The Mini-Model Exhibition at Maritime Square 2 (青衣城微型藝術展 2 )

As long ago as the 19th century, the famous French novelist Honoré de Balsac has populated the fictive world of the French petty bourgeoisie with objects ( Old Goriot, Eugenie Grandet etc). The English novelist Charles Dickens has done more or less the same with regard to Victorian England (Christmas Carol, Great Expectations). It seems that the petty bourgeois's heart can never feel "fulfilled" unless they see visible evidence of their well-being: all kinds of material things. Despite the lapse of more than a century, the world of the petty bourgeoisie has changed little except with regard to the kind of objects with which they pack their world, the world over. This is how I felt when I ducked my way through the crowed milling around the various exhibits at the Mini Model World at Maritime Square.

Every year, they need something to enable them to re-live a little their myths: in this case, a dance to please the local deity who helped them avert a plague, just in case they need to call upon her for her help again. it's done with colorful pennants, lanterns and plenty of rhythmic noises and they enlist the help of another mythical beast, the dragon, which is an imaginative combination of all the most powerful and mysterious animals and reptiles they could possibly find, the reindeer, the snake or crocodile, the tiger, the ox.

But the dragon has to be guided by man and lured with lettuce (for life) and a "lai see" ( for wealth) but the dragon guide has to keep up with the times. He wears   a European style hat and wears a suit and tie!

It's a collective effort of the community and the youths are most willing to oblige: it's their moment of glory.



People in the verandah looking at the dragon dance below



The little potted plants on a green metal rack seem the only way they
could connect to Nature, unconscious traces to tenuously re-establish
that long forgotten memories when men could roam freely on the African
savanahs shortly after they learned to walk on their hind legs.

Hong Kong grew up as a refuge from the civil war between the KMT and the CCP. The fateful struggle left its imprints in the hills of Tseung Kwan O ( Bay of KMT generals)  Shek Kip Mei and Kowloon Walled City.. How many have passed their childhood in these make-shift sheds which they call their homes?

After the big fire at Shek Kip Mei in 1956, the first "resettlement" blocks were built there to house the squatters who were previously living in the hovels on the hills there. This marks the start of "public housing".To avoid flooding, the blocks are built on raised platforms. On the
ground floors were stall for selling vegetables, restaurants for cheap
meals for breakfast, lunch or dinner, barbers, stationery and people still carry stuffs with
that ingenious invention call the "pole and the bamboo baskets", one
basket dangling on each side of the carrier's shoulder and you've got to
walk in rhythm with the up and down swaying motion of the filled
baskets. To carry people, we need double-decker bus, something 
previously unknown to the world.

The cubicles are small and ventilation poor, So some prefer to sleep in the long corridors. Down there in the streets, the more enterprising will prepare some simple snacks on trolleys or  get some fruit from the fruit market at Taikoktsui to sell to the occupants of the crowded  "rooms" above.

The rooftops were not wasted. They'd house kindergartens and primary schools by refugee teachers for the kids of the same or nearby blocks.

 

Times were tough. A metal bed overlaid with a mat and a pillow will see them through the night. For entertainment, they could always look at photos of movie stars and if they got a camera, their own photo albums.

Since there are so little space, the bed has to double up as sofa and table where one could flip through one's photo album about relatives who are still trapped in China. To carry stuff, the easiest is to wrap them up with a cloth tied with a knot and which one could swing under one's arm as a make-shift back pack or shoulder bag.

For those who got a little extra space to spare, they could spend hours tending to their little potted plants, which they would proudly expose to the admiring eyes of visiting  friends and relatives.

Everything is built with zinc sheets reinforced by abestos (now prohibited). They got to cage themselves in for security and their washing machines must be placed in the illegal extension of their house.

Their houses are just equipped with the bare essentials, a kettle, a rice cooker, a calendar, a mechanical clock and for luck, they need something in red, pasted on the back of the door "double-happiness" On the wall are hung photos of the "big" events : graduation,family meals on birthdays, marriage etc



Those more "affluent" can even afford the luxury
of a blackwood mirror with little drawers for their jewellery. For
disposing of their excrement, they have a night pot under the bed. The
space on the wall can't be wasted. A few hooks and you have an instant
towel rack.

Walls and ceilings are never wasted, a shelf or a hook here, a nail there and you're in business hanging or placing all kinds of stuffs. An indispensable item is the Chinese encyclopedia: the "Tung Shing". You'll find in there calendars, festival days, good days, bad days, cures of simple maladies and easy rudimentary pronunciation guide with homonymic sounds of Chinese characters of commonly used English words!

This interior speaks of better times, much later, brighter, with more emphasis on comfort and leisure activities.

Wanchai ( Little Bay) , Sheung Wan ( Upper Bay) or Sai Wan (Western Bay) are something altogether different. They're used for loading and unloading goods from China: our provisions, vegetables, meat, rice and other dry goods. They're served by trams, buses, taxis and later mini-buses.

Shipping companies establish their offices there and where's there's business, there you'll find tea-houses.

A fireman trying to rescue a cat sitting on top of an illuminated sign board

For those pressed for cash, there were few banks. But they could easily get a loan from "pawn shops".

Mini-buses, a form of transport mid-way between a taxi and a bus, were at one time illegal!

A familiar sight: outside every home, you find illegal extensions, useful for hanging laundry, planting flowers etc

All kinds of stuffs are hung out on the iron cages: basin, bags, and even "magic mirrors" to repel bad luck and bad fung shui.

The magic mirrors can be round or octogonal

Chatting neigh

The countryside houses and front yard

Houses in the interior of northern China with paper windows and firewood in front of the house

Across the Taiwan Straits, and we're in Shi Lam in Taipei where you find all kinds of roadside stalls for snacks and desserts etc

Taiwan was under Japanese control for nearly half a century. Their influence can still be seen today.

Stuff sold at  dry sea food stall

This one sells mungo bean soup with chewy noodles, eggs etc.

A roast pig

A change of scenery to South East Asia with houses close to the railways tracks

People with their goods awaiting the arrival of the train

A railway restaurant close by

Western influence: an American-born Chinese house?

Road side stall

Candy store

Corner of a store

Inside another house

Flower cart

Corner of a garden

Lanterns inside the corridors of some houses

Looking through the window

The back of a farm house

The corner of a sitting room

Another window

A flower stall

Some flowers in red, orange, yellow, blue and purple: a colorful conclusion