Many Undulating Things (2019) Movie Script
I met her one Sunday afternoon.
She often lingers
here for a bit,
after spending her Sundays
with friends in Central
and before heading
back to the family.
She says there is no place
like this in her hometown.
She is a domestic worker.
Not like those who
from the Philippines,
she is from Indonesia.
She says in Indonesia,
you always see
volcanoes in paintings.
Volcanoes are sacred.
They're the center of the cosmo,
where the gods
live on the summits.
Humans live in the middleland.
Sea is the counterpart
of volcanoes.
The demons come from sea.
It wasn't until running
into her for a few times
that I realized how much I
also liked to stroll by the harbor.
When the day is gone,
the last touch of sun passes
the city to the neon lights.
I think only artificial
lights are capable
to illuminate the
miracle of a modern city.
Sometimes smogs
obscure the illuminated.
Smogs diffuse the light so much
that the city starts to sprawl,
blurring the boundary between
the concrete and the airy.
It reminds me of those
sleazy, dark sci-fi films.
But, maybe it's the other way.
It was the films that
attempt to replicate the city.
Looking from here,
the view is often so absorbing,
like watching films.
But later, you discover
you were never part of it.
I am also curious about
the ritual of tourists.
I wonder what do they see.
Do they see the
same image like me?
Will the cityscape look the
same in different cameras?
Will the images have a actual
place in their memories later?
They say that the history of landscape
is a history of male domination,
and the skyline is
always a contour of power.
It is said that Hong Kong's skyline
kept re-inventing itself every few years.
Throughout time,
only the lights sparkling
over the harbor stay the same.
If you stare long
enough into the harbor,
you see history.
The waves splash on
the shore in the same way,
no matter it's in
1841, or 1997, or 2018,
no matter when this was
a barren territory of rocks,
or now a finished
metropolis built on desires.
By listening to the waves,
you feel time.
Port cities were
built for mobility.
In 1841, the British
seized the rocky territory
for its deep water bay
and geographic location.
Since then, it had been
built by trader and bankers
to accommodate the
flows of goods and capital,
until one day the look of port itself
became a spectacle of wonderment.
The flows of people
also resemble sea waves,
ripped apart on the shore.
Tourists,
cult members exiled
from Mainland China,
street preachers,
itinerary shoppers,
real estate sales,
converge from all directions
and splash into the malls.
Here nobody considers
shopping malls as foreign parts.
They almost merge
into the city's skin.
But the floor bricks tell
the secret of boundary.
On this side, public space.
Across the line,
the camera and tripod need a
different permission from the mall.
Against the unsettled water,
cruises stay motionless.
Gangplanks from
the cruises connect
with one of the earliest
shopping malls in Asia.
Greeted as if they were
voyagers of 21st century,
affluent cruise riders
who used to be European,
American and Japanese,
but now mostly Chinese,
can ramble into another
air-conditioned environment
without barely
entering the humidity.
Inside the mall,
another sanitized
paradise of duty free shops.
Jewelleries,
Swiss watches,
modern and
colonial-style boutique,
Southeast Asian
fusion restaurant,
Japanese seafood,
a bite of Asia's world city.
The world looks
different from the sea.
The container ships are not
only vehicles of global trade,
but time machines that dispatch
time and synchronize everyday life.
The maritime world
belongs to another time.
The endless hours
of infinite seascapes,
the boredom of seafarers.
From the ocean,
port cities today appear in
similar sequence of layers.
First layer, the foreground,
loading cranes in
monumental sizes.
The cranes are the unadorned
skyscrapers in the world of objects.
Their vertical heights
dwarf the cityscape.
When sliding on frames,
the sheer sizes of
horizontal monuments
arouse a sense of
technical sublime.
Behind the cranes,
the waves of robotic
announcements and warning sirens,
endless streams of trucks,
stopping precisely on
location in hypnotic manners.
Behind the loading lanes,
the stacked steel boxes resemble
waveforms in perpetual transformation,
choreographed by the
machinery system of logistics.
The background,
industrial warehouses
and high-rise apartments.
They house both the
goods in transition,
and the people needed
by the logistic world.
As ports are becoming
more automatic,
less workers are needed.
These high-rise gridded
apartment buildings,
which were once
attached to the port,
are now moving inlands
towards the malls.
Workers become consumers.
It is believed that the world of logistics
today is almost running on its own,
conducted by computers under
the logic and rules of objects.
The early modernists' dream
of extending human bodies
with machines has been reversed.
Human bodies are now
compliment to the machines.
The verge of the seamless
machinery logistic world,
is also in the sea.
Maritime world is
predominantly a world of men,
from dock workers, to
managers and administrators.
But Alfee has been in the
industry for two decades.
I could not hear what she sang.
She wrote me some time later:
Forget to tell you,
I was a top-scoring
student in lighting design
when I had my
bachelor in Canada.
While modern cargo handlings
always happen at seaside terminals,
Hong Kong is one
of only few places
where the old procedure of discharging
between ships in the middle of the sea
still legally exists
to maximize
efficiency and flexibility.
But the last inch of such
efficiency and flexibility
can only be reached
through the human bodies.
The swaying container
boxes are too difficult
for machinery arms to clasp.
The turbulence of sea
creates the opaque space
between container boxes'
corner castings and barges' lifts.
The crack in
standardized material flows
is cemented by human bodies.
A bodily dance in the
lifeless chain of global trade.
The containerization of world
trade had a strong military history.
The US military's need to
transport troops and supplies
across the Pacific to Vietnam
prompted the standardization
of cargo handling.
When Hong Kong was evolving into
one of the most prominent
ports in the world,
they saw not only more than one
thousand cargo ships every day,
but also boats and junk
ships emerging on the horizon,
packed with Vietnamese refugees.
This was what happened.
During the most stormy
hours this morning,
refugees on Skyluck took action.
Someone cut off the anchor rope.
The ship started to drift.
It reached Cheung Chau
through West Lamma Channel,
returned to Lamma
Island after Hei Ling Chau,
and is now stranded
at Shek Kok Tsui.
Police ships attempted
to stop Skyluck.
They also brought barge
ships to bring Skyluck back.
But the refugees
didn't cooperate.
They refused the ropes,
and threw things
at the police ships.
Refugees began to disembark
when Skyluck was stranded.
British militaries and
blue-hats assembled.
Militaries were concerned
they might spread.
Armed British soldiers
were stationed at the villages.
Blue-hat police also prepared
tear gases and batons,
just in case.
Fortunately they didn't spread.
Some refugees tried to jump
into sea from the right side,
but were stopped by police.
The significance of
water translates to money.
I think with the
site and how it sits,
it actually captures
the currents coming in.
So the money comes in.
And if you've actually noticed
when you're inside the apartments,
from the back views,
there's a hillside.
So it's the pocket, right?
It's the money coming in,
and the money not going out
but staying in the well,
as a collection of the bay.
So, much like the 109
story down the road,
you have the hole in
the wall with the dragons,
to let the Feng Shui
come in and balance.
It's very much the
same balance here.
I think Norman Foster
gave it a lot of thought,
because it's actually... the design
concept was very much water.
So we have the running water.
We even have the plug, or
what I call the "sink-chain",
you know, creating the rain,
the wave passions that we have,
and our woodwork as well
as our main lobby entrance.
It's very contemporary.
It's a very clean look.
I think the only thing that is probably
more of a feature here at the Lily
would be that we
have a skylight pool.
It is not a retractable roof
but once you're inside,
and you're in the environment
of the swimming pool,
when you actually
look up at the sky
you actually have
this rippling effect,
which is very soothing.
As I said that actually doubles
up as a multi-purpose thing.
It's not just for
aesthetics and design.
It actually is a water
filtration system that we have
that circulates for the pond.
And because of that,
it actually lowers our
electricity bills 3-5%.
So that's actually a
very nice cost-savings,
but being more eco-friendly.
Also retaining wall,
which is a 30 meter by 80 meter.
It has water tanks at the back,
so it collects the
water when it rains.
Basically it's a
self-irrigating system.
So we are not having to
consume too much water either.
So that's good,
and sensitivity to
when it rains - it cuts off.
The system will just sit,
and let itself regulate
what it needs to do.
So yeah, little pluses in
these designs have helped
in the operations of the
building in the long run.
Ultimately saving the owners'
cost in the running of things.
We do have most of our windows
and our blinds and our roller blinds
all electrically run.
We do have inside every
apartment its light zone.
The product is actually
called neutron lighting,
it's a product from the States.
Basically, what it does is
you can actually pre-program
the moods of the light.
As I say, families come here.
South side has always
been more interesting,
as you talk about Repulse Bay.
Its significance has always been
Hong Kong's version of suburbia.
'Cause everybody only
knows the built-up area
of Victoria Harbor,
the core CBD.
They don't really realize that
in twenty minutes coming
through the Aberdeen Tunnel,
you're going to get that
peace and tranquility,
or at least, better air.
Oh, see I'm saying
all the wrong things.
Not at all.
In early days of Hong Kong,
newly arrived British were haunted
by the humidity in the tropical air.
I left my fan.
Where?
Well I..
I think I put it down when
I was handed a cocktail.
I'll get it for you - wait here.
Doctor Han.
Is this yours?
- Thank you!
- And these.
Thank you.
For centuries,
miasma, the impure air,
was believed to be the
most serious contaminant
to cause illness and death.
Physician Thomas
Southwood Smith wrote in 1830,
"Nature, with her burning sun,
her stilled and pent-up wind,
her stagnant and teeming marsh,
manufactures plague on
a large and fearful scale."
Nighttime exhalations of plants,
decomposing
biological materials.
The noxious bad air were thought
to arise from natural processes.
In industrial London,
coal smokes were
considered not pollutions
but powerful disinfectants
to the decayed air.
In Asia, the tropical environment
contained more biomass,
and were thought to
produce more miasma.
In Asia, sources of hazards
could be seen in low-lands,
marsh and swamp,
odors of live animals,
and even respiration and
perspiration of native human bodies.
The tropics were decadent
in sanitation and in morality.
The pervasive
presence of humidity,
the sweat that stayed at
the back of the colonialists,
reminded them the hidden fear of
unforeseeable threat from the conquered,
and the urgency to further domesticate
the unhealthy region and its inhabitants.
In 18th century,
Carl von Linne's taxonomy laid
the foundation for modern botany.
He placed species
in a ranked hierarchy.
In his 1735 book
System of Nature,
for the first time,
men were placed into
the taxonomy of nature.
He also classified
human beings into four:
the creative white Europeanus,
the lazy black Africanus,
the undisciplined red Americanus
and the melancholic
yellow Asiatics.
Good morning Doctor Shen.
Good morning Doctor Han.
You combine artistry
with medicine, Doctor Han!
No, no - just with
love and sympathy.
It's a great privilege
to watch you.
She pretends she
speaks Mandarin,
the girl responds.
Ten days ago we didn't
think that she would live.
Look at her now.
Comparing to local Asiatics,
Europeans consider
themselves as more vulnerable
to the environmental diseases.
The Asiatics had evoluted less,
thus were closer
to the nature itself.
The main purpose of
hygiene and acclimatization,
was more to protect the
Europeans from the filthy colony.
Love is A Many-Splendored
Thing (1955),
shot in a film studio in the dry
weather of Southern California.
I'm sorry to have
kept you waiting.
It isn't often that I do.
You locked yourself in, why?
I locked the world out.
The gaffer casted each
frame with shadow of fans,
to mimic the heat of
tropical Hong Kong.
I don't know what
has happened to me,
I'm like a seed, sprouting
up, clutching at life.
I can hear, and smell the sun.
I am conscious of
surfaces and their textures.
I have such an awareness...
such an awareness.
Oh, pity the poor people
with their sad faces
who have missed what we have.
William Holton's forehead
shine with highlights,
to resemble the
humidity in the air.
'tis your estranging faces that
miss the many splendid things.
I'm so happy it frightens me.
I have a feeling
that heaven is unfair,
and is preparing for you
and for me a great sadness,
because we have
been given so much.
Darling whatever
happens, always remember:
nothing is fair nor
unfair under heaven.
Holton and Jones look
down from the balcony,
the street down the hill is occupied
by faceless Chinese in peculiar rituals.
It's a funeral procession.
They make it seem so festive.
Direction of the gaze reveals
a vertical hierarchy of status.
On the hilly Hong Kong island,
European settlement were
built at the middle level,
where there was a better
access to sunshine and ventilation,
far from soil and water.
The peak was reserved
for the most privileged.
The crowded and orderless lowlands
were left to the Chinese shop houses.
How good it is to be alive!
In the beginning, there were no
rigid or formal segregation policies.
Like some other
British colonies,
there was this informal rule.
If you purchase a land and you
want to build a house in Hong Kong,
it has to be built
in the same style
as the house next to you.
If you buy land next
to a European house,
you have to build
a European house.
So in that sense,
this kind of policy
encouraged this sort
of informal segregation.
So the Europeans, when
they came to Hong Kong,
they would live in the Mid-Level
and the Chinese houses
congregated in the sort of lower area
lower than the Mid-Level.
And there is this district
called Tai Ping Shan,
Tai Ping Shan street,
which is the early Chinatown
district in Hong Kong.
Today it's gentrified.
There were no formal
discriminatory policies
barring the Chinese from
buying land anywhere,
in the beginning.
But when the colonial
government held auction,
the Chinese were not invited.
It's like an unspeakable rule.
I couldn't really
fully explain this,
but that was what happened.
The Chinese were - it seems
that implicitly they knew,
they would not participate
in certain kinds of auction,
which were reserved
for the Europeans.
But there was no
black-and-white policies about that.
In the early days, in
the very early days,
the Chinese who came to
Hong Kong were quite poor,
they're laborers.
There were not a
lot of rich people.
But after the Tai
Ping Revolution,
there were more and
more established Chinese
who brought
capital to the colony.
The colonial
government realized that
these guys are - it's important
to attract these people.
So some of these people living in
the European mansions were Chinese.
So that was the situation
since the late 19th century.
More and more Chinese
came to Hong Kong,
there were more wealthy Chinese,
they began to buy
up more houses.
So that began to
cause some tensions,
because some of the
Europeans didn't like
to see so many Chinese
natives living in the Mid-Level.
They saw that as an
invasion of the European area,
because they identify the
Mid-Level as the European district.
So when there were more
and more Chinese moving there,
they were threatened.
So they were petitioning
the government.
And some of the government
officials themselves also believed
that maybe you needed
to establish more formal
segregation policies by
not allowing the Chinese
to continue to move
up and expand.
That was the background of...
I think it was
1888, there was this
policy about establishing
the Peak Reservation District,
in which no Chinese
houses were allowed to build.
Only European houses.
At that time it said
no Chinese houses,
not - not Chinese persons.
What time should you leave?
Ten minutes ago.
I have to go now and I
don't want you to be sad.
I won't be sad.
Sadness is so ungrateful.
And I don't want you to
come down the path with me.
I want to look back
and see you here.
Remember the blue beetle?
Promised us a
long and happy life.
In 1860,
large scales of forestation
started to take place in Hong Kong,
one of the Colonial government's early
attempts to manage the environment.
Starting from the European
settlements in the Mid-Level,
shades of trees
had been created.
Parks were also put in plan.
In 1871,
Hong Kong Botanic
Garden opened to the public.
It's a recreational ground
for people to stroll around.
However, it only
opened to the Europeans.
The garden also
served a special mission.
It collected plants for
Kew Gardens in London.
Beautiful, isn't it?
The beauty of the orient.
What a pity it is that the far
east, with its exotic flowers,
its carved temples,
is so very far away.
But wait a minute!
This isn't the far east.
This can only
be tropical Africa.
Overseen by Joseph Banks,
the president of
British Royal Society,
Kew Gardens had
established a vast network
of naturalists,
gardeners, plants hunters,
with its tentacles deep into the
territories of Asia, Africa and the Pacific,
transporting plants and
newly discovered species
back to London.
Here is where the world's
most promising botanists
come as students to learn that
very English art of gardening.
The whole of this
colourful world of ours
in miniature.
And to get there,
you take a bus.
Joseph Banks portrayed as
a young gentleman in 1773.
In front of a painted backdrop,
surrounded by
souvenirs and objects
recently brought
from the Pacific.
A Tahitian adz and a picture
book of plants near his left foot.
A Mauri cloak from
the New Zealand
wrapping on his shoulders.
The cloak he pointed
was made out of flax,
which the British Navy needed
so desperately for making sails.
A cultural cross-dresser boasting
about international traveling experiences,
an image of imperial possession.
This is Palm House
of Kew Gardens,
the oldest greenhouse here.
It's so stunning here inside.
The plants are
arranged by their origins.
Like this section is for
plants from America.
Banks saw the existing world as a
series of wastelands and common grounds,
waiting to be improved.
The rule of man should
shine over the reckless nature.
A useless crop in one continent
could be a cash crop in another.
Under his supervision,
botanic gardens were
founded as the outposts,
collecting, transporting and
experimenting with plants.
Sumatra seeds were
transported to the Caribbean,
tea samples were stolen from
China and transplanted in Ceylon,
Pacific breadfruit were brought
to West India as a cheap food
to feed black African slaves,
and the far botanic bay in Australia
was made into a penal colony
to accommodate the unwanted
prisoners of the British Empire.
Imperial expansion mutated
the order of human society,
the transplantation of plants
altered the order of nature.
Joseph Banks botanic empire
could only be wishful thinking,
without the invention
of Wardian Case.
Under searing sun,
salt spray,
fluctuation of temperature
and lack of fresh water,
very few plants and seeds
survived the long sea journeys
from Asia to London.
In 1830s,
Nathaniel Bagshaw Ward,
a physician and botanic
enthusiast in London,
tried to find a solution to
protect his ferns and mosses
from the smoggy air.
He found that plants lived much
longer in sealed glass boxes.
Glass surfaces allowed the light
needed for necessary metabolism,
while the sealed space
established micro-circulation of water,
which largely slows
down organic processes.
The discovery was soon adopted
into large scale of
plant transportation.
The glass boxes help
to pack distant plants,
together with their native soil,
bacteria, air, moisture
and even temperature,
sealed in time.
Francis Bacon described colonization
as massive planting and displanting,
of both indigenous plants
and indigenous people.
The re-organization of
ecosystems under imperial order
was actualized
through the glass boxes.
Soon later, glass boxes
mutated to a larger scale.
While Wardian Case created a self-sufficient
life system for plants to grow,
in human-scale glass houses,
people are fed with illusions
and fantasy of an enclosed utopia,
separated from
the outside world.
Crystal Palace,
the home to the Great
Exhibition in London, 1851.
Never was an
architecture so transparent.
The glass panels were
956,000 square feet,
all blown by human breath.
To look through them
was the same like
to look through
breaths of glass workers.
It was in this glass-box house
that photography was
exhibited for the first time.
The light space created by the
structure almost blinded visitors,
who were not used
to such amount of light.
Architect Joseph Paxton
won the design competition,
primarily because the structure
made from steel and glass he proposed
could quickly be built within
a limited amount of time.
All the other proposals would take
too long and would be too permanent.
The Crystal Palace
resembled a greenhouse.
Joseph Paxton was
trained as a Gardener
before becoming an architect.
Ferro vitreous,
steel and glass.
They are material of speed,
and also material
of ephemerality.
Railway stations,
exhibition halls, markets
Ferro vitreous were first
made for transitory spaces,
then for long-lasting arcades.
Arcades proliferated
in Paris in 1830s
before Haussmanns boulevards
wiped out the old city fabric.
Covered by iron-glass roof,
block-long pedestrian passages,
on both sides lined up
with small shops, tea rooms
and other amusements.
Iron and glass roof,
allowed by technological
advances in manufacture,
sheltered the streets from
sun, rain, noise and dirt.
The earliest application
of glass in architecture
was in medieval cathedrals.
Glasses allowed natural
lights to travel through,
bridging prayers to the divine.
In arcades, for the first time,
glass was widely used
to illuminate secular life.
The lure of light inspired
passersby with desire,
the brilliant transparent
window displays
unfold novelties continuously.
The arcade was a visual device
that taught city dwellers how to
perceive the transforming city panorama
through a rosy glass.
From the shop window glass,
people saw not only
goods on display,
but also images of
themselves through reflections.
Like Crystal Palace,
the arcades were
also greenhouses,
but they existed longer in time,
nurtured more
complicated system inside,
and multiplied themselves
at higher speed.
If commodities are
the cells of Capital,
the arcades were
the greenhouses,
where the cells breath,
photosynthesize and metabolize.
In arcades,
Fourierists saw the architectural
cannon of phalanstery,
and in Baudelaires lyric poems,
Walter Benjamin saw the microcosm
of imperial power and consumerism.
For Baudelaire,
the commodities were
the protagonists of arcades,
but it was in the
wandering Bohemians,
that he saw the
possibility of freedom.
Indian and Pakistani,
and Malaysia,
Indonesia.
Four countries.
Malaysia, Indonesia,
India and Pakistan.
How long have you
been doing business here?
Hong Kong?
Yup, in Hong Kong.
Around 17 years.
17 years.
Where you came from?
India.
Where in India?
In India is Bombay.
My wife is Chinese.
So that's why Im
living in Hong Kong.
Samosa,
laddoo,
namkeen,
pav,
sandesh,
chicken masala,
lamb gyro,
nasi goreng
He says, curry
makes air nostalgic.
Money transfer,
Western Union,
foreign exchange.
Renminbi,
Dollar,
Euro,
Rupee,
Yen,
Dirham,
Naira.
Traders,
asylum seekers,
temporary workers.
Hippie travelers
brought by Lonely Planet,
police punches the clock
at front entrance every hour.
Philippine Airline,
from Manila to Hong Kong.
China visa,
a round-trip train
ticket to Guangzhou.
A counterfeit sim card that
allows unlimited calls to Lagos.
China-made DVD player,
fourteen-day phone,
Offseason and second-hand clothes
from Chinese department stores.
Rolex?
Citizen?
Swatch?
Copy and knockoff,
offered in whispering.
A copy is always
lighter than an original.
Each Elevator reaches
to a separate world.
Guesthouses on upper
floors packed with people.
Some are here for cheap price,
some for adventure;
Some are here to
make connections,
some to disappear.
A maze and a labyrinth.
Follow me.
This is our main reception,
main reception of Canada Hotel.
And here we go.
This is the place
where you check in.
When the customer book with us,
this is the first place where they
need to come and get the rooms.
What we do is, we
get the vouchers,
which the online travel
agents provide them.
Check in for them,
and issue the key cards.
Basically all our rooms
open with key cards.
So we charge the key cards here.
And then give them the direction,
give them the wifi passwords.
Let them know the
things they need to know.
Please come with me, I
will show you my office.
Here is my office.
This is the place where
we work everyday.
Please come with me,
I will show you one
of our rooms, okay?
Im going to show
you a triple room.
This is one of our
room. Its a triple room.
It can accommodate three people.
Two on this bed
and one on this bed.
This is a single
room for one person.
So it only has
one bed, basically?
Yes, basically one
bed for one person.
Thats for one person?
Thats for one person.
We got a common
use refrigerator,
which all the guests
can use and share.
Microwave everybody can use.
And heres the staff corner,
where we put our
linens and towels.
And this area is
for the left luggages.
These customers have
checked out already this morning.
They will come back in the
nighttime to collect their luggages.
They went out for city tour.
So we keep their luggages.
Come, come, come
Just talk.
Me? No Chinese, no English.
Simple English?
No simple English.
Cantonese?
No.
Cantonese?
(In Cantonese) Nope.
I cannot understand.
You do, just a short interview.
I am an employee,
the boss is not here.
Speak a little.
Guangzhou,
Dongguan,
Bombay,
Kolkata,
Colombo,
Jakarta,
Dubai,
Lagos,
Dar es Salaam,
Kinshasa,
Kingston
Pearl River goods
flow into Indian Ocean,
a tunnel bypassing
the first world glamour.
Manufacturer and Middleman,
goods travel in both ways.
African cottons,
Chinese manufacturing,
bought by British
department stores,
and return to Africa
as factory rejects,
or second-hands.
Visa policy,
exchange rate,
oil price,
distant war...
An unsettled informal economy made
possible by the first world free market,
a small pond for fishes,
who can not reach the ocean.
Hong Kong is a weird place.
Make some noises if
you love hong Kong.
I love Hong Kong.
But its weird. Right?
I have to find a
new apartment soon.
Im not looking forward to it.
'Cause last time it took me
four months to find an apartment,
that didn't make me wanna cry.
The thing is, right,
if you are new at Hong Kong,
if you need a place to stay,
here is a piece of advice.
The No. 1 real estate website in
Hong Kong is called "Go Home".
It is true, sir. Thats
why I wrote the joke.
No, its all right,
it's all right.
I appreciate it a little.
Whats your name, Sir?
Will William!
OK, Ted William.
You dont need
to do a fake name.
Im using a fake name
but you dont have to.
I just stamped it.
My name is William.
Okay.
Now, would it be too
presumptuous to assume,
looking at your friends,
that you were all bankers?
Or am I being a racist?
Racist.
..including rooftop
space for BBQ party?
Yes, you got it.
Synergy, specialized in
developing public space,
is making a new shared-living
space: the Bibliotheque.
The bibliotheque
locastes in Mongkok,
five minutes walk to
Yau Ma Tei Station.
It consists three five-storied
Chinese shop houses.
Every floor can
accommodate 20 people,
and 166 in total.
The rent here is
between 380-640 USD.
There is no elevator,
so rents drop in higher floors.
380 USD space capsule is small
but the curtain can
go all the way down.
It provides more privacy
than ordinary dorms.
With 120-250 UDS more,
you can own a private room,
with desk and closet included.
Youll be able to
lock your room.
Capable to enjoy solitude
while living a collective style.
Electricity bills
are not included...
How can call you?
My name is Hung.
Hung.
So how long have you been here?
For a few years, I live
the shortest time here.
So youre the one who lives
here for the shortest time?
So the longest one
stays here for decades?
Yes, he has lived here
for decades as well.
Can I ask how much
rent do you pay?
It costs around HKD 1,700
to 1,800 (USD 215-230).
Here or the one
you lived before?
The one before.
The rent here is
HKD 1,500 (USD 190).
So do you usually go to work?
No, we dont work anymore.
We are over 60 years old.
We count as elderly now,
60 is the retirement age.
Do you stay here during the
day? What do you do to pass time?
No, we go to parks
and recreational sites.
So usually go downstairs to
have a sit and walk around?
Yes, sometimes I jog
and do some exercises.
Will you go out because of
the hot weather in summer?
Yes, I would rather stay
longer outside the house.
Go to air-conditioned malls?
I will go everywhere.
Yes, we go
everywhere for a walk.
- Only come back to rest at night?
-Yes.
Around 8-9 in the evening.
There are lots of louses
here. You know about louses?
I know, I know.
A lot of louses here but
we have no other choice.
For us this place
is good enough.
Other places are more
expensive, we cannot afford.
How many people can live here?
Each cage for two people.
Each cage for each person?
For two people!
The room used to be larger
before it was partitioned.
So each cage was for more
than one person before?
Maximum for three
people even, you can see.
These cages are positioned
one on top of another.
Fire Safety Ordinances doesnt
allow so many tenants now.
And less cage houses
are available now.
Time passes, less and
less cage tenants left.
Are you born in Hong Kong,
or are you from other places?
From the Mainland.
I am from Guangzhou.
Guangzhou, Hung, you too?
Guangzhou, too.
When did you come to Hong Kong?
The 70s.
I have been in Hong Kong
for more than 40 years.
More than 40 years.
I came to Hong Kong in 1973.
In 1973, how old
were you that time?
I was around 21 or 22.
You smuggled in,
which means by boat?
By swimming.
By swimming?
Yes, we swam for
six to seven hours.
We were very fit when young.
Swam from where to where?
We started from
Shekou to Hong Kong.
Where in Hong Kong?
We arrived at Lok Ma Chau.
At Lok Ma Chau?
Yes, now there are bridges.
Have you heard
about Lok Ma Chau?
I do so, so from
Shekou to Lok Ma Chau?
Yes, it took seven
to eight hours.
Seven to eight hours?
For freedom.
You know the stories of the
Communist Party those years?
For freedom and
happiness, even willing to die.
That was the attitude back then.
For me it was more about
making a better living.
You swam during
the day or night?
Nighttime.
You would get caught
the day, only the nights.
Did you have any companions?
Three.
I have several.
Do you have any long term plans?
No, just waiting to die.
Wasting the rest of life.
I dont have luck, just
waiting for the end.
Live for a few years more.
Very simple, wait to die.
Whose picture is
that on the wall?
Oh he is from many
years ago. He died.
He was a tenant?
A tenant.
He was a tenant?
Yes.
Not the landlord?
Nope.
He lived here for the longest.
So you put his picture there?
No he hung his
own picture there.
How long he lived here?
For decades, at
least 40 to 50 years.
He is the one who lived
here since the beginning?
He is the one who
lived here the longest.
Do you remember
when he passed away?
Like 8 to 10 years ago.
We havent moved
the picture ever since.
There is this long story
that Hong Kong lacks land,
Its very hilly, its a
very difficult to build,
so we need to reclaim...
and thats why real
estate prices are so high.
But it was also a
deliberate policy.
When British came, when
they had the first auction,
they made a lot of money.
And they realized that by not
releasing the lands all together,
but release the land
little bit by little bit,
and you charge a huge premium,
the government could
boost up the revenue.
But partly it has to do with
Hong Kong as a Laissez-faire port,
so they couldnt charge
taxes on other imported goods.
So there is this
economic reason behind
why they always say
there is land scarcity,
there is not enough land.
That's not really true,
after especially they
acquired Kowloon.
Hong Kong could have
developed more differently,
like Singapore.
It doesnt have to
be in this kind of form.
But its really due to
confluence of interests.
The ability to collect money from
charging very high land premium,
is partly driving why the government is
so restrictive in terms of the land supply.
So part of bargain is that you
release this land to these developers
but you allow
them to build high.
And then the claim and perception
is that there are only so much land,
so they have to build higher.
But I think nowadays
people realize
this is not necessarily the
case, it's more like a myth.
I dont remember
when this started.
It was just very recent that I
realized this was truly a problem.
When I lay down
and prepare to sleep,
I start to hear all
kinds of sounds,
and I always fail
to ignore them.
Sometimes drums,
sometimes vibrations like
a running A.C. or fridge,
sometimes indistinct human
voices as if its from behind the wall.
My old neighbor tells me that
she also hears human voices.
This site used to be a graveyard
during Japanese occupation,
so its probably
haunted by ghosts.
After all,
there are many ghosts
in Hong Kong, she says.
The South is always full
of supernatural events.
When the North was
taken by the Communists,
all ghosts tried to flee.
Hong Kong was almost
the southmost they could go.
I also read an article saying that its
common in this type of public housing.
Its design unintentionally
creates echoes,
sound travels across the corner
like through a hidden tunnel.
So I hear my neighbor from
the other side of the building.
Sometimes I suspect
maybe it is just tinnitus,
the sounds from
inside my middle ear.
The middle ear malfunction
translates into brain.
But I was surprised how my brain
manage to create something so real.
Sometimes the sounds
I hear feel so familiar,
as if its from a scene
I came across before,
like a recorded
file put on replay.
Or from a past,
that is so long ago,
which doesnt even belong to me.
There is also a particular kind
of noise that always appear.
I can hear layers of rubber
and metals, repetitive.
It is said that when you
have issues with middle ear,
it affects your balance.
This applies to me.
One day, when I was
on the empty ground floor,
the building started to rotate.
The next thing I remember,
I was in London.
It was a garden.
I could smell the palm leaves.
The sunshine spread on
plants through glass roofs.
I could also hear
insects and water vapor.
The room was warm,
but the air was really fresh.
Later I notice that the sounds
that keep reappearing in my ear
was the sound of an escalator.
How strange.
I start to pay attention to
every escalator I pass by.
Each one of them
has a different sound.
Like people,
they all have their
own individualities.
Each of them are different.
I feel that by listening
close enough,
I can easily tell
you who they are.
But I also feel that they are
parts of one incorporeal creature.
The escalators are tentacles
of a many-handed monster,
like the colossal octopus that
dominated the fear of late 19th century,
with infinite arms reaching out
and maintain irresistible control.
Its arms seize everything,
its body fleshless
and invisible.
It is the monster,
who truly rule the city.
True masters are
silent and solemn.
People are not.
And in the escalators world,
the higher they go,
the more esteemed they are.
The king of escalator
bring you to the sky.
You might say its strange to
have an obsession of escalators.
I have met one guy who is
obsessed with music fountains.
He has collected all music
fountain footage he found.
He tells me when he started,
he was looking for a fountain
melody from childhood memory.
He never finds it,
because he doesnt
know how to hum.
He says,
the furthest
distance in the world,
is that you know the
melody so well in head,
but you can not
find out the name.
He says before he started,
he didnt know so many
fountains had disappeared.
There used to be his
favorite fountain here.
Its also his best spot,
to meeting friends or
for people watching.
He liked to look at
people looking at fountains.
But the fountain has
gone for 15 years.
People blame the itinerary
shopper from mainland.
The lobby is not big
enough for their luggages.
But what about other things?
He says he misses the McDonalds
he used to spend time
with friends after school,
he misses the supermarket his
mom went to almost everyday.
But theyre all gone.
Even the color of
the mall is different.
The floor used to be brown
and the walls use to be red,
like the color of bricks.
But now its white and glossy.
It feels cold.
There was another old man,
who I often come
across in the mall.
He lives in the next building.
Every time I see
him, he is walking.
Always looks busy.
One time, he told me,
he was just not
comfortable staying home.
The room is tiny and depressing,
he would rather spend
time somewhere else.
But he always finds himself in
the mall when he leaves his house.
There is no other place to go.
The outside is too hot.
But now he is not
comfortable in the mall either.
There used to be
benches where he could sit.
But now theyre all gone.
You can not sit
down anywhere either.
Someone will show up
and tell you its not allowed.
He is also getting more
nervous with large crowds.
Maybe its the age, he says.
When he sees a lot of people,
he feels panic.
He looks for a calm place,
but always ends up just walking,
from one level to another,
taking one escalator
and another.
It was better before, he says,
when the fountain was there.
He could find
peace at the fountain,
or at least pretend to
be waiting for someone.
He always claims
that he can see ghosts.
He gets offended when
people dont take him serious.
One time, I asked him
where normally did he see.
He winked with a
mysterious smile.
He said, ghosts also
like to stay at cool places.
Their favorite
temperature is 21 degree.
He also tells me, there
are two types of ghosts.
One that you can see.
They frighten you.
The other one you never see,
but they create haunted space.
The invisible ghosts
are the real ghosts.
She often lingers
here for a bit,
after spending her Sundays
with friends in Central
and before heading
back to the family.
She says there is no place
like this in her hometown.
She is a domestic worker.
Not like those who
from the Philippines,
she is from Indonesia.
She says in Indonesia,
you always see
volcanoes in paintings.
Volcanoes are sacred.
They're the center of the cosmo,
where the gods
live on the summits.
Humans live in the middleland.
Sea is the counterpart
of volcanoes.
The demons come from sea.
It wasn't until running
into her for a few times
that I realized how much I
also liked to stroll by the harbor.
When the day is gone,
the last touch of sun passes
the city to the neon lights.
I think only artificial
lights are capable
to illuminate the
miracle of a modern city.
Sometimes smogs
obscure the illuminated.
Smogs diffuse the light so much
that the city starts to sprawl,
blurring the boundary between
the concrete and the airy.
It reminds me of those
sleazy, dark sci-fi films.
But, maybe it's the other way.
It was the films that
attempt to replicate the city.
Looking from here,
the view is often so absorbing,
like watching films.
But later, you discover
you were never part of it.
I am also curious about
the ritual of tourists.
I wonder what do they see.
Do they see the
same image like me?
Will the cityscape look the
same in different cameras?
Will the images have a actual
place in their memories later?
They say that the history of landscape
is a history of male domination,
and the skyline is
always a contour of power.
It is said that Hong Kong's skyline
kept re-inventing itself every few years.
Throughout time,
only the lights sparkling
over the harbor stay the same.
If you stare long
enough into the harbor,
you see history.
The waves splash on
the shore in the same way,
no matter it's in
1841, or 1997, or 2018,
no matter when this was
a barren territory of rocks,
or now a finished
metropolis built on desires.
By listening to the waves,
you feel time.
Port cities were
built for mobility.
In 1841, the British
seized the rocky territory
for its deep water bay
and geographic location.
Since then, it had been
built by trader and bankers
to accommodate the
flows of goods and capital,
until one day the look of port itself
became a spectacle of wonderment.
The flows of people
also resemble sea waves,
ripped apart on the shore.
Tourists,
cult members exiled
from Mainland China,
street preachers,
itinerary shoppers,
real estate sales,
converge from all directions
and splash into the malls.
Here nobody considers
shopping malls as foreign parts.
They almost merge
into the city's skin.
But the floor bricks tell
the secret of boundary.
On this side, public space.
Across the line,
the camera and tripod need a
different permission from the mall.
Against the unsettled water,
cruises stay motionless.
Gangplanks from
the cruises connect
with one of the earliest
shopping malls in Asia.
Greeted as if they were
voyagers of 21st century,
affluent cruise riders
who used to be European,
American and Japanese,
but now mostly Chinese,
can ramble into another
air-conditioned environment
without barely
entering the humidity.
Inside the mall,
another sanitized
paradise of duty free shops.
Jewelleries,
Swiss watches,
modern and
colonial-style boutique,
Southeast Asian
fusion restaurant,
Japanese seafood,
a bite of Asia's world city.
The world looks
different from the sea.
The container ships are not
only vehicles of global trade,
but time machines that dispatch
time and synchronize everyday life.
The maritime world
belongs to another time.
The endless hours
of infinite seascapes,
the boredom of seafarers.
From the ocean,
port cities today appear in
similar sequence of layers.
First layer, the foreground,
loading cranes in
monumental sizes.
The cranes are the unadorned
skyscrapers in the world of objects.
Their vertical heights
dwarf the cityscape.
When sliding on frames,
the sheer sizes of
horizontal monuments
arouse a sense of
technical sublime.
Behind the cranes,
the waves of robotic
announcements and warning sirens,
endless streams of trucks,
stopping precisely on
location in hypnotic manners.
Behind the loading lanes,
the stacked steel boxes resemble
waveforms in perpetual transformation,
choreographed by the
machinery system of logistics.
The background,
industrial warehouses
and high-rise apartments.
They house both the
goods in transition,
and the people needed
by the logistic world.
As ports are becoming
more automatic,
less workers are needed.
These high-rise gridded
apartment buildings,
which were once
attached to the port,
are now moving inlands
towards the malls.
Workers become consumers.
It is believed that the world of logistics
today is almost running on its own,
conducted by computers under
the logic and rules of objects.
The early modernists' dream
of extending human bodies
with machines has been reversed.
Human bodies are now
compliment to the machines.
The verge of the seamless
machinery logistic world,
is also in the sea.
Maritime world is
predominantly a world of men,
from dock workers, to
managers and administrators.
But Alfee has been in the
industry for two decades.
I could not hear what she sang.
She wrote me some time later:
Forget to tell you,
I was a top-scoring
student in lighting design
when I had my
bachelor in Canada.
While modern cargo handlings
always happen at seaside terminals,
Hong Kong is one
of only few places
where the old procedure of discharging
between ships in the middle of the sea
still legally exists
to maximize
efficiency and flexibility.
But the last inch of such
efficiency and flexibility
can only be reached
through the human bodies.
The swaying container
boxes are too difficult
for machinery arms to clasp.
The turbulence of sea
creates the opaque space
between container boxes'
corner castings and barges' lifts.
The crack in
standardized material flows
is cemented by human bodies.
A bodily dance in the
lifeless chain of global trade.
The containerization of world
trade had a strong military history.
The US military's need to
transport troops and supplies
across the Pacific to Vietnam
prompted the standardization
of cargo handling.
When Hong Kong was evolving into
one of the most prominent
ports in the world,
they saw not only more than one
thousand cargo ships every day,
but also boats and junk
ships emerging on the horizon,
packed with Vietnamese refugees.
This was what happened.
During the most stormy
hours this morning,
refugees on Skyluck took action.
Someone cut off the anchor rope.
The ship started to drift.
It reached Cheung Chau
through West Lamma Channel,
returned to Lamma
Island after Hei Ling Chau,
and is now stranded
at Shek Kok Tsui.
Police ships attempted
to stop Skyluck.
They also brought barge
ships to bring Skyluck back.
But the refugees
didn't cooperate.
They refused the ropes,
and threw things
at the police ships.
Refugees began to disembark
when Skyluck was stranded.
British militaries and
blue-hats assembled.
Militaries were concerned
they might spread.
Armed British soldiers
were stationed at the villages.
Blue-hat police also prepared
tear gases and batons,
just in case.
Fortunately they didn't spread.
Some refugees tried to jump
into sea from the right side,
but were stopped by police.
The significance of
water translates to money.
I think with the
site and how it sits,
it actually captures
the currents coming in.
So the money comes in.
And if you've actually noticed
when you're inside the apartments,
from the back views,
there's a hillside.
So it's the pocket, right?
It's the money coming in,
and the money not going out
but staying in the well,
as a collection of the bay.
So, much like the 109
story down the road,
you have the hole in
the wall with the dragons,
to let the Feng Shui
come in and balance.
It's very much the
same balance here.
I think Norman Foster
gave it a lot of thought,
because it's actually... the design
concept was very much water.
So we have the running water.
We even have the plug, or
what I call the "sink-chain",
you know, creating the rain,
the wave passions that we have,
and our woodwork as well
as our main lobby entrance.
It's very contemporary.
It's a very clean look.
I think the only thing that is probably
more of a feature here at the Lily
would be that we
have a skylight pool.
It is not a retractable roof
but once you're inside,
and you're in the environment
of the swimming pool,
when you actually
look up at the sky
you actually have
this rippling effect,
which is very soothing.
As I said that actually doubles
up as a multi-purpose thing.
It's not just for
aesthetics and design.
It actually is a water
filtration system that we have
that circulates for the pond.
And because of that,
it actually lowers our
electricity bills 3-5%.
So that's actually a
very nice cost-savings,
but being more eco-friendly.
Also retaining wall,
which is a 30 meter by 80 meter.
It has water tanks at the back,
so it collects the
water when it rains.
Basically it's a
self-irrigating system.
So we are not having to
consume too much water either.
So that's good,
and sensitivity to
when it rains - it cuts off.
The system will just sit,
and let itself regulate
what it needs to do.
So yeah, little pluses in
these designs have helped
in the operations of the
building in the long run.
Ultimately saving the owners'
cost in the running of things.
We do have most of our windows
and our blinds and our roller blinds
all electrically run.
We do have inside every
apartment its light zone.
The product is actually
called neutron lighting,
it's a product from the States.
Basically, what it does is
you can actually pre-program
the moods of the light.
As I say, families come here.
South side has always
been more interesting,
as you talk about Repulse Bay.
Its significance has always been
Hong Kong's version of suburbia.
'Cause everybody only
knows the built-up area
of Victoria Harbor,
the core CBD.
They don't really realize that
in twenty minutes coming
through the Aberdeen Tunnel,
you're going to get that
peace and tranquility,
or at least, better air.
Oh, see I'm saying
all the wrong things.
Not at all.
In early days of Hong Kong,
newly arrived British were haunted
by the humidity in the tropical air.
I left my fan.
Where?
Well I..
I think I put it down when
I was handed a cocktail.
I'll get it for you - wait here.
Doctor Han.
Is this yours?
- Thank you!
- And these.
Thank you.
For centuries,
miasma, the impure air,
was believed to be the
most serious contaminant
to cause illness and death.
Physician Thomas
Southwood Smith wrote in 1830,
"Nature, with her burning sun,
her stilled and pent-up wind,
her stagnant and teeming marsh,
manufactures plague on
a large and fearful scale."
Nighttime exhalations of plants,
decomposing
biological materials.
The noxious bad air were thought
to arise from natural processes.
In industrial London,
coal smokes were
considered not pollutions
but powerful disinfectants
to the decayed air.
In Asia, the tropical environment
contained more biomass,
and were thought to
produce more miasma.
In Asia, sources of hazards
could be seen in low-lands,
marsh and swamp,
odors of live animals,
and even respiration and
perspiration of native human bodies.
The tropics were decadent
in sanitation and in morality.
The pervasive
presence of humidity,
the sweat that stayed at
the back of the colonialists,
reminded them the hidden fear of
unforeseeable threat from the conquered,
and the urgency to further domesticate
the unhealthy region and its inhabitants.
In 18th century,
Carl von Linne's taxonomy laid
the foundation for modern botany.
He placed species
in a ranked hierarchy.
In his 1735 book
System of Nature,
for the first time,
men were placed into
the taxonomy of nature.
He also classified
human beings into four:
the creative white Europeanus,
the lazy black Africanus,
the undisciplined red Americanus
and the melancholic
yellow Asiatics.
Good morning Doctor Shen.
Good morning Doctor Han.
You combine artistry
with medicine, Doctor Han!
No, no - just with
love and sympathy.
It's a great privilege
to watch you.
She pretends she
speaks Mandarin,
the girl responds.
Ten days ago we didn't
think that she would live.
Look at her now.
Comparing to local Asiatics,
Europeans consider
themselves as more vulnerable
to the environmental diseases.
The Asiatics had evoluted less,
thus were closer
to the nature itself.
The main purpose of
hygiene and acclimatization,
was more to protect the
Europeans from the filthy colony.
Love is A Many-Splendored
Thing (1955),
shot in a film studio in the dry
weather of Southern California.
I'm sorry to have
kept you waiting.
It isn't often that I do.
You locked yourself in, why?
I locked the world out.
The gaffer casted each
frame with shadow of fans,
to mimic the heat of
tropical Hong Kong.
I don't know what
has happened to me,
I'm like a seed, sprouting
up, clutching at life.
I can hear, and smell the sun.
I am conscious of
surfaces and their textures.
I have such an awareness...
such an awareness.
Oh, pity the poor people
with their sad faces
who have missed what we have.
William Holton's forehead
shine with highlights,
to resemble the
humidity in the air.
'tis your estranging faces that
miss the many splendid things.
I'm so happy it frightens me.
I have a feeling
that heaven is unfair,
and is preparing for you
and for me a great sadness,
because we have
been given so much.
Darling whatever
happens, always remember:
nothing is fair nor
unfair under heaven.
Holton and Jones look
down from the balcony,
the street down the hill is occupied
by faceless Chinese in peculiar rituals.
It's a funeral procession.
They make it seem so festive.
Direction of the gaze reveals
a vertical hierarchy of status.
On the hilly Hong Kong island,
European settlement were
built at the middle level,
where there was a better
access to sunshine and ventilation,
far from soil and water.
The peak was reserved
for the most privileged.
The crowded and orderless lowlands
were left to the Chinese shop houses.
How good it is to be alive!
In the beginning, there were no
rigid or formal segregation policies.
Like some other
British colonies,
there was this informal rule.
If you purchase a land and you
want to build a house in Hong Kong,
it has to be built
in the same style
as the house next to you.
If you buy land next
to a European house,
you have to build
a European house.
So in that sense,
this kind of policy
encouraged this sort
of informal segregation.
So the Europeans, when
they came to Hong Kong,
they would live in the Mid-Level
and the Chinese houses
congregated in the sort of lower area
lower than the Mid-Level.
And there is this district
called Tai Ping Shan,
Tai Ping Shan street,
which is the early Chinatown
district in Hong Kong.
Today it's gentrified.
There were no formal
discriminatory policies
barring the Chinese from
buying land anywhere,
in the beginning.
But when the colonial
government held auction,
the Chinese were not invited.
It's like an unspeakable rule.
I couldn't really
fully explain this,
but that was what happened.
The Chinese were - it seems
that implicitly they knew,
they would not participate
in certain kinds of auction,
which were reserved
for the Europeans.
But there was no
black-and-white policies about that.
In the early days, in
the very early days,
the Chinese who came to
Hong Kong were quite poor,
they're laborers.
There were not a
lot of rich people.
But after the Tai
Ping Revolution,
there were more and
more established Chinese
who brought
capital to the colony.
The colonial
government realized that
these guys are - it's important
to attract these people.
So some of these people living in
the European mansions were Chinese.
So that was the situation
since the late 19th century.
More and more Chinese
came to Hong Kong,
there were more wealthy Chinese,
they began to buy
up more houses.
So that began to
cause some tensions,
because some of the
Europeans didn't like
to see so many Chinese
natives living in the Mid-Level.
They saw that as an
invasion of the European area,
because they identify the
Mid-Level as the European district.
So when there were more
and more Chinese moving there,
they were threatened.
So they were petitioning
the government.
And some of the government
officials themselves also believed
that maybe you needed
to establish more formal
segregation policies by
not allowing the Chinese
to continue to move
up and expand.
That was the background of...
I think it was
1888, there was this
policy about establishing
the Peak Reservation District,
in which no Chinese
houses were allowed to build.
Only European houses.
At that time it said
no Chinese houses,
not - not Chinese persons.
What time should you leave?
Ten minutes ago.
I have to go now and I
don't want you to be sad.
I won't be sad.
Sadness is so ungrateful.
And I don't want you to
come down the path with me.
I want to look back
and see you here.
Remember the blue beetle?
Promised us a
long and happy life.
In 1860,
large scales of forestation
started to take place in Hong Kong,
one of the Colonial government's early
attempts to manage the environment.
Starting from the European
settlements in the Mid-Level,
shades of trees
had been created.
Parks were also put in plan.
In 1871,
Hong Kong Botanic
Garden opened to the public.
It's a recreational ground
for people to stroll around.
However, it only
opened to the Europeans.
The garden also
served a special mission.
It collected plants for
Kew Gardens in London.
Beautiful, isn't it?
The beauty of the orient.
What a pity it is that the far
east, with its exotic flowers,
its carved temples,
is so very far away.
But wait a minute!
This isn't the far east.
This can only
be tropical Africa.
Overseen by Joseph Banks,
the president of
British Royal Society,
Kew Gardens had
established a vast network
of naturalists,
gardeners, plants hunters,
with its tentacles deep into the
territories of Asia, Africa and the Pacific,
transporting plants and
newly discovered species
back to London.
Here is where the world's
most promising botanists
come as students to learn that
very English art of gardening.
The whole of this
colourful world of ours
in miniature.
And to get there,
you take a bus.
Joseph Banks portrayed as
a young gentleman in 1773.
In front of a painted backdrop,
surrounded by
souvenirs and objects
recently brought
from the Pacific.
A Tahitian adz and a picture
book of plants near his left foot.
A Mauri cloak from
the New Zealand
wrapping on his shoulders.
The cloak he pointed
was made out of flax,
which the British Navy needed
so desperately for making sails.
A cultural cross-dresser boasting
about international traveling experiences,
an image of imperial possession.
This is Palm House
of Kew Gardens,
the oldest greenhouse here.
It's so stunning here inside.
The plants are
arranged by their origins.
Like this section is for
plants from America.
Banks saw the existing world as a
series of wastelands and common grounds,
waiting to be improved.
The rule of man should
shine over the reckless nature.
A useless crop in one continent
could be a cash crop in another.
Under his supervision,
botanic gardens were
founded as the outposts,
collecting, transporting and
experimenting with plants.
Sumatra seeds were
transported to the Caribbean,
tea samples were stolen from
China and transplanted in Ceylon,
Pacific breadfruit were brought
to West India as a cheap food
to feed black African slaves,
and the far botanic bay in Australia
was made into a penal colony
to accommodate the unwanted
prisoners of the British Empire.
Imperial expansion mutated
the order of human society,
the transplantation of plants
altered the order of nature.
Joseph Banks botanic empire
could only be wishful thinking,
without the invention
of Wardian Case.
Under searing sun,
salt spray,
fluctuation of temperature
and lack of fresh water,
very few plants and seeds
survived the long sea journeys
from Asia to London.
In 1830s,
Nathaniel Bagshaw Ward,
a physician and botanic
enthusiast in London,
tried to find a solution to
protect his ferns and mosses
from the smoggy air.
He found that plants lived much
longer in sealed glass boxes.
Glass surfaces allowed the light
needed for necessary metabolism,
while the sealed space
established micro-circulation of water,
which largely slows
down organic processes.
The discovery was soon adopted
into large scale of
plant transportation.
The glass boxes help
to pack distant plants,
together with their native soil,
bacteria, air, moisture
and even temperature,
sealed in time.
Francis Bacon described colonization
as massive planting and displanting,
of both indigenous plants
and indigenous people.
The re-organization of
ecosystems under imperial order
was actualized
through the glass boxes.
Soon later, glass boxes
mutated to a larger scale.
While Wardian Case created a self-sufficient
life system for plants to grow,
in human-scale glass houses,
people are fed with illusions
and fantasy of an enclosed utopia,
separated from
the outside world.
Crystal Palace,
the home to the Great
Exhibition in London, 1851.
Never was an
architecture so transparent.
The glass panels were
956,000 square feet,
all blown by human breath.
To look through them
was the same like
to look through
breaths of glass workers.
It was in this glass-box house
that photography was
exhibited for the first time.
The light space created by the
structure almost blinded visitors,
who were not used
to such amount of light.
Architect Joseph Paxton
won the design competition,
primarily because the structure
made from steel and glass he proposed
could quickly be built within
a limited amount of time.
All the other proposals would take
too long and would be too permanent.
The Crystal Palace
resembled a greenhouse.
Joseph Paxton was
trained as a Gardener
before becoming an architect.
Ferro vitreous,
steel and glass.
They are material of speed,
and also material
of ephemerality.
Railway stations,
exhibition halls, markets
Ferro vitreous were first
made for transitory spaces,
then for long-lasting arcades.
Arcades proliferated
in Paris in 1830s
before Haussmanns boulevards
wiped out the old city fabric.
Covered by iron-glass roof,
block-long pedestrian passages,
on both sides lined up
with small shops, tea rooms
and other amusements.
Iron and glass roof,
allowed by technological
advances in manufacture,
sheltered the streets from
sun, rain, noise and dirt.
The earliest application
of glass in architecture
was in medieval cathedrals.
Glasses allowed natural
lights to travel through,
bridging prayers to the divine.
In arcades, for the first time,
glass was widely used
to illuminate secular life.
The lure of light inspired
passersby with desire,
the brilliant transparent
window displays
unfold novelties continuously.
The arcade was a visual device
that taught city dwellers how to
perceive the transforming city panorama
through a rosy glass.
From the shop window glass,
people saw not only
goods on display,
but also images of
themselves through reflections.
Like Crystal Palace,
the arcades were
also greenhouses,
but they existed longer in time,
nurtured more
complicated system inside,
and multiplied themselves
at higher speed.
If commodities are
the cells of Capital,
the arcades were
the greenhouses,
where the cells breath,
photosynthesize and metabolize.
In arcades,
Fourierists saw the architectural
cannon of phalanstery,
and in Baudelaires lyric poems,
Walter Benjamin saw the microcosm
of imperial power and consumerism.
For Baudelaire,
the commodities were
the protagonists of arcades,
but it was in the
wandering Bohemians,
that he saw the
possibility of freedom.
Indian and Pakistani,
and Malaysia,
Indonesia.
Four countries.
Malaysia, Indonesia,
India and Pakistan.
How long have you
been doing business here?
Hong Kong?
Yup, in Hong Kong.
Around 17 years.
17 years.
Where you came from?
India.
Where in India?
In India is Bombay.
My wife is Chinese.
So that's why Im
living in Hong Kong.
Samosa,
laddoo,
namkeen,
pav,
sandesh,
chicken masala,
lamb gyro,
nasi goreng
He says, curry
makes air nostalgic.
Money transfer,
Western Union,
foreign exchange.
Renminbi,
Dollar,
Euro,
Rupee,
Yen,
Dirham,
Naira.
Traders,
asylum seekers,
temporary workers.
Hippie travelers
brought by Lonely Planet,
police punches the clock
at front entrance every hour.
Philippine Airline,
from Manila to Hong Kong.
China visa,
a round-trip train
ticket to Guangzhou.
A counterfeit sim card that
allows unlimited calls to Lagos.
China-made DVD player,
fourteen-day phone,
Offseason and second-hand clothes
from Chinese department stores.
Rolex?
Citizen?
Swatch?
Copy and knockoff,
offered in whispering.
A copy is always
lighter than an original.
Each Elevator reaches
to a separate world.
Guesthouses on upper
floors packed with people.
Some are here for cheap price,
some for adventure;
Some are here to
make connections,
some to disappear.
A maze and a labyrinth.
Follow me.
This is our main reception,
main reception of Canada Hotel.
And here we go.
This is the place
where you check in.
When the customer book with us,
this is the first place where they
need to come and get the rooms.
What we do is, we
get the vouchers,
which the online travel
agents provide them.
Check in for them,
and issue the key cards.
Basically all our rooms
open with key cards.
So we charge the key cards here.
And then give them the direction,
give them the wifi passwords.
Let them know the
things they need to know.
Please come with me, I
will show you my office.
Here is my office.
This is the place where
we work everyday.
Please come with me,
I will show you one
of our rooms, okay?
Im going to show
you a triple room.
This is one of our
room. Its a triple room.
It can accommodate three people.
Two on this bed
and one on this bed.
This is a single
room for one person.
So it only has
one bed, basically?
Yes, basically one
bed for one person.
Thats for one person?
Thats for one person.
We got a common
use refrigerator,
which all the guests
can use and share.
Microwave everybody can use.
And heres the staff corner,
where we put our
linens and towels.
And this area is
for the left luggages.
These customers have
checked out already this morning.
They will come back in the
nighttime to collect their luggages.
They went out for city tour.
So we keep their luggages.
Come, come, come
Just talk.
Me? No Chinese, no English.
Simple English?
No simple English.
Cantonese?
No.
Cantonese?
(In Cantonese) Nope.
I cannot understand.
You do, just a short interview.
I am an employee,
the boss is not here.
Speak a little.
Guangzhou,
Dongguan,
Bombay,
Kolkata,
Colombo,
Jakarta,
Dubai,
Lagos,
Dar es Salaam,
Kinshasa,
Kingston
Pearl River goods
flow into Indian Ocean,
a tunnel bypassing
the first world glamour.
Manufacturer and Middleman,
goods travel in both ways.
African cottons,
Chinese manufacturing,
bought by British
department stores,
and return to Africa
as factory rejects,
or second-hands.
Visa policy,
exchange rate,
oil price,
distant war...
An unsettled informal economy made
possible by the first world free market,
a small pond for fishes,
who can not reach the ocean.
Hong Kong is a weird place.
Make some noises if
you love hong Kong.
I love Hong Kong.
But its weird. Right?
I have to find a
new apartment soon.
Im not looking forward to it.
'Cause last time it took me
four months to find an apartment,
that didn't make me wanna cry.
The thing is, right,
if you are new at Hong Kong,
if you need a place to stay,
here is a piece of advice.
The No. 1 real estate website in
Hong Kong is called "Go Home".
It is true, sir. Thats
why I wrote the joke.
No, its all right,
it's all right.
I appreciate it a little.
Whats your name, Sir?
Will William!
OK, Ted William.
You dont need
to do a fake name.
Im using a fake name
but you dont have to.
I just stamped it.
My name is William.
Okay.
Now, would it be too
presumptuous to assume,
looking at your friends,
that you were all bankers?
Or am I being a racist?
Racist.
..including rooftop
space for BBQ party?
Yes, you got it.
Synergy, specialized in
developing public space,
is making a new shared-living
space: the Bibliotheque.
The bibliotheque
locastes in Mongkok,
five minutes walk to
Yau Ma Tei Station.
It consists three five-storied
Chinese shop houses.
Every floor can
accommodate 20 people,
and 166 in total.
The rent here is
between 380-640 USD.
There is no elevator,
so rents drop in higher floors.
380 USD space capsule is small
but the curtain can
go all the way down.
It provides more privacy
than ordinary dorms.
With 120-250 UDS more,
you can own a private room,
with desk and closet included.
Youll be able to
lock your room.
Capable to enjoy solitude
while living a collective style.
Electricity bills
are not included...
How can call you?
My name is Hung.
Hung.
So how long have you been here?
For a few years, I live
the shortest time here.
So youre the one who lives
here for the shortest time?
So the longest one
stays here for decades?
Yes, he has lived here
for decades as well.
Can I ask how much
rent do you pay?
It costs around HKD 1,700
to 1,800 (USD 215-230).
Here or the one
you lived before?
The one before.
The rent here is
HKD 1,500 (USD 190).
So do you usually go to work?
No, we dont work anymore.
We are over 60 years old.
We count as elderly now,
60 is the retirement age.
Do you stay here during the
day? What do you do to pass time?
No, we go to parks
and recreational sites.
So usually go downstairs to
have a sit and walk around?
Yes, sometimes I jog
and do some exercises.
Will you go out because of
the hot weather in summer?
Yes, I would rather stay
longer outside the house.
Go to air-conditioned malls?
I will go everywhere.
Yes, we go
everywhere for a walk.
- Only come back to rest at night?
-Yes.
Around 8-9 in the evening.
There are lots of louses
here. You know about louses?
I know, I know.
A lot of louses here but
we have no other choice.
For us this place
is good enough.
Other places are more
expensive, we cannot afford.
How many people can live here?
Each cage for two people.
Each cage for each person?
For two people!
The room used to be larger
before it was partitioned.
So each cage was for more
than one person before?
Maximum for three
people even, you can see.
These cages are positioned
one on top of another.
Fire Safety Ordinances doesnt
allow so many tenants now.
And less cage houses
are available now.
Time passes, less and
less cage tenants left.
Are you born in Hong Kong,
or are you from other places?
From the Mainland.
I am from Guangzhou.
Guangzhou, Hung, you too?
Guangzhou, too.
When did you come to Hong Kong?
The 70s.
I have been in Hong Kong
for more than 40 years.
More than 40 years.
I came to Hong Kong in 1973.
In 1973, how old
were you that time?
I was around 21 or 22.
You smuggled in,
which means by boat?
By swimming.
By swimming?
Yes, we swam for
six to seven hours.
We were very fit when young.
Swam from where to where?
We started from
Shekou to Hong Kong.
Where in Hong Kong?
We arrived at Lok Ma Chau.
At Lok Ma Chau?
Yes, now there are bridges.
Have you heard
about Lok Ma Chau?
I do so, so from
Shekou to Lok Ma Chau?
Yes, it took seven
to eight hours.
Seven to eight hours?
For freedom.
You know the stories of the
Communist Party those years?
For freedom and
happiness, even willing to die.
That was the attitude back then.
For me it was more about
making a better living.
You swam during
the day or night?
Nighttime.
You would get caught
the day, only the nights.
Did you have any companions?
Three.
I have several.
Do you have any long term plans?
No, just waiting to die.
Wasting the rest of life.
I dont have luck, just
waiting for the end.
Live for a few years more.
Very simple, wait to die.
Whose picture is
that on the wall?
Oh he is from many
years ago. He died.
He was a tenant?
A tenant.
He was a tenant?
Yes.
Not the landlord?
Nope.
He lived here for the longest.
So you put his picture there?
No he hung his
own picture there.
How long he lived here?
For decades, at
least 40 to 50 years.
He is the one who lived
here since the beginning?
He is the one who
lived here the longest.
Do you remember
when he passed away?
Like 8 to 10 years ago.
We havent moved
the picture ever since.
There is this long story
that Hong Kong lacks land,
Its very hilly, its a
very difficult to build,
so we need to reclaim...
and thats why real
estate prices are so high.
But it was also a
deliberate policy.
When British came, when
they had the first auction,
they made a lot of money.
And they realized that by not
releasing the lands all together,
but release the land
little bit by little bit,
and you charge a huge premium,
the government could
boost up the revenue.
But partly it has to do with
Hong Kong as a Laissez-faire port,
so they couldnt charge
taxes on other imported goods.
So there is this
economic reason behind
why they always say
there is land scarcity,
there is not enough land.
That's not really true,
after especially they
acquired Kowloon.
Hong Kong could have
developed more differently,
like Singapore.
It doesnt have to
be in this kind of form.
But its really due to
confluence of interests.
The ability to collect money from
charging very high land premium,
is partly driving why the government is
so restrictive in terms of the land supply.
So part of bargain is that you
release this land to these developers
but you allow
them to build high.
And then the claim and perception
is that there are only so much land,
so they have to build higher.
But I think nowadays
people realize
this is not necessarily the
case, it's more like a myth.
I dont remember
when this started.
It was just very recent that I
realized this was truly a problem.
When I lay down
and prepare to sleep,
I start to hear all
kinds of sounds,
and I always fail
to ignore them.
Sometimes drums,
sometimes vibrations like
a running A.C. or fridge,
sometimes indistinct human
voices as if its from behind the wall.
My old neighbor tells me that
she also hears human voices.
This site used to be a graveyard
during Japanese occupation,
so its probably
haunted by ghosts.
After all,
there are many ghosts
in Hong Kong, she says.
The South is always full
of supernatural events.
When the North was
taken by the Communists,
all ghosts tried to flee.
Hong Kong was almost
the southmost they could go.
I also read an article saying that its
common in this type of public housing.
Its design unintentionally
creates echoes,
sound travels across the corner
like through a hidden tunnel.
So I hear my neighbor from
the other side of the building.
Sometimes I suspect
maybe it is just tinnitus,
the sounds from
inside my middle ear.
The middle ear malfunction
translates into brain.
But I was surprised how my brain
manage to create something so real.
Sometimes the sounds
I hear feel so familiar,
as if its from a scene
I came across before,
like a recorded
file put on replay.
Or from a past,
that is so long ago,
which doesnt even belong to me.
There is also a particular kind
of noise that always appear.
I can hear layers of rubber
and metals, repetitive.
It is said that when you
have issues with middle ear,
it affects your balance.
This applies to me.
One day, when I was
on the empty ground floor,
the building started to rotate.
The next thing I remember,
I was in London.
It was a garden.
I could smell the palm leaves.
The sunshine spread on
plants through glass roofs.
I could also hear
insects and water vapor.
The room was warm,
but the air was really fresh.
Later I notice that the sounds
that keep reappearing in my ear
was the sound of an escalator.
How strange.
I start to pay attention to
every escalator I pass by.
Each one of them
has a different sound.
Like people,
they all have their
own individualities.
Each of them are different.
I feel that by listening
close enough,
I can easily tell
you who they are.
But I also feel that they are
parts of one incorporeal creature.
The escalators are tentacles
of a many-handed monster,
like the colossal octopus that
dominated the fear of late 19th century,
with infinite arms reaching out
and maintain irresistible control.
Its arms seize everything,
its body fleshless
and invisible.
It is the monster,
who truly rule the city.
True masters are
silent and solemn.
People are not.
And in the escalators world,
the higher they go,
the more esteemed they are.
The king of escalator
bring you to the sky.
You might say its strange to
have an obsession of escalators.
I have met one guy who is
obsessed with music fountains.
He has collected all music
fountain footage he found.
He tells me when he started,
he was looking for a fountain
melody from childhood memory.
He never finds it,
because he doesnt
know how to hum.
He says,
the furthest
distance in the world,
is that you know the
melody so well in head,
but you can not
find out the name.
He says before he started,
he didnt know so many
fountains had disappeared.
There used to be his
favorite fountain here.
Its also his best spot,
to meeting friends or
for people watching.
He liked to look at
people looking at fountains.
But the fountain has
gone for 15 years.
People blame the itinerary
shopper from mainland.
The lobby is not big
enough for their luggages.
But what about other things?
He says he misses the McDonalds
he used to spend time
with friends after school,
he misses the supermarket his
mom went to almost everyday.
But theyre all gone.
Even the color of
the mall is different.
The floor used to be brown
and the walls use to be red,
like the color of bricks.
But now its white and glossy.
It feels cold.
There was another old man,
who I often come
across in the mall.
He lives in the next building.
Every time I see
him, he is walking.
Always looks busy.
One time, he told me,
he was just not
comfortable staying home.
The room is tiny and depressing,
he would rather spend
time somewhere else.
But he always finds himself in
the mall when he leaves his house.
There is no other place to go.
The outside is too hot.
But now he is not
comfortable in the mall either.
There used to be
benches where he could sit.
But now theyre all gone.
You can not sit
down anywhere either.
Someone will show up
and tell you its not allowed.
He is also getting more
nervous with large crowds.
Maybe its the age, he says.
When he sees a lot of people,
he feels panic.
He looks for a calm place,
but always ends up just walking,
from one level to another,
taking one escalator
and another.
It was better before, he says,
when the fountain was there.
He could find
peace at the fountain,
or at least pretend to
be waiting for someone.
He always claims
that he can see ghosts.
He gets offended when
people dont take him serious.
One time, I asked him
where normally did he see.
He winked with a
mysterious smile.
He said, ghosts also
like to stay at cool places.
Their favorite
temperature is 21 degree.
He also tells me, there
are two types of ghosts.
One that you can see.
They frighten you.
The other one you never see,
but they create haunted space.
The invisible ghosts
are the real ghosts.