Buntings

This is of an old building in the neighbourhood. In case you wonder whether the underwear was what first caught my attention, my answer is a resounding YES. In fact the shot was taken on a footbridge which was just three metres away. How embarrassing that the tenants have to dry the underwear virtually in front of the passers-by! 

The way of drying clothes like this has its history. In the colonial era (Hong Kong had undergone British colonial rule for over 100 years until 1997, in case you don't know) when I was a little boy, most locals lived in shaggy  resettlement blocks. The apartments were so tiny that meals were prepared in the public corridors and washing had to be dried on bamboo sticks hanging on the walls of the blocks. Imagine the scene: motleys of washing of different sizes and shapes flapping in the wind with the bamboo sticks rattling. We nicknamed them "makwokate", or literally "buntings of all nations". Buntings on bamboo sticks are still common sights in the older residential areas.