Using analytical tools provided by Stuart Hall in Representations and/or Dai Jinhuas idea about Orientalism and Occidentalism,

give examples of how concepts of East, West, or the absence of or merging of such identifications are expressed in Chungking Express.

When viewing Chungking Express, its important to consider Hong Kong as a character in itself, though the question would be then of what representation? The characters in this film seem to have no pasts, their lives marked by seemingly random and arbitrary encounters how then do we start talking about Orientalist/Occidental representations with such diffusions of identity? Indeed, if we look at Hong Kong as characterized by Asian affiliations at home and Western in its consumption culture, juxtaposed against its immigrants-based and background as a cultural melting pot, there appears a suspension of identities when the choice is of two polarities East or West. In the broadest sense, there is thus an absence of Eastern/Western identity. But its also possible to view the characterization of Hong Kong as a merging of these disparate identities as well. In the words of Wong himself, the 2 main spaces of shooting in the movie served as "microcosms of Hong Kong" crowded, urban, at the palimpsestic intersection of the global and the local. The movie shares an Orientalist stereotype of South Asians, most exemplified in its treatment of Indians and the Pilipino seductress. In adopting this colonial gaze through unstable camera movements and moments punctuated by disruptions to our conventional habits of experiencing cinema time, Wong appears to be mediating the Hong Kong anxiety about the 1997 handover. As a country that experiences British colonialism, US cultural hegemony and a then soon-handover to Chinese authoritarian rule, Hong Kong appears to succumb to Orientalist persuasions to establish its own cultural identity (99% Chinese) vis--vis a one-dimensional representation of other Asian ethnicities. This is one way the movie establishes a uniquely Hong Kong identity by stereotyping what it is not in contrast to other Asians. And another way the movie identities as non-Western was established by the different attitudes towards

love and sex in its male characters the manipulative Western drug dealer and the two Chinese cops. While the latter two appears very vulnerable and lovesick, the former was seen to be involved in twotiming and subsequently suffers a violent death; while Wongs film noir treatment and lack of emotional distance with the Western male results in a certain nonchalance about the murder being committed. The more pressing concern I was made to feel is one of, what happens when the cop and the blonde meet? How would their encounter be liked? What would happen? When we draw parallels between such questions on the viewers minds and the May 1st expiry date that appeared in various forms of canned food, we are reminded of the arbitrary nature of Hong Kongs 1997 handover, the murder or end of its British affiliations as a result (symbolized by the death of the Western male) and questions of who are we really and whats going to happen next arises naturally in the context of a Hong Kong identity coming to grips with itself. It is possible to say Hong Kong is postculture in that state of suspension and meeting together of different cultures, as marked in the film by instabilities and paradoxes of time. The things most distinctly Chinese in the movie appears to be some of the food items consumed, and the outward appearance of the actors and actresses involved. In this regard I am reminded of my personal encounters with Korean popular culture manufactured with Western MTV tools and sounds composed by European songwriters (to take SNSD as an example) the only things distinctly Korean about such cultural products appeared to be the ethnicities of the singers and the language in which the songs were sang in. Seen against a backdrop of increasing globalization and continual exchange between different cultures, that there continues to be a missing Oriental culture in and of itself, seen as an ongoing discourse among the various narratives that are native to its heritage and history, appears to point at a very real danger of cultural homogenization which would essentially render Orientalist and Occidental perspectives obsolete. As goods become a medium through which loss and alienation are affected and

negotiated as people go about living their lives in the city, the compactness and density of urban dwellings exist in stark contrast to the inability of its citizens to communicate in-person (Faye reveals her true feelings about Tony on her secret visits into his apartment). The implication is that when that genuine connection is made impossible, people commoditise love as yet another item of consumption, talk to inanimate objects and live inside their own heads consequently, identification is made impossible because one cannot have a reciprocal relationship with goods. Thankfully, the movie offers a beacon of hope when the first cop made the gesture of cleaning the blondes heels, and the blonde sent him a birthday wish the next day. There is a sense in which a shared space and thoughtful moments breakdown the alienation experienced in a state of cultural suspension. If we employ the metaphor of Cop 223 as a representation of Hong Kong and the blonde as a representation of China (the Western male as the colonial master), there is hope of reconciliation and of a new chapter being written. Towards the end of the first segment, though 223 continues to employ the language of cans and expiry dates, it is finally one unqualified by deadlines. When we turn our attention to the second segment, Fayes persistent fondness of California Dreaming can be seen as an overt display of an Occidental preference for the West. In fact she even left cop 663 who was supposed to be her object of desire for the real California only to return 1 year later with the realization that it wasnt much. I consider this awakening and reencounter the movies way of opening up the possibility of a new sort of cultural encounter no longer marked by simplified polarities and mass-consumption culture, but mediated by spatial and temporal relations in conjunction with a shared memory. In essence, with its embrace of MTV techniques and Western cultural goods, the movie itself makes a statement that transcends the crudest perceptions of Eastern and/or Western culture. In this new sort of encounter, connections made possible by sheer chance and/or geographic proximity (0.01 cm) matter more than typified associations with a stereotyped cultural identity.