needs to let the young guardians of her heart speak to her if there is a last shred of sanity left in her. If she wants to save herself, she has no one but herself to depend on. It is obvious that what she needs most right now is brain surgery plus a shock therapy to curb her long-time addiction. There is only so much one can do to try and wake her to her senses. The sun is setting fast. Very soon, darkness will prevail.