http://https://youtu.be/E9U8fIs-mRc
Park Junseo
UID: 3035859929
夢伴：Dream Lover – Duddell street 煤氣燈街 (Gas Lamp Street)
Duddell street, also known as Gas Lamp street, is one of the last four remaining gas lamps in Hong Kong, still lighting the way. Among the highly developed metropolis of Central, Hong Kong, the street maintains its unique atmosphere from 20th century, with its combination of modern buildings and vintage gas lamps. It is also the location from music video of Dream Lover by Anita Mui (夢伴). I wanted the video to capture the contrasting image of once-popular cultural spot standing in the middle of the city’s center, yet not being able to be recognized.
My video essay revolves around the ‘the city of disappearance,’ the concept created by Ackbar Abbas in his book Hong Kong; Culture and the Politics of Disappearance. Abbas introduces a few interesting perspectives regarding the transient culture unique to Hong Kong, and what makes Hong Kong a disappearing city.
I have crafted my video and essay mostly on Abbas’ book, and how he views the identity of Hong Kong. He provides insight on how architecture and culture connects, especially for Hong Kong as a fast developing, independent city and aimless colony. I also investigated how other researchers interpretated colonized identity of Hong Kong, though not only limited to her; the culture, especially the culture of disappearance is heavily influenced by how the outer forces act on them.
Hong Kong is a unique colony in two different senses; it does not have the past before the colonization (it was a small village dedicated for fishing) and there is a huge economic—though it has been reduced significantly in recent years—, cultural and ideological gap between mainlanders and Hong Kongers. It is also pretty obvious that Hong Kong has profited in unprecedented among via United Kingdom’s colonization. In the world becoming more and more internationalized, colonization is a middle step between imperialism and globalization, says Abbas. Hong Kong’s colonization is full of unclear connection and disconnection, which separates it form traditional colonization.
Hong Kong was a “cultural desert,” says Abbas. Culture was also an import from China or the Western world. It’s not that Hong Kong didn’t have its own culture, it was just a case of reverse hallucination, or negative hallucination as Freud mentioned. Not seeing what’s there.
It has been a “floating” city and it has been an identity of Hong Kong; many foreigners and even Hong Kongers considered Hong Kong as a temporary stop. Hong Kong was considered t be a transient space and a point where many times and spaces intersect. Hong Kong is also standing in a strange space between reliance and separation from both China and the UK. Because it does not have a past, it cannot become the subordinate part of China after the return of the 1997.
Hong Kong’s liveliness is from its sense of “decadence”, according to Abbas. This means that the political desires and aspirations that had no way to go exploded in economic growth. Capitals, stock markets, fashion and consumerism was the only way to freedom. Decadence in Hong Kong does not mean a decay, but rather one-dimentional development within a closed space. This is what made it difficult to recognize Hong Kong’s culture.
Disappearance is not a problem of removal. It’s about replacement.
The lamp we see here is clearly a representation of the Western culture that was imported from UK. However, if we look around, what we see right now is much more westernized and globalized, in a sense. Yet why do we consider this, an old lamp a hundred year old, to be a western object? This lamp has more history related to Hong Kong culture than any other things on this street.
Once, this was a popular spot used for the biggest star of Cantopop for her music video. It’s pretty ironic, that the song title was Dream Lover. This lamp is a representation of the dream lover, the one we all imagine but never get to meet in real life. We don’t see the lamp anymore. We don’t recognize it anymore. This is the story of disappearance of this lamp.
Bibliography:
Your video employs the oldest gas lamp in Hong Kong on Duddell Street and its ambivalence to its history to demonstrate the city’s culture of disappearance as introduced by Abbas. I appreciate the research and your textual analysis of this cultural phenomena, it is well-explained. I think your investigation can be pushed further if you were to take an antithetical object to the gas lamp, perhaps contemporary signage, in order to have a hollistic view on the disappearance and inevitable re-appearance of urban symbols. More thought into the filming or storyboarding will also be beneficial for your video.