Mending Lives

Intvw_by_Sonia_final_Ed_publish
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Jane Houng: [00:00:00] Hi, I'm Jane Hong, and this is Mending Lives, where I'm talking with people from a patchwork of places. Some have had their lives ripped apart by loss, some are in the business of repairing others brokenness, but we're all seeking to make this world more beautiful. My guest today, Sonia Leung, is an award winning Hong Kong poet, fiction and non fiction writer, as well as a rape survivor.

Yes, that's what she calls herself, rather than a victim. How brave is that? And even more courageously, she's written her memoir. It's called A Girl Who Dreamed, A Triumph Against the Odds, and it'll be released at the Hong Kong Literary Festival this month. In this show, Sonia tells us a little bit about herself, but quickly goes on to talk about the rape, and how she, I quote, [00:01:00] managed to crawl out of a deep hole by finding a way to live with the shame.

Hong Kong has its share of sexually abused women, but it's rare for them to speak out. Sonia believes the sharing of her story will encourage more to come forward, and we go on to talk about creative ways that victims can help themselves through poetry. Music, for example, and reading books to know you are not alone.

Sonia then reads the rape scene in her memoir. As well as a beautiful poem, which you can watch as a reel on IG. In this podcast, you'll also find out something about my efforts to raise awareness about sexual violence in Lebanon, and promote Becky's Button, a panic alarm. Becky, my daughter, was raped and murdered in that country by a local guy, and, for obvious reasons, I have great support there.[00:02:00]

Okay, let's get on with the show. She's an award winning poet, fiction, and creative non fiction writer from Hong Kong. Her works have appeared in literary journals and anthologies worldwide. She's the author of Don't Cry Phoenix, a poetry collection, and a memoir called The Girl Who Dreamed, a Hong Kong memoir of triumph against the odds.

It'll be published by Blacksmith Books in the very near future. Welcome and congratulations, Sonia.

Sonia Leung: Thank you, Jane. [00:03:00] It's really my pleasure to be here.

Jane Houng: Well, before we delve into your writing and how much of it is related to the main theme of my podcast, Transformation Through Loss, please tell us a little bit about your life to date.

Sonia Leung: Right. Today, Um, I'll be 50 this year. Yes. So I started writing when I was. And I joined, uh, CTU MFA 2014 because I want to give myself two years to really start and to see how, if I can do it or not. And so I did that. And so before that I was working in the, in the commercial, you know, my business movement and just really traveling around the world pretty much.

And I just pick up. Books, uh, sometimes at the airport, so it's not very literary kind of reading for me until I did my MFA. [00:04:00]

Jane Houng: I can really resonate with you in this respect because I won't tell you how old I am, but I quit work when I was 50, and I thought, I want to write, and I also enrolled on that City U.

Wonderful program in Hong Kong, um, for one year and then I continued at the Vermont College of Fine Arts in the States. But, um, for me also, yes. Can I do this or not, really? Well, you obviously can, Sonia. Thank you. Prolific.

Sonia Leung: Thank you. Um, I think in a way just, uh, to for all the aspiring writers out there, um, just keep going and write one piece at a time and try to put it out and know where you stand in the world.

You know, there's a place for you and if you keep trying. So don't, don't do what I did, really, um, to run away because it is really too whiskey. And, um, I was very, very lucky. I [00:05:00] met really, really kind people, uh, from the airport all the way. Two years. Yeah, so I'm not I'm not encouraging people to girls to run away from home but I do encourage you to take things in charge, but try to Admit that you were hurt and try to get help

Jane Houng: very very hurt.

I can't imagine if you were only 14 And there's no doubt about it that that kind of trauma really traumatizes but it can transform and I was so touched, um, from the reading that I've done of your work that you often said it was the kindness of strangers that helped you through. Yes. You know, there was such difficulty in your family and in your immediate community, but the kindness of strangers was part of the reason that you got through this event.

Sonia Leung: So, uh, the guy, the, the [00:06:00] rapist was my ping pong, my table tennis coach, and he trained me for two years, and who become, he become more like my father because my, both my parents were absent, not because, well,

Jane Houng: they were working, like typical Hong Kong story, immigrants coming over and working so

Sonia Leung: hard, yeah, long hours in the factory.

over 12 hours. And so, yeah, so this guy pretty much talk over my life and advised me like my father. And, um, so he took advantage after of me after he got my total trust. Um, and so it's very easy to fell into the phone and what, where you, you just distrust anyone and You, you, you retreat into yourself, but I chose, well, I did that for two years.

And, um, I, I, I, I used cigarettes to burn myself and I use, um, self harm, self harm. Yeah. I use life to cut [00:07:00] my waist because it will stop the screaming inside my head. That's how painful it is. And the screams inside your head could make you jump off the building. And that, I also experienced that because I went to my school's, uh, I want to, you know, I find a high point and I want to jump off.

But, um, Luckily, I, uh, I also, I, I love reading and, and it also saved me in at some point, so it, yes, it is very comp. It's, it, it took two years, but somehow, gradually I call out of that deep hole and, uh, of, um, yeah, and two, and then luckily I met. Um, strangers who prove to me, who just, who help me without condition.

Unconditionally. Unconditionally. So then, gradually, I rebuilt trust. [00:08:00] And it took, yeah, it took a long time. Maybe it's still there. It's still there. Yeah. Exactly.

Jane Houng: This podcast is going to be a little bit more bookish than ones I will do in the future. But because we're both writers, and I read books voraciously too, um, I did turn to your works.

And, um, your short story The moon in a dog's eye. That's the one that is very autobiographical, isn't it?

Sonia Leung: Yes, that's the first piece that I published from my memoir. It's a chapter of my memoir. So I wrote my memoir in, like, independent pieces. Like an essay, personal essay. Right, right, right. You built it up over ten years.

I built it up

Jane Houng: over ten years. I see. Okay. Well, look, I don't know what else you're going to reveal in your soon to be published memoir, and there's no need for graphic detail here, unless, you know, you want to speak out, [00:09:00] but I'm wondering, as a victim of this assault, I mean, what are the first, if you don't mind me asking, what are the first three adjectives that jump in your mind about that experience?

Sonia Leung: Um, painful, um, painful in a sense that Your dignity is being rubbed, you know, like just taken from you so sudden that you feel like you are no You are non human. You are objectified. You become an object to him. You are, yeah.

Jane Houng: Of his fantasy, of his passion, whatever. Okay, that's one. What's another one?

Another one. I can see that this is distressing for you, so I don't want you to go there and feel too Yeah. What's the, yeah, pain, so it was painful, it was

Sonia Leung: It's, it's dehumanizing. Right. Yeah, and it's um, [00:10:00] also don't worry if it's too upsetting.

Jane Houng: Yeah, don't worry. Don't worry It's very triggering. I mean I know about But you know, my daughter was was raped and not only raped but murdered and whenever I try To go there.

I'm just like, I feel all this emotion inside me and I suppose part of my curiosity for asking you, you those questions as a survivor is, you know, what did she go through before the worst happened? It's very, very dark. We won't go there.

Sonia Leung: Yeah, we shouldn't also compare, you know, how damaged we, you know, it's a, it is very, it's terrible that, that your daughter was murdered afterwards.

What I can tell you is that I would, I would rather he just kill me.

Jane Houng: Oh, that's how strong you are. That's how strong. You're right, right. And then I [00:11:00] suppose as a survivor, you have to go back home, pretend

Sonia Leung: nothing had happened. Yeah, exactly. And that was, you had to live with that shame and you had to live, live with that guilt and you have to live with that dirt.

You know that, that feeling that you, you are dirty, you are not, yeah. That you are not worthy of any love or anything. You are just not human anymore. Did you tell anyone? Actually, no. Not until 10 years or more so later when, when I make it to the U. S.

Jane Houng: Right, maybe a more liberal society

Sonia Leung: or maybe No, I had a breakdown and, um, they, they have no, they, they, they can't do it.

I mean, they, they had to send me to this, the health care center. Yeah, and I was totally in a mess and, and I had to accept counselling then. Right. Yeah. It's the kind of Western [00:12:00] way. It's, yeah. So, so, it, so, for, I can't really say Western way because in, in, when, in secondary school when I went back to school, I became, I behaved very strangely.

And so my teacher noticed, she sent me to a social worker. But I, but it just that she, she, because she just couldn't open me up. I was not ready to, to, to speak out. And at that time, the culture wasn't, there isn't anything like now we have me too, but then nobody speak of it. And you've, I thought that I was the only one.

And I thought I was the bad girl. I thought I was. the one that caused him to do something bad to me. I, I keep thinking, um, is it my body gesture because I let him touch me during the training so that he, yeah, so that he thinks that it's okay to touch me. So I just keep thinking it's my fault. Oh, so you blame I blame myself.[00:13:00]

Over more than a decade, but then yeah, so it just until I had the breakdown and I just totally I guess also that breakdown helped me to really let go and I just felt like, okay, if I don't say anything now, I would, I'll probably, you know, it would just become even worse next time. I don't know what I would do to myself.

Right. So I, yeah. Now, very

Jane Houng: quickly. Um, I've recently been to, um, to meet the rain lily ladies, you know, about rain lily and the wonderful work that, uh, A C S V A W do. Yes. The figures in Hong Kong. of women who have been sexually assaulted

Sonia Leung: seven to one. I mean, yeah,

Jane Houng: I mean, you have to be careful of statistics, don't you?

But I don't want, I mean, and figures don't help. I think people we, you know, outsiders read this and they go, [00:14:00] Oh dear, terrible. And then nothing changes. It's got, it's got worse since COVID. But the stigma is still. Really high there. And the shame that the women feel. What can we do to change

Sonia Leung: that? And not just the same and also the blaming the victim.

It's the society still doing this. Um, so they, for example, recently there's from indie media, the local media, small independent media. They interviewed, I think, five girls and their models. And so the, and the society was saying like, wow, what do you expect? You know, like you, you guys, you agree to take noon photos or you agree to wear.

So one really

Jane Houng: distressing thing for me as a mother is that when the news came out about my daughter and it did go worldwide. We were getting letters in newspapers saying, [00:15:00] Oh, she's a loose westerner. Oh, she must have been drunk. Oh, she was divulging her, you know, her body parts. And I mean, thank God that she wasn't, she wasn't drunk.

You know, she was in a very modest dress and it was long, but I mean, yes. that victim mentality is really bad. Let me quote you something that you wrote actually in relation to that. Um, back to your short story. You say, I want to add my voice and say to the girls like me who have fallen victim to rape, that the incident can't defeat us.

We can grow out of the ashes of our sorrows and soar. I loved that. And I loved your story. But how, I mean, if, if, For the listeners of this, who have been sexually assaulted, how can they soar, right? How can they transcend such a horrific experience?

Sonia Leung: I [00:16:00] think, um, also like your recent book, Under the Line Rock, Under the Line Rock, yes.

Under the Line Rock, um, where you talk about the boy who seeks transformation through music, I think art definitely helps. So, um, For music, painting, or writing, uh, to just find a way, find a way to express yourself. And when you can take the narrative into your hands, then you feel the power returns. to you.

Right.

Jane Houng: That makes sense to me. Um, although I'm indirectly a victim, I know that I turn to poetry. Yes. I turn to music. Yes. I try to keep myself fit. That's another thing, but also nature. And that was another thing that I loved about your short story that, um, you describe how, I think it's in the opening paragraph.

Um, on a late September school night, in the small hours, I gaze at the [00:17:00] moonlight that slides gracefully through the rusty iron gate of our hut. Her gentle light transforms the entrance and the steps beyond it, giving them a magical glow. The tranquility all lures me. The peaceful world out there beneath the moon's gleam generates an urge in me to join here.

So it was nature for you as well, wasn't it? The moon, the sun, the stars.

Sonia Leung: Yes, uh, but that's also from my love of Chinese poetry, like Li Bai and, you know, Du Fu, you know, from, because of my love for classical Chinese literature. And so I think that, yeah, so that's related to reading because we, yeah, we writers.

So, um, but it just, I, I, I, I just keep saying is because, um, not everyone. Reads or not. Everyone, you know, have that poetic, you know, um, better for that's true, right? So I'm just saying that yes, if I am mean, you know drawing or singing everything [00:18:00] to express yourself Yeah, that's most important because you know when you start to express yourself and get your voice heard Gradually, you will have built up more confident So you don't have to be like me and, and, you know, not, I mean, I, I know I can write because from when I was 10, I was separated from my family and I had to write letters to my mother in order to not being bullied by my uncles and my uncle's son.

So from very young, I was trained to write. Right. So, but I know not, not everyone, you know, especially nowadays, many people would rely on pictures, you know, which in, um, VO thing, right? Yeah. So, so I don't want them to feel, feel like, oh, I can't do it. You know, I can't put it like that. Like, yeah. Right, right, right.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's very practical. Yeah. Actually, through books. Through books or through Other people's lives. Through listening to this. Through listening to this. And More practical resolutions as [00:19:00] well. And look up to the paintings and, you know, look to more nutritionist kind of things. Yes. You know, like, things out there.

Not, not just garbage things, you know, that you saw in the YouTube or what. But look up to, for example, that what you say about the association, the, uh, ACS Association. V A W, yes. And also there's the End Child Sexual Abuse Foundation, E C S A F. Um, for the Hong Kongers if, uh, uh, you know, Siu Fong Fong. Yes, Siu Fong Fong, I know her, yeah, yeah.

Exactly. So, so look up to associations like this. Then, uh, find out their art or their, their education, you know, all the, all the events and, yeah.

Jane Houng: Um, I highly recommend that and I will, I will put those links in the show notes on this program. One thing that particularly impressed me, because I went to the education center of Rain Lily and they had an exhibition [00:20:00] of art, right?

They're using art to Give people the courage to speak out. But what particularly touched me, Sonia, is that there were books. And as a visitor to this education centre, anyone could write in these books to the victims. So it was indirect, and it was anonymous. And a lot of people have written, you know, very encouraging things.

So there's all kinds of ways that you can help people who are keeping things quiet. Because for whatever reason, people have

Sonia Leung: their, you know. They don't have that, um, they can't speak out yet. So, I mean, yes, a lot of people have been silenced. For various reasons, you know, like, um, if they don't have enough.

And also, family is really complicated. Chinese families. Yeah. So, sometimes, uh, yeah, the support. You, you, you really, some people need [00:21:00] the support or permission. from outside to speak out. But luckily, I think people like us, luckily we find the voice in the books. They speak to us. And so we feel that we can speak out.

Right, right, right. But some people, they don't think that they have the permission to do so.

Jane Houng: Is there anything that you've written that you'd like to read in terms of, you know, if there are some Young, like, young people who are listening to this for some answers.

Sonia Leung: Um, so I wrote about the raped scene vividly because we heard too often about this word, raped, and we just brush it aside.

Ah, it happened again. Whatever. So I wrote it vividly because I want people to be. In there with me and know what it's like. Yeah, so So I [00:22:00] get the tissues No, this is just the beginning part so it's it's because so we would be targeting about two minutes So I it will be a very short one Please. Just to give a bit of context.

So the rapist, my, my coach, he, he told me that in, because I got very good at playing table tennis, I can get into the Hong Kong youth junior champion. Yeah. So then, uh, he said that in order to, we'd be set to get in there and I need to have a body check and to make sure that everything is okay. And he, When he said that, it felt very serious, so I thought that we need to go to the hospital to do so, and it would cost my parents a fortune.

Then he said, ah, but it's okay, I can do the preliminary check for you. So that's what happened. He asked me to go to his home, and he's, hmm.[00:23:00]

I entered his apartment. He knocked the door behind me. A massive TV set in the middle of the living room. New name, phone name. I've got karaoke equipment here. Coach was removing his jacket when he asked this. Oh, it's okay. Maybe next time. My voice sounded tremulous, thin, timorous, alien to my own ears. The time now was our usual training hour.

We should still be in the center with the others. Being alone with him for the first time in his home felt strange and uncomfortable. It was as if I saw myself in a bizarre dream, but I could not reach out to wake her. [00:24:00] Come, put down your bag here. He pointed to a corner spot. We'd be quick. He looked at me.

He looked me in the eye, and then, slowly, I let go of my bag. Fengling, come here. Stand straight and stretch out your arms, please. I did as told. He went and stood behind me. His hands gave my shoulders a gentle squeeze. Oh, sweetie, you are fourteen and you're not yet growing! He had never called me that and never made this kind of comment.

It was perplexing and disconcerting. I started straight, I stared straight in front, Fearing to meet his eyes. I was afraid I might find a stranger instead. He kept his hands on my breasts. I stood rigid [00:25:00] like a scarecrow. His fingers circled my breasts. Sensing my discomfort, he said, Come with me, sweetie. He moved toward the bedroom.

Jane Houng: Thank you so much for having the courage to read that. I'm writing it. So other people will read it. Why do you think that you, that you want to speak out and tell in a lot of detail about what happened?

Sonia Leung: Because, uh, Well, also just to quote Albert, Albert Camus, Those of us who can speak have a responsibility to say something for those of us who can't.

So for your daughter, Becky, I, I also speak on behalf of her. I hope I can speak eloquently.

Jane Houng: so much. so

Sonia Leung: much. Um,

Jane Houng: why did

Sonia Leung: you write in English? [00:26:00] Because, um, It's too suffocating to write in Chinese. For example, in Chinese, we don't say words like love. And so it's very hard to, to, to write about feelings. And I wanted to not just tell the story horizontally, but I wanted to go deep.

Deep down dive, uh, dive deep into the, the psyche. So the vertical line, I wanna get it. So in English it give me the psyche distance process, psyche distance, yes. Yeah. Yes, yes, yes. Yeah. To process the story. I mean, so I think every one of us need to find a way in. And so for example, Maya, Maya Angel, she, uh, her book, I Know Why The Cage, the Cage book.

Yes. Maya, she actually went to a hotel room. And to play a bridge and then to get her a small mind engaged. And then so she can dive into her psyche to write about the past. So I think you just need to find a way into telling [00:27:00] how, how to relieve the past and not to hurt yourself too much, but be in a safe place where you can revisit.

The trauma. The trauma. Because when you are recalling it, you are actually reliving it. So you need to be safe. You need to feel that you are ready to do so. Otherwise, you would hurt yourself again. Right. But I feel that, uh, when I turned 40, I feel that Okay, I have enough friends around me and I have enough confidence about my, my angers and so I think I felt that it's time for me to do

Jane Houng: so.

You had your network. Do you know by any chance if this individual

Sonia Leung: is still around? No, no, and I don't want to waste my energy or emotion on him anymore. He's done. He's, it's not my, it's not my, you know, yeah, I don't want to go there because he, He's not my [00:28:00] problem. The reason that my, the psychologist I met in the US who could open me up because he told me this trauma was not the best thing that happened to you, but how you respond to those terrible events because he told me I responded by internalizing them so I become disconnected from myself and it was painful to face my wounded , my weakened and wounded self.

Mm-Hmm. So he, so that way, you know, I understand, you know, it's, it's not about him, it's about me. Right. So I

Jane Houng: can, so that can give you the responsibility to try to heal yourself, myself. And you don't need him to do that.

Sonia Leung: Yes. Yes. I can face him today and I can tell him, you, I'm done with you. You know, I'm, you know, you can't affect me anymore because if you keep.

Thinking about him and wanting to get just, uh, justice, right? Then you are giving [00:29:00] him all the power over you. I'm saying I'm taking back the power. You can hurt me once, but you can never hurt me again.

Jane Houng: Well, one thing I've experienced as a result indirectly, um, is that the kind of suffering that you've experienced, it gives you an opportunity to transform in some way.

Um, yeah, trauma, traumatizes, but it also can transform. It

Sonia Leung: makes you stronger internally. It's like, you know, it's like building body weight. I mean, building body, you know, you lift the weight. The weights. To build your muscle, body muscle. So the pressure or the trauma is to build your mental muscle. Right.

So you become stronger and then you, you are more, you can defend yourself better and you don't need others approval.

Jane Houng: Yes, that's also very significant in, in, dare I say it, that sort of more an Asian society, right? But also, of [00:30:00] course, in the West, but I mean, even more so, would you agree in Asia? I mean, this idea of people looking at you and your

Sonia Leung: family and your I think it happened everywhere, like Sue William Silverman, she also, she wrote very, uh, about her, uh, her father's, uh, insects, you know, the, hurt her, um, raped her over the years and, and also the society will criticize her, you know, it's, uh, even her mother would bring her, whether, you know, you, you are, you are a feral or something, so, so it's, I don't know, I don't want it to be like, okay, we don't want to generalize, yeah, no, we won't generalize.

I think the world is still, uh, needs to know that it's a bad thing, um, and it shouldn't bring the, yeah, the victim.

Jane Houng: You've probably taken a little look at what I'm doing, um, in my charity work in Lebanon and I have this panic button called Becky's Button. And we've been focusing in the last few years, um, on women.

And there's [00:31:00] so much we can do. To make them more safe, to teach them about what sexual harassment is. Because we're talking about a Lebanese society, you know, not a first world, let's say. Um, so when I was a child, I didn't know what sexual harassment was. I was, you know, touched up all over the place as a teenager.

And it was just like, oh, that's, you know, that's what men do. But, of course, social norms have changed hugely now. But one thing we're trying to do this year, Um, is just for a year. It's a little bit experimental is to is to point our gaze at men. They're the perpetrators. And this is going on endlessly.

It's increased over COVID men. What are you going to do? What can you as a man do to stop your friend? from not being a perpetrator, you know, preying on other women. [00:32:00] Um, I think what I'd like to ask you is, I mean, what, what, what can we women do? You know, if we had a magic wand, How, how could we reduce sexual violence?

Sonia Leung: I think it's like, one of my favorite writers is, uh, uh, Elif, Elif Safak. She's a Turkish British writer. Oh, Elif Safak. I love her, yes. She has mostly female readers, but she said that those, uh, when the female pass the books, to the mail. And when they read it, this is, Oh, wow. Okay. You know, it's so, I think reading is definitely one thing to spread the news and to let them understand because in, in novels, men can, men can understand better.

Um, if I think many, you know, In some way they, it's hard for them to, to know what it's like to feel powerless. [00:33:00] So if they, or to admit their powerlessness. So if they read those, you know, if they read more, I think they will have more empathy. Because we don't want sympathy, but we want

Jane Houng: empathy. No, we don't, lovely, we don't want sympathy, we want empathy.

Um, I noticed that you're now working on a third book. Um, what's it called? The three inch?

Sonia Leung: Yeah. Three inch? Three inch heaven. Three Inch Heaven.

Jane Houng: Three Inch Heaven, yes. And the subtitle is Stories of Resilience and Determination. Yes. So you're moving on now to Stories. To short stories about other Chinese women.

Are there any in this forthcoming book that have encountered sexual violence? Are you telling? Yes. So

Sonia Leung: I

Jane Houng: will look out for it because Hong Kong is my home [00:34:00] and charity begins at home. And it's so grateful that you could reach out and then just speak so forcefully and honestly about your encounter. As a bereaved mother, you know, I'm just trying to say honestly what it feels like to lose a daughter.

I mean, that's slightly different, but it takes a certain courage to live on.

Sonia Leung: Yeah. To face up. To face your weakened self and to, because for me, I, I have been really com I think also your daughter, she likes sports and really competitive. Right. So I myself also to Amit, myself to Amme being a weak person, being a damaged person, it's just beyond worse.

I mean, it just,

Jane Houng: it, it just transfer. It just changed your life

Sonia Leung: forever. It just changed your life. Yes. And it, it really challenged me to the. To the extreme where, you know, I just have to bounce back and I mean, you know, I'm lowest already and I feel myself like a dirt and so how, [00:35:00] how to pick it? So that's why I, if I may, I'd like to share one poem.

Oh, please. Yeah. Uh, this is the very first one in my collection and it's also the first one I wrote. Um, when I. Gradually come back to myself. Yeah, and it seems to speak to both men and women. So on a desert island all alone, my dearest, please write your tears, have a piece of candy and tell yourself life is sweet.

Even if you are on a desert island all alone, you can still find reasons. To live on. My dearest, Please lean on a trunk of a firm tree, Behold the brightness of its flowers, And tell yourself, Life is beautiful. Even if you are on a desert [00:36:00] island,

All alone, You can still make your life meaningful.

My dearest, Please love yourself, Because you are most worthy.

Jane Houng: Oh, this one here. So beautiful. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for telling. us so frankly about your experience. We're dead serious about making a change, right? In, in, in this. That is the most lovely poem. And the memoir will be published soon.

I'm going to give Details in the show notes where people can buy it and details of it. Did you say the Hong Kong [00:37:00] Book Fair in

March? Hong Kong Literary Festival. Fantastic.

Yes. Hong Kong Literary Festival in March.

Sonia Leung: Yes. Okay. It will be different, uh, French club. Oh, just next door. Oh, exactly.

Jane Houng: Oh, well. Yeah. Oh, well, I will definitely come to that.

And then, um, yeah, we're at the FCC here at the moment, Foreign Correspondence Club. And I think we'll go and have a little drink after this. But, um, did you finish that poem or, or, I mean. I

Sonia Leung: like to, if it's a, or as a close up, or just to, yeah, I want to share this, the title poem. Please.

Don't cry. Phoenix,

for all the women in the world who have been deeply

wounded,[00:38:00]

let me start again. Sorry.

Don't cry, Phoenix, for all the women in the world who have been deeply wounded. Legend has it that there's a bird. She flew into a sea of flames and burned to ashes. Dear phoenix, oh phoenix, What drove you to despair, To throw yourself into the flaming sea, Between the heavens and the earth? A thousand winds are whispering.

The universe is filled with prayers for the bird. All living beings are devoted to her. Somewhere afar, a certain silky smooth shaft of light appears. It's a slim bird struggling to stretch out. To rise, tear streaks from the corners of her eyes. She strives to be rid of the nightmares of her past. Legend has it that there's a [00:39:00] bird.

She flew into a sea of flames and burned to ashes. Dear phoenix, oh phoenix, what drove you to despair, to throw yourself into the flaming sea? Between the heavens and the earth, a thousand winds are whispering. The universe is filled with prayers for the bird. All living beings are devoted to her.

Somewhere afar. The silky smooth shaft of light shimmers. That slim bird continues to flap so hard, her tears evaporate. She fights on and liberates herself from the sea of flames. Proudly, she spreads her wings and soars into the air like a brand new leaf in a cherry tree forest. She enjoys her solitude amidst the thawing, gorying in the beauty of her rebirth.

Jane Houng: Like the fire, we [00:40:00] rise from the ashes. Sounds a bit cliche. But, uh, thank you so much for your time. Thanks again for listening to Mending Lives with me, Jane Hong. It was produced by Brian Ho. You can find relevant links to this show in the comments section. I would not, could not, be doing this without many people's support and encouragement.

So until next time, [00:41:00] goodbye.