An Australian premiere at this year’s OzAsia Festival, 我咽下一枚铁做的月亮 I Swallowed a Moon Made of Iron was a stage performance by composer and performer Njo Kong Kie, adapted from the poetry of Xu Lizhi (1990–2014).
Xu was a factory worker at Foxconn in Shenzhen, China – the world’s largest manufacturer of electronics, including Apple products. In 2014, after his suicide, media attention was given to Xu’s poetry, much of which revealed the harsh and inhumane working conditions under which he and his fellow workers were placed.
Xu’s works capture the despair of living in crammed and toxic conditions, of physical exhaustion where day and night seem to melt away, and of the longing for love, family and dreams. All of this was translated by Njo for the musical score and lyrics in 我咽下一枚铁做的月亮 I Swallowed a Moon Made of Iron. The show took its title from the opening line of a Xu poem dated 19 December 2013.
我咽下一枚铁做的月亮
Xu Lizhi ‘I Swallowed a Moon Made of Iron’ 19 December 2013
他们管它叫做螺丝
我咽下这工业的废水，失业的订单
那些低于机台的青春早早夭亡
我咽下奔波，咽下流离失所
咽下人行天桥，咽下长满水锈的生活
我再咽不下了
所有我曾经咽下的现在都从喉咙汹涌而出
在祖国的领土上铺成一首
耻辱的诗
As performer Njo made a palpable impact on a simple yet effective set, featuring a grand piano and a grey cube that doubled up as a screw, the sun and the moon. His heartfelt compositions were complemented by his impressive vocal range, which conveyed the raw emotional power of Xu’s poetry. Njo presented diverse genres of music and performance, ranging from the more conversational one-man duet (between the factory line supervisor and Xu himself) and operatic monologues, to tunes reminiscent of Chinese folk songs.
In Njo’s mastery of the instrument, the grand piano became a theatrical device. While the performance was dominated by Njo’s singing, he also intermittently interacted with the piano, using it as a shelter or standing by its side like an old friend. Projections added to the visual component of the performance, mostly utilised to provide Chinese-to-English translations of Xu’s poetry, but also offering video snippets of nostalgic domestic scenes related to the words.
While Charlie Chaplin’s iconic 1936 film, Modern Times, used humour to interrogate the human condition of industrial labour, Xu’s poetry was a much more straightforward wake-up call confronting audiences with the reality. However, there was also a poignant beauty in Xu’s observations and self-reflections, and this was given another life after Xu ended his own, through the voice and performance of Njo.
Read: Music review: Cécile McLorin Salvant, QPAC
Xu’s was a life cut short, and while sometimes there is the tendency to sensationalise or romanticise such tragedy, Njo remained humble throughout his performance. 我咽下一枚铁做的月亮 I Swallowed a Moon Made of Iron was an ode to those who are lost and trying to find their way home – there was sadness, with a tinge of hope.
我咽下一枚铁做的月亮 I Swallowed a Moon Made of Iron
Poet: Xu Lizhi
Composer, Director, Performer and Co-Producer: Njo Kong Kie
Set and Lighting Designer: Fung Kwok Kee Gabriel
Photographer/Filmmaker: Ao Ieong Weng Fong
Sound Designer and Engineer: Ryan McNabb
Video Designer (Text): Nicholas Yee
Vocal Coach: Stacie Dunlop
Movement Coach: William Yong
Drama Coach and English Translator: Derek Kwan
Associate Producer (Toronto Premiere): Kevin Matthew Wong
我咽下一枚铁做的月亮 I Swallowed a Moon Made of Iron was performed on 25 and 26 October at Dunstan Playhouse as part of OzAsia Festival 2023.
This writer travelled to Adelaide as a guest of OzAsia Festival and the Adelaide Festival Centre.
