The theme of my video is the “disappearing city”. The inspiration of this is on Ackbar Abbas’s comments on building on disappearances that Hong Kong is going through (Abbas, 1997). As its main arguments, Abbas was criticizing heavily on how quick Hong Kong changes and does not let what has been built to mature. And so, I conjectured that there are probably some places in Hong Kong where its architecture is very much distinct from its surroundings and its preservation of context had failed. The Chi Lin nunnery fit this search of mine. The name and the location it was put in I believe greatly explain most of the reasons why this place was the perfect fit. It is surrounded by the modern city with tourists going out and about. Modern buildings, and the likes dwarf the history of the nunnery. The very image of what I have in regard to Buddhist life is completely mismatched with what I saw. Even with the fact that the building is one of its kind left in Hong Kong (Victoria, 2022), with its special type of architecture where it is built mainly by interlocking wood pieces (Chi Lin Nunnery. “Tang Style Architecture”. 2021), it had felt no different to me from anywhere else in the city. It is not special at all, and I believe this was what Ackbar Abbas felt when he saw what Hong Kong has become.
To conduct my research I had, as implied, visited the nunnery myself. I visited on a Sunday afternoon and, as expected, there were many people there. Taking pictures, enjoying the scenery and so on. To prove my point, I needed to show how out of context the building was. At the time, I thought this was going to be a challenge, but I’d be wrong. As I took a tour around the monastery, I felt an overwhelming feeling that this place is not as I had expected it to be. Perhaps, due to the journey of getting to this place to begin with. For context, one additional reason for why I wanted to go here in the first place was to experience and see how the Buddhists live. Furthermore, my original thought was to go against Abbas’s critique and show that although Hong Kong has a fast-paced environment, I can still enjoy its ‘outdated’ culture with respect to the city. To see that this was not the case, I had to change my mind during the site visit. As I searched as to why I feel this way, I stumbled upon one thing. While taking pictures and videos of the place as I stroll around, I noticed that it was quite difficult to take pictures of the nunnery without involving the background modernized city. And so, that was it. I immediately concluded that the reason why I feel the way I felt is because I always get a subconscious reminder of me never really leaving the city. I could not properly experience how the Buddhist monks or nuns have lived. Then, to set up the video, I just follow this premise. Most of the shots that I took had some apartment buildings creeping in the background overlooking the nunnery. Some of the picture stills I used as montages to hopefully be able to show how the city has already sort of ‘infected’ the nunnery. This is to show how I feel and what I saw when I was there. Some other shots were of me walking and strolling around the nunnery. These kinds were reserved for two things. For the introduction and for the argument on how I agree with Ackbar Abbas and his view and for when I also give how I felt. I hope these long-winded shots are more well suited to create an atmosphere that I am currently ‘thinking slowly’.
For reflection, now I understand that I am not the type of person to just be able to casually absorb what the environment has to offer. I should go in with higher expectations and knowledge next time than I do this time. I also think that I should have done more reading on the place. However, this was quite a challenge as I could barely find any more than just a couple of short sentences describing the place from websites on the internet. I suppose next time I should try to talk to the locals or look for more references perhaps in movies or any other kind of media and compare them. Additionally, I should try to argue with more rigor before visiting the place and imagine what it would be like to be put there and make another argument after I see the place for myself and compare the two arguments I have made. I think this would bear more interesting views and opinions than just trying to make a comment after one visit and one experience for it.
Bibliography:
- Abbas, M. A. (1997). Hong Kong: Culture and the politics of disappearance (pp. 63-90). Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.
- Chi Lin Nunnery. (2021). “Tang style Architecture”. http://en.chilin.org/buddhism/architecture/index.html
- Victoria, M.M. (2022). “Harmonious balance at Chi Lin Nunnery”. https://www.culture-hongkong.com/chi-lin-nunnery
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Abel Haris Harsono
I appreciate your attempt to investigate on the ideas of ‘disappearing city’ with the historical nunnery. For your case, the city grew around the nunnery instead of vice versa. You may also touch on the idea of re-appearance to deepen and extend your research.