Category Archives: Architecture

Architecture, Fashion, Japan

City of Extremes

Harajuku, Tokyo

traditional wedding
After stopping to watch a sombre wedding parade at the shrine, I pass through streets dotted with candy-coloured girls who look like they have been lifted out of a manga cartoon. Thanks to the media, Japan has a lot to live up to. Wandering around Harajuku on a leisurely Sunday morning, I get the feeling that my expectations will be met. A small place filled with a strong sense of tradition and unusual extremes. This will be a city visit with a bipolar personality.

harujuku 2

Architecture, China, Green

Honest Vegetarian Food

Xin Xing

templerestaurant3
It’s not so unusual in China to open the menu of a temple restaurant to find an array of imitation meats; fake duck, fake chicken, fake fish… Not that there is anything wrong with imitating meat, it is however a strange concept given buddhist beliefs. So it is somewhat refreshing when you stumble across a temple canteen in the hills that serves simple flavourful vegetarian food that is not pretending to be anything else.

templerestaurant4
Calligraphy menu.

Architecture, China, Product

2 Years On

Tuohe


AiJiLun inspects my crudely drawn sketches of ideas for birchbark items, somewhat baffled at her perceived complexity of them. I met her just under 2 years ago (More is Equal to Less). She has no recollection of who I am, oblivious to the fact that it was the few days I spent watching her work and talking to her niece-in-law (Fire of Knowledge) that I became fascinated with the Oronchen and birchbark world.

It was this fascination that initiated my return to Northern China and to Tuohe. As I wandered around this tiny village, recognising faces but no longer the buildings, I am struck by how much yet how little had changed. Bulldozed and rebuilt beyond recognition was where I stayed on my previous visit (The Great Firewall). Most of the residents have been or are in the process of being relocated to a large area just on the outskirts of the town in rows of tidy identical terraced bungalows. Driving slowly down one of the lanes, we attempt to drop off an uncle of a friend who has trouble recognising his house from all the others that look the same. This is the new landscape of modern village life in China, and those caught up in the change are still finding their way.

Architecture, Graphics, Green, Hong Kong

What a Difference a Rainbow Makes

Wing Lee Street


Historical building preservation, something to celebrate right?
Not for everyone. The owner of this house had been waiting for compensation and relocation. Wing Lee Street had originally been part of a redevelopment plan, until the film “Echos of the Rainbow” made it famous and indestructible. Under this new preservation scheme, residents will only be able to sell their buildings at market value, which despite their location is relatively low, as the buildings are in very bad repair and over 60 years old.

While I am glad that this little snippet of old Hong Kong charm will be saved the destiny of becoming another high-rise block, I am only too aware of the irony. For the residents, the sudden increase in historical value of their homes has decreased the monetary value, and for the time being taken away from them an immediate improved standard of living. As the surrounding area is proliferating rapidly, whether they will benefit in the long term, only time will tell.