July 16th, 2009
Craft market in Tai Hang. Photo by Mary Cheung
On a muggy afternoon, a few dozen people have come to check out a small craft sale at the Jockey Club Creative Arts Centre in Shek Kip Mei. Milling about, they chat and nibble on snacks while browsing the wares. There are necklaces, drawings, dolls, bags and other handmade items.
The atmosphere is more party than market, and that’s exactly what Shan Luk had in mind when she decided to host an informal fair outside her sixth-floor studio in the centre. Dubbing it the Artisans Show, Luk has asked her artist friends to include their work in the sale to promote handmade design.
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June 16th, 2009
Six minutes and 40 seconds is not a lot of time. It’s about how long it takes to ride the MTR from Central to Tsim Sha Tsui, or to heat up a frozen dinner in the microwave. But that’s all the time that 10 people will have to share their passion at the upcoming Pecha Kucha Night. A show-and-tell party for creative types, it’s being held at a bar in Exchange Square tomorrow — the fifth Pecha Kucha event in Hong Kong.
“I asked that people share some of their obsessions because that’s one thing that unites everyone,” says Oriana Reich, a graphic designer and branding consultant who curated the event. “They all have obsessions that drive their work and inspire them. I want people to bring their passion into it.”
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September 22nd, 2008
Buying fruit on Electric Road in North Point
Moving to another city halfway around the world requires a few adjustments. You need to get used to a new language, new scenery, new ways of perceiving and doing things. Some level of homesickness is inevitable. While some overseas Canadians miss Twizzlers and Coffee Crisp, though, what I find myself missing is far less tangible: my neighbourhood. I miss being able to feel part of a community that is rooted in the streets and buildings around me. I miss knowing all of the shortcuts to get where I need to go, seeing familiar characters on the street, knowing the (both mundane and salacious) details about the shopowners on my block.
This kind of neighbourhood life certainly exists in Hong Kong — and in abundance. When I wander around some of the neighbourhoods near the University of Hong Kong, like Sheung Wan or Sai Ying Pun, I get a bit of that Mile End feeling, especially when I’m with someone who lives there and they run into people they know on the street. For the time being, though, I’m stuck in a state of semi-transience, floating between apartments and commuting for endless kilometres by bus, minibus and MTR. I look forward to the day when I can finally settle in a part of Hong Kong that I can get to know from the ground up.
Even then, though, a large part of the Hong Kong experience has to do with anonymity and mobility, two things that don’t lend themselves well to a real neighbourhood feeling. Much of what does exist is either high-priced (as in the expat enclave around the Central-Mid Levels escalator), based on ethnicity (as in the South Asian and African communities in Tsim Sha Tsui, or the Indonesian, Thai and Filipina maids that gather on Sundays) or decidedly old school, revolving around the fading lives of geriatrics. Most of the people you see hanging out in the street or in any given neighbourhood square are ancient, which seems to suggest that younger generations see such activities as being somehow beneath them.
Nobody wants a nosy neighbour, and the ability to pass unnoticed is one of the great pleasures of urban life, but a strong sense of community participation and neighbourhood identity is what lead people to invest themselves in the well-being of their city. Earlier this week, a feature in the South China Morning Post looked at new shops that have become anchors of neighbourhood life. If the SCMP is to be believed, they’re bucking the trend of a city quickly losing a sense of itself.
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October 15th, 2006
Loin des manifestations chaotiques des années 60/70, aujourd’hui, le militantisme local répond à la complexité de nos milieux urbains avec une sophistication de plus en plus accrue. Dans notre contexte actuel, il faut faire plus que lancer des revendications. Il faut plutôt sensibiliser la population et les instances de pouvoir, soit politique ou économique.
À Montréal, au printemps 2002, dans le Plateau Mont-Royal, un quartier en pleine mutation, un nouveau mouvement populaire de citoyens a vu le jour. Ce groupe s’est inspiré de l’idée de mettre la personne avant la voiture en réponse à l’omniprésence des voitures polluantes en ville. Mais l’enlèvement des voitures ne faisait qu’une partie du plan de ce qui est devenu le Comité de citoyens Mont-Royal Avenue Verte.
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