Fight or flight?

I’ve noticed this sticker? mural? on the side of several HK minibuses. No idea what it signifies though.

Streetscrawler

  

The blue people of Kwun Tong

Kwun Tong represents a bygone era for Hong Kong. Its a big, unpretty industrial and business centre in the Eastern part of Kowloon, and in many ways feels like a city apart from the rest of the city, a city in itself (or on the mainland).

It was here that Hong Kong’s last porno theatre operated, here that Communist sympathisers blew up a cinema in the 1970s and here that gunmen hit a street of gold stores in the 1980s in broad daylight. It is hard to imagine any of these things happening in Hong Kong now.

The streets of Kwun Tong are crowded and pressed, squeezed claustrophobically by ten-storey concrete industrial buildings. It is gritty and grimy and people push and shove. There are flyers and posters everywhere for cheap-looking restaurants and whenever I go there, it always seems to be hot.

But like Wong Chuk Hang (and Chai wan) it is this very industrial heritage which makes Kwun Tong an attractive place for local hipsters to set up slightly left-of-centre businesses in big and relatively cheap lofts. It is home to urban bee farms, roof-top farms and (until recently at least) underground rock clubs. I paid a visit over the weekend to see what else was brewing.

My first few destinations were a bit of a bust – the vegetarian restaurant I had been recommended turned out to be a tasty food stall in a mall. It was nice, but not worth crossing town for. The independent bookstore I had caught wind of, Bleakhouse Books, turned out to be open by appointment only. But I hit the jackpot with my third destination, the How cafe (below) as well as these pieces of street art in the area’s otherwise grim alleyways, before heading to the quiet ferry terminal with its lapping waves and peeling paint, to wait a full hour before the next ferry came to take me back to the island.

  

 

HK Street

 

Wong Chuk Hang walls

 

Writing is on the wall

HK street art projet HK Walls in back, after last years event in Sham Shui Po, this time closer to home in my own neighbourhood of Wong Chuk Hang. Sad to say though that my own verdict was less than glowing. Many of the pieces were just not that strong aesthetically, in my view. In some cases, I thought the walls would have been better left blank.

   

Queens Road West

  

 

Sai Ying Pun: hot afternoon

   

HK street

Above, mysterious new street art incorporating Chinese calligraphy-like brushstrokes appears in the alleyways of Sai Ying Pun. I like. And below, the 3,500 year old rock carvings of Wong Chuk Hang (scroll up to Wong Chuk Hang for more on these).

 

Sai Ying Pun

  

Sham Shui Po, home to a teeming street market, snake restaurants and “cage houses” is now also home to some of the city’s best-developed street art, thanks to this year’s HK Walls initiative.

 

Its also the site of Wontonmeen, an interesting hostel/ residential project for “creatives” with onsite cafe, bicycle rentals and a photography ‘zine/ art-book store which I stumbled onto quite randomly while wandering the neighbourhood.

 

HK Walls