QI LEMUGE

This is a figure-ground drawing of a residential area that sits next to Boundry Street. Boundry Street was the boundary line of the colonial area during 1841 and 1930. Now it runs in an easterly direction from its start at the intersection with Tung Chau Street in the west, and ends at its intersection with Prince Edward Road West in the east, near the former Kia Tak Airport. In the present day, however, New Kowloon is not regarded as part of the New Territories, but as part of the Kowloon urban area (on both sides of Boundary Street).

This aerial view shows the city block that I selected which sits next to Boundary Street. Five buildings together formed this triangular block. This block is mostly built up by residential buildings. Some of them have different kinds of shops on the first floor which allows interaction of people.

This drawing shows the key characteristics of the city block I selected. A lot of m favorite movies depicted Hong Kong, called it the city of cyberpunk, I wanted my picture to look futuristic so I gave my graphic a blue tone and typed in pink because these are colors of neon lights (which is common in Hong Kong). On another side of the Boundary Road is a garden. There is a temple called Kuan Tai Temple on the north of this block, some people in Hong Kong believe in Buddhism, especially old people. Right next to the temple is a clinic, which offers Chinese medicine. On the east side, there is a school. Around the city block, from religious spots to education and medicine, the essential elements of Hong Kong people’s life are almost complete. Circulations of vehicles and people have been shown by different arrows.

Just as it is mentioned before, Boundry Street was the boundary line of the colonial area. So in the central part of my ANT map, I focused on the history of Hong Kong and the history of boundary streets. My purpose was to find out how this history affected the layout of the block and the everyday life of residents there. Today, this part of the boundary street has become the boundary of Yao Tsim Mong district and Sham Shui Po district. So on the outer part of the ANT map (pink part), I searched for some information about schools, temples, and parks around my city block, found some social issues occurred around there, for example, how the park has become a gathering place for addicts, gamblers and street sleepers resent years.

The topic of this picture is nostalgia. My original idea is to offer texture and people, to tell some story through this picture. I think comparing to movies or models, this kind of static pictures stand for gaze, so I hoped that the thing that I offered could be something narrative, shows the everyday life of people here. I put a little vendor car that sells night snacks. When I was a kid, the city block that I live in is really poor, we have no big supermarket, have no tall buildings, instead small vendors who sell milk, snacks, tofu is really common. At that time we get to know about our neighbors when we enjoy snacks in those food cars, that little car was a sort of social center. I also put a people who place guitar there because this is where people come together to enjoy leisure time. I also added a lot of neon light which is really common in HongKong, these light serves as a shop sign, advertisement or something like invitations, as if they are saying "we have really nice tea here, you should come and have some", obviously old people often drink tea and play mahjong or pokers together.
As I mentioned before, Hong Kong is call The City of Cyberpunk, one most important feature for CyberPunk is "high tech low life". But through all these things I wanted to express in this city of cyberpunk, technology or city block these things can also offer people happiness. In other words, it is from high tech low life to high tech happy life.