Drifting

4.0 2020 | 26 min

Yunnan girl Xiangnan, coming from a poor family, was married off to Hong Kong in exchange for a generous dowry. She lives in the remote area of Lau Fau Shan with her elderly husband. As a stranger in a foreign land, Xiangnan feels lost both in Hong Kong and back home, unable to find a space of her own. She dreams of escape, yet feels trapped like a small boat adrift in the sea, tossed by the waves with no way forward or back. In her helplessness, Xiangnan begins to converse with different versions of herself, searching for a place to coexist with herself. Birth and death, unity and separation, living and survival—all dissolve into silence. The story unfolds in scattered, fragmented memories, mostly reflecting Xiangnan’s daily life. The narrative shifts between the perspectives of her mother, Xiangnan as a child, and Xiangnan herself, moving through different spaces in Lau Fau Shan—sometimes in contrast, sometimes in harmony.