[Video Essay] Stressful City

Concept Board 

Transcript 

My life has been rushing through the endless corridor 

In this stressful city 

Countless competitions pushing me forward 

I try to meet everyone’s expectation 

Try to survive in this city 

Try to thrive and I lost myself 

If I would have another opportunity to walk through this corridor 

I will stop and look for the view or door beside

Video Essay

Although Hong Kong just ranked the top in the life expectancy city, the stress level and the health condition are a worthy problem. This video aims to use the corridor as a metaphor to deliver the helplessness in Hong Kong’s stressful competition.

In the beginning of the story, the girl is eating the unhealthy food and work until 3am, these detrimental habit have harm her health and turn into the cancer. These working scene represent a norm in hong Kong culture, people are so used the intensive lifestyle, starting from the primary school children will sent to the tutorial class after the school or “interest class”, when most interview with parent asking for the reason for doing that just simply they think everyone is doing that. We do not have time to rethink our real interest and explore the world by slowing down our step. moreover, we have the longest working hour around the world, with a average of 50.1 hours a week, more than a sixth of all respondents from the city said they could not manage their stress. Beside that with a high level of stress, health problems occur essaily. According to a research in Hong Kong, the healthy living index is 57 points out of 100 which is much lower than other Asian countries like Mainland China which scored 72 out of 100. Moreover, people in Hong Kong are not satisfied with their own health condition, the busy workload leads to an average of 6.5 hours of sleep, less than 2.7 hours of work out a week. Doctor also suggest people in HK should reduce the stress level and think through a more positive mind set. 

In this bustling city, we scarify our living standard including sleeping and eating unhealthy fast food to sustain the achievement of our ultimate goal and overwhelm workload. After the girl get back her result from body check, the cancer news made her related her life with the corridor in front of her. She has been living in this fast paced city and most of the time she was driven by the endless competition, just like the corridor that she could not see the end of it. She can not escape from the stressful environment since everyone else is rushing to their destination. However when we are rushing through the corridor we miss out on the views and possible doors besides. 

Bibliography 

music by Melancholy – https://link.ashamaluevmusic.com/fhNS

Unhealthy spot for Hong Kong https://stedu.stheadline.com/sec/article/15584/TheStudentStandard-Local-Unhealthy-spot-for-Hong-Kong

All work and no play makes Hongkongers the world’s fifth most stressed population https://www.scmp.com/business/article/2154538/all-work-and-no-play-makes-hongkongers-worlds-fifth-most-stressed 

Matsumoto Ami 3035831305

2 thoughts on “[Video Essay] Stressful City

  1. u3575906 says:

    It is an interesting and creative idea to draw a parallel between corridors and our life journeys. I also sometimes have the feeling that my life is stressful and purposeless, just like rushing and wandering in an endless corridor. Living a life and doing the same boring and stressful things every day in order to meet other people’s expectations or doing it just because everyone else is doing it is suppressing. It is good that you bring out the positive message that we should think and live outside the box, just like gazing out the windows and stepping out of the doors beside the corridors, when we are emersed in excessive competitions.

    However, one small suggestion to give is that I could not feel much stressfulness in the video. Instead, I am feeling more of the loss and regretfulness of the main character. Maybe magnifying the stressfulness at the beginning of the video will help intensify the hopelessness and regretfulness of the girl at the end. This may also help deliver the message of ‘stressful city’ better.

    Reply
  2. Putri Santoso says:

    Nice shots you have there. Your storyline was also quite straightforward, by showing the contrast of hard work and overtime versus the underlying implication of such habit. However, it is rather unclear how you used the corridor as a narrative. I can understand how you wished to use the corridor as a metaphor, but I would also like to encourage you to explore it through questions and certain logic of inquiries. For example, how does the corridor reflect such stressfulness and unhealthy habit? Why (or how) is the corridor take part in this stressful city? What are its roles? Furthermore, what kind of discoveries have you found throughout your research processes?

    For academic assignments, please do include proper citation both to support your argument and, especially, for words that are not yours. For example, you mentioned the statistics of the research in your text. Remember to cite them properly. Aside from that, I would suggest you also relate the video essay to at least one of the concepts we had been discussing this semester.

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