Simon Elegant

No, I shouldn't.

The cliche would be, yeah, I don't know.

You know, we're taught nowadays we're not allowed to say Oriental anymore.

We have to say Far East and so on.

Right.

Yeah, you know, for me, to some extent, that means home.

I was born in Hong Kong.

I've lived in Asia my entire life.

So for me, a fascinating place full of wonderful people.

Well, I was going to say home, but I would have to say, now I would say some word, some variation of the word.

sad and oppressed because it's going to end up that way.

I'm working on a thriller right now that's entirely set in China.

And the thing that strikes me when I try and write about this, and I'm trying to keep the philosophizing blather out of it because it's a thriller, but basically in Hong Kong and in China, you're talking about the infantilization of 1.2 billion people.

These people are not allowed to write novels.

They're not allowed to make movies beyond a rom-com.

They're not allowed to make TV.

So you're talking about the oppression of an entire pool of talent.

It's really sad and disgusting, actually.

Absolutely, it does.

And there is no creativity right now.