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Hongwei Bao, The Passion of the Rabbit God, Valley Press, 2024. 81 pgs.

There is this book on intimacy, belonging, histories, and motorcycles and leather jackets. It is filled with pieces of a puzzle that do not always fit together because they are not one and the same game, connected only by an epitaph dedicated to a deity, a clerk, and many unnamed queer folx in and from Asia.

This is a book named after passion and it opens with a poem titled “Passion”. It radiates throughout the poet’s heartbeats and waltzes, sashays, and journeys throughout every page. In The Passion of the Rabbit God, we encounter myths and the stories behind them. Sometimes they introduce themselves to us in historical narratives and speeches, and sometimes they collapse onto us with “a grinding halt” like a fellow commuter on the Underground (43). Bao’s collection is divided into four main sections, each with their distinctive tones and reflecting his experiences as a queer Chinese migrant and academic in a post-Brexit United Kingdom, almost as if a memoir.

Who’d have thought
the Underworld has more
wisdom and justice?

—from “The Passion of the Rabbit God” (14)

The opening poem of the first section, “Old Tales Retold”, introduces the Rabbit God from the collection title. In his imaginary speech, Hu Tianbao or the Rabbit God says: “I’m humble, but my love is not” (12). This short phrase is the most telling of the Bao’s desires and stories of belonging, intimacies, and hope and outrage. The poems that meditate on Chinese tales and myths foreshadow many of Bao’s later poems.

Can’t you see we are
becoming a pair
of butterflies,
as I throw myself
to your tombstone,
and as we both rise
from the earth?

—from “Butterfly Lovers” (18)

A poem about Chang’e, a moon goddess or “‘femme fatale’ banished to the moon” allows for a smooth transition to the next section. Despite the absence of a break page introducing this section, “Notes on Belonging”, the tone in the next poem brings the reader effectively back to the present by asking “But Where Do You Really Come From?” (21). This phrase, often addressed to non-white people in Western countries, is a discursive apparatus that alienates many. The sense of otherness, in different contexts return in this sequence where belongings are explored rather than simply stated. In dealing with the many of clichés that one encounters as a member of the Chinese diaspora, Bao turns them into lyrical phrases of poetry that interrupt the often more pejorative connotations.

A phenomenon many writers and creators encounter these days is to decide on a language to write in. At times, Bao mixes pinyin, Chinese characters, and their English translation; sometimes leaving one part out or clarifying it later in the text. There are moments when additional information interrupts the flow and the inconsistency of the combination, especially in some of the initial poems, can lead to confusion. This is especially a challenge for readers who are not familiar with Chinese languages. Because of this, the book’s audience felt more targeted, and this could have been made more accessible with a clarifying note on language in the opening. Simultaneously, it adds more nuance and strength to poems as “Why I Write in English”, where he questions the dominance of the English language:

At night I laid the English
dictionary under my pillow.
My dreams were overflowing
with correct tenses.

—from “Why I Write in English” (23)

The sequence on belonging becomes extremely intriguing with the introduction of the poem “Magic Pot”. This simple piece stands out for its resonant and vibrant language where I was able to relish every sentence and verse. It is reminiscent of some of the tales in the first section urges the reader to explore their own imagination more.

Bao does not write as a single individual, but rather in relation to the many others he encounters; all connected with his and their heartbeats. Some are distant and perhaps unheard, whereas others run synchronously as childhood friends grow up. After a seemingly more displaced poem in memory of Ren Hang, readers are introduced to the poet’s family. “Hero” is one of the longer poems in the collections and it stands out as a dedication to his sister. In comparing his family’s and other acquaintances’ perceptions of him and his sister at different times of their lives, there is a sudden twist as their roles are almost reversed, yet Bao remains a younger sibling looking up to his older sister. This is a big contrast to the duo driving to the airport, “throwing the hometown behind us, throwing our childhood behind us” (37) and the silence is enormous.

The following poem, “Suitcase”, is another unfolding of a departure from home. It details the clumsy interaction between mother and son during their final goodbye. In describing the narrator’s embarrassment with his mother, readers can empathise with his excitement for a new chapter in his life.

The red tag you tethered to handle was
waving like a hand, your hand;
beating like a heart, your heart,
across miles and years.

—from “Suitcase” (39)

The third part of The Passion of the Rabbit God goes deeper into other specific relationships, through dialogues and poems addressed to an anonymous “you”. Whereas the previous sequence is to be enjoyed slowly, treasuring each and every line, “Queer Intimacies” tells stories almost like page-turners; to be read over and over again. The transitions between the poems make it so that they could be connected to one another, read in the light of the previous and following pages. This section details incidents of daily life, such as bus journeys, and the discomfort of being queer. Still, we can find traces of little joys with echoes of Harley-Davidson motorbikes and leather jackets recurring in different poems. It follows the uncertain future of the same son from “Suitcase” waving at his mother until she is completely out of sight, now meeting strangers, clubbing, and feeling at home with them.

I straddled the bike and held you tight, breathing
your body and feeling its temperature, texture, mesmerised
by the imagination of its pre-, and current life
as I was drawn to, absorbed by, and becoming part of it.

—from “Skin” (50)

This is exactly what happens to the reader. At a higher pace, we are invited into morning tea rituals and dreaded family phone calls across cultural differences. In “Calling Home”, readers are again confronted with specific cultural habits and customs. The explicit reference to WeChat raises questions about the implications of a government-controlled social networking platform that will only be approached at a distance in the last sequence of the book.

Even so, we can feel the author’s nervosity in his otherness, in the way he now has his tea with milk and brings ‘juicy gossip’ to a quiet village both with his Chineseness and queerness. However, in concluding his tales about intimacy, Bao brings us back to what people can have in common. Where he earlier shared his fear about showing “a strange person even [he doesn’t] quite understand, there is understanding towards his married partner in a village at the end of the world”.

Early next morning,
we bade farewell to your tired parents,
to the sheep that grazed on,
to the dog that barked at us,
to the school building you hated so much,
to the church you refused to step back in.
I didn’t ask you
what it was like
to grow up
in the village.

—from “The World’s End” (57)

The final section of The Passion of the Rabbit God, “Stories of Outrage and Hope”, arrives back again at Chinese history, past and present, and places these events in today’s globalised society. It moves across a wide variety of themes and topics that affect current events, ranging from the Cultural Revolution and blank paper activism to the forced repatriation of Chinese migrants, Chinese restaurants with orientalising names, and different festivals and holidays; including Eurovision, Christmas, and Lunar New Year. Bao confronts issues of racism and other structural inequalities in a poem about a Chinese restaurant. He uses the English translation as the title, but this made me wonder about the directions the poem could have taken if he stuck to the restaurant’s Chinese name, “the moon reflected on the water pond” (66). This question somehow reflects his companion’s  interjections, calling a trip to a Chinese restaurant “having a chinky”, or critiquing the English translation that is so typical of overseas Chinese restaurants.

We look at the woman
with humility and respect.
But we, all of us,
can only say
the food was delicious!
and nod as we walk
away.

—from “Oriental Pavilion” (68)

In contrast to the slow opening poems and the burning captivating parts that follow, the last poems of Bao’s collection strike the readers with a sense of urgency as they talk about the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the increase of violence towards minorities. In response to racist exclamations, Bao writes “a queer migrant has no country” (69).

But there’s no time to ponder. Grabbing
my bag, I run, as fast as I can.
The rambling country road
Leads nowhere near home.

—from “A Trip to the Peak District” (69)

The poem “Eurovision” is a fitting representation of the West, “a happy family of nations” where he cannot see any East Asian face on stage, and of China, that has banned Eurovision on television for its depiction of “Western values and lifestyles” (70). Despite persistent discrimination, Bao embraces the multitudes and connections made throughout the collection, and ends on a meditative note, growing old together guarded by colourful garden gnomes smiling in the snow’ (77).

I am no stranger to academics writing poetry and poets writing academically. In a similar fashion, I read Hongwei Bao’s academic work before I read his poetry, and it made me wonder if this changed the way I read The Passion of the Rabbit God. Knowing Hongwei Bao’s latest publications, I wondered at times if there were ways to turn phrases into more lyrical verses. It made me more aware of the overlaps of these two worlds, especially in a sequence titled “Queer Intimacies” that could just as well be a chapter or conference title. When rereading the collection, I could find more finger-snapping-worthy phrases and words, wit that became funnier as I understood the nuances, as well as a sense of loneliness in moving across the poems’ different worlds that I, a queer mixed- race poet, could relate to a lot. There is so much passion to be found here in all these vibrant poems and stories.

How to cite: Van Robay, Kika W. L. “Subverting Otherness from Within: Hongwei Bao’s The Passion of the Rabbit God.” Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, 27 May 2024, chajournal.blog/2024/05/27/rabbit-god.

Kika W. L. Van Robays 文詠玲 (they/them) is a PhD student in Cultural Studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. They are from Belgium and from Hong Kong. Kika’s research focuses on zines, queer communities, and connections. Immersing themselves in solidarity and community care, they emphasise tenderness and platonic affections above all. Kika is a poet and the author of Let the Mourning Come with Prolific Pulse LLC (2022) as well as the founder of Slam-T (spoken word and slam poetry platform). They have an MA in Chinese Language and Culture (Ghent University) and in Gender and Diversity Studies (Flemish joint university program). [All contributions by Kika W. L. Van Robays.]

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