A Catalog of Such Stuff as Dreams Are Made On: (Weatherhead Books on Asia)

Dung Kai-cheung's A Catalog of Such Stuff as Dreams Are Made On is a playful and imaginative glimpse into the consumerist dreamscape of late-nineties Hong Kong. First published in 1999, it comprises ninety-nine sketches of life just after the handover of the former British colony to China. Each of these stories in miniature begins from a piece of ephemera, usually consumer products or pop culture phenomena, and develops alternately comic and poignant snapshots of urban life. Dung's sketches center on once-trendy items that evoke the world at the turn of the millennium, such as Hello Kitty, Final Fantasy VIII, a Windows 98 disk, a clamshell mobile phone, Air Jordans, and cargo shorts. The protagonist of each piece, typically a young woman, is struck by an odd, even overriding obsession with an object or fad. Characters embark on brief dalliances or relationships lasting no longer than the fashions that sparked them. Dung blends vivid everyday details-Portuguese egg tarts, Japanese TV shows, the Hong Kong subway-with situations that are often fantastical or preposterous. This catalog of vanished products illuminates how people use objects to define and even invent their own selves. A major work from one of Hong Kong's most gifted and original writers, Dung's archaeology of the end of the twentieth century speaks to perennial questions about consumerism, nostalgia, and identity.

Table of Contents:
Author’s Preface: The Mask Translators’ Note 1. Agnès b. 2. Cutie Punk 3. Magpaper 4. Hello Kitty 5. Tank Tops 6. Sena’s Piano II 7. IXUS 8. Girl Specimens 9. Che 10. Pastéis de Nata 11. Photo Stickers 12. Football Kits 13. Red Wing 14. Eat as Much as You Like 15. A Bathing Ape 16. Hysteric Glamour 17. Windows 98 18. non-no 19. Konjak Jellies 20. Mebius 21. Combat Trousers 22. Puffy 23. Sony DV 24. Aprons 25. Air Jordan 26. ICQ 27. The Colored Sunglasses 28. Seiko Lukia 29. My Melody 30. Snoopy 31. Panatellas 32. Secondhand Clothes 33. Teletubbies 34. Ha Kam Shing 35. Nokia 8810 36. Camouflage 37. Le Couple 38. Bucket Hats 39. iMac 40. Rolex Daytona 41. Viva Japanese TV Drama 42. Polaroids 43. Lovegety Station 44. Prada 45. StarTAC 46. Colors 47. Beatmania 48. Adidas 49. Gucci 50. Yahoo! 51. Fujifilm Digital Camera 52. Converse Lo Tec 53. Hairpins 54. Cut Sleeves 55. Scarves 56. Animal Prints 57. The Pleated Skirt 58. Miu Miu Flannel 59. Gray 60. The Cockroach 61. The Cowboy Hat 62. Signal Youths 63. H2O+ 64. Depsea Water 65. The Patagonia Fleece 66. The Duffel Coat 67. LV Vernis 68. Panasonic DVD 69. South Park 70. Dreamcast 71. Tomb Raider III 72. Sharp MiniDisc Player 73. Burberrys Blue Label 74. MP3 75. Miffy 76. Devon Aoki 77. Motorola Dual Band 78. Cheesecake 79. PalmPilot 80. PN Rouge Suplinic 81. Final Fantasy VIII 82. The Waist Bag 83. Twisted Strands 84. Sunday 85. A Temporary Tattoo 86. The Neck Pouch 87. Cutie Cute & Horribly Horrid 88. 5S 89. Drawstrings 90. The Three Skewer Brothers 91. Khaki 92. White Blouses 93. Ballet Shoes 94. Birkenstock 95. Cargo Shorts 96. Flip-Flops 97. Hiromix 98. Chappies 99. Made in Hong Kong

About the Author :
Dung Kai-cheung was born in Hong Kong in 1967 and teaches writing at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He has published more than twenty books in Chinese, mainly novels and short stories. His works in English translation include Atlas: The Archeology of an Imaginary City (Columbia, 2012), translated by Bonnie S. McDougall and Anders Hansson with the author, and The History of the Adventures of Vivi and Vera (2018). Bonnie S. McDougall is honorary professor of Chinese at the University of Sydney and has translated works by writers including Bei Dao and Ah Cheng. Anders Hansson is the author of Chinese Outcasts: Discrimination and Emancipation in Late Imperial China (1996).

Review :
Named a New York Times Notable Book. Playful and quirky, the sketches reveal Dung’s eye for this particular moment in history, and his vast imagination . . . Documenting a particular place and time, this vibrant and distinctive collection offers a kaleidoscopic vision of that era. Highly addictive, the equivalent of literary dim sum. [These tales] are as relevant today as they were when they were first published in 1999 . . . Feed your inner nostalgia monster some of these surrealist pop-culture bites. Fascinating and refreshing. Surreal, comical, and haunting, this short story collection sees magic in everyday items. Dung Kai-Cheung is Hong Kong’s greatest novelist. Reading Dung Kai-cheung’s A Catalog of Such Stuff as Dreams Are Made On is like descending into a beautiful fever dream of Hong Kong in the late ‘90s. The story collection is both a time capsule, capturing Hong Kong through pop culture references like Hello Kitty and Air Jordans, and an incantation, breathing life into a surreal cast of characters who transform themselves, literally and metaphorically, through their pop culture choices. Longtime urban chronicler Dung has achieved rare distinction as one of very few figures writing about Hong Kong to win recognition in world literature. He has done so by turning mundane, unexamined items in all our lives into haunting, near-Shakespearian spiritual forces. Dung Kai-cheung’s catalog is a cultural 'thick description' of popular culture filled with dry wit and humor. His sketches are not short stories. He offers flights of fancy. These half-allegorical sketches by a uniquely gifted Hong Kong writer bring to us a nostalgic mosaic of the sights and sounds of a city whose cosmopolitan splendor is fast fading. It is even more heart-rending to read them in English today than some twenty years ago when these astonishing literary tidbits first appeared in the Chinese original. Dung Kai-cheung is Hong Kong’s greatest living writer, and this translation is a cause for celebration, giving global readers another path into his unique, uncanny Hong Kong. May it help bring him the wider international readership that is long overdue. Dung Kai-cheung is the most prolific and imaginative Hong Kong writer of the past three decades. His A Catalog of Such Stuff as Dreams are Made On is a fascinating and singular literary meditation on how “objects” and “stuff” affect people’s everyday lives, create meaning, and contribute to cultural identity. I read these ninety-nine sketches with a mixture of dreamy fondness and rueful melancholy. Dung Kai-cheung deftly captures the city at a time of fundamental change in this series of offbeat stories, and one couldn’t ask for better translators than Bonnie S. McDougall and Anders Hansson. Modeled on a remembrance of the Song dynasty capital city after it fell to northern invaders in the twelfth century, these vignettes record dreams of a bygone (yet never quite gone) Hong Kong with wistfulness and humor, translated by McDougall and Hansson with accuracy and elegance. This publication represents a milestone in broadening the readership of Dung’s work and in fostering the teaching and research of Hong Kong and Sinophone literature.