I crossed Hennessey Road, with its clattering trams and two huge modernesque cinemas showing American films, and came out on the waterfront by the Mission to Seamen. Next to the Mission was a big hotel called the Luk Kwok, famous for Chinese wedding receptions and obviously too expensive for me even to try… Sampans tied up amongst the junks tossed sickeningly in the wash of passing boats. Across the road from the quay were narrow, open-fronted shops, between which dark staircases led up to crowded tenement rooms; and along the pavement children played hopscotch whilst shoveling rice into their mouths from bowls, for all Chinese stone. A rickshaw went by, the coolie’s broad grimy feet making a slapping sound on the road. Then my eyes fell on an illuminated sign amongst the shops. The blue neon tubes were twisted into the complicated, decorative shapes of Chinese characters. I recognized the last two. They meant hotel.

The two writers described two very different pictures of Hong Kong. The photos below can also demonstrate two different aspects of Hong Kong across time and space.


This photo of Queen's Road Central, Hong Kong, was taken in 1962. How does this photo compare to My Day in Temple Street, an art work by Chu Hing-Wah?


This photo of Mongkok pedestrian district was taken in 2008. Are there differences in these two photos? How does Hong Kong actually 'look' like? Stephen Wiltshire, the autistic artist, has amazing insights. He may not be able to communicate elegantly with words, but his art works illuminate his brilliant mind. The two skyline landscape pictures, day and night, show a Hong Kong that we seem to be familiar with. Do the pictures match Liu Yichang's or Richard Mason's descriptions ?

Hong Kong at night is really very beautiful. Looking down from here, the Kowloon peninsula in the distance is as beautiful as a painting actually it is even more beautiful than a painting. Lights have been switched on in thousands of buildings, and they glimmer like slivers of pearl on a piece of blank velvet. The ships afloat in the harbour channel, the tall buildings in Central – they are real, but they also seem to lack the reality they should have.

Liu Yichang, Indecision.

The ferryboat came churning alongside and the crowd moved forward. We jostled together up the gangplank – and chose one of the slatted, bench-seats on the covered top deck. The ferries were Chinese owned and run, and very efficient, and we had hardly sat down before the water was churning again, the engines rumbling, the boat palpitating – and we were moving off busily past the Kowloon wharves past anchored merchant-ships past great clusters of junk… We wounded the tip of the Kowloon peninsula heading slantwise across the channel for Wanchai, the most populous district of Hong Kong’s eastern flank.

Richard Mason, The World of Suzie Wong (1957)

Hong Kong through the eyes of real estate developers

We shape our buildings, and afterwards our buildings shape us.

Sir Winston Churchill, From a speech delivered to
House of Commons, 28 October 1943

Hong Kong is the hybrid mix of East and West, wealth and poverty, and, night and day in the eyes of artists. But what are our buildings like? In particular, how do we 'imagine' our city? How do we imagine the future of our city? Shifting a minute from literary conceptions of Hong Kong, we will see the ways real estate developers imagine our city. In the last few years, we came across names of residential blocks that appeared to have nothing to do with Hong Kong. Now, instead of living in Kowloon West, we can actually tell our friends we are somewhere 'in' Manhattan! Are we in Kowloon West or Manhattan? Can we take the name of a residential block at its face value?

Sorrento (Italy / HK)	The Long Beach (California / HK)
Bel Air (California / HK)	Manhattan (NY / Manhattan Hill, HK)
Beverly Hills (California / HK)	Madison (NY / One Madison, HK)
Roppongi Hills (Tokyo / HK)	Soho (London / Soho 38, HK)

Here are some more 'selling points' of our newest residential blocks...

• Cosmopolitan living above new Kowloon West
• A landmark in living: island east, island prime...
• Welcome to Hong Kong's hippest new space.
• Up here...where the air is RARE
• The hub of Asia's World City
  

What do these advertising sales pitches say about our dreams? What is the power of language use? Are we only looking at the words? What do the music and visual images tell us about our 'dream homes'? Can the languages in advertisements inspire us? When is a language use artistic and creative? When is it deceitful? Are artists and real estate developers seeing two very different Hong Kong? What do the ordinary Hong Kong citizens see then?

More photos and online articles about buildings...
You can see more old Hong Kong photos from these albums:
A historical look at Hong Kong
Hong Kong 70s and 80s
Old Hong Kong
HK Buckeye

Going up and up...Tall buildings in HK
Dreams for HK...how do you sell residential blocks in HK?
Chic living? 5 neighborhoods of HK from Time Out HK Magazine
Our residential buildings do have really fancy names, but are they eco-friendly?
Other than buildings, we can also look at the signs...this is a cool article on bilingual signs


Reading
Cheng, H.H-L. (2001). Consuming a dream: Homes in advertisements and imagination in contemporary Hong Kong. In G. Mathews & T-L. Lui (Eds.), Consuming Hong Kong (pp. 205-236). Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.

Cheung, S.C.H., & Ma, E.K.W. (2005). Advertising modernity: Home, space and privacy. Visual Anthropology, 18(1), 65-80.

Kong, K.C.C. (2006). Property transaction report: News, advertisement or a new genre? Discourse Studies, 8(6), 771-796.