Waitong emigrated to Hong Kong in 1997. In early 2000s, he moved to Beijing for several years before returning to Hong Kong. Within these peripatetic movements he has simultaneously become “of Hong Kong,”while maintaining a vestige of “the other.”

Much of his writing is dimly lit, blurred by train lines and the elements. Within these settings, he grasps for concepts to ground what is both fleeting and hazily drawn through various eras. More so than the shifting space of national boundaries, Waitong’s poetry is unsettled by past times, never wholly comfortable in the now. His is a constant struggle to remember without allowing nostalgia to enter and completely obscure the lines.

Wandering Hong Kong with Spirits is one of the first publications in the Hong Kong Atlas series. Hong Kong Atlas is an important first step in expanding the English-language canon with a range of Hong Kong voices. By drawing on literature, translation and creative culture as a way of remapping a global city, the Atlas project offers alternative histories to Hong Kong through its own literature.