To Mao or [not] to marry

This installation in the window of Lane Crawford's 'home and lifestyle store' of colourful Mao cherubs hovering above a rather grim-looking couple is by Beijing artist Qu Guangci.
These Maos may well ponder their presence in a shop that was started by two Scotsmen, Thomas Ash Lane and Ninian Crawford, in a bamboo structure on the Hong Kong waterfront in 1850. This leading specialty store promises the best of everything from around the world. The weightlessness of the suspended angels is echoed in an earlier series of birdman works by Guangci that was influenced by Italo Calvino's story The baron in the trees and the paintings of Bada Shanren (1624-1705).

Guangci is attracted to Calvino's sense of fantasy, aesthetic freedom and flexibility but in particular his use of 'lightness':    
I always endeavor to lessen the sense of heaviness: the heaviness of human beings, the heaviness of heavenly bodies, and the heaviness of cities.

The light, pop-like irreverence of the Mao cherubs belie the heaviness of the Cultural Revolution from which these figures stem. The heaviness of cities and human beings was reported in the South China Post of 19 May 2011:

A 22-year-old woman in a wedding is grabbed and hauled to safety by a community officer after she jumped from a window in a seven-storey residential building in Changchung, Jilin province. According to reports, the dramatic rescue took place after the woman's boyfriend of four years jilted her as they were making plans to get married. The woman did not suffer any injuries in the incident.

This suspended angel did not have a moment of lightness of being in the city.

http://www.artzinechina.com/display.php?a=834 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IwBULAQa3k
http://www.artzinechina.com/display_vol_aid375_en.html

The groom, the bride, the bridesmaid and Starbucks

Just about every walk through Hong Kong Park you bump into a bridal party of some sorts. Somehow it is always compelling to watch the scenario being played out. It could be the bride on her own, but mostly the groom and bride and a few attendants as you see here. This is not the wedding day, but what they call pre-wedding photography, and already the white high-heels of the girls are scuffed as they traipse through the garden, in search of  unusual locations. In these days, when your glasses fog up as you go outside from the humidity, the bride and bridesmaids have difficulty composing themselves lugging elaborate dresses around underneath the heavy layers of make-up. Perspiration drip from their faces. In fact this whole party was made-up, including the groom. I took some pictures of them and despite the heat they looked wonderful. I was wondering if they made two matching bouquets, one for the pre-wedding photographs and then the wedding day itself. Four bridesmaids sat in our local Starbucks after a grueling session in front of the cameras, now imagine that in London!

Talking about flowers, enormous bouquets are presented at weddings or for businesses celebrations with large A4-sized hand-made writs. Bigger is better seems to be the ethos and they get carted around on delivery trollies. To my London trained eye, used to endless variations of posies or hand-ties, these arrangements seem overwhelming in their composition and choice of blooms. That is till I landed in Happy Valley, that airy neighborhood with a village feel curving around the racecourse that has a sense of space, and saw two florists specializing in the ubiquitous tight bunch of harmonizing or contrasting flowers.           

Pillars propping up the city

Cities and societies are propped up by numerous structures and practices. Cheap labour from mainland China and elsewhere has been in endless supply in Hong Kong since the early colonial era and is intrinsic to its economy and ease of living. An agency for 'maids' displayed a window covered with these photographs - all the women were in the same dress and pose. These sheets with personal data, work experience and preferences are personal advertisements for their services. 'Hyacinth is a 36 year old married Roman Catholic woman with 3 teenage children.' In her interview appraisal, she scored 'good' in all categories, including her facial expression (the agency seemed to score no one as being excellent in any category). She seems a godsend for any household, and the 'simple massage' listed as one of her many capabilities would send any Hong Kong matron seeking a house helper in the opposite direction. Do personnel agencies elsewhere display information of this personal nature I wonder? Lisa Law wrote about the Filipina women in Hong Kong (2002), gathering in public spaces around the Central area on Sundays, when they meet in groups to talk, eat and just generally be sociable. The clutter of these gatherings in Chater Park and elsewhere irked the city fathers and big commerce alike in the past, and barricades were put up to control their access to the city's few public spaces. Since I have been here, I have seen Filipina women in all kinds of public spaces during their spare time. They turn public concrete spaces briefly into private spaces with hunched conversations over plastic containers filled with rice, and as far as I can see, chicken pieces, before they return to keep the household wheels running smoothly again for their employers.


During the summer when the typhoons arrive, great amounts of water come gushing down the steep, hilly slopes in the city and could cause landslides. All the slopes are covered in concrete and netting cover the soil surrounding the trees. Narrow maintenance steps are barred to the public and only maintenance workers have  access. Deep gulleys and enormous storm water canals channel rainwater down to the sea. Structures such as these pillars prop up highways that cut through the city and obliterate the flow between areas and public spaces. The Zoological and Botanical Gardens are cut in two by Albany Road. The park is isolated from the rest of the city and nearby Hong Kong Park by flowing, circular roads. Few pavements make it difficult for pedestrian to navigate this area.