echo with Calvino’s ‘melancholy of language’ in his The Invisible Cities. They are neither systematic nor chronological but are ‘comprehensive’ in vision and scope, spanning from pre-colonial times to the very recent development in Hong Kong and covering nearly all aspects of Hong Kong life. They are not epic in the mode of employment and they have no heroic figures of imposing stature, either of national or legendary importance. In this regard, are very interesting counterparts to the three colonialist macro-histories mentioned above.” (SECONDARY TEXT)

Text summary: “Notes on an Epidemic” calls to mind the SARS and H5N1 outbreaks of recent years, but in this case the contagion becomes an excuse for the authorities— faceless and unaccountable—to engage in social engineering, forcing people to relinquish their independence.” (SECONDARY TEXT)

○ Political and economic assimilations have spilled over to, and quietly mutated, the geographical and cultural relations b/w cross-border urban spaces
○ Uncanny spatio-temporal intersection of the "1997 movement"

*Hon Lai-Chu capturing not the actual epidemic but the conditions surrounding it, i.e. people's reactions, personalities, etc. - Not going into popular culture's opinions on pandemic; instead, talks about disease, people's response to change, people being quarantined, feeling alienated, in this 'weird' atmosphere; can all this be considered an 'alternative narrative?'

Hon Lai-chu’s surrealistic world of her fiction → a world that is a skewed reflection of our own, at once recognizable and off-kilter... in a city like Hong Kong, where capitalism has reached its apogee, no matter where you look, all you see is an endlessly repeating skyline of office towers, malls and escalators. (SECONDARY TEXT)

She does not mention the city; gives names like "S," acronyms, etc

"The absurdity of life in the modern world is Hon’s primary subject, and while her characters might appear to live in a world outside of politics, where economic survival is paramount and modernization and its discontents are the biggest problems, politics is a constant presence, a threat that lurks offstage. Hon’s characters are not always directly ensnared by bureaucracy, and yet its absurdity and arbitrariness dog their every step" (SECONDARY TEXT)

DEFINITION! Surrealism in literature can be defined as an artistic attempt to bridge together reality and the imagination. Surrealists seek to overcome the contradictions of the conscious and unconscious minds by creating unreal or bizarre stories full of juxtapositions.

"disrupting our habitual perception of the world, enabling us to 'see' things fresh

○ with the portrayal of surreal world, there is defamiliarization present
○*highly performative nature not only in the way protagonist acts, but also in the way the story is told; even familiar relations, they are fabricated, not real

○ Uncanny: the coming back of something familiar as unfamiliar; paradoxical nature of A & B
○ Species of the frightening that goes back to what was once well known and had long been familiar
○ Uncanny portrayal of the domestic space Are familiar with family role, but at the same time aren't related to each other

speaking agent "I", narrator being character-bound, describing what has happened, what is going on, and what the future is to look like

e.g. opening → narrative situation is at hospital, patients waking up, and realizing that world has changed around them; narrator is the protagonist, focalizers being people in hospital, with object of focalization being people outside of hospital

Notes on Epidemic: It is a dystopic portrayal of Hong Kong, and is experienced through the reverse effects of an epidemic. This builds a scary and surreal setting described in a mundane tone. It's a world that Hon wants to convince the reader of, and so through everyday life, she introduces the challenges of the current social system.

Cramped environment, where all the buildings are tall, narrow, seen as a capitalistic city; buildings cramp people in isolated cubicles/apartments where they live → no mental, physical spaces between people whatsoever

○ Looking body's status → whether they are virus-free, go back to where they came from, etc.; seen as forced mobility from person of authority (nurse)…

• no longer having pre-existing identities, as they are now infected
• have new identities being in this makeup family, but really not having any identity at all

• role of everyday practices
• tactical potentiality in “dwelling, moving about, speaking, reading, shopping, and cooking”
• Against control, oppression

• Tactic: “A tactic is a calculated action determined by the absence of a proper locus. No delimitation of an exteriority, then, provides it with the condition necessary for autonomy. (SECONDARY TEXT)
  
  

- Strategy: The calculation (or manipulation) of power relationships that becomes possible as soon as a subject with will and power (a business, an army, a city, a scientific institution) can be isolated.

- Productive Engagement

DEF → the use of the most mundane to resist the bigger power