ABSTRACT
In his poem “In Front of the Countdown Clock” published in Renmin ribao (June 27, 1997, p. 12), Li Yunpeng (a writer from Gansu Province) viewed the countdown clock not simply as a time-telling device but also as a “lesson book” that “must be read by every Chinese.”1 Its lessons were about “the history of humiliation and pride,” about “how the nation humiliated in the past marches toward respect.” Li stated, “Since the very moment when the weak and corrupt Qing court ceded Hong Kong in 1842, the countdown clock . . . has existed in the heart of the Chinese nation. Hundreds of millions of Chinese people had suffered hard to comprehend, placing their sights on national [redemption from] humiliation and defense.” According to Li’s reading, the countdown clock represented an animated book whose pages turned steadily to unfold a history of reconciliation. As a narrative device, the clock enabled the writer to imagine how the history of the nation could be reconstituted through reordering the relationship between the past and the future.
