![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
defrogAnd here we go again.
Not exactly off to a flying start, but then I lowered my Goodreads Reading Challenge this year to just 23 books, so I’m actually ahead of the count here. Anyway.
Theology: A Very Short Introduction by David F. Ford
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I had to read this for a class, but like I say, I got a Reading Challenge to complete, so I’m counting it. As the title says, this is a very short introduction to the field of theology for students who are considering studying in that field. As Ford notes early on, theology is essentially asking questions about God, with perhaps a key question being: “Which God?”, as theology can be about any deity, not just the Judeo-Christian God. That said, Ford focuses on that God partly to save space (this is, after all, meant to be a short intro), and partly because that’s his particular field of expertise. But many of the points he makes and questions he raises can also be applied to other religions.
Ford starts off by briefly explaining the current state of religious and academic theology, moves on to examples of theological thinking about select key issues (the nature of God, worship, ethics, evil, salvation and the role of Jesus in all this), and then looks at the types of texts and sources that can feed into those (to include traditions, historical accounts and experience) and the importance of prioritising wisdom over knowledge. He wraps up with some thoughts on what the big theological issues might be in the next millennium (this being first published in 1999).
Anyway, while I can’t say I plan to study theology any time soon, the book definitely gave me a clear understanding of what theology is, why it matters, the kinds of questions it asks, and the different approaches for attempting to answer them. Strangely, perhaps the most encouraging point I got from the book is that most if not all of those questions will never be answered definitively or quickly – as our understanding of the texts evolves, our thinking evolves with them, so that there are always new angles to dig out and new questions to ask. And there will always be disagreement on the answers. There's something liberating in that – it removes a lot of the pressure we often feel in these matters to have all the answers.
The Impossible City: A Hong Kong Memoir by Karen Cheung
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Debut book from Hong Kong journalist Karen Cheung that’s both a memoir about growing up in post-Handover Hong Kong, and about Hong Kong itself. Cheung states that she didn’t set out to write a book about Hong Kong, but rather her relationship with it as someone who grew up ambivalent about the city until Beijing made increasingly drastic moves to change it into something else.
Note that Cheung warns readers that this may not be the book they’re expecting to read – which is to say, it’s not about politics, or a journalistic account of the pro-democracy protests and the subsequent crackdown. It’s a personal story that explains what it’s been like for young people to grow up mostly after the 1997 handover – not just in terms of political development, but the city’s hypercapitalist pressure cooker environment where housing is expensive, space is precious, and the city’s old neighbourhoods and subcultures are being swallowed up by property tycoons with cosy govt ties. “Everywhere we look in Hong Kong, we’re confronted with the impossibilities of trying to make a home in a city where the game is rigged,” she writes.
Cheung talks about her highly dysfunctional family and how, as a working-class kid who went to an international school with mostly wealthy expats, she never felt connected to the city until she discovered its underground art/music counterculture in the old industrial estates in Kwun Tong, and also realized that the promise from Beijing of HK autonomy for 50 years was being broken before her eyes. Cheung’s experience with severe depression particularly resonates at a time when, less than two years after the book’s publication, statistics show HK’s mental health problem is getting worse, with insufficient resources to help people who can’t afford private counselling (most people, in other words).
In essence, Cheung describes the sociopolitical and economic conditions that helped produce the Umbrella and ELAB protests movements that millions of people supported then and now. If nothing else, it’s a corrective (and welcome) antidote to the current (and false) govt narrative that the protests were an insurrection plot masterminded by a newspaper publisher colluding with foreign governments.
It's a very immersive, edifying and sometimes moving read. The section on HK’s underground music scene alone is worth the price of admission, but there’s just so much more here to explore and chew on. Or maybe I’m just saying that because I’ve live here almost 28 years – in fact, for the entire period covered in the book – and that I know pretty much all of the neighbourhoods and events that Cheung is referencing? Maybe. It may have given me an advantage, as Cheung tends to jump back and forth along her personal timeline – I can follow it fine, but people who know little about HK may have to work harder to keep up.
So, it’s worth repeating Cheung’s note that this may not be the HK book you were expecting. If you don’t know anything about HK going in, you may find yourself a bit lost at first, and Cheung didn’t write this to “explain” HK to you. Indeed, Cheung is adamant to point out that she does not represent any unified voice of HK, not least because she's writing in English, a colonial language that doesn’t adequately capture HK culture, which is rooted in Cantonese. She also advises us to be wary of anyone who claims to represent the authentic Hong Kong – the city is too multifaceted and complex for that. Which is really the point – it’s what makes HK simultaneously frustrating and fascinating, and why most of us who live here are enamoured of it, despite all its flaws.
The book captures this well. Indeed, the book itself is so multi-layered that I found it impossible to do my usual three-paragraph review. And I’m still not doing it justice. Just read it, why don’tcha?
View all my reviews
Long gone in Hong Kong,
This is dF
Not exactly off to a flying start, but then I lowered my Goodreads Reading Challenge this year to just 23 books, so I’m actually ahead of the count here. Anyway.
Theology: A Very Short Introduction by David F. FordMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
I had to read this for a class, but like I say, I got a Reading Challenge to complete, so I’m counting it. As the title says, this is a very short introduction to the field of theology for students who are considering studying in that field. As Ford notes early on, theology is essentially asking questions about God, with perhaps a key question being: “Which God?”, as theology can be about any deity, not just the Judeo-Christian God. That said, Ford focuses on that God partly to save space (this is, after all, meant to be a short intro), and partly because that’s his particular field of expertise. But many of the points he makes and questions he raises can also be applied to other religions.
Ford starts off by briefly explaining the current state of religious and academic theology, moves on to examples of theological thinking about select key issues (the nature of God, worship, ethics, evil, salvation and the role of Jesus in all this), and then looks at the types of texts and sources that can feed into those (to include traditions, historical accounts and experience) and the importance of prioritising wisdom over knowledge. He wraps up with some thoughts on what the big theological issues might be in the next millennium (this being first published in 1999).
Anyway, while I can’t say I plan to study theology any time soon, the book definitely gave me a clear understanding of what theology is, why it matters, the kinds of questions it asks, and the different approaches for attempting to answer them. Strangely, perhaps the most encouraging point I got from the book is that most if not all of those questions will never be answered definitively or quickly – as our understanding of the texts evolves, our thinking evolves with them, so that there are always new angles to dig out and new questions to ask. And there will always be disagreement on the answers. There's something liberating in that – it removes a lot of the pressure we often feel in these matters to have all the answers.
The Impossible City: A Hong Kong Memoir by Karen CheungMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Debut book from Hong Kong journalist Karen Cheung that’s both a memoir about growing up in post-Handover Hong Kong, and about Hong Kong itself. Cheung states that she didn’t set out to write a book about Hong Kong, but rather her relationship with it as someone who grew up ambivalent about the city until Beijing made increasingly drastic moves to change it into something else.
Note that Cheung warns readers that this may not be the book they’re expecting to read – which is to say, it’s not about politics, or a journalistic account of the pro-democracy protests and the subsequent crackdown. It’s a personal story that explains what it’s been like for young people to grow up mostly after the 1997 handover – not just in terms of political development, but the city’s hypercapitalist pressure cooker environment where housing is expensive, space is precious, and the city’s old neighbourhoods and subcultures are being swallowed up by property tycoons with cosy govt ties. “Everywhere we look in Hong Kong, we’re confronted with the impossibilities of trying to make a home in a city where the game is rigged,” she writes.
Cheung talks about her highly dysfunctional family and how, as a working-class kid who went to an international school with mostly wealthy expats, she never felt connected to the city until she discovered its underground art/music counterculture in the old industrial estates in Kwun Tong, and also realized that the promise from Beijing of HK autonomy for 50 years was being broken before her eyes. Cheung’s experience with severe depression particularly resonates at a time when, less than two years after the book’s publication, statistics show HK’s mental health problem is getting worse, with insufficient resources to help people who can’t afford private counselling (most people, in other words).
In essence, Cheung describes the sociopolitical and economic conditions that helped produce the Umbrella and ELAB protests movements that millions of people supported then and now. If nothing else, it’s a corrective (and welcome) antidote to the current (and false) govt narrative that the protests were an insurrection plot masterminded by a newspaper publisher colluding with foreign governments.
It's a very immersive, edifying and sometimes moving read. The section on HK’s underground music scene alone is worth the price of admission, but there’s just so much more here to explore and chew on. Or maybe I’m just saying that because I’ve live here almost 28 years – in fact, for the entire period covered in the book – and that I know pretty much all of the neighbourhoods and events that Cheung is referencing? Maybe. It may have given me an advantage, as Cheung tends to jump back and forth along her personal timeline – I can follow it fine, but people who know little about HK may have to work harder to keep up.
So, it’s worth repeating Cheung’s note that this may not be the HK book you were expecting. If you don’t know anything about HK going in, you may find yourself a bit lost at first, and Cheung didn’t write this to “explain” HK to you. Indeed, Cheung is adamant to point out that she does not represent any unified voice of HK, not least because she's writing in English, a colonial language that doesn’t adequately capture HK culture, which is rooted in Cantonese. She also advises us to be wary of anyone who claims to represent the authentic Hong Kong – the city is too multifaceted and complex for that. Which is really the point – it’s what makes HK simultaneously frustrating and fascinating, and why most of us who live here are enamoured of it, despite all its flaws.
The book captures this well. Indeed, the book itself is so multi-layered that I found it impossible to do my usual three-paragraph review. And I’m still not doing it justice. Just read it, why don’tcha?
View all my reviews
Long gone in Hong Kong,
This is dF
