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Tongueless
A gripping psychological thriller that sheds light on the current political situation in Hong Kong.
Tongueless follows two rival teachers at a secondary school in Hong Kong who are instructed to switch from teaching in Cantonese to Mandarin—or lose their jobs. Apolitical and focusing on surviving and thriving in their professional environment, Wai and Ling each approach the challenge differently. Wai, awkward and unpopular, becomes obsessed with Mandarin learning; Ling, knowing how to please her superiors and colleagues, thinks she can tactfully dodge the Mandarin challenge by deploying her social savviness. Wai eventually crumples under the pressure and dies by suicide, leaving her colleague Ling to face seismic political and cultural change alone as she considers how far she will go to survive such a ruthlessly competitive work environment.
Sharp, darkly humorous, and politically pointed, Tongueless presciently engages with important issues facing Hong Kong today during which so much of the city’s uniqueness—especially its language—is at risk of being erased.
Tongueless follows two rival teachers at a secondary school in Hong Kong who are instructed to switch from teaching in Cantonese to Mandarin—or lose their jobs. Apolitical and focusing on surviving and thriving in their professional environment, Wai and Ling each approach the challenge differently. Wai, awkward and unpopular, becomes obsessed with Mandarin learning; Ling, knowing how to please her superiors and colleagues, thinks she can tactfully dodge the Mandarin challenge by deploying her social savviness. Wai eventually crumples under the pressure and dies by suicide, leaving her colleague Ling to face seismic political and cultural change alone as she considers how far she will go to survive such a ruthlessly competitive work environment.
Sharp, darkly humorous, and politically pointed, Tongueless presciently engages with important issues facing Hong Kong today during which so much of the city’s uniqueness—especially its language—is at risk of being erased.
285 pages, Kindle Edition
First published April 1, 2019
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 96 reviews
August 2, 2024
This is a super interesting novel about the impact of cultural tensions in Hong Kong on regular people. I probably wouldn’t have hesitated to give it four stars if it were marketed as literary fiction rather than a psychological thriller. I enjoyed this book, but it wasn’t a thriller at all. There was no sense of danger or surprising twist. Instead, this was a character-driven novel about societal changes.
I very much enjoyed getting a look at Hong Kong culture, and the characters were well-written and felt like real people. Their relationships with one another were multi-layered and dynamic, and there were some absolutely heartbreaking moments that will stick with me. I do feel like the novel was a bit slow and repetitive, which was magnified by the fact that I was expecting a thriller.
I very much enjoyed getting a look at Hong Kong culture, and the characters were well-written and felt like real people. Their relationships with one another were multi-layered and dynamic, and there were some absolutely heartbreaking moments that will stick with me. I do feel like the novel was a bit slow and repetitive, which was magnified by the fact that I was expecting a thriller.
March 25, 2024
I'll admit, contemporary lit fic isn't really my jam. I picked this up because of the parallels between Hong Kong and Singapore when it comes to Mandarin usage. (I'm only an immigrant kid. I only know about this through my mother.)
But somehow, I ended up really liking this book!
The author does a really great job making the MC, Ling, a tolerable character. She's a people pleasing gossipy bully and the stereotypical Mean Girl in the teacher cohort. But the author manages to turn her into a well-rounded character that I actually felt sympathy for her at times.
The author also wrote Wai's character in a similarly skillful way. I felt bad for her personally, but I could also feel the annoyance seep through from Ling's headspace whenever she viewed Wai as an outcast with no social skills.
And the way that the author used both characters to approach the topic of Mandarin usage in Hong Kong education and instruction? Honestly, it was perfection.
I know nothing about this topic in Hong Kong, but through both Wai and Ling's experiences and attempts to either learn or dismiss Mandarin, there were layers of depth that I wouldn't be able to understand just by reading news articles or by Googling this topic. The author tackles this topic in such a way that I can understand why both Wai and Ling approached Mandarin learning in their own ways, however flawed they may be.
Thank you to The Feminist Press at CUNY and Edelweiss for this arc.
But somehow, I ended up really liking this book!
The author does a really great job making the MC, Ling, a tolerable character. She's a people pleasing gossipy bully and the stereotypical Mean Girl in the teacher cohort. But the author manages to turn her into a well-rounded character that I actually felt sympathy for her at times.
The author also wrote Wai's character in a similarly skillful way. I felt bad for her personally, but I could also feel the annoyance seep through from Ling's headspace whenever she viewed Wai as an outcast with no social skills.
And the way that the author used both characters to approach the topic of Mandarin usage in Hong Kong education and instruction? Honestly, it was perfection.
I know nothing about this topic in Hong Kong, but through both Wai and Ling's experiences and attempts to either learn or dismiss Mandarin, there were layers of depth that I wouldn't be able to understand just by reading news articles or by Googling this topic. The author tackles this topic in such a way that I can understand why both Wai and Ling approached Mandarin learning in their own ways, however flawed they may be.
Thank you to The Feminist Press at CUNY and Edelweiss for this arc.
August 11, 2025
Real Rating: 4.25* of five
The Publisher Says: A gripping psychological thriller that sheds light on the current political situation in Hong Kong.
Tongueless follows two rival teachers at a secondary school in Hong Kong who are instructed to switch from teaching in Cantonese to Mandarin—or lose their jobs. Apolitical and focusing on surviving and thriving in their professional environment, Wai and Ling each approach the challenge differently. Wai, awkward and unpopular, becomes obsessed with Mandarin learning; Ling, knowing how to please her superiors and colleagues, thinks she can tactfully dodge the Mandarin challenge by deploying her social savviness. Wai eventually crumples under the pressure and dies by suicide, leaving her colleague Ling to face seismic political and cultural change alone as she considers how far she will go to survive such a ruthlessly competitive work environment.
Sharp, darkly humorous, and politically pointed, Tongueless presciently engages with important issues facing Hong Kong today during which so much of the city’s uniqueness—especially its language—is at risk of being erased.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.
My Review: China has been on a multigenerational project to Han-ize all the Sinosphere. Hong Kong's significant Anglophone population has been able to attract some out-of-China interest in the Han's Borg imitation, and from everything I've seen coming out about it in English, resistance is risky if not futile.
As little pale imitators, US fascists are doing their best to marginalize and poison the information space. No one in their dream world will know what to trust, therefore will accept their stupidification without the fuss and bother of rebellion and resistance to them. I think what's happened is that's scare a lot of people. Ones who weren't necessarily thinking about it before. Books like Tongueless can send painful shocks into the ideamakers that encounter it. Set in a very basic institution of Hong Kong culture, a language school, we are prepared in the set-up for those very reactions by those of the characters.
Teacher Wai is a very passive person, unable to put herself forward agreeably, or frame and present an idea persuasively. Her affect is so rigid that she's become faceless, just a messily-dressed part of the crowd. This works well enough while she's left alone to keep doing what she has learned to do. She is blindsided by the mandate to switch from her native Cantonese to the Han people now in charge's Mandarin. It's not like having to use Aussie or Indian slang and adapt to an accent. It's like having to learn, then teach in, Dutch. The alphabet and some words would look familiar but pronunciation let alone grammar? Not a hope. Wai, in her oddly passive way, sets about learning Mandarin but founders agonizingly slowly as the hopelessness of the task sinks in.
Ling's a Mean Girl. She's made it on marginal ability plus ruthless indifference to others' feelings or needs. She hides this behind a surface smarm...sorry, charm...that slips her in under peoples' radar. That route to her success is now closing off because it just won't teach her Mandarin. Poor Wai, with no interpersonal radar, is a prime victim for Ling to hate on. Ling's own focus on surface perfection and flawless presentation of self finds no echo in Wai. She doesn't understand the point of these things and lacks the flexibility to adapt to learning them (or Mandarin) to Ling's contempt...well-masked from others. Wai's failing attempts to survive in this horrible, cruelly indifferent new system lead to a true tragedy.
What's funny is that Ling is, on the surface, so good at masking that she presents herself as super-agreeable, and accepts that their language, Cantonese, is no longer going to be the one they're allowed to use...these're good Chinese girls, after all, and Authority Has Spoken. The manner of the adjustment is the difference between Wai's tragedy and Ling's desperate attempts to avoid failure, not the fact of its external imposition leading to resistance. It doesn't.
It's a brutal story. It's told directly...I picture Ling, our PoV character, sitting before an inquisitional interview recounting this story directly to us, the "camera" so to speak, with many soft little smirks and touchings-up of her hair and make-up. Ling is the one who, in Author Lau's subtle hands, shows herself as a slacker caught in a new system that pitilessly highlights her basic failures and failings in relation to that system. The narrative shifts in time though not always seamlessly. The very first pages give away a giant spoiler, but it is needed to set up our time-hopping. Ling is undergoing before our eyes the fate her students, to whom she always showed a smooth face hiding her contempt, worked hard to escape...and she can not do what they tried to do.
Ling escapes Wai's fate. She does not escape the fate of social collaborators everywhere: She loses her camouflage and has no skin underneath it to protect herself. Hiding is not possible; no protection or help is forthcoming.
I sometimes felt the story was in fragments of time or shards of context that did not always scan with my idea of what I had read. There was a reason for that; I'm going to urge you to read the Translator's Note before you start the story. I don't want to spoil certain things but spoilers are part of the book from page one! However, if someone chooses not to follow my advice, they should be able to proceed as they prefer. I myownself think "spoilerphobes" are spoiled, but no need to rehash THAT conversation.
Politically this story of a bullying overbearing linguistic minority imposing its words, values, and culture on hapless victims caught in an economic and social trap, suffering the loss of long-unexamined and too-little valued traditions and freedoms, could not possibly be more timely to read for the entire Anglophone world.
The Publisher Says: A gripping psychological thriller that sheds light on the current political situation in Hong Kong.
Tongueless follows two rival teachers at a secondary school in Hong Kong who are instructed to switch from teaching in Cantonese to Mandarin—or lose their jobs. Apolitical and focusing on surviving and thriving in their professional environment, Wai and Ling each approach the challenge differently. Wai, awkward and unpopular, becomes obsessed with Mandarin learning; Ling, knowing how to please her superiors and colleagues, thinks she can tactfully dodge the Mandarin challenge by deploying her social savviness. Wai eventually crumples under the pressure and dies by suicide, leaving her colleague Ling to face seismic political and cultural change alone as she considers how far she will go to survive such a ruthlessly competitive work environment.
Sharp, darkly humorous, and politically pointed, Tongueless presciently engages with important issues facing Hong Kong today during which so much of the city’s uniqueness—especially its language—is at risk of being erased.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.
My Review: China has been on a multigenerational project to Han-ize all the Sinosphere. Hong Kong's significant Anglophone population has been able to attract some out-of-China interest in the Han's Borg imitation, and from everything I've seen coming out about it in English, resistance is risky if not futile.
As little pale imitators, US fascists are doing their best to marginalize and poison the information space. No one in their dream world will know what to trust, therefore will accept their stupidification without the fuss and bother of rebellion and resistance to them. I think what's happened is that's scare a lot of people. Ones who weren't necessarily thinking about it before. Books like Tongueless can send painful shocks into the ideamakers that encounter it. Set in a very basic institution of Hong Kong culture, a language school, we are prepared in the set-up for those very reactions by those of the characters.
Teacher Wai is a very passive person, unable to put herself forward agreeably, or frame and present an idea persuasively. Her affect is so rigid that she's become faceless, just a messily-dressed part of the crowd. This works well enough while she's left alone to keep doing what she has learned to do. She is blindsided by the mandate to switch from her native Cantonese to the Han people now in charge's Mandarin. It's not like having to use Aussie or Indian slang and adapt to an accent. It's like having to learn, then teach in, Dutch. The alphabet and some words would look familiar but pronunciation let alone grammar? Not a hope. Wai, in her oddly passive way, sets about learning Mandarin but founders agonizingly slowly as the hopelessness of the task sinks in.
Ling's a Mean Girl. She's made it on marginal ability plus ruthless indifference to others' feelings or needs. She hides this behind a surface smarm...sorry, charm...that slips her in under peoples' radar. That route to her success is now closing off because it just won't teach her Mandarin. Poor Wai, with no interpersonal radar, is a prime victim for Ling to hate on. Ling's own focus on surface perfection and flawless presentation of self finds no echo in Wai. She doesn't understand the point of these things and lacks the flexibility to adapt to learning them (or Mandarin) to Ling's contempt...well-masked from others. Wai's failing attempts to survive in this horrible, cruelly indifferent new system lead to a true tragedy.
What's funny is that Ling is, on the surface, so good at masking that she presents herself as super-agreeable, and accepts that their language, Cantonese, is no longer going to be the one they're allowed to use...these're good Chinese girls, after all, and Authority Has Spoken. The manner of the adjustment is the difference between Wai's tragedy and Ling's desperate attempts to avoid failure, not the fact of its external imposition leading to resistance. It doesn't.
It's a brutal story. It's told directly...I picture Ling, our PoV character, sitting before an inquisitional interview recounting this story directly to us, the "camera" so to speak, with many soft little smirks and touchings-up of her hair and make-up. Ling is the one who, in Author Lau's subtle hands, shows herself as a slacker caught in a new system that pitilessly highlights her basic failures and failings in relation to that system. The narrative shifts in time though not always seamlessly. The very first pages give away a giant spoiler, but it is needed to set up our time-hopping. Ling is undergoing before our eyes the fate her students, to whom she always showed a smooth face hiding her contempt, worked hard to escape...and she can not do what they tried to do.
Ling escapes Wai's fate. She does not escape the fate of social collaborators everywhere: She loses her camouflage and has no skin underneath it to protect herself. Hiding is not possible; no protection or help is forthcoming.
I sometimes felt the story was in fragments of time or shards of context that did not always scan with my idea of what I had read. There was a reason for that; I'm going to urge you to read the Translator's Note before you start the story. I don't want to spoil certain things but spoilers are part of the book from page one! However, if someone chooses not to follow my advice, they should be able to proceed as they prefer. I myownself think "spoilerphobes" are spoiled, but no need to rehash THAT conversation.
Politically this story of a bullying overbearing linguistic minority imposing its words, values, and culture on hapless victims caught in an economic and social trap, suffering the loss of long-unexamined and too-little valued traditions and freedoms, could not possibly be more timely to read for the entire Anglophone world.
August 31, 2024
3.5 stars. This was a really engaging novel about the Chinese language and the pressures of societal conformity on young women. After a teacher at a school commits suicide in the most brutal way because she believes she isn’t ’good enough’, the main character of this novel has to fight for her own identity and place at the language school she works at where they are trying to erase Cantonese from the curriculum.
I learnt so much about the Chinese language and how Mandarin and Cantonese are linked to different cultures and identities. There were some really horrific parts to this book and other parts which were quite political, but the diversity in what was explored worked really well and I found myself really hooked on the book. I would really recommend it if you are looking for a read from Hong Kong or a book which is really going to grab your attention and surprise you at a number of different points through your reading of it.
I learnt so much about the Chinese language and how Mandarin and Cantonese are linked to different cultures and identities. There were some really horrific parts to this book and other parts which were quite political, but the diversity in what was explored worked really well and I found myself really hooked on the book. I would really recommend it if you are looking for a read from Hong Kong or a book which is really going to grab your attention and surprise you at a number of different points through your reading of it.
March 10, 2024
Whats interesting about Tongueless is the brutality of survival in a cut thoat jobs that required you to blend seamlessly in the crowd without standing out. Its a story on languages - the clashing between usage of Cantonese and Mandarin in Hong Kong, the political aspects of the situation that can be gleaned from the school's systemic competitiveness on changing the language to Mandarin to be used in teaching.
As we see Ling's perspective of a contract teacher after the devastating suicide of her colleague Wai and retracing the story from the beginning of these two colleagues's ways of survival in the school. Ling is more of a people pleaser kind of person, she adapted well, camouflaged her personality to suit the person she wants to be in favour with, making sure she befriends everyone, and this was the complete opposite of Wai. Wai was more rigid, sloppy at times, insisted to speak Mandarin as a way to learn the language even though she is really bad at it but her overzealous persistence led to her being snided upon.
As we see Ling's perspective of a contract teacher after the devastating suicide of her colleague Wai and retracing the story from the beginning of these two colleagues's ways of survival in the school. Ling is more of a people pleaser kind of person, she adapted well, camouflaged her personality to suit the person she wants to be in favour with, making sure she befriends everyone, and this was the complete opposite of Wai. Wai was more rigid, sloppy at times, insisted to speak Mandarin as a way to learn the language even though she is really bad at it but her overzealous persistence led to her being snided upon.
November 22, 2024
‘Nature is cruel. If you’re on the lowest level, unless you evolve and become a stronger species, you’ll go extinct.’
‘What about people?’
‘People are a kind of animal. If they don’t work hard, they’ll be eliminated, just like animals.’
Tongueless by Lau Yee-Wa is marked as a thriller (and I see it has a horror tag on Goodreads?). It's a bleak literary fiction about contemporary Hong Kong with a heavy dose of politics. This is as much a thriller as Harry Potter is a space opera.
Anyway, I was excited to read this "thriller" because of the language politics and cultural tensions in Hong Kong. I've had the chance to talk to Hong Kong academics and people I know about it, so I thought it'd be fun to see how all of that was used in a fiction novel. But this did not work for me at all.
I don't like mentioning translations unless I want to applaud how well they worked for me. Unfortunately, there was something in the writing that was off-putting as I read. I found it robotic and choppy. It may be the original, I'm not sure. But it was hard to read, it didn't flow well and felt weirdly brief (not precise nor concise, just brief). I don't know if I'm making sense, it just didn't flow. It may just be me. I also got confused with the time jumps, they happened out of nowhere and I didn't get the purpose of the scene addition/jump the majority of times.
Now, Tongueless follows the aftermath of a gruesome suicide by a contract teacher named Wai. Wai was put under a lot of pressure to pass an important Mandarin test in order to have her contract renewed. We see the office politics mixed in with the tense cultural and language politics involving Hong Kong, Great Britain, and Mainland China, through the eyes of Ling, a teacher who sat next to Wai. Wai's suicide was gruesome and it was broadcast live, so there's a lot of attention towards the matter.
Ling as a main POV was... upsetting. She's not likeable. Wai isn't likeable. Nobody is likeable. Ling is the type of person who whines and hates a lot. She's only into skincare and fashion, but it's more a performance than an actual interest... which means that the narration is dull and detached. She's not self-aware, she's not aware of anything going on (which leads to chapters and chapters of confusion until she finally finds things out... it made me feel like the chapters before were just a waste of space), and when she talks about "her hobbies" it's so fucking dull because she's got no actual interest in them.
The office drama was awful. The bullying, the hate, the ableism, the discrimination, classicism, racism. Hard pass.
I don't know. 2 stars because the topic is important, but this didn't work for me AT ALL. If anyone has recommendations about language politics/cultural tension in Hong Kong, I'd be happy to get some!
‘What about people?’
‘People are a kind of animal. If they don’t work hard, they’ll be eliminated, just like animals.’
Tongueless by Lau Yee-Wa is marked as a thriller (and I see it has a horror tag on Goodreads?). It's a bleak literary fiction about contemporary Hong Kong with a heavy dose of politics. This is as much a thriller as Harry Potter is a space opera.
Anyway, I was excited to read this "thriller" because of the language politics and cultural tensions in Hong Kong. I've had the chance to talk to Hong Kong academics and people I know about it, so I thought it'd be fun to see how all of that was used in a fiction novel. But this did not work for me at all.
I don't like mentioning translations unless I want to applaud how well they worked for me. Unfortunately, there was something in the writing that was off-putting as I read. I found it robotic and choppy. It may be the original, I'm not sure. But it was hard to read, it didn't flow well and felt weirdly brief (not precise nor concise, just brief). I don't know if I'm making sense, it just didn't flow. It may just be me. I also got confused with the time jumps, they happened out of nowhere and I didn't get the purpose of the scene addition/jump the majority of times.
Now, Tongueless follows the aftermath of a gruesome suicide by a contract teacher named Wai. Wai was put under a lot of pressure to pass an important Mandarin test in order to have her contract renewed. We see the office politics mixed in with the tense cultural and language politics involving Hong Kong, Great Britain, and Mainland China, through the eyes of Ling, a teacher who sat next to Wai. Wai's suicide was gruesome and it was broadcast live, so there's a lot of attention towards the matter.
Ling as a main POV was... upsetting. She's not likeable. Wai isn't likeable. Nobody is likeable. Ling is the type of person who whines and hates a lot. She's only into skincare and fashion, but it's more a performance than an actual interest... which means that the narration is dull and detached. She's not self-aware, she's not aware of anything going on (which leads to chapters and chapters of confusion until she finally finds things out... it made me feel like the chapters before were just a waste of space), and when she talks about "her hobbies" it's so fucking dull because she's got no actual interest in them.
The office drama was awful. The bullying, the hate, the ableism, the discrimination, classicism, racism. Hard pass.
I don't know. 2 stars because the topic is important, but this didn't work for me AT ALL. If anyone has recommendations about language politics/cultural tension in Hong Kong, I'd be happy to get some!
July 11, 2024
Tongueless is a brilliant exposition on influence of politics on language. The change in political atmosphere has its impact on education as well; teachers are now expected to teach Mandarin in Chinese language class instead of Cantonese. A tension exists in school, among teachers where learning Mandarin is critical for their continued career in the language department.
Ling, a secondary school teacher, is well liked by her colleagues and students alike. She cares for her appearance, to be liked by all, and plans to escape the mandatory Mandarin learning by leaning on the relationships she has formed in the Chinese language department and the school principal. Wei, newly arrived teacher, is written as a visual contradiction to Ling. It becomes apparent that she is also a contradiction to Ling's personality. She works hard and wants to be better at Mandarin. The story starts days after Wei's suicide - who, unable to handle the stress of learning and work, had decided to take her own life.
By the time the book hits the quarter mark, the positions of Ling and Wei is well established; in the school and the social strata. Ling abuses Wei's need for friendship. Though she jokingly calls Wei to be a "servant", her annoyance with Wei's attitude towards life work hard, be the "best", and be the best fast, doesn't go away. She compares them to the immigrant students - the children from mainland who don't have experience in the real world and shoehorn their pursue into "being good". This is a very interesting point Ling makes and it exposes more about the underlying political themes in the novel. Students from mainland are exposed to real world, the world without a firewall, and she sees the difference becoming more obvious when compared to locals. And Ling believes Wei to be same. Being good wasn't enough to survive in this world, one had to have the apt social constructs to navigate the world and make it work for you.
The two characters around who the story revolves are well rounded and flawed.
The first half of novel ends with Wei's suicide and the second half, the aftermath. Ling perhaps does realize the impact of language change in schools and society, would change the cultural fabric of Hong Kong. Its however the impact she sees on her, personally than the society itself. As its directly impacting her career and the short staffed department has her overworked, she is not the charming person that other teachers in the department surround themselves with. The cultural and political changes that she once ignored, is now affecting her life, her position in school and the camaraderie she shared with her colleagues. The brutal nature of the work place competition has teething at her ankles, and her helplessness to address them only increases.
Lau Yee-Wa turns historical allegories to personal failures, filial disciplines to moral failings and, compare - contrast of strength and smartness. Tongueless is a thought provoking novel with dark humor and fascinating characters.
What a splendid read!!
Ling, a secondary school teacher, is well liked by her colleagues and students alike. She cares for her appearance, to be liked by all, and plans to escape the mandatory Mandarin learning by leaning on the relationships she has formed in the Chinese language department and the school principal. Wei, newly arrived teacher, is written as a visual contradiction to Ling. It becomes apparent that she is also a contradiction to Ling's personality. She works hard and wants to be better at Mandarin. The story starts days after Wei's suicide - who, unable to handle the stress of learning and work, had decided to take her own life.
By the time the book hits the quarter mark, the positions of Ling and Wei is well established; in the school and the social strata. Ling abuses Wei's need for friendship. Though she jokingly calls Wei to be a "servant", her annoyance with Wei's attitude towards life work hard, be the "best", and be the best fast, doesn't go away. She compares them to the immigrant students - the children from mainland who don't have experience in the real world and shoehorn their pursue into "being good". This is a very interesting point Ling makes and it exposes more about the underlying political themes in the novel. Students from mainland are exposed to real world, the world without a firewall, and she sees the difference becoming more obvious when compared to locals. And Ling believes Wei to be same. Being good wasn't enough to survive in this world, one had to have the apt social constructs to navigate the world and make it work for you.
The two characters around who the story revolves are well rounded and flawed.
The first half of novel ends with Wei's suicide and the second half, the aftermath. Ling perhaps does realize the impact of language change in schools and society, would change the cultural fabric of Hong Kong. Its however the impact she sees on her, personally than the society itself. As its directly impacting her career and the short staffed department has her overworked, she is not the charming person that other teachers in the department surround themselves with. The cultural and political changes that she once ignored, is now affecting her life, her position in school and the camaraderie she shared with her colleagues. The brutal nature of the work place competition has teething at her ankles, and her helplessness to address them only increases.
Lau Yee-Wa turns historical allegories to personal failures, filial disciplines to moral failings and, compare - contrast of strength and smartness. Tongueless is a thought provoking novel with dark humor and fascinating characters.
What a splendid read!!
March 19, 2025
An interesting read. The workload and responsibilities of teaching certainly run true, and the mounting pressure definitely does feel insane. I love anything and everything about functions and intricacies of language and as someone who knows quite little about the Chinese language, there were parts of this book that were really enlightening (and the translator's note at the end too!)
Not sure how I feel about the ending, but I do appreciate the 'language changes you' metaphor that I was able to parse from it.
Not sure how I feel about the ending, but I do appreciate the 'language changes you' metaphor that I was able to parse from it.
June 27, 2024
3.5. The back cover of Tongueless describes the book as a “gripping psychological thriller”and then goes on to describe a plot that, while not completely inaccurate, is not a true account of how the story unfolds. This isn’t a thriller by any stretch of the imagination. The blurb by Molly McGhee calling it a “slow-burn social horror” is a bit more fitting.
The summary frames this as a story of two competing teachers who are told to transition from teaching in Cantonese to teaching in Mandarin or lose their jobs and describes the methods each teacher adopts in order to succeed: Wai by obsessively studying Mandarin and Ling by focusing on becoming besties with the principal and head of department. While we find out eventually that the school is considering switching from Cantonese to Mandarin and both teachers do have differing methods of teaching, they are like this from the beginning, well before the language change is announced and they are never explicitly told to make the switch or lose their jobs. What actually happens in the book is much more subtle and implied. If I could go back, I would just go into this book blind.
This book could have been more thriller-esque with a shocking twist if the suicide of Wai wasn’t revealed in the summary and the first page of the book. But revealing this early on allows Lau Yee-Wa to move back and forth in time in the first section, allowing the reader to compare Ling’s attitude and change in confidence from one year to the next. These jumps in time weren’t always fluid and I often felt there were discrepancies or errors in the timelines, both in the current day to day and long term (Ling is said to have taught at this school for both ten years and eight years at different points in the text).
Translating this text must have been challenging, Jennifer Feeley describes in her Translator’s Note that the original is written in a mix of standard written Chinese, Cantonese, and Mandarin. I admire the work that went into translation, but I was also reminded frequently that I was reading a translation. There were several similes scattered throughout that just didn’t make any sense. I’m not sure if Feeley was trying to adhere to a strict literal translation (I don’t think this is the case because in the note at the end she explains her thought process on why she didn’t opt for a literal translation for a particular sentence), but the chosen descriptions often read as awkward or meaningless in English.
Structure and translation aside, the content of this book is what really intrigued me. I learned a lot about the politics of language in China, and Hong Kong specifically. Tongueless shines light on the shifting dynamics and growing push for Mandarin and how this may eventually lead to the extinction of the Cantonese language and the rich and unique Hong along culture that is associated with it.
This book is well worth the read as it reveals the intense working conditions and mounting pressure that teachers in Hong Kong are under to conform and the lack of choice they have in the matter. Success feels impossible and this despair leads both teachers to take dramatic action.
The summary frames this as a story of two competing teachers who are told to transition from teaching in Cantonese to teaching in Mandarin or lose their jobs and describes the methods each teacher adopts in order to succeed: Wai by obsessively studying Mandarin and Ling by focusing on becoming besties with the principal and head of department. While we find out eventually that the school is considering switching from Cantonese to Mandarin and both teachers do have differing methods of teaching, they are like this from the beginning, well before the language change is announced and they are never explicitly told to make the switch or lose their jobs. What actually happens in the book is much more subtle and implied. If I could go back, I would just go into this book blind.
This book could have been more thriller-esque with a shocking twist if the suicide of Wai wasn’t revealed in the summary and the first page of the book. But revealing this early on allows Lau Yee-Wa to move back and forth in time in the first section, allowing the reader to compare Ling’s attitude and change in confidence from one year to the next. These jumps in time weren’t always fluid and I often felt there were discrepancies or errors in the timelines, both in the current day to day and long term (Ling is said to have taught at this school for both ten years and eight years at different points in the text).
Translating this text must have been challenging, Jennifer Feeley describes in her Translator’s Note that the original is written in a mix of standard written Chinese, Cantonese, and Mandarin. I admire the work that went into translation, but I was also reminded frequently that I was reading a translation. There were several similes scattered throughout that just didn’t make any sense. I’m not sure if Feeley was trying to adhere to a strict literal translation (I don’t think this is the case because in the note at the end she explains her thought process on why she didn’t opt for a literal translation for a particular sentence), but the chosen descriptions often read as awkward or meaningless in English.
Structure and translation aside, the content of this book is what really intrigued me. I learned a lot about the politics of language in China, and Hong Kong specifically. Tongueless shines light on the shifting dynamics and growing push for Mandarin and how this may eventually lead to the extinction of the Cantonese language and the rich and unique Hong along culture that is associated with it.
This book is well worth the read as it reveals the intense working conditions and mounting pressure that teachers in Hong Kong are under to conform and the lack of choice they have in the matter. Success feels impossible and this despair leads both teachers to take dramatic action.
March 5, 2026
I wanted way more out of this. Not a thriller, and felt flat without anything really happening or moving the story forward. I also don't know if this was a translation issue but the writing felt repetitive and choppy at times. It started out very strong, but then just didn't really go anywhere, or say anything compelling.
Read
February 15, 2025this book is a slow, interesting psychological study, maybe even a thriller, with the shifting, trapping political climate of hong kong used as the background. although difficult to continue at times, the portrayal of the two main characters is fascinating, as the subtle yet continuous changes to the both of them seem very realistic and increasingly more terrifying
and even though i'm not amazed, the concept itself is enough to recommend "tongueless," i don't think i've read a book like this one
also, the translator's note is informative and definitely needed (i am a little biased tho lmao)
"How come the principal isn't responsible for hounding Miss Yu to death, but students are punished for their wrongdoings?"
"'How's your Mandarin?'
'It's coming along. You can test me any time.'
'You've got this.'"
and even though i'm not amazed, the concept itself is enough to recommend "tongueless," i don't think i've read a book like this one
also, the translator's note is informative and definitely needed (i am a little biased tho lmao)
"How come the principal isn't responsible for hounding Miss Yu to death, but students are punished for their wrongdoings?"
"'How's your Mandarin?'
'It's coming along. You can test me any time.'
'You've got this.'"
August 17, 2024
TONGUELESS |
TY @feministpress for the #gifted copy. Already out now!
Two teachers at a school in Hong Kong vie for job security amid a changing landscape of language integration and pedagogy.
Can bullying the weak and uninitiated ultimately provide a greater good? We see this idea played out in multiple scenarios throughout the book. We see this in the case of the bullied woman, Wai, who fights tooth and nail to improve her Mandarin speaking skills despite being scorned by her colleagues, bullied by the principal and ridiculed for slipups by students. We also see this demonstrated in a class discussion on the state of Hong Kong being a British colony. The teacher, our MC, takes the position that this has helped to improve Hong Kong and its citizens, straddling a Western and Chinese culture, that they were made the better for it. But were they really made the better for it?
In the case of Wai, obviously not, she commits suicide (which you find out in the 1st chapter) for being belittled by everyone into seeing herself as incapable, lazy and dumb. Through the course of the book, our MC, who was the main instigator of bullying Wai finds herself in a similar situation as Wai, fighting to obsessively improve her Mandarin speaking proficiency. But throughout the book we see the status that mainlanders of China carry over Hong Kongers, speakers of standard putonghua, who work hard and fight hard. It's the Hong Kongers who retreat into trying to change their luck by utilizing whatever "clever" devices they can, outwitting their competition, changing their looks through surgery, and attempting to get ahead no matter how much that puts them into debt.
I found it fascinating to read as this focuses on the lives of people who have such a complicated, unique history from a language standpoint - having been brought up to learn English, Cantonese and Mandarin. Now that HK has been "recently" reabsorbed into the greater China, we see the fears and anxiety of how its people fear their culture, language, and future will be overshadowed and replaced.
TY @feministpress for the #gifted copy. Already out now!
Two teachers at a school in Hong Kong vie for job security amid a changing landscape of language integration and pedagogy.
Can bullying the weak and uninitiated ultimately provide a greater good? We see this idea played out in multiple scenarios throughout the book. We see this in the case of the bullied woman, Wai, who fights tooth and nail to improve her Mandarin speaking skills despite being scorned by her colleagues, bullied by the principal and ridiculed for slipups by students. We also see this demonstrated in a class discussion on the state of Hong Kong being a British colony. The teacher, our MC, takes the position that this has helped to improve Hong Kong and its citizens, straddling a Western and Chinese culture, that they were made the better for it. But were they really made the better for it?
In the case of Wai, obviously not, she commits suicide (which you find out in the 1st chapter) for being belittled by everyone into seeing herself as incapable, lazy and dumb. Through the course of the book, our MC, who was the main instigator of bullying Wai finds herself in a similar situation as Wai, fighting to obsessively improve her Mandarin speaking proficiency. But throughout the book we see the status that mainlanders of China carry over Hong Kongers, speakers of standard putonghua, who work hard and fight hard. It's the Hong Kongers who retreat into trying to change their luck by utilizing whatever "clever" devices they can, outwitting their competition, changing their looks through surgery, and attempting to get ahead no matter how much that puts them into debt.
I found it fascinating to read as this focuses on the lives of people who have such a complicated, unique history from a language standpoint - having been brought up to learn English, Cantonese and Mandarin. Now that HK has been "recently" reabsorbed into the greater China, we see the fears and anxiety of how its people fear their culture, language, and future will be overshadowed and replaced.
Read
January 13, 2025memorable + unique storytelling that explores the teaching profession and education system in Hong Kong (particularly re. use of language). you can truly feel the exhaustion and pressure experienced by the characters, especially wai and ling. kudos to the author & translator who also included an informative translator's note at the end.
January 9, 2025
I really enjoyed this book and how it highlights the cultural tensions in Hong Kong and the importance of language to people’s identity.
November 28, 2024
Reading this right before finally getting to Craft in the Real World by Matthew Salesses is an interesting experience. My main reaction to this novel is that it is a perfect example of modern literary-adjacent fiction finally losing the plot. Quite literally - not much happens in the book, either in terms of events or character development/character conflict. I found it quite boring for that reason. However, I am very aware (and see the references in Salesses) that East Asian, especially Chiense fiction, is often criticised by Western readers for that exact reason, ignoring completely different cultural conventions of storytelling in Chinese literary tradition.
Am I falling foul of not seeing past Western expectations of what craft is? Completely possible. I do also think that many contemporary Western novels have the same issue, and I did really enjoy Butter, even though similar critiques can be applied to it. In Tongueless, I wasn't sure why the ideas and messages the author discussed were presented in fiction, rather than essay, form. The novel is about the advent of Mandarin in the predominantly Cantonese speaking Hong Kong and about the steady erosion of linguistic diversity and freedom under the CCP. It gave me an interesting insight into contemporary Hong Kong society and helped me to contextualise what I've heard from my students and friends. It was interesting to learn about the cultural and financial pressures piled on Chinese teachers. The social pressure to look the part by always having the latest designer clothes was surprising and fascinating. However, I am always suspicious of novels that predominantly teach me something, as I believe that it should be the primary purpose of non-fiction, not fiction.
I found the protagonists - two female Chinese language teachers, one subservient to the other - unlikable, which is normally a win in my books, and I was looking forward to their complex and twisted relationship. However, not much was happening between them, and their relationship turned out to be not as interesting as I had hoped (here I can compare it unfavourably to Butter). I would have enjoyed the novel if it had been about half the length.
Am I falling foul of not seeing past Western expectations of what craft is? Completely possible. I do also think that many contemporary Western novels have the same issue, and I did really enjoy Butter, even though similar critiques can be applied to it. In Tongueless, I wasn't sure why the ideas and messages the author discussed were presented in fiction, rather than essay, form. The novel is about the advent of Mandarin in the predominantly Cantonese speaking Hong Kong and about the steady erosion of linguistic diversity and freedom under the CCP. It gave me an interesting insight into contemporary Hong Kong society and helped me to contextualise what I've heard from my students and friends. It was interesting to learn about the cultural and financial pressures piled on Chinese teachers. The social pressure to look the part by always having the latest designer clothes was surprising and fascinating. However, I am always suspicious of novels that predominantly teach me something, as I believe that it should be the primary purpose of non-fiction, not fiction.
I found the protagonists - two female Chinese language teachers, one subservient to the other - unlikable, which is normally a win in my books, and I was looking forward to their complex and twisted relationship. However, not much was happening between them, and their relationship turned out to be not as interesting as I had hoped (here I can compare it unfavourably to Butter). I would have enjoyed the novel if it had been about half the length.
March 4, 2025
interesting premise
September 7, 2025
"Only by speaking properly will others respect you. In Hong Kong if you speak English like a foreigner you are superiors to others. The same is true for speaking Mandarin."(p.108)
Aku selalu yakin perubahan sejarah itu tidak hanya terjadi di episentrum. Saya selalu membayangkan peristiwa sejarah itu seperti gelombang air ketika kita lempar sebuah batu, gelombangnya menyebar ke seluruh permukaan. Bedanya hanya tinggi-rendahnya amplitudo tersebut. Seperti kalau bahasa saya, “mencatat sejarah dari tepian.” Persis novel ini. Meski novel ini sama sekali tidak menyebut “represi negara”, tetapi jelas ini adalah efek domino dari perubahan pemerintah.
Hong Kong menerapkan aturan “trilingual and bilaterate”, peraturan yang memaksa sekolah untuk aktif berkomunikasi dalam tiga bahasa —English, Kanton, dan Mandarin, sekaligus mahir dalam dua bahasa tulis-menulis —English dan Mandarin. Lihat ada “bahasa” yang direpresi untuk hilang, bahasa Kanton. Akibatnya di sebuah sekolah guru yang belum mahir dalam bahasa Mandarin, mengalami depresi dan ujungnya bunuh diri.
Sekolah dan sistem sosial diam saja, tidak merespon. Murid-murid cuek bahkan menertawakan Wai —guru yang belum mahir Mandarin, dengan logat Kanton untuk English dan Mandarin.
Namun, perubahan ini bukan hanya efek peraturan 1998 yang memaksa orang untuk lebih memakai English dan Mandarin. Ini ada kaitannya dengan sjearah Hong Kong (yang pernah dijajah English dan merasa inferior oleh orang-orang Mainland).
Wai dan Ling dua guru kontrak di departemen bahasa China di sekolah SMA, mereka akrab kemudian menjadi sangat menjauh ketika Wai yang guru baru, merasa harus menjadi “budak” sekolah. Wai bunuh diri, dan sekolah menutup media dari kebenaran.
Lebih dari itu kisah Wai dan Ling adalah kisah generasi “z” Hong Kong yang terimpit banyak hal: tuntutan sosial, kudu cantik, kudu punya aset cepat.
Menurutku novel ini sangat dekat dengan kita yang ang-ing-eng terhadap sosial.
March 9, 2026
As much as I want to give this book 4 stars, I can’t. So 3.5/5. Why?
Well, it tackles a lot of topics but doesn’t fully delve into them, and it feels the synopsis is selling a slightly different book than this actually is.
After reading the synopsis, I expected a Cantonese versus Mandarin battle of sorts. I expected a Wai versus Ling take on Mandarin creeping into this Hong Kong school. Maybe even Wai’s perspective. But the book felt more about materialism than language. As someone whose family can speak Cantonese, I want to preserve the language and hoped that someone would stand up to the mandate to switch to Mandarin and the way that plays into politics in Hong Kong. I didn’t get that at all and instead had to suffer through a person’s musings as she bullies someone else and constantly shops to avoid her problems.
In this way, the book was written well. I couldn’t stand Ling. From the consumerism to the bullying, she’s so unlikeable. Contrasted to Wai, who we get nothing about, I feel like Ling’s approach to the switch to Mandarin is so flippant (in itself a statement). Is that what most HKers think about the mainland/Mandarin? If so, I worry.
A note on Wai’s treatment. It felt strange that Ling and her coworkers were bullying Wai, whose Mandarin studies I associated with mainland China. Basically, I wondered if we, the reader, are meant to sympathize with the mainland or not.
The translator’s notes mention many social issues simmering under the main plot, and I agree. The housing issues, treatment of disabled people, etc. Why couldn’t we get more of that? In the end, I wanted a ra-ra book about Cantonese language preservation and celebration and didn’t get that and thusly am disappointed.
Well, it tackles a lot of topics but doesn’t fully delve into them, and it feels the synopsis is selling a slightly different book than this actually is.
After reading the synopsis, I expected a Cantonese versus Mandarin battle of sorts. I expected a Wai versus Ling take on Mandarin creeping into this Hong Kong school. Maybe even Wai’s perspective. But the book felt more about materialism than language. As someone whose family can speak Cantonese, I want to preserve the language and hoped that someone would stand up to the mandate to switch to Mandarin and the way that plays into politics in Hong Kong. I didn’t get that at all and instead had to suffer through a person’s musings as she bullies someone else and constantly shops to avoid her problems.
In this way, the book was written well. I couldn’t stand Ling. From the consumerism to the bullying, she’s so unlikeable. Contrasted to Wai, who we get nothing about, I feel like Ling’s approach to the switch to Mandarin is so flippant (in itself a statement). Is that what most HKers think about the mainland/Mandarin? If so, I worry.
A note on Wai’s treatment. It felt strange that Ling and her coworkers were bullying Wai, whose Mandarin studies I associated with mainland China. Basically, I wondered if we, the reader, are meant to sympathize with the mainland or not.
The translator’s notes mention many social issues simmering under the main plot, and I agree. The housing issues, treatment of disabled people, etc. Why couldn’t we get more of that? In the end, I wanted a ra-ra book about Cantonese language preservation and celebration and didn’t get that and thusly am disappointed.
September 9, 2024
Amazing translation. There are some linguistic elements it’s impossible for the reader to pick up on in English, but I appreciate the creative ways the translator worked to convey them. As for the story itself, Lau builds a setting where pressure squeezes her two main characters from all sides. I would have liked to see it play out slightly more, but she leaves us on a precipice with Ling, not knowing whether she will be fired, unable to pay off her credit card debt, or afford the home her mother forced her to purchase. I think the squeeze more than its ultimate conclusion is more Lau’s point, which she layers on really well, doing a beautiful job of describing contemporary Hong Kong as a continuously evolving places and how it’s residents are in many ways being pushed to the brink.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 17, 2025
This was a fantastic psychological thriller! It follows the story of two secondary school teachers in Hong Kong who are forced to switch from teaching in Cantonese to Mandarin or else they’re going to get fired.
Despite that the main characters are unlikeable, I was so stressed for both of them. The book was just so well written, and I found it difficult to put down. There was lots of office drama and bullying going on, and the characters were so vivid.
Despite that the main characters are unlikeable, I was so stressed for both of them. The book was just so well written, and I found it difficult to put down. There was lots of office drama and bullying going on, and the characters were so vivid.
September 15, 2024
Interesting to learn more about Hong Kong’s political situation but beyond that 🤷🏻♀️ Didn’t do much for me. Also VERY SAD AND DISTURBING !! Which isn’t a bad thing at all, just, woah
July 17, 2025
Time to learn Mandarin.
October 2, 2024
I was excited to read this. Yet despite compelling themes, the storytelling translated into English felt choppy and clumsy - not a gripping horror or thriller as marketed. The original version may be more effective, especially in exploring the interplay between Mandarin and Cantonese.
August 18, 2025
3.5. okay
attempted-maybe-forever-dnf
September 15, 2024dnf
November 16, 2025
"A language is a dialect with an army". One of the best ways to neocolonize a people is through the gradual degradation and undermining of language. I am not a Hong Konger; neither am I British or Chinese. Yet as a second-generation immigrant living in the west who speaks Cantonese as a second language, I feel deeply connected to Cantonese language and culture, both of which require one another to exist. Hong Kong has an interesting and unique history. Originally a part of the Sinosphere, it was loaned to Britain before being returned to the Chinese in 1997. It is one the last places where Cantonese language and culture remain prevalent in society. To me, it makes sense why the Chinese would move to standardize language within their country. In the capitalist economic landscape we live in where efficiency is key, having 10 different mutually intelligible languages would be a nightmare for any country. In fact, some may point to the delegation of Mandarin as the official language of China being one of the key reasons why it has been able to sustain extremely impressive economic growth over the past few decades, lifting hundreds of millions out of poverty. Doing this though, has led to the slow bleeding out of many other Sinitic languages. Children go to school and learn Mandarin, only having the opportunity to practice their mother-tongue at home. Then they graduate and work in the real world where they spend all day speaking in Mandarin, having even less time to speak their first language. Within two generations, it is easy to see how the language becomes extinct, lost to capitalist machine. For Hong Kongers, it seems like this is a major concern as so much of their culture is intertwined with the Cantonese language. Everything that makes Hong Kong unique, the changes in ruling powers it went through and the effects that it had on its national psyche and identity are similar to the trials and tribulations that many of us go through personally that make our own selves unique. To me, this is something worth preserving as well. Thus Hong Kong's return to China needs to satisfy two impossible needs - It needs to assimilate into Chinese culture in a seamless and frictionless way, all the while retaining everything that made it beautiful and unique.
The "struggle" of Hong Kongers is something that I can partially relate with. Growing up in the west, and subsequently being surrounded by English my entire life, meant that much of my Cantonese speaking skills were never able to fully develop. Instead, my Cantonese skills are only passingly functional enough to communicate my basic needs with my parents and elders. I often feel the need to really learn more Cantonese language and culture so that it does not get lost as I continue to become more and more "westernized". Now that I am actively trying to develop my Cantonese skills as an adult, I definitely do feel the frustrations of trying to learn a "new" language. You don't get a lot of opportunities to practice it, you feel apprehensive about trying to speak because you don't want to be judged or perceived poorly, you don't have much time/energy to allocate to it, and perhaps most annoying of all, so much of the Cantonese language is contextual and simply cannot be learnt through word memorisation. It's a difficult process that can leave you very demotivated and burnt out. At the very least however, I am under no "real" pressure to learn this language. This is entirely my own doing, my own voluntary suffering. For the two main characters in Tongueless, school teachers Ling and Wai, this luxury is not afforded to them.
The thing that strikes me the most with Ling and Wai is how different yet extremely bleak both their approaches are to the switch to teaching Mandarin in Hong Kong. Wai attempts to adapt by devoting herself to the cause. She becomes obsessed with learning Mandarin, finding every opportunity she can to learn the language in a brute force effort to upskill herself to a changing sociocultural and economic landscape. She embodies the "hard work" mantra (horde lurk) in the hopes that her (honestly, extremely impressive) effort will pay off in the long run (a renewal of her teaching contract). Yet despite all the effort and suffering she puts herself through, she continually fails to speak Mandarin fluently, often mispronouncing words or using the wrong words in the wrong context. To me this is a representation of how Hong Kongers feel operating in a system that has left them marginalized and disadvantaged. They did not grow up the speaking the standard language of their country. Now they are disadvantaged in education and the job market, with traditional means of wealth creation being much more limited and difficult to achieve. No matter how hard they work to achieve a meaningful and significant life, the ability to climb the socioeconomic ladder requires them to be something they are not. In the end, overworked and exhausted, her Mandarin is still worse than that of the 8 year old troublemaker in her primary school class. Wai is driven insane and sees no way out. She ends up taking her own life. This reminds me of the proposed meritocracy in which our world is meant to embody. I'm not sure how it is in Hong Kong, but in the west, we have always been sold the idea that success follows from hard work. As long as we pull ourselves up by the bootstraps, anything is achievable in life. Reality is obviously different though. Privilege affects our lives and society in ways that are much more influential than hard work. While financial privilege is something that it seems is well understood in today’s society, Wai’s story best represents the struggles of living without language privilege.
Ling's approach to Hong Kong's shift to mainland values and language is slightly different. Unlike Wai's idealist dreams of becoming proficient in both languages, Ling is more nihilistic. She understands how badly the Mandarin system marginalizes her and doesn't even try to lean into it. Her philosophy is characterized by attempting to game the system. She attempts to survive by utilising charm, charisma, thoughtful gifts and interpersonal skills to demonstrate how valuable she is to her school. This is reflected in her teaching style where she teaches her students to study "smart", not "hard". She prioritises teaching study methods that she knows to be high scoring over facilitating genuine intellectual engagement with the class content. However, like Wai, it all comes crashing down for Ling. Her school formally switches to teaching in Mandarin, and all of a sudden, all the people she used to "manipulate" with her soft skills are speaking Mandarin, insulating them from her influence and undermining her strategy. Slowly, she becomes ostracized in school, unable to speak the language of the people around her. Ling is pushed to her limits when she fails her performance review and suspects that her school principal may be replacing her for a Mandarin speaking teacher. In a last-ditch attempt to save her job, she consults a face reader/fortune teller to ask what she can do to change her fate. The face reader tells her that her face shows a bad fate if she continues down her current path. He recommends that she walks a different career and life path to better align with the fortune told by her face. Rather than take his advice, Ling doubles down. She receives plastic surgery to change the features of her face and her fortune in the hopes that her new fortune will be better aligned to deal with the problems both at school and in her personal life. The face reader (and Wai also) is against plastic surgery, he believes that there is something special and unique and beautiful about living and being with your own birth face. The face reader and Ling represent two opposing mindsets in contemporary Hong Kong. The face reader represents the belief that Hong Kong should not let go of their original cultural roots and identity. We should acknowledge, preserve and protect our original face/identity, warts and all, because there is something special and unique about it. I really like this metaphor. After all, so much of our what constructs our identity of ourselves is the look of our own face in the mirror. Ling represents the belief that Hong Kong must shed its original “face” in order to adapt, evolve, and survive. Within a capitalist landscape where China competes with the rest of the world for market dominance and global influence, the most efficient and pragmatic response is to do exactly that, set aside questions of identity and focus instead on seamless integration and productivity.
While both Wai and Ling have different responses to the standardisation of Mandarin in Hong Kong, both represents very bleak outcomes. Wai overworks herself to literal death in a system that continually pushes her back down, while Ling is forced to abandon her soul and identity. The book offers no easy solution for either of the main characters, because there is no easy solution for Hong Kong. Again, it walks the impossible line of retaining its uniqueness, all the while needing to integrate itself well into Chinese society. As somebody with no personal stake in Hong Kong and watching from the west, I can't help but feel a sense of sorrowness and admiration for a group of people fighting to find a place for their identity in the world.
The "struggle" of Hong Kongers is something that I can partially relate with. Growing up in the west, and subsequently being surrounded by English my entire life, meant that much of my Cantonese speaking skills were never able to fully develop. Instead, my Cantonese skills are only passingly functional enough to communicate my basic needs with my parents and elders. I often feel the need to really learn more Cantonese language and culture so that it does not get lost as I continue to become more and more "westernized". Now that I am actively trying to develop my Cantonese skills as an adult, I definitely do feel the frustrations of trying to learn a "new" language. You don't get a lot of opportunities to practice it, you feel apprehensive about trying to speak because you don't want to be judged or perceived poorly, you don't have much time/energy to allocate to it, and perhaps most annoying of all, so much of the Cantonese language is contextual and simply cannot be learnt through word memorisation. It's a difficult process that can leave you very demotivated and burnt out. At the very least however, I am under no "real" pressure to learn this language. This is entirely my own doing, my own voluntary suffering. For the two main characters in Tongueless, school teachers Ling and Wai, this luxury is not afforded to them.
The thing that strikes me the most with Ling and Wai is how different yet extremely bleak both their approaches are to the switch to teaching Mandarin in Hong Kong. Wai attempts to adapt by devoting herself to the cause. She becomes obsessed with learning Mandarin, finding every opportunity she can to learn the language in a brute force effort to upskill herself to a changing sociocultural and economic landscape. She embodies the "hard work" mantra (horde lurk) in the hopes that her (honestly, extremely impressive) effort will pay off in the long run (a renewal of her teaching contract). Yet despite all the effort and suffering she puts herself through, she continually fails to speak Mandarin fluently, often mispronouncing words or using the wrong words in the wrong context. To me this is a representation of how Hong Kongers feel operating in a system that has left them marginalized and disadvantaged. They did not grow up the speaking the standard language of their country. Now they are disadvantaged in education and the job market, with traditional means of wealth creation being much more limited and difficult to achieve. No matter how hard they work to achieve a meaningful and significant life, the ability to climb the socioeconomic ladder requires them to be something they are not. In the end, overworked and exhausted, her Mandarin is still worse than that of the 8 year old troublemaker in her primary school class. Wai is driven insane and sees no way out. She ends up taking her own life. This reminds me of the proposed meritocracy in which our world is meant to embody. I'm not sure how it is in Hong Kong, but in the west, we have always been sold the idea that success follows from hard work. As long as we pull ourselves up by the bootstraps, anything is achievable in life. Reality is obviously different though. Privilege affects our lives and society in ways that are much more influential than hard work. While financial privilege is something that it seems is well understood in today’s society, Wai’s story best represents the struggles of living without language privilege.
Ling's approach to Hong Kong's shift to mainland values and language is slightly different. Unlike Wai's idealist dreams of becoming proficient in both languages, Ling is more nihilistic. She understands how badly the Mandarin system marginalizes her and doesn't even try to lean into it. Her philosophy is characterized by attempting to game the system. She attempts to survive by utilising charm, charisma, thoughtful gifts and interpersonal skills to demonstrate how valuable she is to her school. This is reflected in her teaching style where she teaches her students to study "smart", not "hard". She prioritises teaching study methods that she knows to be high scoring over facilitating genuine intellectual engagement with the class content. However, like Wai, it all comes crashing down for Ling. Her school formally switches to teaching in Mandarin, and all of a sudden, all the people she used to "manipulate" with her soft skills are speaking Mandarin, insulating them from her influence and undermining her strategy. Slowly, she becomes ostracized in school, unable to speak the language of the people around her. Ling is pushed to her limits when she fails her performance review and suspects that her school principal may be replacing her for a Mandarin speaking teacher. In a last-ditch attempt to save her job, she consults a face reader/fortune teller to ask what she can do to change her fate. The face reader tells her that her face shows a bad fate if she continues down her current path. He recommends that she walks a different career and life path to better align with the fortune told by her face. Rather than take his advice, Ling doubles down. She receives plastic surgery to change the features of her face and her fortune in the hopes that her new fortune will be better aligned to deal with the problems both at school and in her personal life. The face reader (and Wai also) is against plastic surgery, he believes that there is something special and unique and beautiful about living and being with your own birth face. The face reader and Ling represent two opposing mindsets in contemporary Hong Kong. The face reader represents the belief that Hong Kong should not let go of their original cultural roots and identity. We should acknowledge, preserve and protect our original face/identity, warts and all, because there is something special and unique about it. I really like this metaphor. After all, so much of our what constructs our identity of ourselves is the look of our own face in the mirror. Ling represents the belief that Hong Kong must shed its original “face” in order to adapt, evolve, and survive. Within a capitalist landscape where China competes with the rest of the world for market dominance and global influence, the most efficient and pragmatic response is to do exactly that, set aside questions of identity and focus instead on seamless integration and productivity.
While both Wai and Ling have different responses to the standardisation of Mandarin in Hong Kong, both represents very bleak outcomes. Wai overworks herself to literal death in a system that continually pushes her back down, while Ling is forced to abandon her soul and identity. The book offers no easy solution for either of the main characters, because there is no easy solution for Hong Kong. Again, it walks the impossible line of retaining its uniqueness, all the while needing to integrate itself well into Chinese society. As somebody with no personal stake in Hong Kong and watching from the west, I can't help but feel a sense of sorrowness and admiration for a group of people fighting to find a place for their identity in the world.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 16, 2024
Another The Feminist Press at CUNY banger. Tongueless focuses on the tragic reality of culture and language being slowly diluted. I actually have so much I want to say about this book but no one else has read it so I won't LMAO but there's a lot I'd want to talk about...anyway.
Hong Kong has a very unique culture due to its history and this novel goes into that without turning it into a history lesson. The protagonist Ling is so painfully realistic that I personally went through a number of emotions while reading this. Sometimes I was so angry with Ling and other times I felt downright awful for her. The novel doesn't excuse her actions but gives enough that you can understand them.
Mostly I walked away from this feeling so much towards Wai. Mostly how easily I could see someone like Wai existing in the real world. A victim of society, who despite how much she tries to exist within it, remains ostracized and criticized by everyone around her. I just wanted to hug her and tell her her efforts wouldn't be in vain. If I think about Wai too much I feel like I'm going to tear up...
I'm interested in seeing how others like this and I think Feeley did an excellent job translating what I imagine was a very difficult work to adapt to an English audience! The explanation for those translations are given at the end but even if I skipped that I would have understood why certain things were written as they were.
Thank you to Edelweiss and the publisher for the ARC.
Hong Kong has a very unique culture due to its history and this novel goes into that without turning it into a history lesson. The protagonist Ling is so painfully realistic that I personally went through a number of emotions while reading this. Sometimes I was so angry with Ling and other times I felt downright awful for her. The novel doesn't excuse her actions but gives enough that you can understand them.
Mostly I walked away from this feeling so much towards Wai. Mostly how easily I could see someone like Wai existing in the real world. A victim of society, who despite how much she tries to exist within it, remains ostracized and criticized by everyone around her. I just wanted to hug her and tell her her efforts wouldn't be in vain. If I think about Wai too much I feel like I'm going to tear up...
I'm interested in seeing how others like this and I think Feeley did an excellent job translating what I imagine was a very difficult work to adapt to an English audience! The explanation for those translations are given at the end but even if I skipped that I would have understood why certain things were written as they were.
Thank you to Edelweiss and the publisher for the ARC.
April 28, 2025
As a child of Hong Kong migrant parents, I found reading this book too close to the chest in some ways. The immense pressure on teachers and the obsession Ling has with skincare and luxury brands, I can see how it’s both an individual but also cultural response. Her relationship with her mum hit home - it’s not until you read an English translation of Canto that you’re like, oh my god, her mum (and my mum!) is SAVAGE. Like emotionally abusive savage. And to think it’s normalised like “it’s just HK parents” lel The undercurrent throughout the novel is the looming nature of China. What does this mean for Hong Kongers? Language shapes culture, and the novel shows us the slow but sure attempt to erase the Cantonese language in favour of Mandarin, which is an integral part of what it means to be a Hong Konger.
This novel also asks questions such as what it means to be from Hong Kong, “neither East nor West.” Hong Kong suffers from colonial hangover, and not even a cheeseburger and fries can fix that.
This novel also asks questions such as what it means to be from Hong Kong, “neither East nor West.” Hong Kong suffers from colonial hangover, and not even a cheeseburger and fries can fix that.
June 18, 2025
This book is a translation of the original that just didn’t work for me. I don’t believe it’s possible to accurately portray the nuances in the language of this book with a translated version. The book is ABOUT language. And the pressures of language on a population that has been sandwiched between two powers and is struggling to maintain an identity and a separate language. It just didn’t work for me. What I am surprised about is that this author has not come under scrutiny given the current political climate. Although written in 2019, language is a highly politicised topic in Hong Kong. I enjoyed the book as I understand the government school system there and the pressures on the teachers and the changing curriculum. But I would hesitate to recommend it to all others unless it can be read in the original language, in which case, I think it would be a lot more interesting. A unique read though - and I’d definitely consider reading more from this author.
December 5, 2025
A very easy read. Very well written/translated and felt like a real insight into the pressures the characters - and therefore teachers in HK - face in these uncertain times. So much woven in about culture and ways of life.
I do feel like the book peaked in the middle and tailed off, and became more and more far-fetched as it went on, which was a shame. It would have been nice to have some more information about Wai rather than going off on lots of other tangents.
I do feel like the book peaked in the middle and tailed off, and became more and more far-fetched as it went on, which was a shame. It would have been nice to have some more information about Wai rather than going off on lots of other tangents.
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