Reflections

Shi Huiwen

Last Thursday, on my way to a live music bar
I was grading student papers on the MTR:
A young man from Nepal
wrote a reflection about

Fiction and Life.
He quoted Palacio’s Wonder,
“It’s not enough to be friendly.
You have to be a friend.”

He moved to Hong Kong at the age of 12
Couldn't speak a word of Cantonese
but everyone was, apparently, friendly.

His eyes are those of a meek rabbit's:
tender, harmless, pure.
Residues of fear remain.

Another student, whom I barely recognize,
wrote, “I live in a cell called life.”

In moments like these, I think
perhaps what I do is worth something:

a young man confessing in
an in-class assessment his loneliness,
a young woman affirming her dream,
a father struggling to be a father,
an aircraft engineer juggling
Work. Studies. Life.

Random stories unfold,
growing their little legs to
run towards me, prompted by quotes like:
“There is a way to be good again.”

"Your deeds are your monuments."
"We accept the love we think we deserve."
"The world is not a wish-granting factory."
"Some infinities are larger than others."

“Get busy living or get busy dying.”
“Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things.”
“You can’t blend in when you were born to stand out.”
“Our courts have our faults, as does any human institution."

“When you tell a lie, you steal someone’s right to the truth.”
“Depression is not a side effect of cancer. Depression is a side effect of dying.”
“Everyone in the world should get a standing ovation at least once in their life.”
“You never really understand a person […] until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”

Upon these lines selected by students,
I can smile and be sure
words are evocatively, provocatively, unapologetically,
alive.