I’ll start with a giant teapot. My golden rule for any visitor to Hong Kong is this: expect the unexpected. Yet, even though I’ve lived in the territory, off and on, for more than 40 years, I was surprised to come across a teapot almost three metres in diameter during my cycling explorations east of Fanling in October.
I posted a photograph of the next image in Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes, but because a parked car forced me to take that photo from an oblique angle, I’ve included a straight-on take of this stunning image, painted on a derelict building in the village of Chow Tin. Holding one’s head in one’s hands will never seem the same once you’ve seen this masterpiece.
I was taking photographs for The Gates of Delirium when I cycled past the entrance in the next photo. An elaborate gateway such as this one would usually provide access to someone’s residence, so an articulated lorry (US: ‘semi-trailer’) immediately struck me as anomalous. The giveaway that this is not someone’s house is the sign on the gatepost on the right. The third and fourth characters read ‘company’, so despite the appearance these are commercial premises.
You should already be getting a sense that no sight is impossible when touring around the New Territories, but the next image still takes some believing. It’s a statue of what I interpret as a nineteenth-century American intellectual. Why American? The hat doesn’t seem quite European, but the real question is this: what was it doing in the middle of the Hong Kong countryside? It is no longer there.
The ‘frontier road’ is an exceptionally picturesque part of the New Territories that was part of the so-called ‘frontier closed area’ until 2013. As I cycle along this road, I often stop to take photos, but anyone seeing the scene that is shown in the next photo would do the same. While the Chinese side of the border is everyone’s idea of a twenty-first-century cityscape, the Hong Kong side is completely rural. The fish pond in this photo is now disused, and it isn’t often that it’s this smooth.
I post the next photograph with due respect. I was cycling along Kam Hang Road, west of Fanling, when my attention was attracted by the plaintive wail of a particular Chinese wind instrument whose sound is instantly recognizable, although I don’t know what it’s called. This is clearly the funeral of someone important, because I rarely see anything quite this elaborate. The interesting things to note are the sedan chair with bearers, the horse and the bridge. These are made of paper and will be burned, not as offerings but specifically for the use of the deceased in the afterlife.
Much less of the area around where I live is cultivated than was the case ten years ago, when I first moved here. And the most common crops are sang choi (Chinese lettuce) and other green vegetables. However, this winter, for the first time ever, sunflowers have been grown in three separate locations. I assumed at the time that this was because they were more valuable as cash crops. Of the three locations, I’ve chosen this because of the background—the painted huts.
But that isn’t the end of the story. In all three locations, the sunflowers were simply allowed to die off without any attempt at harvesting. Why? I suspect that the farmers had been told that they could make more money growing sunflowers, but they simply didn’t know what to do.
I was wandering around the south side at the beginning of January when I came across the aftermath of quite a large oil/petrol spill, which appeared to have originated on Sha Tau Kok Road, the main road out of Fanling to the east. As usual with this kind of photo, I’ve cranked up the contrast and the colour saturation:
A few days later, I attempted to gain access to Shek Lo, an abandoned Chinese mansion that is purportedly part of the Lung Yeuk Tau Heritage Trail, even though it can only be viewed from a distance. I have been inside before, as you’ve probably already guessed, but new fencing has now made access impossible. The next photo was taken around the back of the mansion, where there is a small bamboo ‘forest’. The most common bamboo species in Hong Kong grows in clumps, like grass, but in this case each stem is separate. And it’s quite difficult to find any way through!
I usually include something that strikes me as bizarre in these collections, and the next photo definitely fits that description. If it’s such a nice garden, then why surround it with razor wire? It’s actually the entrance to a nursery where you can buy ornamental plants.
I also like to include an abstract image and challenge readers to work out what it is. I don’t think that this one is easy, but it will be obvious if I point it out:
Every time I cycle out west, I look out for Buffalo Bill as I ride alongside the Shek Sheung River. I didn’t see him this winter until mid-December, and I haven’t seen him for the past few weeks, but his comfortable lifestyle has been disrupted by the construction of a bridge across the river for cyclists, which is a complete and utter waste of money!
This is Bill in jah tan (lazy) mode, which is how we most often see him nowadays:
We’re back on the frontier road for the next photo, which shows a large number of cormorants in a tree, with Shenzhen in the background. Cormorants are a common sight along the frontier road in December but have usually gone by the end of January, yet we were still seeing sights like this until the end of March this year. I blame global warming, but I have it on good authority that this idea is a Chinese hoax, specifically designed to address the ridiculous notion that cormorants would outstay their welcome along the Chinese border with Hong Kong.
Serendipity #1 is now a regular highlight of our Saturday bike ride, which means cycling past this mural and bougainvillea. The artwork is quite crude, but once again the very idea that someone would paint these images on a wall that very few people will ever see is, for me, an affirmation of the human spirit. But unless you’re familiar with Chinese culture, you will not be aware that the tree on the right is a ‘wishing tree’. The idea is that you write out a wish, weight it with coins and throw it up into the tree. If it lodges there, then your wish will come true. There are trees in the New Territories that are believed to have this property.
I’ve taken other photos here where the magenta of the bougainvillea is far more intense, but the papaya in the foreground is almost twice the height. Papayas are unbelievably easy to grow by the way, and you will have fruit within two years of planting the initial seed.
After posting Jeepers Creepers last year, I had intended to do a follow-up this year, but I couldn’t find enough new examples of a firecracker vine to justify such a step. However, I did find one example that is more spectacular than any of the ones I photographed last year. It is located at the top of an alleyway that starts from the Ng Tung River, several kilometres downstream from where we live. This alleyway is a fun cycling challenge, by the way (the section shown in the photo is much steeper than it looks).
The next photo is of the Ng Tung River close to where we live. At first glance, it might seem like a nondescript view, but focus your attention on the water. I’ve recorded pollution here before (Troubled Waters, Rainbow River), but this seems more subtle. Obviously, I’ve avoided any manipulation of the image, which I think is aesthetically quite pleasing, although of course I deplore the pollution. I’ve a pretty good idea of where it came from, and if I could have pinpointed the culprit, I would have had no hesitation in dobbing them in.
It’s Bill again! He’d been idling on the mudbank off the picture to the left, but what this photo shows is how tricky it is for him to make his way back to where he can get something to eat. You’ve probably seen it: concrete with regularly spaced round holes. Well, that’s what the riverbed consists of here. Bill is trying to reach the ramp on the right, and it does look awkward. It’s the only time I’ve seen him in this particular area.
The next image is this year’s mystery candidate. I was cycling along Ma Tso Lung Road back in March when I spotted what appeared to be the remnants of some kind of quasi-religious ceremony. It was on the surface of a passing place, which may or may not be significant. The five yellow pieces of paper appear to represent some kind of mythical beast, and it probably isn’t a coincidence that there are five smashed eggs. The black area in the bottom left is probably the ashes of something that was incinerated at the time, while the candles in the top right have been stuck into what look like Tientsin pears. There are what might be two sugar mice, while the white receptacle in the middle contains candy. If you can explain any of this, please leave a comment.
I’ve been saying for years that the last time I saw rice being grown in Hong Kong was in 1975. However, as part of the exploration of the so-called Long Valley that I described in Farmland Fandango, I came across the following:
I do wonder if this really is rice (not having seen it being grown for more than 40 years), because it would not seem justifiable economically to cultivate such a small area for this kind of crop, but the photo does convey the rural nature of far more of Hong Kong than most people realize. And it explains why I enjoy cycling around the New Territories so much. You never know what you will find.
Goat meat must be pretty popular in Hong Kong nowadays, if the sheer number of goats I encounter on my travels is anything to go by. A few days ago, I was cycling along the Drainage Services access road that runs alongside our local river when I encountered a huge herd with no one, apparently, in charge. This guy was the back marker:
And that’s what I spend my time doing in Hong Kong.
other posts in this series
Photographic Highlights 2015–16
Photographic Highlights 2016–17
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