(Camera: Ricoh GX200; a head-up view of an old building in Kwun Tong)
There is an explanation for the haphazard lines or, to be exact, electricity wires crisscrossing in the air.
There is an explanation for the haphazard lines or, to be exact, electricity wires crisscrossing in the air.
In the old Hong Kong, electricity supply was given to registered households but not the squatters of the ubiquitous shanty areas across the territories. In those ramshackle huts of the squatters were however also families which needed electricity. What could they do to give a quick fix to the matter? It was to steal power by connecting electricity wires to the unprotected electricity meters from which electricity was streamed to the registered households in the tall residential blocks. With a bit of imagination, you could see in your mind’s eye how dreadful was the sight of those crisscrossing tentacles of power, and actually of desperate hope, rising from the ground level and crossing the sky to the tall buildings around.
Here in the shot the wires are not for stealing electricity. But it is no doubt the remnant of the past that the wires are arranged so casually to connect electricity to the kiosks in this open-air market at which the shot was taken.
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