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Ashlyn Chak

As a teenager in the 1990s, Daniel Bird worked as a paper boy in a small village in Dorset, a county in southwest England.
For a few years, no matter rain or shine, he regularly delivered newspapers to dozens of houses. What made an impression on him then was how men were portrayed in the British print media.
It was a “stoic and not very multifaceted view”, he says. Men were not supposed to be weak nor have deep emotions, resentments or regret.
Bird, who would go on to study drama and theatre arts at university in London, realised: “Well, I’m nothing like that. No one actually is.”

Now 40, the Hong Kong-based English and drama teacher has compiled 35 short stories about “the obliviousness of men” for his first book, Sorry Men.
His characters, he says, “reveal a hopelessness in the innate ways men behave”.
It began as a writing exercise about eight years ago as Bird challenged himself to compose a short story every day. Reviewing the finished work after 100 days, he discovered a recurring theme of masculinity among his creations.
“That theme is the title of the book: Sorry Men. [The characters] are men facing some sort of problem or catastrophe – sometimes caused by themselves – and finding their own way to solve it. A lot of the scenarios are very absurd, [but] there is a realism to their emotions and motivations. Even though those motivations are wrong, they exist,” he says.
“Men don’t really escape that fragility and that need for validation on which they thrive – the desire for someone to recognise they’ve done the right thing. I think they will go a very long way to achieve [a perceived notion of] masculinity, and these stories show how absurd that can be. We’re still vulnerable, we still make mistakes, and that can be very funny.”
One of Sorry Men’s segments takes place in a near-empty train at night as a group of youths try to rob a man.
Despite not speaking any Russian, the single man fabricates a thick accent in an attempt to be seen as intimidating, only to find one of them actually speaks the language.
He goes on to dig an even deeper hole by continuing an extended, fake conversation with the genuine Russian speaker.
“Whilst very farcical, it shows how men will adopt an identity that allows them to navigate social interactions more freely,” Bird says. “By pretending to be a hard-nosed Russian gangster, this character hides that perhaps he’s not such a tough person after all, and he’s not willing to face that.”
These scenes explore the pitfalls in cultural conditioning which shape men’s behaviour
Daniel Bird
In another story, a man, with his girlfriend’s family in the car, drives down a country lane and crashes into a deer.
The girlfriend’s father blames him for his absent-minded driving and tells him to open the boot. The man, wanting to impress the father, misconstrues this as a proposition to put an end to the wounded animal’s misery.
He takes a large tool to bash the deer in its head, only to hear, “My black bag, you damned fool! Surely my daughter told you I’m a vet?”
The inspiration came from Bird’s observation that men rarely stop to reflect upon whether they have been unwise. Instead, “the ego kicks in” and they try to overcompensate, which often results in an even more embarrassing situation for all parties involved, he says.
As we cringe at the driver’s folly, Bird alludes to the question of men’s reliability and emotional strength in the face of shortcomings and adversities.
“These scenes explore the pitfalls in cultural conditioning which shape men’s behaviour. I think everybody has a sense of genuine empathy, and it’s nonsense [to only value] stoicism, strength and fortitude in men.”
He says masculinity nowadays is expressed in more varied and multifaceted ways, something he attributes to generational differences: younger men today seem to be much more open to sharing their emotions and feelings than his generation, he believes.
“That’s something to celebrate and applaud. What drives the [awkward and cringeworthy] humour in Sorry Men is that those men feel they can’t do that, so they actively avoid any sense of honesty or vulnerability,” he says.

Having such a narrow sense of masculinity – which ultimately comes in all shapes and forms – can lead to harmful manifestations of how one views the self and the world, he says.
Recalling his self-conscious adolescence, when for a boost in self-confidence he would look at ’90s men’s magazines that “are now classed as toxic”, Bird worries that social media, in all its unregulated glory, has further opened up discourses in free and unfiltered ways that can be detrimental to impressionable minds.
“We’re heavily influenced by the media in general, and there is just more media influencing us now,” he says.
“You want to see that there’s not just one way to be, but for some reason, the popular ways that you see are generally not very [healthy]. You need to have the faculty to question that.
“What is the right thing to do? What is actually good for you? At the heart of these ‘Sorry Men’ is a real, deep conflict within themselves.”


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Toxic masculinity satirised in Sorry Men, a short story collection on male ‘obliviousness’

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Books and literature

Daniel Bird holds a copy of his new book Sorry Men at Tai Kwun in Central, Hong Kong. Photo: Xiaomei Chen

Daniel Bird holds a copy of his new book Sorry Men at Tai Kwun in Central, Hong Kong. The book takes aim at toxic masculinity in short stories about men who avoid vulnerability and honesty. Photo: Xiaomei Chen

Bird has lived in Hong Kong for two decades. Photo: Xiaomei Chen

Bird says that at the heart of his “Sorry Men” is a “real, deep conflict within themselves”. Photo: Xiaomei Chen

Why aren’t Chinese women dating? They are … with girl cosplayers playing their ideal men

Cosplayer Xu Yunting (right), dressed as a male character from a video game, and client Feng Xinyu during a “cos commissioning” date in Shanghai. Photo: AFP

Cosplayer Xu Yunting applies make-up to transform into Jesse, a character from a romance quest mobile game. Photo: AFP

Xu and Feng Xinyu at a shopping centre during their date in Shanghai. The date is all planned and paid for entirely by Feng. Photo: AFP

Xu and Feng at a doll-painting workshop. Feng has commissioned Xu twice before, for a fee of around US$70. Photo: AFP

Xu and Feng pose for a selfie at a restaurant. Feng does not have a boyfriend “because I’m not interested in 3D men”, using a term for real-life men as opposed to those on the page or screen. Photo: AFP

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Peggy Cheng (left), 40, and Karen Lektzian, 64, shop at the Santa Monica Farmers Market, in the US state of California. Photo: TNS

Peggy Cheng (left), 40, and Karen Lektzian, 64, shop at the Santa Monica Farmers Market, in the US state of California. Research shows that friends with big age gaps can benefit in ways from reduced anxiety and cognitive decline to addressing feelings of loneliness. Photo: TNS

Jeannine Ball, 69, and Antoine Cason, 38, sit in the bleachers at Lakewood High School’s American football stadium in Lakewood, California, US. Photo: TNS

Flora Grewe, who is four and a half, hands her friend Mary Ota, 105, a handful of flowers in Carpinteria, California, US. Photo: TNS

Patricia Smith, 74, and Adam Fowler, 43, sit outside Patricia’s apartment. Photo: TNS

Love is Blind: UK on Netflix is a fresh, fun take on established reality-show franchise

A still of Love Is Blind: UK season one contestants Sam and Nicole. The British twist on the newest edition of the reality dating show has helped the franchise return to form. Photo: Netflix

A still of Love Is Blind: UK season one contestants Catherine and Freddie. The show features an array of Britishisms and regional accents. Photo: Netflix

A still of Love Is Blind: UK season one contestants Demi and Ollie. Six couples headed down the aisle in the first season. Photo: Netflix

A still of Love Is Blind: UK season one contestants Sabrina and Steven. The show features a cast of (mostly) earnest, likeable people. Photo: Netflix

A still of Love Is Blind: UK season one contestant Freddie, one of the stand-outs from the cast. Photo: Netflix

A still of Love Is Blind: UK season one contestant Demi, who ultimately finds the confidence to make the right call about her relationships. Photo: Netflix

A still of Love Is Blind: UK season one contestants Maria and Tom with the show’s iconic golden wine glasses. Photo: Netflix

Lifestyle

Arts & Culture

Culture

Books

Daniel Bird’s new book Sorry Men takes aim at toxic masculinity in a short-story collection about men who avoid vulnerability and honesty


Hong Kong expats

Sex and relationships