Charlson Ong’s Blue Angel, White Shadow (2010) is a hard-boiled fiction that revolves around the issues of crime, corruption, and death in a postcolonial Southeast Asian state. Predominantly dark, gloomy, and mysterious, the mood of the narrative establishes a strongly morose reading experience. The narrative world portrayed in the novel is simultaneously sorrowful and somber. Binondo, the historical ethnic Chinese epicenter of the Philippines, is depicted with excessive chaos and moral disarray. I argue that the novel has attempted to reshape the usual form of hard-boiled fiction by systematically interrupting the narrative’s serious and cynical tone. More specifically, humor was deployed by the author as a mechanism to intervene in the novel’s subscription to the norms of hard-boiled fiction. The novel puts into perspective different facets of Chinese Filipino identity mediated through the Philippine postcolonial landscape. Ultimately, I initiate a discussion on the intersection of Chinese Filipino literature, identities, diaspora, and genre theory. I maintain that Chinese Filipino literature, like the subject of the present inquiry, is borne out of the diasporic experience through collective histories and memories.

中文翻译：

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从私人眼光到公众“我”：王朝阳硬汉小说中的菲律宾华人

Charlson Ong 的《蓝天使，白影》（2010 年）是一部关于后殖民东南亚国家的犯罪、腐败和死亡问题的冷酷小说。叙事的气氛主要是黑暗、阴郁和神秘，营造出一种强烈忧郁的阅读体验。小说所描绘的叙事世界既悲伤又忧郁。Binondo是菲律宾历史上的华人中心，被描绘成过度混乱和道德混乱。我认为这部小说试图通过系统地打断叙事严肃而愤世嫉俗的语气来重塑硬朗小说的通常形式。更具体地说，作者使用幽默作为干预小说对硬汉小说规范的订阅的一种机制。这部小说通过菲律宾后殖民景观介导了菲律宾华人身份的不同方面。最后，我开始讨论菲律宾华人文学、身份、侨民和流派理论的交叉点。我坚持认为，菲律宾华语文学，就像本次调查的主题一样，是通过集体历史和记忆从流散经历中产生的。