On the Way to Timelessness

Whilst human beings are not the only animals that build shelters (we know that ants build anthills, bees hives, birds nests, crabs holes, otters dams etc.) we are the species who are most skillful in building the kind of habitats that most suit our needs, whether it be an adobe and thatch hut, a buffalo skin tent, a log cabin, an igloo of ice cubes or a tower block of concrete or steel and glass. The early settlers in Lantau have also built structures using the kind of materials and technology available to them at the time of their construction. In a very real sense, we are what we built. I still remember the story of the three pigs who built three different kind of houses for themselves which I heard when I was a child: one built a house of straw, another a house of wood and a third a house of bricks. The wolf came, two of them became its dinner. We no longer have to face wolves. But we do have to face another omnipresent enemy: the ravages of time.

On my way to the Trappist monastery, the reality of time struck me everywhere I went. Time is a most skillful sculptor. It works on everything which we have built. In its slow but sure ways, It "weeds out" or pares away different kinds of material according to their durability, with the help of two physical processes : heat and cold, heat from the sun and cold from its lack. Then the wind and the rain will come in as scavengers to remove the débris left behind by the prior stealthy annihilator. They work slowly but relentlessly under the sun, under the cover of darkness, like thieves, and openly during storms. In time they create cracks, fissures and peel away first the layers and layers of paint, then the plaster etc. In the process they expose first one layer of material, then another and another until we see what they started out as. We see their textures, their original color or their color as they become oxidized and brushed, scratched, scraped, scoured, grazed, etched, cut, peeled, pelted or blasted by the wind and the rain.

A nail whose texture has become almost like a piece of wood adjacent to the wall whose adobe of
of sand, grit and lime are exposed. I like the feel of their texture and their color.

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A rusty iron window frame. We see the color of the oxidized anti-rust paint after the color paint on
its surface has been eroded by the combined action of sun, rain and wind.

Another piece of work by that sculptor of eternity.

Time is just, It is a great believer in equality. It spares nothing: whether it be sand, grit, lime,
cement, iron or glass, perhaps even man.

White, black, brown, yellow, red, straight, crooked, whatever its material or shape, time is no
respecter of form or color. They will continue to weather, to rot and to change both color and
form and in the fullness of time, give rise to new patterns in unpredictable manner.

New unexpected forms and colors carved by the hands of time.

I like the dots and spots and the roughness of the texture on the corroded iron door frame and how
they contrast with the surface of the adjoining white wall.

What used to be a handle is now reduced to a stub. But why the piece of cloth around the base of
that "ghostly" handle? And why the red dot at its top? Or is it a piece of cloth?

The "heart" of the lock is now gone, leaving a gaping hole to stare at curious passing eyes.

Plaster peeling off, the glass pane broken, a dirty plastic sheet to protect its interior from being
pelted by the high velocity raindrops of our typhoons or flash summer rainstorms.

Rust stained water creating patterns on the underside of the zinc eave.

Like the three layers of the paint, plaster and adobe and the patterns on the wall created by the
differential cracking and peeling and the reflection on the partly obscured mirror.

What is this? A light pole! Like an artificial bamboo. But why the hole there?

It's a completely different world a little distance from the abandoned houses. There you find the
irrepressible resilience of plants, broken by wind, but still holding up the rest of its stem, undaunted.

Creepers do have the ability to cling on to the most impossible source of support, so long as
it gives them the chance of exposing its leaves to a bit of sun.

How proudly the rush displays its seeds?

Plants colonizing an abandoned boat lying at the side of the path.

Creepers already succeeded in spreading their territory to the back of the boat. It won't take much
longer before the entire boat will be obscured by a torrent of greens.

Creepers everywhere! Dangling freely from the roof of another abandoned house.

Films peeling off from the side and bottom of an abandoned fibreglass boat.  Time is not only
a sculptor. It's a painter too!

Another abandoned boat in a more advanced state of decay and disintegration. The outer layer
of fibreglass having been peeled off, we see the underlying layer of organic wood, less dense
perhaps but more durable. Like the texture from its "wounds" and the scabrous "carbuncles"
littering its surface.

Broken glass on top of a wall to fend off unwelcome intruders. 

A cat dozing off on the roof.

An empty beer can left behind by a worker at the nearest place reachable by his hands during a
work break.

Was it the same pair of hands that placed the beer can where it was?

I am always amazed at how varied and richly textured the surfaces of tree barks are. Creepers
circling a tree stump. How intricate the patterns!

How rich are the patterns created by the "chaos" of Nature!

By contrast, the patterns created by man are always much simpler!

A  combination of the natural and the artificial! How nicely they blend into each other in the open,
thanks to the "stitching" by the creepers' wandering fingers..

Another form of "creepers"  I found attached to two strings outside the
sitting area under a canopy extending from their house proper. Colorful,
but how much cruder and less intricate and delicate than those of nature!

I like the lines, the loops, the curves and the texture of the mini-folds upon the surface of these
withered banana leaves and the contrast in light and shades of their yellowish-browns against the
background of greens.

Another banana leaf! But not yet completely dried. What a sharp contrast to the surrounding
luxuriance of green beside it. But that's the law of Nature. At the same moment that some weaken
and die, others step forward in full vigor to take their place under the sun until they too wither and
die and concede the places they once occupy. As we come, so we go. The world is just.. 

Another banana leaf! Like the gradual change in color from brown, to yellow, to yellowish green,
to green as we move up from its tip.

A leaf turning red.

Two more leaves turning red.

Three leaves turning red.

More than three leaves turning red.

But not yet as red as these fire-fighting strips resting on their stand. I'm glad they're painted green
to blend into the environment.

How remarkably similar the fire fighting implements look like the withered frames of the plants at
the lower right of this photo, which were growing not 6 feet away from the former.

A little further on, I found these magnificent rushes growing by the side of the road. More
than 12 feet tall, all swaying in the gentle breeze under the afternoon sun.

And this flower glowing brightly by the side of an old tree stump. Do we have the resilience of
plants, which grow, wither, die and bloom again, whenever given the slightest chance? I wonder.

But I had to move on to the monastery.