April 19th, 2008
Neoguri is approaching!
Squalls get increasingly agitated after dusk. My apartment gets windows on three sides, and I can feel the wrath of Neoguri even though all windows are securely fastened. With both signal 3 and black storm warning in force, winds scream like a piping water boiler ! Shadows of trees, which get magnified by street lamps, dance like crazy in the storm. Strange sounds begin to appear…
- a frightened insect sneaks in before windows are fastened. While disoriented, the tiny creature generates a disproportionally loud flapping sound …
- angry winds bang themselves against the buildings…
- sirens from squad car, fire engine or ambulance? …
- imagined monster howl used to intimidate children…
Incited by hot-tempered La Niña, Tropical Cyclone Neoguri is the earliest typhoon of the season disembarking South China since the founding of new China in 1949!
May 2nd, 2006
Working at the rooftop of an old building in Tsim Sha Tsui for 2 nights from sunset to about 10pm. New buildings will replace old ones along Nathan Road. We can only find the above interesting contrast between old and new in photos soon…
Night is a magician, turning our concrete forest into a sureal space base. Human beiings believe they can earn the entrance to these superior spacecraft by working hard during the day…
More nightscenes…
April 15th, 2006
While the government calls for waste reduction and more recycling, the street cleaning contract of the Food & Environment Dept forbiddens the contractors to trade garbage even for resellable items like home appliances, metals, cans and paper. All collected garbage must be dumped to the landfills, which will reach full capacity in few years time.
A more flexible system can both encourage more efficient re-use of resources and sustantially increase the the income of the cleaning workers, who mostly lived on a shameful salary. Unfortunately, our government put more efforts to catch illegal sale of garbage than otherwise…
Down right image source: Next Magazine issue 840: abandoned fridge in the wealthy South HK Island district hidden under grass by cleaning workers.
March 30th, 2006
Photo taken on a sunny day at around 9 in the morning.
City of smog… most of us thought it was factories in the Pearl River Delta that blur our sky… figures from the Govt show power generation is more crucial… yet still related to industries in China. Our power plant has exported electricity to China since 2004, producing nearly 12,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide, over 6,000 tones of nitrogen oxide and nearly 300 tonnes of Respirable Suspended Particles, constributing to 12%, &% and 4% of total air pollution in Hong Kong respectively.
February 26th, 2006
Renewal in Hong Kong is almost equivalent to demolition + reconstruction — pull down the old and build new high rises for middle-class homes and shopping centers filled with silmilar chain stores. Those local people who can’t afford would be relocated or compensated.
Many tenament houses considered dilapidated are just 30-40 years old, they look so old simply because of lack of maintenance. An old tenament building at Star Street, Wanchai is a good example. The effect of refurbishment is best illustrated with the big difference between the 2 wings of the same building! Such facelift is mainly possible with the change of ownership or tenancy under our present market system…
If we can slow down the process of renewal, and allow more bottom-up public participation and more dialogues among the local stakeholders, maybe we can regenerate a district based on its organic past, where the old and new, the rich and poor can be blended more peacefully?
February 17th, 2006
While I was making filming outside the Legislative Council few days ago, I saw an old woman worship the Goddess of Law devotedly…
Law — believed to be the foundation of Hong Kong…
Goddess of Law, blindfolded, believed to be fair…
Above the Goddess, I saw the gorgeous Bank of China…
Totem of capitalism, symbol of wealth…
January 26th, 2006
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guess what is unusual about this photo?
Blue sky and white clouds!
Only few days a year we can see them now, and they won’t stay long…
They are afraid of rain, wind and mainly smog…
Only briefly they appear…
Today, just about 2 hours… |
