ponderings of the pococurante

I don’t remember where I first heard of Tin Shui Wai, but I believe someone told me that this was the famous “walled city” (圍城） that the movie was named after, so I went there expecting something desperate and ghetto, but didn’t find anything of the sort. The subway ride is nice…the stations are not as flashy and busy as the ones in the major Hong Kong lines; there’s a certain sterility, as if somewhere along the way, somewhere underground you passed a threshold. Of course for me, this is just reflected in how things look and appear, and what effects that has on you–that is, how the urban environment, urban form, urban aesthetics affects your perception of, well, everything: even if you are thinking of something utterly different, the environment is still there, leaving some kind of subtle imprint on your mind, coloring your moods and perceptions. I think that’s why my photos has some strange and obviously distorted color schemes: the attempt to impart the deep truth of the place, or one’s subjective vision of a place, means that you hve to depart from the common notion of verisimilitude, and truth be told once you get used to it, it ain’t no thang.

I wondered what it would be like living here; in one sense it’s no different from the rest of Hong Kong, but in another sense, it is separated by those lush forests and hills, and has a radically different form—we’re talking suburbs here, high-rises cloned and sprouted all over the place, jutting awkwardly into the sky, assured of their functionality but somehow unsure of their existence.

Shopping malls: I played Time Crisis 4 there, blowing a chunk of change that could have been used for better purposes. Others played that horse-racing game where plastic horses race across a track. It’s dated and quaint for that very reason. You would have expected horse-racing to have morphed into some high octane video game with crystal-clear graphics, the whole nine yards. And here was this old contraption, looking like some kind of cheap museum diorama…anyhow I can’t see what the fun of it is. Nearby, old men play video game mahjong.

I wonder how much time I’ve spent wandering through malls. It’s become some kind of ritual, so much so that I can pretty much sleepwalk through it. It’s so utterly familiar and so perfectly banal that you don’t even think twice about it, it’s automatic, a twitch that sometimes lasts an entire afternoon.

tinshuiwan, tianshuiwan, pictures, photos, arcades, games, life, malls, shopping, consumerism, consumers, ricoh, photos, photography

If you’re a fan of the “gutter-trawling” alienated youths genre of film, you should find this one enjoyable: and I did not intend to be ironic there, because I actually think this was a good film. The story centers around two brothers: the younger one gets relentlessly and heartlessly picked on at school–beaten up, all the time, by boys and girls (the latter, despite their nice skirts and uniforms, are basically triads-in-training–like many mobsters, they like stuffing heads in urinals and toilets). The older brother sees this and does nothing. It gets worse: the younger one is physically abused by his father at home, and again, the older one does nothing. With no one to protect and stand up for him, the younger brother disappears.

He’s not heard from again until the police tell the elder brother that his brother is in the hospital after attempted suicide, and is also the main suspect in the homicide of a girl affiliated with a young triad boss/mobster. The older brother soon finds himself entangled with these triad members, who say his younger brother made off with a huge stash of drugs. He then tries to piece together what exactly his younger brother had been up to during the last few years.

What he finds out is that his brother has become part of the seamy underbelly of New Territories housing development. These are outsiders and misfits, the kids that slip through the cracks of the system. And of course, to make ends meet they resort to stealing and selling drugs.

I always feel conflicted about movies like this: the inherent seriousness of the subject seems somehow at odds with the often stylized camera work and pacing. The highly saturated, bold, and contrasty cinematography reminds me of Infernal Affairs ?????where you see a lot of these cyan-green tinted shots. Of course, it’s more than just eye-candy: what you’re getting is not the objective fly-in-the-wall take on what happens, but some reflection of the subjective reality of the characters. I don’t want to suggest that the style is amateurish or bad, just not necessarily what one might expect of a film that touches on some very serious issues. My proclivity for neo-realism, documentary style movies a la the Dardennes Brothers is what I am getting at, but I suppose it’s not a big deal. I’ve just found this type of style has become idiomatic in Hong Kong and reminds one of those Hollywood films that also deal with people on the wrong side of the tracks or the bad side of town: to a certain extent, you have to deal in cliches. You don’t explore the complexity of parental abuse, or why kids beat up other kids.

I suppose that much of it has to do with the fact that so much of what happens in this film is alien to me. Hong Kong–you’re thinking banks and dim sum, wine bars and electronics shops. The harbor, the peak. You don’t think about father-daughter incest, much less expect to see (dimly), a father humping a daughter and getting her pregnant. Here the heart and mind begin to part ways: your mind is telling you that yes, all these things do exist, but this film is like a potluck roast of all the bad shit that happens in life and cramming all of it together makes the suspension of disbelief a wee bit harder. On the other hand, your heart is trying to feel sympathy for the characters and revulsion for all the cruelty that you see. That’s why realistic, naturalistic performances and style tend to work better for me: they start off by looking more “real” (or verite), and tend to shy away from overdramatizing.

The film has a few plot twists and turns, which I think makes the film much better than it might be were it to rely purely on the “moods” and portrayals of everyday life for teenage dropouts. With regards to the latter: the naturalistic performances by the actors really did make those moments shine–all the times they stole things, and made fun of each other, got high, fought and then made up. These dropouts are a motley bunch and for the most part, they all looked it–none of the made-up pretty-boys and Canto-pop queens that dominate most Hong Kong films. I am guessing that they used many non-actors, and perhaps some of them are even from that area of Hong Kong.

All in all: one of the more interesting films and directors (???) out of Hong Kong these days. I’ve heard that the director’s other films are quite interesting as well and am keen on filling what seems like an inexcusable gap in my Hong Kong film repertoire.

If you’re a fan of the “gutter-trawling” alienated youths genre of film, you should find this one enjoyable: and I did not intend to be ironic there, because I actually think this was a good film. The story centers around two brothers: the younger one gets relentlessly and heartlessly picked on at school–beaten up, all the time, by boys and girls (the latter, despite their nice skirts and uniforms, are basically triads-in-training–like many mobsters, they like stuffing heads in urinals and toilets). The older brother sees this and does nothing. It gets worse: the younger one is physically abused by his father at home, and again, the older one does nothing. With no one to protect and stand up for him, the younger brother disappears.

He’s not heard from again until the police tell the elder brother that his brother is in the hospital after attempted suicide, and is also the main suspect in the homicide of a girl affiliated with a young triad boss/mobster. The older brother soon finds himself entangled with these triad members, who say his younger brother made off with a huge stash of drugs. He then tries to piece together what exactly his younger brother had been up to during the last few years.

What he finds out is that his brother has become part of the seamy underbelly of New Territories housing development. These are outsiders and misfits, the kids that slip through the cracks of the system. And of course, to make ends meet they resort to stealing and selling drugs.

I always feel conflicted about movies like this: the inherent seriousness of the subject seems somehow at odds with the often stylized camera work and pacing. The highly saturated, bold, and contrasty cinematography reminds me of Infernal Affairs ?????where you see a lot of these cyan-green tinted shots. Of course, it’s more than just eye-candy: what you’re getting is not the objective fly-in-the-wall take on what happens, but some reflection of the subjective reality of the characters. I don’t want to suggest that the style is amateurish or bad, just not necessarily what one might expect of a film that touches on some very serious issues. My proclivity for neo-realism, documentary style movies a la the Dardennes Brothers is what I am getting at, but I suppose it’s not a big deal. I’ve just found this type of style has become idiomatic in Hong Kong and reminds one of those Hollywood films that also deal with people on the wrong side of the tracks or the bad side of town: to a certain extent, you have to deal in cliches. You don’t explore the complexity of parental abuse, or why kids beat up other kids.

I suppose that much of it has to do with the fact that so much of what happens in this film is alien to me. Hong Kong–you’re thinking banks and dim sum, wine bars and electronics shops. The harbor, the peak. You don’t think about father-daughter incest, much less expect to see (dimly), a father humping a daughter and getting her pregnant. Here the heart and mind begin to part ways: your mind is telling you that yes, all these things do exist, but this film is like a potluck roast of all the bad shit that happens in life and cramming all of it together makes the suspension of disbelief a wee bit harder. On the other hand, your heart is trying to feel sympathy for the characters and revulsion for all the cruelty that you see. That’s why realistic, naturalistic performances and style tend to work better for me: they start off by looking more “real” (or verite), and tend to shy away from overdramatizing.

The film has a few plot twists and turns, which I think makes the film much better than it might be were it to rely purely on the “moods” and portrayals of everyday life for teenage dropouts. With regards to the latter: the naturalistic performances by the actors really did make those moments shine–all the times they stole things, and made fun of each other, got high, fought and then made up. These dropouts are a motley bunch and for the most part, they all looked it–none of the made-up pretty-boys and Canto-pop queens that dominate most Hong Kong films. I am guessing that they used many non-actors, and perhaps some of them are even from that area of Hong Kong.

All in all: one of the more interesting films and directors (???) out of Hong Kong these days. I’ve heard that the director’s other films are quite interesting as well and am keen on filling what seems like an inexcusable gap in my Hong Kong film repertoire.

Just something I saw in China CSR.com…this thing was on the way from Oakland to China. I guess there are some loopholes in Hong Kong law that allow e-waste to get through, even though it’s technically illegal. Technorati Tags: china, greenpeace, hong kong, oakland, US, e-waste, waste, environment, computers, electronics

I think to myself “how nice it would be if the English had colonized China as well.” Because Hong Kong is just somehow “Asia in all the right places”–the people, the food, the culture, the smell, the intangibles–and yet in its infrastructure, and in certain aspects of its culture, it’s obviously quite westernized. The cashier lady at Zara was a like a fucking robot–manicured nails were blazing over the keypads of the credit card machines, stapling receipts together, folding clothes into bags–a paragon of efficiency. And although it was sometimes hard to get a cab in hong kong, i thought that overall, the traffic situation was much better than in Shanghai–at least it seemed much more orderly, and I felt as if (perhaps my own projections, here) people in Hong Kong actually cared more about these things, they took pride in following the rules and doing things the “right way.” Shanghai was kind of a let down after this. It just seemed horribly grimy, uncouth, chaotic.

我现在在香港，再julian的房间里上网–

回到香港有什么感受–一下了飞机就感觉香港还是名副其实的国际大都市，而上海相离这个目标还有点距离。而且我在这儿都可以上那些在大陆被封禁的网站。自由世界真好。

过一会儿要出去，舅妈要带我去买化妆品了。

[tags]hong kong , china, 香港，中国，生活[/tags]

Just how bad in Hong Kong’s triad problem?

HONG KONG — Albert Ho was eating in a crowded McDonald’s restaurant last Sunday afternoon in bustling central Hong Kong when a group of men stormed in and clobbered the lawmaker with wooden batons and baseball bats.

It’s highly unlikely the attackers will be found. Most believe they slipped back into the shadowy, violent world of the triads — Hong Kong’s version of the mafia. The international financial capital is one of Asia’s most peaceful, orderly cities, but the attack on Ho was a reminder that a dark, highly organized force can rise up and strike, seemingly at will.

What’s kind of scary is this: “It is estimated that sometimes in Hong Kong, we have over 500,000 triad members and over 50 triad societies,” Wong said. “I truly believe these figures are correct.” But then the article goes on to say that most Hong Kongers don’t have contact with triad members — but if the population is only 7-8 million, and there are 500,000 members … that means that 1/14 to 1/16 of the population is in the triads, and that’s still pretty scary — it’s quite likely that any Hong Kong citizen is only a couple degrees separation from a current triad member.

original link here.
[tags]Hong Kong, China, mafia, triads, law, crime[/tags]

Just how bad in Hong Kong’s triad problem?

HONG KONG — Albert Ho was eating in a crowded McDonald’s restaurant last Sunday afternoon in bustling central Hong Kong when a group of men stormed in and clobbered the lawmaker with wooden batons and baseball bats.

It’s highly unlikely the attackers will be found. Most believe they slipped back into the shadowy, violent world of the triads — Hong Kong’s version of the mafia. The international financial capital is one of Asia’s most peaceful, orderly cities, but the attack on Ho was a reminder that a dark, highly organized force can rise up and strike, seemingly at will.

What’s kind of scary is this: “It is estimated that sometimes in Hong Kong, we have over 500,000 triad members and over 50 triad societies,” Wong said. “I truly believe these figures are correct.” But then the article goes on to say that most Hong Kongers don’t have contact with triad members — but if the population is only 7-8 million, and there are 500,000 members … that means that 1/14 to 1/16 of the population is in the triads, and that’s still pretty scary — it’s quite likely that any Hong Kong citizen is only a couple degrees separation from a current triad member.

original link here.
[tags]Hong Kong, China, mafia, triads, law, crime[/tags]

Because after all, if there’s one thing they do understand, it’s how not ready you can be for democracy. Read this:

Another sign Hong Kong was not ready for universal suffrage was the lack of civic education to inspire patriotism, an issue reiterated by Xu Chongde, who believes that universal suffrage could be implemented only when it could be guaranteed that patriots would be selected to be the political leaders. “If anyone today could ensure that the [chief executive] selected through universal suffrage is a patriot, then I would suggest introducing universal suffrage today,” he said.

To prove his point, Professor Xu said that “Hitler and Mussolini had come to power through elections” and “[e]ven in the United States, which has 200 years of democratic history, most of its presidents were only of mediocre calibre.”

In his opinion, “Hong Kong’s Democratic Party was misleading Hong Kong people through ‘blind worship of universal suffrage’, which was ‘just one kind of democracy’.

Is this guy fucking kidding? What’s the point of being an intellectual and a professor if you have no compunction about being in the pockets of the powerful. The point of a system is not the kind of leaders that it produces–it’s not as if the imperial system or the monarchies produced good leaders–there were plenty of ineffectual leaders. But there is one other significant difference–people who live in democracies prefer to live in democracies. And the people that live in totalitarian systems prefer to get the hell out of them.

From a Malaysian newspaper editorial, we have an analysis of how the British managed in many of its former colonies to establish the foundation of a fully functioning democracy, though it failed in the case of Hong Kong (the point of view of the writer):

Only when Patten was appointed governor did Britain wake up and he made a desperate, but inevitably flawed, last-minute attempt to introduce full sufferage. In the end, the Chinese outmanoeuvred him. China was able to create a shadow government out of the pro-Beijing capitalist barons and their supporters, and simply moved them into place as the governing class the moment the Chinese flag was raised.

.

OF course, there are considerations external to Hong Kong itself:

An influential diplomat argued that Hong Kong was a more complex situation than Taiwan, “where unquestionably the country has the right to keep its democracy.” “Voting is a more sensitive issue here, as democracy here could unsettle the evolving political process in China itself,” she added.

Perhaps that’s true–it might have “adverse” effects on China, though i would suspect they would be adverse from the perspective of the CCP and social stability–can’t say that i wouldn’t mind seeing just what these adverse effects are. I’m not too enthralled with the status quo.
[tags] China, Hong Kong, suffrage, democracy, politics [/tags]