Un obtained the dual Bachelor degrees in Chinese Language and Art (film and television production) of Peking University and dual Master degrees in East Asia Studies and Asia Pacific Studies of University of Toronto with the research field in literature and movies. She won the Henry Luce Foundation Chinese Poetry & Translation Fellowships and had been the village residing poet in the Vermont Creative Studio. She was invited to attend many international poem festivals such as the one held in Portugal and worked as the lyricist of Macao’s first original indoor opera A Fragrant Dream. She published some collections of poems in Cross-Strait regions, and has been engaged in academy and publication for long time and writes columns for media organisations in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao.
To be honest, the decision to visit New Orleans alone, the “crime city” and “haunted capital”, has worried me. However, it is also the holy land of American literature and “the birthplace of jazz”. Its mixed colonial history, romantic house, carnival fever, bohemian drinking habit, top grade music performance, the mystery of voodoo world, the specialties as delicious as a crime and all the hodgepodge elements make the New Orleans get the nickname of “The Big Easy” and become a magic playground for adults. With a casual turn in the famous local French quarter, people will accidentally come across the beauty and darkness.
Tennessee Williams once said: “If I have a home, it will be definitely located in the French quarter. It provides me with more materials than any other place in this country.” And in here, he wrote down the frightening famous play A Streetcar Named Desire. The Nobel Prize for Literature winner William Faulkner, who devoted himself to writing the uproar of the south, also created the novels Soldier’s Pay and Mosquitoes.
Just like the Mississippi River, the history of blood and tears in New Orleans makes its art creation full of description about all kinds of natural and man-made destruction of body and mind. Black slave trade, racial discrimination, Ku Klux Klan, lynching, burning of the church, hurricane, river flooding, all these deeply affect the writing trend of local writers.
Ghost story master Koizumi Yakumo, published the novel Chita on the background of the hurricane hitting the “Last Land” of New Orleans in 1856. He constantly resonated with this novel even after he moved to Japan which is also plagued by natural disasters. Kate Chopin’s The Awakening used the powerful hurricane-devastated island of glen, south of New Orleans, to highlight the struggles of women.
In addition to natural disasters, New Orleans is quite famous for the man-made disasters. As the representative of distribution centre for the slave trade and southern plantation culture, New Orleans has spawned “ghost stories” as many as stars in the sky. Beside “ghost stories and guided tours of old buildings”, popular literature has further developed the local dark materials. American vampire novel godmother Anne Rice created the best-selling The Vampire Chronicles series based in New Orleans; American drama Dracula, The Vampire Diaries, The Origins, etc. were successively shot here, which attracts numerous tourists who are willing to spend money; The Frankenstein written science fiction writer Dean Koontz directly put the confrontation between good and evil from the 19th century European mountain city to the 21st century American New Orleans.
Just like the editor of New Orleans French Quarter Fiction said: “Fire, flood, plague, war and changing dynasties. We were still here, and still want to tell stories to this world.” New Orleans has set an example, proving that pain is often the most fertile ground for art, just as the pain for black people has spawned the blues. What’s more, New Orleans strutted its way out of a path of prosperity where darkness and pain did not necessarily lead to grief, looking straight into disaster and suffering, without diminishing people’s commitment to freedom and happiness. Street poets, musicians, acrobatic performers, painters, magicians, etc., the artists in New Orleans tell all the secrets of the city with fearless and cheerful attitude. Old and new crisscross scars show its toughness and charm. The jazz in New Orleans is the same. Breaking through from a wide range of pop songs, hymns, military music, acrobatics songs, blues and ragtime, the masterpieces of freedom are created. New Orleans is never afraid of breaking the beautiful things.
New Orleans is 300 years old in 2018. Macao, in contrast, has a much longer history. It constantly considers itself as “a place with happiness”, “lotus treasure”, claiming that it is calm, peaceful and impenetrable. But if you look back the history, disaster, disease, war, plundering, pornography all once left scars in Macao. Most of the time, we choose to forget. I am looking forward to one day when the artists in Macao could no longer be confined to the curse of “cultural harmony between China and the West”. Without reserve, without concern, they could present the best and the worst of the city in their hearts.
