Our Xi Xi, Our City: Writing Workshop

As part of the Education Plan of a research project named “Practice-based Research to Understand How Creative Writing Methods Can Defamiliarize our Experience: A Case Study of Re-Writing Xi Xi’s Fiction on Hong Kong” (supported by the Hong Kong Research Grants Council), our team have organized various community writing workshops, in Chinese and English, online and in person (in areas like Sham Shui Po and Wan Chai ) since November, 2021. This research explores “defamiliarizing” writing strategies derived from three works by Xi Xi: The Merry Building (1977), “The Marvels of a Floating City” (1986), and Elegy of a Breast (1992), and it applies these strategies to writing about Hong Kong today. These workshops adopted an interactive mode, offering new approaches and examples for creative writing education. We also see writing as a form of self-expression and communication that can lead to a more diverse and open society.