Jointly reported by:
Chloe Chan Po Yi Jr1Z(3)
Chloe Eu Ji Chen Sr2A
On the 6th of August 2021, the Academic Department and Kuen Cheng Chinese Language Society organized a webinar featuring Mr. Wong Siew Jye about novel writing. He is well known as a musician, an author, and a lecturer. His books included “Something about Claire”（《秘密河流》）, “The White Short Fence”（《白色矮围栅》）, “Ghost Notes”（《录鬼簿》）etc. The webinar was held on Zoom from 3.00 p.m. till 4.30 p.m. It was held to improve students’ writing skills and prepare students for the upcoming Kuen Cheng Xiao Sheng Literary Contest (晓声文学奖), a writing competition held by the Chinese Language Society.
Mr. Wong started by explaining the importance of ‘imagery’ (意象). Imagery means the use of figurative language to evoke a sensory experience for the readers. Not only when writing novels, but imagery is also important when it comes to writing prose, poems, and even song lyrics. Besides that, he shared his experience when he was having a field trip and he saw an old man wearing a pair of leather shoes. The pair of leather shoes caught his attention because the old man seemed like someone who wasn’t able to afford a pair of leather shoes. Mr. Wong then found out there was a story behind the pair of shoes. The man had lost a toe after he was infected with Hansen’s disease. To cover his feet, the man spent a huge amount of money to buy a pair of leather shoes. He explained that the pair of shoes was the imagery because the shoes had a story behind them.
Imagery is used in poems to evoke the reader’s emotions and it has a very similar concept with ‘topos’. He made an example using the poem “Sunny Sand, Autumn Thoughts” （《天净沙·秋思》） , by Ma Zhiyuan（马致远）. The old tree, rotten vines, and the crows in the poem are the imagery.
The usage of imagery might be different because of the difference in culture and era. Other than that, he gave some examples of some imagery that were used by the ancient people.
Mr. Wong then proceeded to explain where imagery comes from. He stated that the association of ideas plays a key role in imagery. The speaker then gave an example of it. He revealed two points, Point A and Point B, and moved on to show the common factors about the points. He then asked the audience, what are the common factors? Is it exciting? Is it sad or confusing? Do the common factors have some symbols that cause resonance?
Afterwards, the speaker shared a song “Hei Tip Gaai”（喜帖街） with the audience and continued to spark imagery from the lyrics. The song conveyed the memories of the composer well. Then, a story titled “Ji”《髻》was introduced, it carried the feelings and emotions of the protagonist’s mum in her story.
The talk was brought to a close when Mr. Wong answered the final question and a group photo was taken. Another memorable talk came to an end as the participants left one by one.
