Scale of Crazy Traffic Behavior

It's hard to sleep when someone is singing "We didn't start the fire" on karaoke right below your room. So I bring you my official Scale of Crazy Traffic Behavior, a wide-ranging survey.

New York City: 3
Aggressive but generally under control. Decent infrastructure to keep things in check. 'No right on red' law, I never truly appreciated you!

West Palm Beach: 3
Not so bad, really, except there seem to be a lot of teens around with nothing to lose. If there's an accident, the Jaws of Life will probably be involved in the cleanup.

Providence: 2
Friendly and meandering, but also frequently dim-witted. Scary highways.

Hong Kong: 3
Other than the terrifying double-decker buses, very well-behaved. Walk means walk!

Guangzhou : 7
Frequently scary. 10 second Walk signs across 10 lane roads. Many major crossings without stop/walk signs. Disregard of crosswalks by cars. Some bike chaos.

Thailand : 8
Taxi drivers enacting speedway fantasies, but it all seems fun! Must be the hot pink cabs.

Beijing : 10!
My life has flashed before my eyes each time I neared a major road. Few seat belts in taxis. People leaping over railings into traffic, drivers accelerating towards hobbling old women... The WALK sign here means 'go ahead and walk if nobody is speeding through on a right or left turn.' Seriously: the lanes never stop completely! It's terrifying! I could go on and on. The level of risk everyone seems willing to take is quite stunning.

On the other hand, the city deserves props for incredible bike lanes on every street, as well as nice long, green, bench-lined parks for shade and outdoor exercise equipment. I can't imagine what they'd do without the bike lanes (which is why they're probably there – their cost-benefit analysts couldn't imagine, either). And I really can't imagine what the streets will be like, come August. Where will all those people fit?

So, that's a typhoon.

April, Shauna, and I spent their first day in Hong Kong walking around in a typhoon that introduced us to a whole new understanding of rain.

STANDBY SIGNAL NO. 1 is in force

STANDBY SIGNAL NO. 1

Tropical Cyclone Bulletin

Here is the latest Tropical Cyclone Bulletin issued by the
Hong Kong Observatory.

The Standby Signal, No. 1 is in force.

This means that a tropical cyclone now centred within about
800 kilometres of Hong Kong may affect us.

At 1 a.m., Typhoon Neoguri was estimated to be about 650
kilometres south-southwest of Hong Kong (near 16.9 degrees
north 111.7 degrees east) and is forecast to move
north-northwest at about 14 kilometres per hour in the
general direction of Hainan Island.


DISPATCHED BY HONG KONG OBSERVATORY AT 00:45 HKT ON 18.04.2008

Helloooooo?

I have really fallen behind in my blogging. I'm going to post a few of the bigger goings-on very soon. In the mean time, here are a few random pictures, accompanied by the shortest of short stories:

One Saturday morning recently, I was awoken to a loud noise. As if someone was surgically removing my apartment from the rest of the building. Turns out, they were! This is a photo of two men standing on the bamboo scaffolding on the 6th floor, using a drill. I took it with my head out of my bedroom window, bright and early. The apartment extraction continues to this day.
~ The End ~




Look at these nice people! My friend Charles shot a picture of me, Erin, and Mike after a party at the Blue House in Cheung Sha Wan, where the AiR artists are housed. We were feeling invigorated after a rousing afternoon of debating the ethics of community art. Hey, I'm wearing this same shirt right now!
~ The End ~






Erin and I went to Macau. We saw a dog W.C. there! It was a large cylinder in a public park, filled with sand. A tree grew in the center.
~The End~

On the Street Where You Live

Dance Hall I
Originally uploaded by redredredred

Deborah has already done a great job of describing the interior of the Expert Room, but the building in which it resides deserves mention. She lives in a relatively small high-rise for Hong Kong (when I ventured upstairs to find roof access I counted between eight and ten stories). It is currently encased in bamboo scaffolding and green netting. From Monday through Saturday, workers remove portions of the building in what appears to be a gradual and randomized process of destruction rather than construction. Rectangular pieces of drywall disappear from the stairwell daily. The stairways are slowly being chipped away, revealing the tangle of metal bars that provide their structural support. Saturday mornings bring the sound of jackhammers right outside the gate to the Expert Room and the sense that one has been unknowingly cast in a commercial for headache medicine. It's actually rather enjoyable--one never knows what will happen next.

The situation provides a fitting metaphor for the city of Hong Kong, which seems to be constantly under construction and in many ways does not resemble the city I visited a mere three years ago. Landmarks such as the Star Ferry Terminal have disappeared and are now visible only in the form of nostalgic souvenirs at upscale design shops. Beautiful but dilapidated high rises that I recall photographing during my last visit are also gone, replaced by newer, taller, and brighter high rises. All but the most famous remnants of colonialism are tough to find unless you really know where to look and what you are looking for.

I am not a knee-jerk preservationist, totally opposed to new development in all its forms. Yet at the same time, I wonder where this is going. How much of this is truly necessary? At what point does it become irresponsible? Will the charm of the city's streets and the people who inhabit them be completely destroyed in waves of new construction? As Hong Kong's public spaces change, how will the customs and rituals formed within those spaces change? What will daily life look like? When will Deborah return home to find the contents of the bright and spacious Expert Room buried under a pile of debris and her next door neighbor hanging a daily load of laundry (giant white underwear and all) on bits of broken concrete?

What will be lost, and what will emerge from the rubble? Thankfully, there are organizations and artists here dedicated to examining these questions and more.

Ma On Shan Country Park

Hong Kong has amazing, well-kept hiking trails through the mountains just a short ride out of the city. Yesterday, Mike and I spent most of the day hiking from Ma On Shan Country Park back to Kowloon. We were in search of a river where we could shoot some video for a project we're working on, and the map of the New Territories had tons of little rivers all over the country parks north of the urban areas. We found some good possibilities while walking until we couldn't walk any more.

As I know from my other trip to the mountains here, the views of the city and the sea are stunning here. Because of incredibly thick fog, we didn't see anything more than 40' in front of us all day: never a single glimpse of the sea. Our limited view of the landscape was magical, though.

Here's some more pictures on flickr.

Usurper! Usurper! (or, Collaborator! Collaborator!)

Second Sight
Originally uploaded by redredredred

Deborah has gone above and beyond the call of duty as my hostess in Hong Kong. Not only has she graciously opened up the Expert Room for my comfort, convenience, and consumption of oatmeal during the last week, but she has offered me space on her blog to contribute a few thoughts about my experiences in China.

This, friends, is what the public humanities are all about. Further entries are forthcoming.