Turbulent Waves over Xiangjiang

In 1941, Hong Kong was a floating city beneath the lights of colonial rule. Chen Aman, a Chaozhou refugee, carries sacks of rice through Central’s alleyways to survive. A wood plane hidden under his bed is his last link to his homeland. Su Manqing, the daughter of a Chinese-language schoolteacher, crosses the University of Hong Kong campus clutching her English textbooks, while anti-Japanese leaflets printed by her father lie hidden at the bottom of her schoolbag. A dockworkers’ strike brings them together by chance. He shields her from colonial police driving people away, but she mistakes him for “a capitalist’s hired hand.” In this troubled age, their connection begins with misunderstanding and suspicion.

An air-raid siren shatters the city’s splendor. In the chaos, Aman loses the money he has saved for three years to bring his mother over. Manqing’s father falls to Japanese gunfire, but with his dying breath, he slips a bloodstained list of anti-Japanese resistance members into her hairpin. From then on, the attic of a tenement building becomes a secret base. Granny Zhou hides the list in the charcoal stove at her fish-ball stall and feigns madness to evade Japanese searches. A secret underground route for grain at the docks becomes a lifeline. Aman trades his carpenter’s saw for moldy rice, yet always gives the few good grains he has to the refugees. At the hall of the Wo Hop To triad, its old boss, Lai Sam, uses his ivory cigarette holder to shatter Lei Biao’s dream of becoming a collaborator, and ultimately falls beneath a hail of Japanese bullets.

The bells of liberation ring out in 1945, but Hong Kong does not find true peace. Colonial police shut down Aman’s carpentry shop, saying, “Chinese people don’t deserve a business license.” Manqing opens a night school there to teach Chinese and is branded a “radical.” Yet the lights in the tenement building never go out. Chen Yiu turns the gang into a freight company and helps Aman transport timber. Dr. Zhao, who has come from the mainland, opens a free clinic at the mouth of the alley to treat refugees. Ah Ming, the refugee boy Aman took in, holds up a Chinese-language...