名人教英文：a shimmering sea
this book a shimmering sea is a rare collection of fascinating short stories about old hong kong. the author is sophronia liu, whose greek name symbolises prudence, sophistication and wisdom.
sophronia, or sophie for short, was indigenous to hong kong (她是香港的原居民). she was born in 1953 and unfortunately passed away early this year. she was a descendant (子孙) of the liu (廖) clan. as recorded in the book, the liu clan is one of the five big clans in the new territories: the man (文); the tang (邓); the hou (侯) and the peng (彭) clans.
early life in a village
through a sequence of narratives, the book chronicles (叙述) sophronia's life in hong kong in the 1950s and her growing up in the 1960s.
in the first story forked hollow, the sights and sounds of char hang (叉坑), an old tai po village, come vividly to life:
"on the other side of the road, on an embankment, the railway tracks ran parallel to the road. the rattle of the box cars and the whistle of the daily trains to and from kowloon could be heard throughout the valley, especially at my mother's home in char hang village."
through sophronia's skillful simplicity of description, we could also sense what life was like in the tough days of yesteryear when there were few creature comforts:
"a few wooden benches, haggard (枯槁的) and browned with age, sat against the two side-walls. an old table, with its leaves folded down, was leaning against one wall on which some tools were hung: a hoe, a sickle, and a large black rod and round iron weight used for weighing goods and rice."