Eddy Lee
Nothing’s impossible in the world of sci-fi. Eddy Lee, the chairman of Hong Kong Science Fiction Club, has been working to foster appreciation and writing of science fiction since the 90s. He tells Alex Ling about his love of the genre, and sets up the perfect Hong Kong sci-fi scenario.
HK Magazine: How did you get interested in science fiction?
Eddy Lee: Growing up, I was always an avid reader of sci-fi. I still remember my “first contact” with the genre: picking up a short story collection by a Chinese writer, Yang Zijiang, in City Hall Public Library in form six. I fell in love with sci-fi and worked my way through the bookshelf. To my dismay, most of his books are out of print now. I tracked him down 20 years later and became his pen pal for a while. HK: What do you love most about SF? EL: The genre’s capability to fuse escapist entertainment and a deep investigation of human nature. It is a contradictory yet perfect marriage of imagination and reality, of the objective and subjective.
HK: Why start a sci-fi club?
EL: It began in 1986, when with my friends, I organized a lecture course about science fiction for Hong Kong University. It was great fun and we met other sci-fi fanatics. Joining forces with them, we launched a short-lived popular science magazine and judged junior sci-fi writing competitions. However, we didn’t start the club until the fall of 1996. It took so long because it is not easy to get to know other die-hard sci-fi fans. It is, to me, just like assembling an X-Men team.
HK: What are the challenges?
EL: It always comes down to a lack of funding. We almost successfully held a Greater China area sci-fi convention in town, with a line-up of sponsors and free venues provided by museums and libraries. However, we had to abort such an epic event as our funding applications were rejected by governmental departments.
HK: Tell us a Hong Kong SF scenario.
EL: I once envisioned Hong Kong becoming the base for a rebellion against extreme capitalism. Similar to the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations, Hong Kong people, suffering from the tightening grip of massive corporations, may eventually go all “V for Vendetta” on the capitalist establishment.
HK: What’s your favorite sci-fi piece from a local writer?
EL: My favorite is a short story from Nu Jia, entitled “Bodies Held Pending.” Written right after the handover, it revolves around two policemen in a public hospital’s morgue. They find a strange bar code tattooed on a body that reads “Hong Kong’s democracy” when it’s decoded. The story offers a grim look at the political anxiety of the post-colonial-era Hong Kong. And needless to say, it conveys a strong demand for local democratic development.
HK: What do you think of SF in China?
EL: Chinese science fiction has come a long, long way in the last few decades. The Chengdu-based sci-fi monthly, Sci-Fi World, has become the most authoritative and successful medium promoting the genre to Chinese-writing regions. In the past several years, we have also witnessed the rise of Liu Cixin, whose “Three Body Trilogy” sold more than 400,000 copies in China and was translated into English earlier this year.