A sunny Sunday afternoon, no looming deadlines for Terry...it was a good day for an outing. We chose a quirky destination, the Hong Kong exhibition of the Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture in Kowloon Park. The description sounded intriguing: city architecture and its transformation reflecting the interaction of people, time and place. Each of the 53 participants had been given a metal bunk bed to creatively disassemble and incorporate somehow into their exhibit--the bunk symbolic because of housing density in Hong Kong and also because colonial Kowloon buildings were once military barracks. The bunk bed part is what drew me in. I get energized by looking at the imaginative products of creative assignments like this. Pretty Kowloon Park (pictured at right) is a draw, too, especially on a nice day.
The exhibit was disappointing, however, mostly because it was so esoteric. The article we'd read about it specifically mentioned that it was meant for the public to view, that you didn't need any special architectural background to appreciate and learn from it. Maybe we were experiencing the difference between Chinese public exhibits and American ones. The great big swaths of texts, uninviting tiny typeface, lack of organizing cues...these two Americans lacked the patience and diligence to wade through the architect-speak on a Sunday afternoon outing. It just didn't invite us to care about anything the exhibitors had to say. And the whole idea of the creative use of the bunk beds pretty much eluded most of the exhibitors, from what we saw. Most of them were used just as bunk beds, some of them made up with the exhibitor's dvd playing on a screen up by the pillow in the lower bunk. You couldn't quite figure out if you were supposed to maybe sit down on the bed where the covers had been flipped back and watch it? Otherwise you had to stoop uncomfortably to look at it. Huh. I'm still scratching my head.
Fortunately some other parts of the outing were interesting. To get to Kowloon you have to cross Victoria Harbor, either via the subway or the Star Ferry. We've never taken the ferry before. Since it's supposed to be one of those essential Hong Kong things to do and since it was a nice day, we opted for a ride on the ferry, pictured at right. (That's the Central skyline on Hong Kong Island in the background...on a relatively nice day. The air is almost always hazy to a greater or lesser degree.) There's a whole fleet of Star Ferries making the crossing between Hong Kong Island where we live and the Kowloon Peninsula, all with names like Solar Star, Silver Star, Northern Star and Twinkling Star. There's not much waiting around, since a ferry leaves between the Central pier on the Island and Tsim Sha Tsui every 6-10 minutes or so. Star Ferries have been making this crossing since at least 1888. Until the tunnel under the harbor was finished in 1978, this was the only way to get across the harbor. It's fast, about 5 minutes to get across, and cheap, too, only $HK3 ($.39) to make the crossing. The government provides substantial subsidies for the ferry and all the other kinds of public transport in Hong Kong in order to discourage use of cars. Population density, smog and narrow winding streets all make cars impractical (though there are still a great plenty of them around, many seemingly driven as status symbols by the wealthy, from what I've observed).
While we were walking through Central to get to the ferry pier we were amazed by the hoards of young women gathered in small groups on the sidewalk, relaxing with their friends. We'd read about this phenomenon: these are foreign domestic workers, enjoying their weekly one day off. Many Hong Kong households employ an amah, who's a housekeeper, cook and nanny. The majority of them come from the Philippines, but some also come from Indonesia, Thailand, Nepal and Sri Lanka. The various ethnic groups all have their preferred gathering places around Hong Kong. Central is where the Filipino workers are supposed to come to hang out on Sundays.
Most of them sit on blankets or pieces of cardboard. They spend the day sharing food and drink, talking and laughing, playing cards, using their cell phones and laptops, and napping. The 5 women standing up in this photo were rhythmically playing their gongs/drums; I'm not sure if they were getting ready to rally (we saw a group with a big red banner just a little further on) or getting ready to make some music. We heard a group of 3 or 4 singing shortly after we passed by this group.
When we walked through the passageway under Connaught Rd, there were hundreds of women sitting on our left and our right, a solid mass of amahs relaxing in their small circles of friends. Some groups had pieced together short walls of cardboard or umbrellas on one or both sides of their group, I suppose to make it easier to hear each other or for privacy or just to stake out their space. It seemed a little cold and unpleasant to me to sit in this not-so-attractive cement tunnel under a road, but I suppose it's a favored space when it's rainy or hot. I wondered if these tunnel-sitters have understood seating arrangements, group by group.
I like the idea of these little communities of foreign workers enjoying their time off with their friends, exchanging news and information and support, all of this easing homesickness and loneliness. They're also making a statement to Hong Kong citizens about their numbers and potential power when they're organized, a good thing because employer abuse is supposed to be a problem for a fair number of amahs.
We had planned to take a tram home from Central. But after waiting and waiting for at least 20 minutes at the stop with an ever-growing crowd of other waiters, we knew something was wrong. The trams always come by every few minutes. We thought that maybe there had been an electrical or mechanical problem down the line or an accident. So we just started walking home. About 15 minutes later the trams eventually started showing up again and we got our ride after all.
Terry looked around online tonight for information about the tram delay and found the explanation. About 300 demonstrators had marched along the tram route this afternoon, protesting an upcoming change that will allow mainland Chinese to cross the border and come drive on Hong Kong's roads. The protestors say they have concerns about increased pollution as well as concerns about safety. (I remember reading last year, for example, that supposedly one reason there are an unusually large number of car accidents in China is because a large percentage of Chinese drivers don't have adequate vision for driving and have never had eye exams, much less eyeglasses prescriptions.) The protestors also accused the government of not listening to their concerns about forced integration with the mainland.
The protestors got our attention, impatient and poor waiters that we are.
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