fwriction

Over at the delightful Fictionaut Blog, Susan Tepper interviews Nicolette Wong about her flash fiction, “Last Night on Oil Street,” which appeared in the December 22, 2011 issue of fwriction : review. The piece, lyrical and stunning, captivated readers with its distinctive style and gorgeous poetics.

Susan Tepper: You break up your stunning prose poem “Last Night On Oil Street“ into 3 distinctly separate yet linked stanzas: The Commune, The Ghosts, The Trees.

In The Commune you write:

Spray paint ecru to heat searing through my fingers I’m leaving this block of farce we’ve inhabited and lost: the rights to sleep facedown on canvas,..

Nicolette, there is a fixed resolution here that springboards this piece: “…I’m leaving this block of farce…”

And resolve can be a potent device when used in prose and poetry.  I can feel the energy crashing off the narrator, the page, off Oil Street.  Tell us something about Oil Street that is real.

Nicolette Wong:  Oil Street is a well-known street in Hong Kong and it has a long history. My piece is set in this warehouse building that was a part of the Hong Kong Yacht Club in early 20th century - right by the sea - and both buildings were later deserted.

The legend: the warehouse was used for storing dead bodies during WWII, then, in later times, as transit for coffins before they were shipped to the crematorium via the nearby pier. In more recent times, the warehouse became an art commune until the artists got kicked out. To this day there are lots of ghost stories surrounding Oil Street. The irony: the warehouse will be demolished for a property developer to build a five-star hotel in its place, and the former Hong Kong Yacht Club will be revamped into the government’s Arts Promotion Office.

It’s funny what you say about resolve. The narrator’s resolve comes from being expelled, the one thing he has no control over. And you picked up on the detail - “I’m leaving this block of farce” - that encompasses and drives the whole story. Very shrewd, Susan!

Susan:  Fascinating history of Oil Street!  I’m deeply fond of Hong Kong and its people though I haven’t been back in over a decade, I’m sorry to say.  The piece opens masterfully, and there is your word choice: farce.  Such a terrific word.  It has brought down love affairs, friendships, governments, all manner of things.  It’s meant to be funny yet in certain contexts it’s an insulting, degrading word.  Here it’s used to explain the degradation of something that was once good.

“Farce” creates a chasm in the piece.  You present this triad of Commune, Ghosts, Trees.  Does this form you chose hearken back to the mysticism that is old Hong Kong?

Nicolette:  Not consciously, though I think you’re spot on about that. Last summer a bunch of us (writers and artists) visited Oil Street for a community art project. The site was only revealed to us through sparse historical facts, ghost stories and silly references in our pop culture (e.g. bad MTVs), and it was going to get torn down, wiped out from our sight.

I must have chosen the word “farce” because that’s how I see Hong Kong: a place where all manners of things are destroyed, by absurd and random connections between the government, businesses and people. A lot of our old architecture/cityscape, all the landmarks that embody our ways of lives 50, even 30 years ago are disappearing real quick; even a restaurant we went to last month may be no more today, because some

luxury brand wants to open its new shop there and the rent has tripled. Soon enough, no one will remember what this city used to be. Like our cultural and socio-political identity that’s being constantly invaded, blurred, remolded into a void that we can’t grasp.

But, I digress…About the form of my piece: according to Chinese superstitions, ghosts are attached to places. So when the artists leave the building and it gets demolished, the ghosts have nothing to hold onto, they’re gone. The trees in the front yard will be gone, too.