[Reading Response] De Certeau, M. (1984). Walking in the City, and Spatial Stories.

From the perspective of De Certeau, I believe that the practice of urban space in Hong Kong, especially against a backdrop of towering buildings, is a rewriting of the city’s text by every individual’s actions and choices. The high-density residential and commercial areas compel residents to find personalized ways to utilize limited spaces, such as rooftop gardens and corner shops, which are personal statements against standardized spaces. These seemingly trivial daily practices form the unique social texture and cultural landscape of Hong Kong. Therefore, as a young person growing up in this city, I place great importance on those spatial

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Moving House Reflection

For the Chinese, both the residence of the living ones and the burial of departed relatives and friends are extraordinarily important and have the requirement and hope for long-lasting stability. But when the compulsory expansion of living and the preservation of the grave conflict with each other, the helplessness of the living and the dead is so similar. The guardianship of loved ones and and the effort to protect estates from demolitions have the same willingness and powerlessness to protect their privacy and feelings.

[Reading Response] Leaving the Movie Theatre_Roland Barthes

Barthes’s essay compares the movie-going experience to a response to idleness and leisure, with the darkness and environment of the movie theater, discussing his experiences in and after leaving the movie theater: the state of hypnosis, “pseudo-nature” as well as the healing cocoon.   What I found most thought-provoking in Barthes’s essay was beyond the discussion of hypnosis. It is the discourses about how to get unglued to the “mirror”. Because this is what I often experience after watching movies, and it is even the obsession that prevented me from movie in a way. After seeing art films like Dead

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