Arhur and the New Territories (ch.V)

FIFTH STROLLING : Wang Yi Au Tsuen

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After contacting the association Emptyscape, I join two ot its members to visit schools near Tai Po. I reach the first one after five minutes biking from the train station.

SCENE I : The Designer After parking the bikes near a bus stop and a short walk, I find the designer discussing with a local farmer beside the school.

ARTHUR

Have you seen those fences and cameras? It does not look like the shcool is well integrated in the village here!

THE DESIGNER After the farmer left.

Indeed. He just explained to me that the school was built for the « village care », on the other side of the road. It’s a small group of houses for the people who had to move when they constructed the highway from Shatin to Fanling. The children from the village you see behind that wall were goin to another school.

Why ?

ARTHUR I follow the designer in the school, there is a hole in the fence.

THE DESIGNER

They are quite wealthy compare to this old farmer. Originaly, they were all from the Chan family. They were farmes in the 1940’s but since they start renting and selling their houses, the population is more diverse and relatively wealthy1.

ARTHUR

So the school as no relation with Wang Yi Au Tsuen but only with the Tai Po Care Village?

THE DESIGNER

Maybe at the begining, when the Chan were more humble, they had some children coming here. The school is closed since 2002 and this farmer only live her since 15 years, he did not know so much about the history of the plae. Do you need some help to make your architectural survey ?

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SCENE II : The Technician A friend of the designer join us.

ARTHUR

So you are working as technician for making movies ?

THE TECHNICIAN

Yes. Quite often I’m the one in charge to make sure people won’t park or occupy a place where we want to shoot or just park our trucks.Most of the time I have to stay overnight. May sound borring but it is quite teachfull actualy. I realized they are a lot of empty space and even more which are used only part of the time. I joined lawnmap2 to contribute to their mapping of the accessible lawn in Hong Kong and other places with less rules that the official parks.

ARTHUR

I see. And you are also a member of Emptyscape ?

THE DESIGNER

I invited him to join our group very recently. I mainly deal with the online communication, mainly on facebook, for the events we organize in the abandoned village school of Ping Che. We collaborate with both artists and villagers. We organized concerts, exhibitions, screenings, talks… On May, we had an official exhibition in the Hong Kong Architecture Centre3 .

ARTHUR

So there are already schools being used as cultural centers?

THE DESIGNER

Only that one. And it is not so official. But it was much smaller than here!

ARTHUR

So you were actualing squatting it?

THE DESIGNER

No. We were allowed by the government to use the schools thanks to some local villagers who joined our association4. We did not have any budget so it was all made based on volunteers.

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ARTHUR

I see.

THE TECHNICIAN

There is a very strong culture of associations in Hong Kong. You must have observed in the university that there are many clubs and activities joined by students5. The most interesting is the fact that this culture of student association become more and more political6 and tend to extend their role outside the frame of the university.

THE DESIGNER

Can not compare with the french 1968, but everybody can feel that there is a strong movement starting. With Emptyscape, we are part ot that movement, when we choose to defend farmers against developers and create public awareness about the importance of keeping farmlands in Hong KOng7. We are not always successfull, but people of our generation hear us I think, mainly by facebook.

THE TECHNICIAN

If what we are doing in Ping Che have been appreciated, it is beause the interest for the abandoned schools is part of a larger movement which reconsider the value of the village culture,which promote a new sensitivity and awareness about environment and also, more generaly, a rising critic of the actual state of the liberal and consumerist Hong Kong society8.

THE DESIGNER

Nowadays, it is still very marginal. Oh. Those are the banana trees the old farmer was talking about before. He is using the school as a farm since his house is just beside.

THE TECHNICIAN

Speaking about this movement, I think it is growing. It won’t be forever marginal. Look, we did something in Ping Che, but it seems many associations are trying to do alternative project on other schools, like in Tai Wai. If it was not for the administrative difficulties, just by opening a room for student associations to made us of the schools, you would already have a very diverse and vibrant network of small cultural places.

ARTHUR

Ok. I finished my survey. Should we go to the next school?

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NOTES : Wang Yi Au Tsuen

1. Information on Tai Po Care Village School and the village Wong Yi Au Tsuen come from an interview with the village comity, Mr CHAN. 2. Lawnmap is one of the many Hong Kong association which prodvide information ans organize events whilo communicating almost exclusively online and on the social networks. Lawnmap, as one could guess, is mapping the lawns in Hong KONG, which are accessible and without a heavy set of rules making them unusable like the parks. They also organized events in alternative spaces like a concert under a high way.

3. On May 2013 the exhibition « Beyond Architecture » in the Hong Kong Architect Institute allows Emptyscape to show its work and to invite visitors to go to the Ping Che village school.

4. Information on Emptyscape come from an interview with Dennis CHAU Lok Kan and the facebook page of the group.

5. The association culture in Hong Kong universities may have inherited from both the british clubs and chinese values of community and hiearchy.

The difficulties for foreign students to integrate those groups often results from a cultural gap with the indivualist western education.

6. Working unions are not so well developed in Hong Kong and quite often the students are the one organizing the demonstrations. As Katty LAW spoke during the debate « City Image and Identity « (transcripted in the cataog of the Hong Kong – Shenzhen Biennale 2009), the demonstrations related to urban issues are firstly defending the diversity of building types and protesting againt the homogeneity of the contemporary architectural production.

7. Information on Emptyscape come from an interview with Dennis CHAU Lok Kan and the facebook page of the group.

8. Ibid.

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