LNII stands for Lower Ngau Tau Kwok (II) Estate, the last resettlement estate to be redeveloped in Hong Kong. The first seven instalments of this series can be read 1here, 2here, 3here, 4here, 5here, 6here and 7here. The photos presented in this series were taken by me with my GX200 during my two visits to the estate. This last post of the series showcases photos of doors taken at the LNII.
(Looking through the ventilation holes inside a block)
When I left the LNII on the second visit, there was a wistful sense of anti-climax. After walking through the history and seeing the ways of life frozen in time at the LNII, I thrilled with the illusionary feeling that they were actually mummied people and shops putting up a show for the photographers. Probably it was a show going on forever.
However, I, being whisked away from the LNII in a car through the long Metro tunnel flickering with whitish lights, knew that this was the last time I visited a place where I had never been to and would never be to again.
The LNII blocks have been the standing monuments to the folk history of Hong Kong. But soon, they will be brought to the destiny: be a part of the history they represent.
"Is that the only destiny?" a thought struck me.
(This view of the LNII will be gone some months later)
Can one of the residential blocks or schools be converted into something else? Half of the block into an old Hong Kong museum and the other half into a petite hotel? How about letting creative minds to try special catering ideas in some of the residential units? How about allowing the old folks to teach old tricks in some premises on concessionary, like making a paper tiger?
Pulling them all down for putting up new residential buildings is the blandest, uncreative way to destroy history.
With residents moving out, shops closing down and the works project in the pipeline, the doors to other possibilities are sealed. And another big part of the old Hong Kong is going to vanish behind the closed doors, the doors to the past.
The Door ~ by Miroslav Holub, Russian Poet
Go and open the door.
Maybe outside there's
a tree, or a wood,
a garden,
or a magic city.Go and open the door.
Maybe a dog's rummaging.
Maybe you'll see a face,
or an eye,
or the picture
of a picture.Go and open the door.
if there's a fog
it will clear.Go and open the door.
Even if there's only
the darkness ticking,
even if there's only
the hollow wind,
even if nothing is there,
go and open the door.
(The electricity meters, the doors and the shrine for the god of earth)
The Lockless Door
by Robert Frost, American Poet
It went many years,
But at last came a knock,
And I though of the door
With no lock to lock.
I blew out the light,
I tip-toed the floor,
And raised both hands
In prayer to the door.
But the knock came again.
My window was wide;
I climbed on the sill
And descended outside.
Back over the sill
I bade a 'Come in'
To whatever the knock
At the door may have been.
So at a knock
I emptied my cage
To hide in the world
And alter with age.
(Posters of the Chinese guardian god of doors are posted on the door)
The Door to Tuol Sleng Prison ~by Dennis Siluk
How many have walked through those steel doors
How many have walked on those wooden floors
Shackled like a butchered boar
How many, how many more:
Were put into those stifling, stone cells scared
How many, how many more:
Tasted brutality, worse than hell or war
Died on the brick of hunger,
Died slowly on the brick of psychosis
In Tuol Sleng Prison (Cambodia) forgotten!
How many, how many more:
Died with crushed bones, and skulls
How many grass eaters, vomited their guts
In Tuol Sleng Prison (Cambodia) forgotten!
How many died by the Khmer Rouge regime
How many died by Pol Pot and Kaing Guek Eav
If you shut your door to all errors, truth will be shut out
Rabindranath Tagore,
Indian Poet
The Door
~by Richard Edwards,
English Poet
A white door in
the hawthorn hedge -
Who lives through there?
A sorcerer? A wicked witch
with serpents in her hair?
A king enchanted into stone?
A lost princess?
A servant girl who works all night
spinning a cobweb dress?
A queen with slippers made of ice?
I'd love to see.
A white door in a hawthorn hedge-
I wish I had a key.
Youth will come here
and beat on my door,
and force its way in.
Henrik Ibsen,
Norwegian Dramatist
(This is the door to a kindergarten, well befitting the above quote )
A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of.
Ogden Nash, American Humorist
With this, we come to the End of the LNII Series.
(Two of the photos published by permission, courtesy of Chris Guy)
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