The “chengyu”, Mandarin Chinese for idiom, condenses a feeling, sentence and more often than not a story into four characters. Similarly, each of Leung’s poems is a cross-section; aiming to capture a slice of the world, or a relationship and presenting them to the reader as representations of the whole.
Each of the poems in chengyu: chinoiserie are literal translations or re-interpretations of a Chinese idiom, referencing the duality of identity in Leung’s bilingual and cross-cultural upbringing; each idiom and poem a succinct summary of an important relationship, person or part of her life. The meaning of “chinoiserie” is subverted in her poems as these idioms reimagined as English poems are neither particularly “chinese-esque” or “un-chinese-esque”, though the author is very much fully Chinese herself. This is done because the Asian author writing in English does not have the obligation to only strictly write about Orientalist themes, nor should they avoid writing about their culture should they have something they wish to express.
The author’s first collection is an earnest exploration into the themes of young love and coming-of-age, which are so often looked-down upon in poetry as immature and unimportant. Leung also explores the meaning of sociocultural as well as personal identity through a world of visuals and objects.
