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Yi Shu in 1964

Hong Kong is a land of miracles. Its popular literary boasts tremendous readership in Hong Kong, on the Chinese mainland, Taiwan and wherever Chinese live. Dubbed Three Miracles in HK’s literary circles, romantic stories by Yi Shu, martial art novels by Jin Yong and science fictions by Ni Kuang have enjoyed unbelievable popularity for decades among all the Chinese people. As a female writer, Yi Shu stands out with her romantic but sober stories and concise and fashionable style.

Yi was born in Shanghai. She published her first short story when she was fifteen and has since become one of Hong Kong’s best-known popular fiction writers, with a truly prolific output. Her representative works include Story of the rose and Once deeply in love.

Yi is a prolific writer, with more than 180 works published: full-length and shorter novels, short stories. Her writings are a vivid depiction of middle class life in Hong Kong, from the point of view of someone who has been influenced by both Western and Chinese cultural values.

Yi’s family, which was an average middle class family, moved to Hong Kong from the mainland when she was a child. She is a natural writer and had her first story published when she was only 16. She worked as a journalist, and many of the events she covered gave her access to the upper echelons of Hong Kong society. She draws from this experience when writing her novels.

After establishing her reputation as a writer of idealistic romantic novels, Yi has branched out in recent years, and her works now include ghost stories, tales about dreams or unexplained phenomena and “life lesson stories” — moralistic tales about how to deal with everyday problems. Although no market research has been done, it is estimated that more than 80 percent of Yi’s readers are women aged between 15 and 35. Not only is she an extremely popular writer in Hong Kong, but her fiction is also widely read in mainland China, Singapore, Malaysia and other Southeast Asian countries.

Yi’s work contains few cultural or literary references. Her readers prefer something entertaining and interesting, with characters similar to themselves. It is for this reason that Yi Shu is looked down on by the literary world in Hong Kong.

Concise and Despairing

Even the writer’s name is invisible at the end of a story, Yi’s fictional works are easy to recognize for her unique and concise writing style. She likes using short sentences, and as few words as possible, managing to use pungent tones and providing sober insights into human deep heart.

have a happy ending. But it does not help soothe readers or draw them back from the disappointments and sorrows in life and love.Because the characters’ ups and downs, and vivid comings and goings all along the story are so impressive that readers have been deeply trapped in the sorrow and disappointment, leaving no strengh to enjoy the seemingly happy ending.

Men and women under her pen are corrupted, which is not terrible at all. At most, it’s woeful. But the terrible thing is that they keep perfectly conscious while they are sinking, and they can do nothing to stop it. They give up all their hope to live better but don’t really abandon themselves. They are mean to themselves, and to people around them.

Yi Shu likes to cast a strong shade of gray in all her fiction, leaving readers with the suspicion that she is a cynic who hates the world and scorns it. In reality, she has a great love for society and dreams of gaining warm and true love. But truth turns out to fail her and drives her to be hysterical despairing of the world. In Xibao , one of her stories, she took down a love-and-hate attitude: “I want loads of love. If love is absent, I want health. If health is beyond my reach, I want plenty of money.”

Calculating and Independent

Men in Yi’s stories are usually disappointing. Just have a look at the characters in My Early Life . The hardworking and honest husband seems to find his true self and the long lost passion all of a sudden, and is determined to live a new life with the pretty actress, abandoning his wife and children; the ambitious colleague working in the company for half of his life, without any chance to be promoted, complains his wife doesn’t understand him and chases pretty girl colleagues; the fresh college graduate in his early 20s wants to have an affair with a married woman; and the handsome and gentle and thoughtful man who has a good taste in art turns out to be a gay… They are not bad guys. Just ordinary men.

Most of the women in her stories are wise, diligent white-collar workers who experience hard time in their love affairs and find it too difficult to find their Mr. Right. They have a clear view of the relations between lovers, and do not hold impractical dreams of their future and lives. Love and marriage in their mind are just something that is impossible to be perfect. They are independent and calculating. They are lonely, but do not complain. Even some lucky girls among them find their Mr. Right, they get married through deliberate calculation rather than their emotion and passion.

Cold and Contradictory

It’s impressive that most of Yi’s novels are set in a cold metropolis where men women are under great pressure in their psyche and character building.

“Yi was brought up in Hong Kong and her stories are Hong Kong in character, keeping the same pace with the vibration of Hong Kong people,” says Yi’s brother, well known Hong Kong science fiction writer Ni Kuang. “You won’t find her stories affected or unnatural. They stand for Hong Kong people’s character.”

（Source: chinaculture.org）