Herstoriographical (im)possibility: An illumination of the documented and printed first Chinese actress Lily Yim

Lily Yim Shan Shan (1896–1952), originally named Yim Shuk Kei, is widely recognised as the first Chinese actress after playing the role of the maid in Lai Man Wai’s Zhuangzi Tests His Wife (1913). She has received surprisingly insufficient scholarly attention and first-hand studies for two reasons: (1) her fame is shadowed by that of Lai, who is both her husband and the ‘Father of Hong Kong Cinema’, and (2) only few printed records can assist recovery of her biography. Based on visual-textual analysis, this article has four core arguments. First, the remaining male private records could only preserve subsidiary and typical female images of Lily Yim as a wife, a helper, a follower, and so on. Second, the images of this silent film actress were homogeneously reproduced, creating both ‘technologised visuality’ (borrowed from Rey Chow 1995) and limited visuality (a still decent woman with traditional dressing) towards the readers. Third, the entertainment-oriented presentation of Yim is framed by male and patriarchal simplification. Fourth, the printed media’s sole tracking of her fascinated side delimits herstoriographical recovery of her own voice.