Exoticism

A poster and a T-shirt depicting one of the celebration activities on the Cheung Chau Bun Festival today: the Piu Sik parade.  The big characters say, Peaceful.

After having been to Cheung Chau for so many times, I still find it surprising on every new visit.  The explanation may lie in the stark contrast of it to the urban areas in every noticeable way.  The community is more closely bonded together as everyone seems to know others he or she runs into on the street which can be told from their friendly greetings.

A typical lane on Cheung Chau

Oh, I shouldn't say "street".  "Lane" is the proper word for what crisscrossing the island is a labyrinth of narrow lanes where every sort of daily activities take place.  This I think is one of the main source of Cheung Chau's exoticism that delights the visitors.

The Cheung Chau community is probably as old as human activities were recorded in Hong Kong.  For example, the Bun Festival can be traced back to the middle of the Qing Dynasty roughly 200 years ago.   First, it was a three-day worshipping to the Chinese deity Pak Dei (North King) to curse away the plague ramping on the island.  The tradition has been carried on to become today's yearly celebrative party for the whole island.

Some island residents told me that it has never rained on the Festival day because the heavens bless the island for reason of the "cleaning Tai Ping Tei" done beforehand.  Tai Ping means "peaceful" while Dei is "ground".   Simply put, the folks believe that the massive cleaning operation on the island brings good luck.  Fact is, as you can imagine, it was initially for the benefit of public health and hygiene which was pretty much why the Festival first took place in the imperial days.

 The facade of the Cheung Chau Theatre

In such a place as old as great grandpas, there are not just old traditions.  I ventured into the maze of lanes with the NX10 and stumbled into some deserted aged buildings.  One of them which held my interest most was the Cheung Chau Theatre, now turned into four external walls without a roof.

Since the pancake lens of the NX10 was not as wide as I liked it to be, I, standing in front of the theatre, couldn't get a full frontal picture of it.  So I walked the scene to find the best spot  and ended up in where I took the photo above.  I included in the shot a part of the stone parapet next to me to show a sense of depth as well as to balance the preponderance of the theatre building on the left of image.  It echoes the roughness of the place too.  Also, to give the viewers into the right spatial perspective, I waited until someone walked by before pressing the shutter release.  In fact I got several shots but like this one best because the passer-by was obviously an aged person which complements the oldness the image tries to capture.

The rusty gate of the theatre which shuts visitors out.  I like the colour.

Half an hour later, I was back to the promenade fronting the bay dotted by vessels of all sorts.  Suddenly, the siren went off behind me.  Turning my head over the shoulder, I was sort of amused to see the somewhat flattened ambulance swishing past me.  Apart from the emergency vehicles, Cheung Chau is free of road traffic.  There are lots of bike traffic of course.  Bike is the major transportation on the island.
 

The four Chinese characters say, "Been Here" which is the most popular phrase of graffiti by locals at the particular place they visit for the first time and probably will not come back for many a year.  "Been Here" is the name of an eatery.

Stay tuned for more about my NX10 photographic trip to Cheung Chau.