What is home for Hong Kong millennials by Mathilde Gattegno

What is home for Hong Kong millennials

Mathilde Gattegno

One year ago, I was leaving France after a long period when I wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t feeling home anymore in Paris. I was born in the city and had spent most of my years there. But at the end of my architecture studies I was feeling no longer like I belonged to the city or to its crowd. Paris had changed and so did I. Even if I had my own flat and had a lot of friends I couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t lower the uncomfortable feeling. In Hong Kong I met a lot of people coming from different places, having different stories and different feeling about coming living here. Some were happy, some were torn, some were missing home. On the other side local people were also showing a complex relationship towards Hong Kong. As I was looking how to settle myself more firmly in Hong Kong, I wondered what makes a home. And as my friends where sharing the same question I wondered if millennials in general are looking for a home. To be really specific what is home for millennial in Hong Kong ? This research started as a personnal questionning and keep revolving around my own network for a deeper understanding of new situations. First I started looking for a definition of home through the work of sociologists, writters and architects. Questionning the concept of home has been around for a long period of time without anyone have found a proper complete answer yet. Then I briefly went through one of the particularity of Hong Kong : its population. Hong Kong identity is on one part built on the complex diversity of its inhabitants and this since the beginning. Within this frame I could start creating a portrait of the millennials. This population born during the eighties and nineties is in rupture with previous generations, facing a more complex world where population are now in movement. In this part I decided to get interview of millenials of Hong Kong, asking them their feeling about their home and the city. From those interviews i could draw a common pattern of what a home may be

for local millenials. What used to be called third place as complement of first and second place may have more importance here than it can have in Western countries, or even could have had in the past. To study this possibility I explored a third place that is a home for a lot of people, including some people interviewed, the rowing centre of the PolyU Rowing Club. For the three months of the summer training I could follow them and ask them questions about their feelings and attachement to the place. This three months work bring an overview of a few complexe problematics revolving around the millennials, Hong Kong and the concept of home, rising at the same time bigger questions like the definitition of a person, city or country identity.

MILLENNIAL PINK Millenial pink is the result of a slow evolution of a pink trend that can be linked back to the fifties. But since the beginning of 2000 shades of pink has became more present in both fashion and design. We can also find it in the movie The Grand Budapest Hotel by Wes Anderson. In 2015 Pantone selected the Rose Quartz has color of the year paired with Serenity Blue. This bright pink has raised from the so called Tumblr pink and then has faded towards the Millennial Pink. This shade is selected in 2017 by Pantone under the shade Pale Dogwood. Millennial pink is still strongly represented all over the culture of the millennial generation, even through band campain like Nike to a drink at Starbucks. The Rose Gold of the Apple product is also linked to this trend.

MILLENNIAL PINK 7 HOME 14

Home and house 14 Meaning(s) of home 19

HONG KONG 27 MILLENNIALS 33

Sense of belonging 35 Millennial talk 92 About home and identity 98 Familiarity 102

PURPOSE OF HOME 106 8

CENTRAL THIRD PLACES 108 MECHANIC OF A THIRD PLACE 110 Area of influence 110 Appropriation 114 Relationships and restrictions 120 Rituals 122 Context matters 147

HOME AND IDENTITY 148 PROJECT STATEMENT 155 Bibliography 156 Iconography 158

Heureux qui, comme Ulysse, a fait un beau voyage Heureux qui, comme Ulysse, a fait un beau voyage, Ou comme cestuy-là qui conquit la toison, Et puis est retourné, plein d'usage et raison, Vivre entre ses parents le reste de son âge ! Quand reverrai-je, hélas, de mon petit village Fumer la cheminée, et en quelle saison Reverrai-je le clos de ma pauvre maison, Qui m'est une province, et beaucoup davantage ? Plus me plaît le séjour qu'ont bâti mes aïeux, Que des palais Romains le front audacieux, Plus que le marbre dur me plaît l'ardoise fine : Plus mon Loire gaulois, que le Tibre latin, Plus mon petit Liré, que le mont Palatin, Et plus que l'air marin la doulceur angevine. Joachim DU BELLAY, Les Regrets, XXXI, 1557

HOME Home and house Home is a word complex to translate from one language to another. As the concept is blur and takes different forms in different cultures so does the wording. The word itself comes from the German word Heim, Ham, Heem which is from the Indo-european word kei meaning both lying down and something dear. In English the word home comes from ham meaning the village, the estate, the town. Along history, the word home and house have been associated, sharing sense in a close way.1 In French the most accurate translation is the expression «chez soi». The first word chez means at, like in at the hairdresser. The word itself come from the latin casa (house). The second soi means oneself. The result would be so at oneself, declined in «at you», «at us», «at me» depending of who is talking. In Chinese the word home is the same as familly. This double sens of the same character shows the concept behind the idea of homen and its low flexibility. The feeling implied by each word in each language is different, also showing a different cultural appropriation of the concept. Where French people talk about the individual, the place where the soul rests, Chinese talk about community and group. The link between home and house has been also a playground for architects. In their question of what is produced by architecture getting a house turning into a home is a complex question. If the house may be the physical construction, the building itself, the construction of a home is not tied to tangible elements. Shelley Mallett highlight this questionning between architecture and home. «In attempting to elucidate the relationship between house and home many reseachers, particularly architects and historians, have examined the ways design, spatial organiszation, and furnishings of domestic dwellings influence and inflect concepts and/or inter-related ideas»2 This way of of looking for home showing the inter relation between different

1 Mallett, S. (2004). Understanding Home: A Critical Review of the Literature. The Sociological Review, 52(1), 62-89. 2 Ibid

parameters brought the architect Balkrishna Vithaldas Doshi to consider the making of home a quest for architecture. «There is a difference between a house and a home, between the product and the process [...] It starts with an understanding: I’m going to make a home, so I not only want to be comfortable but I want to feel comfortable. I want to feel happy.»3 More than just building space, Doshi talks about the making of feelings and the fluidity of those. Beyond the basic needs, a home is about intangible needs. «I believe that animation is very important in a home. A home is a character, like a living thing. Even when you remove the furniture, it tells you a story about what it is and what it wants to be. It has its own gestures.»

Burns, John Clifford, 2017, Architecture of Home, Kinfolk, Issue 21

The relationships between the two words home and house is also fed by the history of migration. People used to live close to their work and close to their family. If it has been different period of time around the world, sendentarity has been a worldwide phenomenon. Living, working and having family was taking place in a contain area for most of the people. In this situation it was easy to say home = house as there was barely no alternative. At this point the relation to home is really much attached to the soil and the need of owning lands and a house built on it.4 With rural exodus, this overlaping of activities started to break down. People were moving to cities to seek employment sometimes leaving the family behind. As the cities started to grow, inhabitants were pushed to suburbs, living further from their work place. At this point, family, housing and work take place in a larger area than before. The notion of home started to be blurred even if the family was still a central piece. People return to countryside and inherit the family house as a symbol of the home. With World War I and World War II, words like homesickness and homeland started to spread much more than before. Once again the attachment to the family, to the loved one was the focus point on a home feeling, a place to return. The XXth century sees the age of movement. One part is migration of refugees facing conflits or natural disaster, forcing them to move around the globe to seek for safe land. Another group of people would be the ones looking for job, ready to move to a new land for opportunities. The last group is the tourists. People moving to travel, to discover, to experience the world. Periods are short or long but this category also started to increase thanks to cheap flights accross the world.

4 Duyvendak, J. (2011). The politics of home : Belonging and nostalgia in Western Europe and the United States. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

FAMILLY + HOUSE + HOME

FAMILLY

HOUSE

HOME

From a strong overlaping to a complex meaning of home

Meaning(s) of home Judith Sixsmith analysis 2017 see more displacements than ever before5, people with mixed families, mixed cultures, spread accross the world. And for result a challenged feeling of home, the old model doesn’t work anymore. Home happened to become now a scattered and fragmented place or sometimes even lost. In her work Judith Sixsmith6 study the meaning of home through multiple sorting task given to 22 postgraduate students. From the data she extracted 20 content categories that can been seen has meaning of home. They are after gathered in three experiential modes. Her work brought her to conclude on the complexity of home and how different it can be for everyone. Also, this study brought her to consider more questions like «How does home compare with otherplaces, such as the workplace, as profound centres of significance lying at the centre of self-identity?»

PERSONAL

SOCIAL

PHYSICAL

HAPPINESS BELONGING RESPONSABILITY SELF EXPRESSION CRITICAL EXPERIENCES PERMANENCE PRIVACY TIME PERSPECTIVE MEANINGFUL PLACES KNOWLEDGE PREFERENCE TO RETURN

TYPE OF RELATIONSHIPS QUALITY OF RELATIONSHIPS FRIENDS + ENTERTAINMENT EMOTIONAL ENVIRONMENT

PHYSICAL STRUCTURES EXTENT OF SERVICES ARCHITECTURAL STYLE WORK ENVIRONMENT SPACIALITY

extension of oneself

5 6

relationship with others

human space available

United Nation press realease The meaning of home: an exploratory study of environmental experience, Judith Sixsmith, Journal of environmental psychology, London, 1986, p281-298

Vaste amount of researches Other works put home as a concept which can only exists in a context. For Hayward7 the context has five dimensions : - home as a physical structure - home as territory - home as locus in space - home as self and self-identity - home as social and cultural unit In his work, Peter Somerville highlight the complexity of home as the concept belongs to different fields of research that are not always crossing their knowledge. He tries «a unification of phenomenological and sociological approaches» to gather founding in from the two branches calling a social phenomenology approach. With this in mind he «examined the meaning of home as privacy, as identity, and as familiarity»8 Linked to the concept of home, some resreachers have open to the concept and the definition of place describing home as a specific kind of place9. The place10 attachment is not exclusive to a home and can be analyzed according to different axis. In their paper, Leila Scannell and Robert Gifford give a three axis analytic of place attachment : person, place and process, and discuss from that the functions of such a commitment. They bring the idea that «most likely, place attachment bonds exist because they serve several functions. [...] the most common include survival and security, goal support, and temporal or personal continuity.» As home can be seen as a sub group of places, then we can apply this system of analytic to home. Another way to understand place is by looking at its meaning for people. Gustafson offers a analytical framework11 where spaces are understood with three criteras : environment, others and self. To get datas, Gustafson proceeded to the interview of 14 people aged between 18 to 71 years old from Western

7 Moore, J. (2000). PLACING HOME IN CONTEXT. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 20(3), 207217. 8 Somerville, Peter. «THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF HOME.» Journal of Architectural and Planning Research 9 Easthope, H. (2004). A place called home. Housing, Theory and Society, 21(3), 128-138. 10 Scannell, & Gifford. (2010). Defining place attachment: A tripartite organizing framework. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 30(1), 1-10. 11 Gustafson, P. (2001). MEANINGS OF PLACE: EVERYDAY EXPERIENCE AND THEORETICAL CONCEPTUALIZATIONS. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 21(1), 5-16.

The tripartite model of place attachment

Meanings of place spontaneously attributed by the respondents

Sweden. The framework given by this work was thought to be used as a tool to read more specific places and give a way to compare those in a systematic way. Most of the studies focus on what home are and what feeling they give to the people. They study home has a place with meaning from a psychological or sociological point of view. Those researches show some limits as it is pointed out by Maria Lewecka in her literature review12. She ÂŤcriticizied studies in place attachment for their lack of theory [...] little empirical progress has been made compared to what was known 30 or 40 years ago.Âť Even if the thaory may not progess as fast as we could wish, the subject of people-place relationships works keep growing. Limits in those researches are not only about theory. First the most recents are from 2004 and studies a grown up generation. None of them focus on the millennials nor really deal with the age of displacement. Second, they are all coming from the western culture, meaning that most authors study population with house, garden and the lifestyle according to countries like the United States, England or Canada. So it is about a different population, in different places and from different generations. Thir insights are a meaninful start but canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be directly applied to the case of Hong Kong Millenials. To complete my axis of research, it is interesting to add some talks of people addressing diversity of the identity, and the question of displacement. Instead of people having a certain distance, choosing the talk of novelists gives a new point of view. Both Taiye Selasi and Pico Iyer are experiencing this new world and bring their own thoughts on the topic through TED Talks but also through writings.13 They bring in the concept of home a stronger link with identity, and the idea that home may not be something tangible anymore. Where the previous study are still really attache to the family/house/home trio, these two talks get rid of this limitation. they adress the complexity of modern life.

12 Lewicka, M. (2011). Place attachment: How far have we come in the last 40 years? Journal of Environmental Psychology, 31(3), 207-230. 13 Iyer, P. (2000). The global soul : Jet lag, shopping malls, and the search for home (1st ed.). New York: Knopf.

Relative percentages of articles devoted to people-place relationships accross different time periods.

Multi local, Multi layered All experience is local, all identity is experience

In her talk “Don’t ask me where I’m from, ask me where I’m local”, Taiye Selasi raises a question about the identity, and the limit of countries. Defining yourself with the nationality we carry is both incomplete and inaccurate. Because we have an experience in a multitude of places, we also belong to those places. At the same time, because we are from a certain country doesn’t mean we can relate to the whole territory, habits and tradition this country can have. To get closer to the human complexity, Taiye Selasi proposes a system of questions to define more precisely who we are and where we are from. Questions are grouped under three labels she called the Three R’s : rituals, relationships and restrictions.

(daily) RITUALS

What kind of rituals ? Where do they occur ? In what places do the shopkeepers know your face ?

RELATIONSHIPS

Who are the people who shape your days ? People who form your weekly emotional experience ? Where are they ?

RESTRICTIONS

Where are you able to live ? What passport do you hold ? Are you restricted by anything from feeling fully at home where you live ?

Age of movement Choose our sense of home, create a sense of community, fashion our sense of self

If in the past where you are from was easy to define, time has changed. Home used to be more about the soil and a place for past generations. With now 232 million of people living out of their birth country home is more about the soul. For newer generations “home is a work in progress. It’s like a project on which they are constantly adding upgrades and improvements and corrections” explain Pico Iyer in his talk “Where is home?”. Roots are getting more intricate and are no longer a way to define a person. The age of movement is more about where you are going.

Where do you come from ?

Ancestry Place of birth Education Pay taxes Place that goes deep inside you and where you try to spend most of your time

VS Multitude of home

Parents Partners Place you happend to be dreaming of 25

HONG KONG Identity through population Since the first human installation in the area, the history of Hong Kong has been about migrations. People coming as refugees or for trading have slowly build a unique identity. Hong Kong today lives this complex legacy. With the latest phenomenon of Hong Kong returning tidal flow, which

Immigrants in Hong Kong

China US / Canada

Britain Japan

Nepal Pakistan

Hong Kong India

Thailand

Indonesia & Philippines

Australia

0.2% 0.4% US Indian Pakistani Australian Nepalese Thai Japanese

0.5% British

97% Chinese

1.9% Indonesian Filipinos Place of origin repondents Guangxi 1.2%

Beijing 28

1.9%

Zhejiang 2.0%

Shanghai

2.5%

Hainan 2.5%

Jiangsu

3.2%

Fujian 5.7%

Other

17.7%

Emigrants in Hong Kong

Canada

US Hong Kong

Australia

30000

No. of People

15000

1997

2012 Year 29

Timeline of the Hong Kong migrations

Human Settlement

Mongol invasion FIRST REFUGEES CRISIS

BC 50,000 / 30,000

1276

530 000 INHABITANTS

Japan invasion 1.6M INHABITANTS

1916

1941

221 - 206 BC

16 century

China Attachment

Trade with Portugal then prohibition POPULATION BACK TO CHINA

1.8M INHABITANTS 1947

1925

1945

1949

725 000 INHABITANTS

Japan leaves 600 000 INHABITANTS

communism in China REFUGEES CRISIS

Belongs to United Kingdom 6000 INHABITANTS

Trade with United Kingdom 1699

1842

Plague epidemy 2552 DEATHS

60 000 CHINESES LEAVE THE CITY

1894

1914

1862 120 000 INHABITANTS

MIGRATION AROUND 70 000 PEOPLE PER YEAR MOSTLY TOWARDS CANADA 1990

HONG KONG RETURNING TIDAL FLOW PHENOMENON 1998

1970

1997

2017

opening of the Chinese market 3.9M INHABITANTS

retrocession

7M INHABITANTS 31

MILLENNIALS

Millennials have been targeted for being the people between 18 and 34 years old in 2017. Also called the Generation Y, it has been studied mostly in the Western world as it is a occidental concept. Born after the cold war, they have always known the world with AIDS and most of the digital technologies. They have witnessed the spread of an awarness about sustainability and the normalisation of video games which was marginal for the Generation X. It is also a generation that has been through a transformation of global transportation, with flight cheaper than before, allowing people to move more easily.14 The name Millennials comes from the work of William Strauss and Neil Howe who have been studying evolution of generations. Globally, there is more than 70 words to name this generation15. In Hong Kong people who are between 20 to 34 years old were 21.5% of the population in 201316 which means around 1.6 millions inhabitants. If the concept of Millennials is occidental, we can still observe a difference of generation in Hong Kong too, strengthened by the rapid transformation of the city and its political context.

14 Adrien Perrot (2013) Aux États-Unis, les jeunes préfèrent surfer (sur internet) que rouler [archive] ; Acteurs & marché, News, 3 June 15 Denis Monneuse, Les jeunes expliqués aux vieux, L’Harmattan, 2012 16 United Nations data

Sense of belonging Exploring millenials take on home I chose to interview people who are my friends and for most of them I knew they would have an interesting point of view, either because they are foreigners questioning their place in the world or as Hong Kong locals thinking about their future and their attachment to the city. The result is an homogenous group of people, all from middle class and who have completed at least high school. For My, the interview is not reported here because I lacked information and picture about her. But her vision of home is deeply rooted in the identity of mainland China, and home = family, so in more than a year she hasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t developped any attachment to Hong Kong. Nevertheless, she is included in all the analysis. For each of them I tried to explore how they feel right now, people they are bounded to, their daily life but also where they would project themselves in the future. By this way my goal was to see what lack they feel in Hong Kong as a concrete or mental environment. One of the first noticeable thing from those interviews is the haze between foreigners and locals. If some people have the Identity Card from Hong Kong they donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t obviously feel like they belong here and may have trouble identifying the city as home. On the other side foreigners can find easily a home here. The complexity of the population in Hong Kong got the population to name the different communities. For example Gweilos is for the white people and Hong Kong drifters for mainlanders living in Hong Kong.

Angel

Tak Joyce Ethan Jacky Sylvia My

Don Chris

Jonathan & Rachel

AimĂŠe

POLYU ROWING MY TAK DON

CHRIS ANGEL

ETHAN

MANHO SYLVIA JACKY

JOYCE ME

AIRBNB

AIMEE

DONâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S CONCERT JONATHAN

RACHEL

ANDREW

FRANCE TINDER Network of the people interviewed 37

'Cause they say home is where your heart is set in stone Is where you go when you're alone Is where you go to rest your bones It's not just where you lay your head It's not just where you make your bed As long as we're together, does it matter where we go? Home home home home Gabrielle Aplin - Home

Siu Hong MTR

San Hui Light rail stop

Kindergarden

Grandma house Common area

Previous flat New flat area Ming Kum Light rail stop

Angel Childhood memories

20 years old PolyU student, member of the rowing club

Previous flat

Angel choose to bring me to her grandmaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s house in San Hui instead of her parents flat, and she showed me the neighbourhood where she grew up. Around the light rail stop, there is her kindergarten, her previous flat and the village where her family lives. Houses were built thirty-two years ago and given to farmers who used to live in Tsuen Wan. The houses are three stories high and each has and open outside space, where Angelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s grandma grows plants she sells on a market. The neighbourhood also has a common space where events gather the community.

Common area

Kindergarten

Why did you pick this house over yours?

Because my home is like, on a hill and the first reason it’s a trouble to go there. And also, as I mentionned before my kindergarten is here, my old home is here and so

my childhood happened around this area so I chose this place. Have you been traveling, and when do you feel back home?

Been traveling for a month, and I think when I reached Hong Kong airport. I feel at home but not like at home. It’s like on my way back home. And really when I open my door I feel back home. Every time I travel overseas my dad would drive me home, I wouldn’t take MTR. That’s why I didn’t mention the MTR.

Your new home is far from here?

I think if you take a taxi from here it’s around 15 to 20 min, because you need to go up the hill. On the hill, there is only housing so

the neighbourhood is not strong enough.

Especially compare to here, no other buildings, no other facilities. If you like to live anywhere, where would live?

I think I would stay here because this is the place where I grew up.

And it’s the most familiar place in the world. Because I

have spent a month in Canada last year, as you know Vancouver has so many Chinese, and so the village is more or less close. But it really has a difference. So, when I come back to Hong Kong I think this is my home. There are things about Hong Kong that I don’t like, like the policy or the government, apart from that or something like that. If I understand good, this house is where the family comes in and out all the time?

Yes, my uncle lives upstairs. The whole building is my family, but the third floor is rented out. Actually, my aunt lived here, but now she moved to the US. My cousin lives here too. Would you like to live alone?

I think I don’t want to live with them in the same flat but live nearby is quite ok, because when you want to have dinner with them you just walk to their flat. But

I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want to live with them because

I want to have my private area. Is it bothering you to live with your parents?

Not really. The only that they would care is I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t sleep late. They care about this one. They always ask me to sleep earlier.

Flat area Tai Wai MTR

After show restaurant

Restaurant

Band practice room Ngau Tau Kok MTR

Don Freedom of action

32 years old Designer for Accenture, guitar player in the band Seasons for change, part time student at Poly U After thinking of taking me to his flat Don finaly picked his band practice room, saying if the topic is home as a personnal concept, that would make more sens. Besides the interview, we talked a bit about identity and the relation to mainland China. He said ÂŤI am chinese but iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m not from China.Âť

The room has two sides : one social with a couch, table and a screen were the bands can enjoy some time together. The other side is the practice area where all the instruments are stored.

Why this place over your apartment?

Because it feels like I have more freedom in here and I can just play guitar anytime, and I can sleep sometime and I don’t have to do any house work.

How much time do you spend here per week?

Normally I would come here every Sunday and I would spend 4 to 6 hours, it depends really. Because sometimes I would come early and have a nap. Sometimes if my band wants to practice more often, I would come more often. How many people are you in your flat with your family?

My own flat? 3 people, 4 including my dog. And you don’t feel as comfortable as here?

It’s different. I can’t turn up the music volume. And when I’m home my little dog would ask me to play with him, so it would cost some time. Could the studio be anywhere else?

The location is important because you don’t want to spend two hours to go home. If you live in like in Yuen Long it’s far, here is convenient. Because sometimes when you have to travel in different transportation it costs a lot of time. I like to have only one transportation so that I can sleep on it. That’s why I liked my previous workplace more in Tsuen Wan. Now I work in Quarry Bay, and that’s far. I need to change transportation so I can’t sleep well.

Is there any place around here where you often go?

Oh yeah definitely. We have like few different restaurants. Did you join us last time in the Chinese restaurant? Yes, the deep-fried food.

Yeah that one, we always go there after show. We also have another one which is closer and when we want to keep practicing and are starving we go get some fast food and then come back, then we have another restaurant where we often go.

At what point the beginning is the area of the practice room?

This door! I think this door because it’s your area here.

I think this building is not my area. I can take off all my shirts here, I won’t take off all my clothes out there. When you travel, at what point do you feel back home?

I think in the airport “ah fuck back to the reality, I have to go back to work tomorrow, fuck”. It wouldn’t have to work tomorrow I would be relieved. Do you enjoy Hong Kong?

Yeah, I think so. If you could live anywhere, where would you chose?

So far, I’m happy here, I don’t have a plan to move yet. Maybe

one day. Because Hong Kong politic is quite a big problem. I think maybe if I have to move it would be because of the politic. Because it seems like they are going to take away all of our freedom. The housing price is also part of the politics. So far, I think I’m lucky. I feel like maybe one day I can afford one.

Have you always been living in the same flat with your family?

I’ve been in university, in a dorm. In was in City U, I lived there for one year with my best friend. It was good, chill, super freedom. Do your family own the flat?

Yes. Most of the older generations already own their flats now. How was it to go back to your parents flat after that?

Like in jail. Because it was so much freedom, and it’s so much fun when you live with your best friend. You can talk with him all night or drink with him all night. Or sometimes even it was midnight and we were hungry and you just go out and get to have some food. Have you never thought renting a flat and sharing with friends?

Yeah, I did have this kind of thoughts long time ago but you know, you have to pay

a lot. But if you save this money you can enjoy different kinds of entertainment. Have more drinks, eat better, because you know it’s not a must for me to rent a house. If my family wasn’t allowing to live in the house then I would rent a flat. But so far, I think living with my family is ok, it’s not that unacceptable. Just a little bit annoying sometimes. How long have you been in this band?

You mean Seasons for Change? Two and a half years already. I was in another band before and we rent this place with two other bands. One is called Rain in Time, one is called Priceless Boat and with my previous band it was like three bands renting this place. And then Seasons for Change is a side project of two of the members of Rain in Time. So, we met long time ago, and by the time they formed Seasons for Change they were four persons. And then because the drummer of Rain in Time and Seasons for change likes my guitar parts a lot, that’s why one day he suddenly asked me “Are you interested to join the band? We need some of your guitar wipe out in our songs”. How many bands are you now in this room?

Many, 6 or 7. Because most of the members have some side projects. How many people use this room?

Use this room or pay the rent? Because that’s different you know. Because if you have a side project you bring the group but maybe only one would pay for this. There is 15 people paying the rent. We have a WhatsApp group, and we ask, “is there anyone using this timeslot?” If there’s no one then I’ll bring someone here. It’s about communication. And normally we have some specific time slot for band to practice. Rain in Time is Thursday night, Seasons for change would play at Sunday afternoon. Are you going to practice after?

No because members are not available, it’s Father’s Day today. So, we skip one time. And that’s why I’m quite sure this timeslot is available. I already had dinner with my father on Friday night.

Wong Tai Sin MTR

Main desk

Poly U

Previous school desk Harbour City

Potential work desk

Jacky Desks and Hong Kong identity

25 years old Student of PolyU, work for a city planning office at Harbour City. Jacky studied for years overseas and kept a mixed feeling about it. I also knew he had given a lot of thoughts about the situation of Hong Kong, its identity and its future, through his own capstone last year.

Where is home for you now?

The only place I can think of is bedroom. Actually, only my desk, my desk is my

If there's a proper desk that I can work at, that'll be my home, I can focus, I can do whatever I want. favourite place.

I spend most of my time at my desk. Is your office desk also your home?

It [office desk] is still kinda new for me, I haven't decorated my desk, which means that it doesn't belong to me right now. If I spend more time with it, it may become my home. You'll be the first person to say work is your home.

No, I see work as part of my life. My job gives me satisfaction. I can't separate both. I won't say I'm totally in love with my job, but I'll try to enjoy it. Sometimes of course there're bad moments but that's life and makes your life better, easier is one of the ways. Do you feel any limitation living with your family as you are living with them?

Of course, but I don't have to do things like laundry, breakfast... It limits my somehow-called-freedom, but I don't have to do those things also it converts into freedom for me to do some other stuff. So I can't say I like it but I don't hate it. I dislike the situation but I would like to spend time with family at home for

I need my own space to do my own stuff now, but maybe not in the future...

When studying abroad, you were in the dorm? You were sharing a room?

I have had both (shared a room and had own room). But talking about the desk, it didn't give me any home feeling at all... When I was young I didn't have much control (on my desk), I didn't need a lot of stuff other than study and prepping. Was it a relief coming back to Hong Kong?

It was a good choice to come back. How was coming back and living with your family again? 52

It wasn't a concern (to live with my family). I spent most of my time having my own space. What age did you study abroad, how was the feeling of home?

12-19 years old.

Also I didn't have a concept of home at that time, it's just a space for me to stay and learn. But now I know more about what home is... It's all about different stages. When you travel, and when you come back to HK, at what point do you feel back at home?

At the airport. Once Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve landed I feel back at home. Your family never moved from where you are living now?

No, we moved three times. I can't live in New Territories...

I can say broadly Kowloon is my home. What about China?

I was born in 1991... so for the first few years I was British. I don't mind being Chinese but I used to, now I don't have a strong feeling for that. When I introduce myself I'd say I come from HK, not China. It's a problem for all HK people (Are we HK or Chinese). Do you think the people who are born after 1997 would have this problem? Since they were never British, so would they be more Chinese than you are?

Yes but I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know, we dont understand China but we call ourselves Chinese. Even Hong Kong people dont understand Hong Kong.... [about Hong Kong restrocession, and the cultural pressure of China]

I think they are trying to do that... Not erase but merge. Even when we talk about language, we speak a different language. And our language is very valuable. It's the traditional Chinese basically. But somehow we are seeing it's gonna disappear soon. It's slowly replaced by Mandarin. 53

Neighbourhood around your home, is it important?

Not at all. If you can live anywhere in the world , where and why?

Hong Kong definitely... but why? That's a hard question. I've been to other countries but Hong Kong is a special place. I can see every Hong Kong people have stories behind them. People always think about Hong Kong like high rent but it actually makes Hong Kong better. Although there are negatives that surround us, but every single people is working hard for their lives, homes, their families... and they have very unique stories behind every single Hong Kong people. That's one of the things that make me feel Hong Kong is one of the most lovely places in the world, because the people are nice here. I have Hong Kong friends who studied in United Kingdom, but basically everyone comes back to Hong Kong now. Some of the last generation parents move to other countries but some of their children are coming back to Hong Kong now.

Not sure if there's a good amount of them but it's how we are. Hong Kong is a mixture of..... How do we define HK people? That's why I think Hong Kong doesnt have a proper culture, it's always mixed with other cultures... Last question is the importance of family and friends, how much of a role it plays on home for you? If you are with your desk but without your family... When you were abroad did you miss your family?

Family and friends are essential for making a home, cause without them even I .... Would that stop you from living abroad?

Yeah I think it would.

Tin Shui Wai MTR

Mini Coopers garage House Family + dogs Rowing centers

Tak Family and friends

25 years old Civil engineer graduated from PolyU, alumni of the rowing team and fixing Mini Cooper in a workshop on his spare time. I knew Tak has many activities all spread around Hong Kong on top of having his job in Causeway Bay. His life is moving from one place to another to enjoy activities he likes and spends time with his friends or his family and pets. Mini coopers fixing

Takâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s two dogs

Where is home for you?

My physically home is like a shelter and I can live and sleep there.

But mentally there are a few places in Hong Kong that are my home.

The rowing center is one of my homes because I spent most of my university years in the rowing center, and after I graduated the workshop I go for my cars is another home. Because we can meet friends there. I think the place is not the point of a home.

The main point is whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s inside.

When you were at school, did you consider school as a home?

No. School is a place like working. I learn something from there, and I made friends there. But I will spend time with my friends at school but school is not a home. Because we are suffering from the school. Because of the school, I know my friends, I know rowing, I joined the rowing club.

So the school is a bridge to lead me to find another home. Have you traveled?

No. Are you pets important about your home?

Yes, my pets is like one of my family member. I play with them, I spend time with them. I have two dogs, one is from my brother, the other we picked him on the street. He was very small, just a puppy. So, your house is more than just a shelter.

Yes, but as I said at the very beginning, the place is not important, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s what is inside. Are you living in a flat or a house?

A house. How is living with your family?

Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m ok with that, if I live alone I would have some 58

private time but another thing I would have less time to spend with my family. And the people that I care. Your family let you do whatever you want?

Mostly. When I was a child there was some rules, like coming home before a certain time. But now I grew up and I’m adult. Have you always been living in the same place, never moved?

Before five years old (I was born in Holland), after we moved back to Hong Kong. After we got back to Hong Kong we have lived in the same place. If you could live anywhere in the world, where would you live?

I don’t know where I would stay, Hong Kong wouldn’t be my first choice. Cause I’ve lived here for so long I want to try something new, but I don’t know what’s outside. Because the Hong Kong life is not really good, very boring, lots of work, every day is the same. I wake up, go to work and work overtime and then eat, sleep, shower. Maybe I stayed too long here and I want to explore the world. When did you graduate?

2012, four years ago. If I had the choice I would chose to keep studying. Because after graduation everything changes, you don’t have any spare time. It’s totally different. You also told me that you are not really fond of your job.

Yeah. Very boring. We are still repeating. Our projects are mostly doing the residential development, every building is the same. About the neighborhood around the rowing center, is there any important places around?

If comparing the two centers, I would rather stay at the old one. Because there were 6 universities, but here there’s only PolyU and CU. There at the old center we had much fun because when we trained we had to use the same training room. And because we were always the other teams we had many competitions and compare with the others, see what their results are. Also, when you jump on the ergo I would say “I will beat you”. In the old center because there is so many people there the atmosphere is totally different. For the neighborhood, there the centers, the restaurants and that’s all. 59

Family flat

Joyce A certain distance

22 years old Commercial for Prudential Joyce is a wild mind, she has been traveling a lot, had a long distance relationship that made her questionned where to live, has a strong bond to her family... She hasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t pursued any studies after high school and went straight to work, making her having a lot of experience and feedback about her relation to home.

Joyce home is around her family. They have often moved around Hong Kong, since she was born her family moved 12 times, meaning every two years. Now they are living in a government apartment with her grandmother. The flats they have been occupied are situated all around Hong Kong from the New Territories to the Island and back to Kowloon, so she now feels familiar everywhere. She still spends more time around Tsim Sha Tsui because it is a convenient neighbourhood but not because she especially likes it. Her home feeling only revolves around her family. But even if the time spent with them is important it is still complicated to share the flat with them. She has travelled and lived abroad and has now the need of her own space for her own way of life. Especially now that they are in a smaller flat than the one in Tsim Sha Tsui it is putting a constrain on her life. She doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t think that the Hong Kong way of life suits her the best either, she would like to live with more space and feels like European countries would be a better place to live. Hong Kong is always busy even at night. If you are staying late out and want to enjoy and dark place to rest and enjoy the night you canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t find one in Hong Kong as everything is always lit for more safety. This safety may reduce the possibilities of new experience or of appropriation of the city.

Gaming computer / mother

Family / childhood / friends

Andrew Neither local nor foreigner

25 years old Student in a law school in Toronto Andrewâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s life is split between Canada and Hong Kong making him question his identity, sense of belonging and home as he feels as a foreigner everywhere even if he holds passport from both territories.

Where are you from?

Well that’s a long question. I was born in Canada and went back to Canada when I was 15. And I come here every summer from May to August, so four months. Where is home now for you?

I wanted it to be here but I don’t think it is, so I’m gonna say Toronto because that’s where my computer is. What don’t you feel home here?

I don’t have a permanent place, sometimes I live here, sometimes I live there. I mean every year is different. And my dad moves around as well. So back in Canada where you have your computer it’s always the same place?

I move every year as well. I have my own stuff, bed, computer, desk but I move it around. Any other important things that could help making home, like family or friends?

It’s tough cause most of my family lives here. Only my mom lives in Canada with me. I’m gonna say most of my friends lives here as well.

know where my home is.

I don’t

When you travel, at what point do you feel back around a home?

I don’t have any particular feeling. I just go from one place on vacation to another place on vacation. I don’t have a home feeling. I’m permanently moving. I was getting the feeling when I was going back to Canada the first few years, but not anymore. Now it’s just home nowhere. In Hong Kong is there any neighborhood you are familiar with?

My dad has been changing every couple of years because he is renting. We had a house before I left for Canada but now he sold it. It was close to Kwun Tong. If you could live anywhere in the world, where would you pick?

I both want to live in Hong Kong and in the middle of nowhere. I kinda want 66

both. But I’m going to pick Hong Kong. I mean if you don’t have money problem, Hong Kong is a really good place. What stop you from living permanently in Hong Kong so?

I’m regretting my studies in Canada. At some point I’m just thinking what happened if I just stayed here? Would you like to work here?

Maybe after I graduate, I don’t know. About relationships now, do you Skype your mom when you’re here or is it complete silence?

She is not my favorite person. What is your relationship with HK when you are in Canada and what is your relationship with Canada when you’re here?

Well it’s very separated actually. Basically, when I’m in one place I don’t communicate with people on the other side. I don’t know why, maybe I’m just too lazy. I don’t like messages I prefer face to face interactions. At some point, you don’t know if the person really wants to talk to you online.

Family / school

Family Childhood Friends

Sylvia Both local and foreigner

25 years old Student at PolyU From Brazil - One year in Hong Kong After one year spent together and sharing the same struggles of getting used to Hong Kong, it was normal Sylvia appeared here. During the last months she has been back to Brazil and had time to think about home, displacement and identity.

Where are you from?

I was born in Brazil, but my family is Chinese. My father was born in Hong Kong and my mother is Brazilian born Chinese. What about your identity or sense of belonging ?

Half half, physically I’m from Hong Kong, but my culture is from brazil. That’s when I’m here, it’s different in brazil. There I’m Asian rather than Brazilian. Where is home now for you?

The answer is funny. Sometimes depends on my mood. But I fell a little bit divided. I like the environment and dynamics of Hong Kong but my family and oldest friends are back in Brazil. Have you traveled?

Yes, I have been to China, some American cities, Chile and Korea before. When you come back home, how do you get the feeling of home?

In my case, it will sound weird but I recognize some smells. This makes me feel home. I have already traveled to

some places more than once like US and Chile. Whenever I come back and feel the smell of the sea, the metro station or the cleaning products of my house, I fell comfortable, I feel at home. But it doesn't happen with all the places. Where in Hong Kong you consider home?

I guess the studio. Is peaceful most of the time and it is where I have more

It is where I have my own space, that in the end turned into a place after being decorated. Is where I feel comfortable to stay at. people to keep company, work, play, listen to music, eat.

If you could live anywhere in the world, where would you pick? Why?

Hmmm tough one. I think Hong Kong. It was my dream to come here ten years ago. The relationships are not easy and the price is a bit higher than in Sao Paulo, but I think here I have more opportunities.

Family / childhood / friends

Job / Relationship / new friends

Yuen Long MTR Slow paced life

Tsuen Wan West MTR Boyfriend home

Wan Chai MTR 72

Work + flat

AimĂŠe Mind concept

22 years old English teacher From United Kingdom - Less than a year in Hong Kong AimĂŠe comes from the South of United Kingdom. She lives and works on Hennessey road, around Wan Chai MTR station. She often goes buying food at a wet market nearby, as well as enjoying some restaurants around.

Where is home for you?

Where is home for me, that is a good question.

To be honest I don’t know the answer at the moment, I suspect it’s something I’m waiting to find. Some people may have many homes, do you still feel connected to UK?

It’s not England that I still feel connected to, more the people in it I suspect, if that makes sense My family, the one thing I miss about Hong Kong is my family and my good friends, particularly considering the difference between the way relationships work between Hong Kong people and western people in terms of like, you know, how I’m friend with my friends at home is not necessary the same of how I’m friend with my friends in Hong Kong. That doesn’t mean one is good, that means one is different. Did you have a feeling of coming home when you come back from a trip?

Maybe in a sense I had the feeling of coming back to my flat after a long day. I suspect it was a very long day, and it was like “this is fun but are we going now?” I got to that stage,

I feel a bit “oh ok but when are we going home?” when are we going back to my base camp. In terms of where everything is for me at the moment, Hong Kong is probably the closest.

Did you bring stuff to decorate your flat?

I actually bought something from IKEA, just some wall stickers and the butterflies up there, just cause I think it’s kind of nice like for me my bedroom in England, nothing is going to replace that, it’s where I grew up, where my childhood. But it’s a nice way to make it feel a bit more personal when you come in. Not to feel like in a hotel room. I just came slightly unprepared, I packed the day before. Your parents turned your childhood room into something else?

Sort of, it’s still my bedroom but it’s also the ironing room now, which is fine. They needed one I guess, and it’s not like I’ll be back any time soon. […] I’m not talking to people in England as much as I thought I would. Sometimes I feel bad, especially now that I am with Kit.

Do you feel related to the neighborhood you are living in?

In so far as I work down the road yeah, I guess. To be honest

I feel really familiar with the neighborhood because now I have friends that live down the road and as I said I work really close.

It’s a nice familiarity, like I know what I am doing, where I am going. If something happened I know where I can go to get something. Actually, I do like to go to Tsuen Wan but I wouldn’t live there. And Yuen Long, is more there because it’s near where Kit lives and in terms of what I have in Hong Kong I suppose in a sense my gold family is the closest thing I have quite to be in family. Do you feel it would be a new home for you?

Living where he did? Well, I don’t know, it’s kind of a funny one cause it’s kind of what could possibly happen. So, haven’t gone and looked at his house recently, and it’s nearly finished. I feel like my heart skipped a bit looking around because he was so like “this is where the bedroom is, do you think we could turn the bed around?” Very mundane things like that. Let me think about that, it was kind of nice but I was also “fuck, am I going to live here and have children?” This is the terrifying part. [my moving] would be fragmented by the fact that I will go back to England for at least a year, and then come back again to Hong Kong. It would be very cut in half. Is this where I want to stay? My relationship with kit, will I feel happy? What I want to do? Staying in Hong Kong, finding a job here, also

I feel like I’m a bit in limbo and I don’t want to get too involved in stuff if I’m going to be going again. I mean obviously I’ll be coming back but I don’t want to get forced to come back.

Where would you live?

I don’t know to be honest stay between Hong Kong and England. England because it represents kind of the old life, it’s where all my family is, my longtime friends from university, those people interactions. Versus Hong Kong where I have someone here I do want to be with. I don’t want to think too much about it but it’s quite determining the next three years of my life. So, I don’t know really. Making the same relationships here takes time and I know that. And do I want to be a teacher forever? And do I want to do this and that? I’m just decided on it to be honest. It’s so drastically different, it’s not like I’m choosing between England and some place in Europe not that far. It’s really like a fork with two prongs, when I start going down one it’s not really going to be that easy to say, “ho I changed my mind, turn around”. This is the period I can do that.

It’s not that [Hong Kong] is a bad place to live, if you live anywhere after a period of time you can be disillusioned. What did I have in England that I would be so desperate to keep? clearly not that much because I didn’t want to stay there. I spent my last year of university thinking when can I leave this country? It’s a big “grass is greener” if I’m not there. It’s something that I’m aware of, endlessly chasing some greener grass, I may not end up anywhere if I do that my whole life.

My mind is my home. The only permanent things in my life is family and my mind. I think a home is what you make it.

I like that it’s a smaller town, it’s really far. It’s so different, it’s just kind of nice. It’s so separate from this, I really feel that’s I’m gone from one place to another. That something I don’t like about Hong Kong. In England, I could get on a train and go away for two hours and have like a mini break, like a mini holiday. Whereas Hong Kong is almost too convenient. There is no gap, it’s just like it’s all melting together. You just take the MTR “oh wow look I’ve gone underground from one urban area with a shopping mall to another urban area with a shopping mall, look at that it’s exactly the same shopping mall!” I wouldn’t mind living in the country side if I had to stay in Hong Kong and I will. That’s the thing with Yuen Long, I drive to somewhere and I do something, have nice memories. I don’t know there’s an emotional connection because it’s where I had all of my first dates pretty much. The pace is much slower, people wander around. It’s more like normal vibe.

Family / childhood / friends

Job / Relationship / new friends

Sai Kung beaches

Flat

Shek O Big Wave Bay Cheung Chau Lantau beaches

Jonathan & Rachel Multi local

Relationship Work

34 and 26 years old Jonathan is an engineer From France - less than a year in Hong Kong Rachel is a digital marketing mangaer From Singapore - less than a year in Hong Kong Before coming working in Hong Kong, Jonathan spend a year in Singapore where he met Rachel. They are now living together on Hong Kong Island and share different background and thoughts on the topic of home.x

Family Childhood Friends

Where is home for your now?

J : I still don’t know R : That is your answer ? J : Yeah sure R : I just arrived in Hong Kong, I’ve been here for six months. So, when I first left Singapore and I came here, to this apartment it felt weird. And then when I went on holiday and I came back to Hong Kong I felt “oh I’m coming home”. At the beginning, I couldn’t get used to the neighbourhood but now I know where

I think home is not Singapore, it’s not Hong Kong, it’s wherever you feel comfortable. everything is and

I feel home in Singapore and I also feel home here. When I left for France and we came back, yeah the weather was not as good but it felt good to be in my own space. R : First, I answered I don’t know but yeah we went to France for two weeks and I really feel some good sides to come back to my hometown in France. But when I come back to Hong Kong I don’t feel so sad, I just feel sad that I don’t have all the good side. I was born and raised in France but my parents come from Vietnam. So, since I’m in Hong Kong I’m more interested about

And I realise that home can be anywhere you want to be. It’s a matter of your point of

where I come from.

view and your mood. Sometimes I get pissed off of Hong Kong because of the lot of people. Sometimes I’m homesick but maybe if I explore more Vietnam or my culture i may be ill have homesickness of Vietnam. So, I don’t know what can happen. And regarding my parents about that they don’t feel at home in Vietnam anymore because of all the friends and the family got out? They don’t have any left. But they don’t feel at home in France either. They like it but there are not really at home. When they came back to Vietnam they are foreigners. When you travel and come back, at what point do you feel at home?

J : When you go in your bed. Coming back for me is still the journey and to forget that most of the time it is a good moment to go on holiday and so on so when I come back home it is a good time, I clear all my stuff to forget that on Monday or Tuesday I will have to work and once I have finished to clear all I go in my bed and stop

R : Sometimes maybe for me because in Singapore 80

they speak Singlish, they have a strong Singaporean accent. When I hear them I’m like “a Singaporean!” What about this neighbourhood?

R : I work in causeway bay. J : I work in the new territories, very far. Just here is so convenient. R : yeah near LKF ! J : no but you can go everywhere. Most of my French friends stay in cheun wan. R : We chose this flat at the beginning because my work was just behind, they just didn’t tell me we’re gonna move. J : what happened to us is I selected some flats everywhere in Hong Kong and i let her choose as she just moved from Singapore.Among all the flats she chooses this one and it was only five minutes. Any other place where you feel at home?

R : Maybe the beaches where you go surfing. J : yeah in the water surfing. I go during the winter to Shek O, Big Waves B ay and Sai Kung and now its summer time, it’s quite low in term of waves so most of the time we go to Lantau and Cheung Chau. When you are on the see, even if it’s quite some time dirty. The best is Sai Kung.

R : I am more bounded to the neighbourhood because every morning when I go off I say hi to the people downstairs and I buy avocado to the auntie downstairs. Because I do all the grocery shopping. If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be, and why?

J : a place in the middle of the mountain because I love snowboarding, not so far from the sea, not so far from good landscape but also close to a city, so it’s complicated. One of the place is the south west of France or also Korea.

When we talk about family and friends they miss me for sure. And I miss them too but they cannot follow me everywhere. When you go oversea you have fewer and fewer friends so to hang out with them is not so complicated as you don’t have a lot. Once a year it’s good to see them for real, skype is not enough. R : My answer is the same as you I like nature too. Where my life goes is to be able to travel to be mobile, and in my current agency I can do that now. But

because I just join I don’t want to abuse from that power. Would you like to settle somewhere or to keep moving?

R : For me I feel I want to keep drifting until I find the right spot. J : me I feel like now that I am overseas I’m afraid to get bored. Starting to settle and then moving again. Before I went to Asia I had the mindset of French people: you have a house a family and so on, you can4t imagine to move your family. Then you meet some people that everything is possible if you want to. What about politics and community?

J : I don’t feel an attachment for that. You don’t feel to enter a community. R : I don’t for me, I don’t want to stay in Hong Kong for long, I’m very picky with the friends I hang out with, because the friends I hang out with I don’t just want to know them in Hong Kong and after they are gone. Even if I leave Hong Kong I want to keep contact with them, at least through messages. J : before i hanged out with a lot of people but now same, I have a filter and I focus on the right ones. At the beginning, you want to multiply all the way to socialize. After one year you know which people are important. How do you feel you have changed in Hong Kong in a year?

J : I feel like I left friends and family. When my best friend came to visit me he said, “ho you have already changed” R : From what to what ? J : a French mindset, in either good or bad. Since I’m Asian I started to understand more my culture surrounded by Asians about some stuff I cannot understand in France. Because in France it was not a problem but a real difference. Now those difference I face them, sometimes I’m pissed off, sometimes I’m happy and I really feel sometimes I really understand what were the difficulties of my parents, and what were the difficulties of my grandparents. These past few days or months I’ve think about my grandpa and grandpa who lived in France at the end of their lives, and they couldn’t speak French. Someway I feel like them trying to communicate with a smile. And it makes me smile because I used to go to the supermarket with my grandpa and he was still bringing back candies. I can more understand about me, I want to learn a third language, maybe Vietnamese.

Family Current place

Possible place to live 84

Ethan Home in a box

31 years old Poly U student From Taiwan - Less than a year in Hong Kong, but has already worked in the city in the past. Ethan had been my roommate for six months and has been pretty helpful as he fluently speaks four languages. We talked about what is moving and his attitude towards this way of life. I thought he was a good person to interview on the topic of home.

I am Canadian Taiwanese cause half of my life I grew up in Taiwan and half of my life I grew up in Canada.

I’m a global citizen. You have also been traveling a lot.

I mean I started to travel after I started working. I used to stay at once place but after I started working I travelled a lot for vacation. Where is home right now?

I don’t know. I know you go back often to Taiwan to visit your family.

To visit my family, I don’t feel like I want to live here. I visit because some of my family and friends are there. Do you still have family in Canada?

No, all back to Taiwan. And I have relative in many different countries. I feel like in the future anywhere can be my home. If I decided to settle. Any place you are thinking about right now?

Right now, obviously I want to stay here in Hong Kong, but I don’t know. I’m thinking about retired life, is that too far away? Even if I’m retired I’m thinking to live in different places from time to time. Like maybe my ideal life would be three months in Japan, and I don’t know other three months in Asia countries. And then a few months in north America. Changing places every time of having fixed place in those countries?

I didn’t think about it but yeah maybe that could be. I don’t feel a kind of commitment to a place, I think every place has different feelings, once you go there you feel differently, a different vibe like compared to Japan. Does home relate to things you pin on the wall?

Kind of, I collect stuff that have memories. Right now, I have completely different stuff on my wall [from when we were flat mates]. Cause I have traveled and pick up some posters, tickets and I put it on the wall. Even if I don’t put on the wall, I keep stuff. I have a notebook where I post all the old the stuff inside.

As long as I bring them to a new place, I’m not afraid to be in a new place. 86

But other than that box, I try to keep my other stuff as minimum as I can. Because I constantly move, so I don’t want to buy too much stuff, I have to consider how much weight is something. Do you relate to your neighborhood when you stay? What point you feel home?

In the bus seeing the building. I feel even more back when I have interaction with my neighborhood.

For example, when I go to a restaurant I used to go to and I eat something and I am thinking “oh yeah I miss this taste”. For example, I really like the area I lived in japan, in a small town. I can name an all different lot of mall shops of food. And if I’m going back I’ll visit them. It’s good memory. Did school feel at home?

For me it’s just a place to work, I don’t go to school often. For the final work, I had to find a coffee shop.

Maybe because I want to explore different environments, that’s why I try to explore different coffee shop.

I would stay for several times and then keep looking for a new one. Maybe occasionally going back to one I liked.

Sometimes I don’t understand Hong Kong local culture where they have to buy a house. When they are considering getting married or something. I think the house price is already crazy, why would you put all your savings. If you want your money to be physical you could buy gold bars and put them in a safe. How your family feels about you moving?

They kind of support me on what I want to do. From time to time they would like me to visit them more often. My mom only said that when she will be old she wants me to live close to her. So, I want to stay around Asia for work.

Home

Flat area

Chris No sense of belonging

25 years old Student at Poly U From Taiwan - One year in Hong Kong Chris came from Taipei not sure about adapting in Hong Kong. Due to budget reason, she rented a living room in a flat she shared with three other girls. One year later we talk about how it has been, living in this city and being far from the childhood place and her pets.

Bedroom space is separate from the entrance by a wardrobe and a curtain.

Where is home for you right now ?

Home is still in Taipei I think.

Where we are right now is just for me a place to temporally stay. How has been one year away from home ?

Actually, I don’t get homesick that often. Probably just one or twice since I’m here. I think I have very strict standards, very strict definition of home.

For example this accommodation is just like somewhere you sleep. What makes you not feel home here ? Or what makes you feel home in Taipei ?

Because I was born in Taipei obviously and I’ve been living there for 25 years. And what makes me not feel home here. I think for me it also relates to my personal choice cause I’m living in a living room which doesn’t make … I don’t get the full functionality of a home. For me I real need a living room, a bedroom, a nice kitchen to make my life actually function. So if you had a different flat in Hong Kong, could you have felt more home ? Or it’s more about the mindset of seeing HK has temporary ?

Both, but yes the first part is true. If I had choice I probably enjoy more. Is there any other place you feel connected to?

There was a short period of time where I spent more time in my studio, working or probably just doing nothing. I have spent not so much time in my flat.

It’s not that I don’t like it, well yes, I don’t like, but I’m happy about the arrangement as far as I can get. But I think studio is somewhere more… What about the neighbourhood?

I think I’ll leave here with no regret.

From my perspective, it’s just that I don’t like Hong Kong. Speaking of the neighbourhood. I think it is a pretty good one, theirs is restaurant and market and supermarket, it’s also within 10 min walk to the school and a pretty good transportation hub. 90

What you don’t like about Hong Kong?

I don’t know, the all vibe for me. I wouldn’t see myself stay a long time here, also the density and the weather. I really need a bigger space.

For me it’s really not fair than a human being should spend that much money on enjoying or having a space, a special space. When you travel and go back to Taipei, at what point do you feel home?

I think in the city I can feel at home, and I feel comfortable. I’m quite familiar with different areas, I feel comfortable just wandering or biking or exploring the city.

I get that sense of belonging.

Is there people important in Hong Kong? Or are you focused on your family in Taipei?

It will probably sound a bit cruel but I don’t really get that attached with people, even with my family I think.

But with cats.

Why are you not living in the place you want to live in ?

I don’t know, it’s just happening because I’m pursuing my degree here. And it was 100% a mistake. If you could live anywhere in the world, where would you pick and why ?

I definitely would see myself live in Europe or north America. I have been wanting to go to the West for a long time, probably since I’m in junior high.

I have always felt closer to western culture and because there is a lot of trivial things I don’t like in Asia.

Millennial talk Identity, third place and sense of belonging IDENTITY First is the common feeling that where they sleep doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t define a home, as well as sharing with family. What they all define as home is a place -mental or physical- where they can express their indentity. Another interesting point about the relationship between identity and home is the crisis link between them. People who have some sort of identity crisis tend to also have a home crisis and on the opposite people with a strongly defined sens of who they are and were they belong tend to have a clearer vision of what their home is. SPACE Some will pick object of furniture as home-device, in both case the personnalisation of the item is an important aspect. In the case of the phone or the laptop Sam Gosling and Lindsay Graham17 write about the singularity of the appropriation : the outside is a public display with a case or some stickers while the inside, the saving screen is highly personnal with a intimate picture.

17 In conversation : the commodification of home, interview by Georgia Frances King, Kinfolk nÂ°21, 2016, p98

SENSE OF BELONGING Identity and space are not enough if they don’t fulfill a third part, which is a sense of belonging. Belonging to a community, common identity, common space. This sense of belonging adds to the feeling of familiarity and security.

SHAPE OF HOME In the next pages the diagrams ‘world spread of home attachement’ shows the shape of home for each interview at a world scale. A dot shows attachement to small ‘object’ (family, house). A longer line would show a link towards a city, a region. For all is also shown there relationship with Hong Kong. The mind map explores another shape of home in Hong Kong. On one side what physical shape home has for everyone, and it is interesting to see that the smallest is a smartphone while the biggest is a full city. The other side shows the mental construct of home, the intangible home that is contained into the physical one. the difference between Hongkongers and foreigner is noticeable through the number of connection each extreme have. Where everyone join is on the identity point. Home have to carry their identity.

Hong Kong

AimĂŠe

Chris

Jonathan

Rachel

Ethan

Sylvia

Andrew

Jacky

Don

Joyce

Tak

Angel

300

800

2.5k

Mainland

Taipei

Singapore

10k

12k

18k

London Paris

Toronto

Sao Paulo

World spread of home attachment 95

Physical and mental home 97

About home and identity

For Angel, Don and Tak there is not much question about their identity. Obviously, the retrocession to China opened some new questioning but overall, they “belong to Hong Kong”. For Jacky, it is quite similar but he starts having trouble seeing Hong Kong’s identity itself. Even if he doesn’t question his belonging to the city, the new evolution of population and the growing influence of China make him lose the vision of a strong local identity. Joyce has been moving a lot, within Hong Kong boundaries but also outside. Exposed to some other lifestyles she feels more the limits of the local lifestyle. The constant moving from flat to flat and the fact she has started working young has made her both flexible and indifferent to the city being only attached to the family and friends. Andrew and Sylvia are interesting to look at together. They share some similarities as they are both Hong Kong permanent residents but also hold a passport from a different country. Their appearance makes them blend in the Hong Kong population but their culture / lifestyle (and even language in Sylvia’s situation) are mixed. For Andrew that double identity leads him to feel like a perpetual foreigner. No sense of belonging, no place called home, he just happens to be somewhere. For Sylvia, she takes the opposite statement where she belongs to both places. Different aspect of her are just highlighted depending where she is. For the overseas people home is a fluid concept. During the interviews, I quite forced them to fix the home somewhere but for knowing them, and here I am talking about Jonathan, Rachel and Aimée, the feeling changes depending on outside and inside parameters. Being homesick is not constant and the appreciation of their life in Hong Kong can’t be constant. Some also my question their identity as they are no longer the person they were in their previous country neither are completely locals in Hong Kong. As Aimée said, they are “in limbo”. Ethan has solved the identity problem by defining himself in a new convenient

way of â&#x20AC;&#x153;citizen of the worldâ&#x20AC;?. And to suit this new identity he has created a unique kind of home that he can carry. In his case his home is totally shaped regarding his identity. The two last, Chris and My, share a strong vision of what home is and are not really open to change it. Either because of their personality or because of the culture.

HOME ANGEL TAK AIMEE

RACHEL

JACKY

JONATHAN

DON

JOYCE ETHAN

IDENTITY

SYLVIA

CHRIS ANDREW Relation between home and identity regarding Hong Kong

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The first cluster of people is for those whom identity and home are overlapping regarding Hong Kong. A second cluster of people is those who start feeling at home in Hong Kong but their identity is still foreign. The third cluster is for the people who donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t feel home neither feel like their identity is being hongkonger. Then we have three persons in unique situation, even if Sylvia and Andrew are on the same axis regarding identity.

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Familiarity Being familiar and confortable with their direct environment is definitly a point where both groups are agreeing. But being familiar goes through different process and different levels.

Everyday crowd - doorman, shopkeepers...

PEOPLE

Direct surroundings

no need to have more dialogue than the basic ÂŤhi / byeÂť, but it is more about familiar faces, something like well known strangers.

Colleagues / classmates

little chit chat and usual exchanges that build everyday life

Friends

they frame a new level of confort zone, more than familiar we are starting to reach the intimate zone. Those people may visit the place we are living in.

Best friends

may or may not be in a close place but are essential for balance

May live far

Family / pets

they frame a new level of confort zone, more than familiar we are starting to reach the intimate zone. Those people may visit the place we are living in.

Significant other

they frame a new level of confort zone, more than familiar we are starting to reach the intimate zone. Those people may visit the place we are living in.

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PLACES

Appartement / house

Direct surroundings

having enough place for usual activities, shared space or alone

Street / neighborhood

habits for shopping, knowing where to go for different needs. Being able to move without a map and not getting lost

Daily commute

movement we do without thinking much about it, and we can picture it in our mind to explain it to someone else

City

Conept of the mind

from this point we know longer know it physicaly but we agree on a shared identity, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s another sense of belonging

Country

passeport we hold and official identity in a sense, we know we can circulate and communicate in this space without big trouble

Bigger area

Continent or sub-continent, ethnicity

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In both figures foreigners and hongkongers show some difference in the spread of their home. People who have been in Hong Kong for a long time have a wider space they can call home even on a daily practice, while foreigners rarely exceed the size of a neighborhood. Jonathan and Rachel stand out, and it is possible to think that because they live together they could recreate faster a more traditionnal home feeling around them and connect more with their direct environment while the other foreigners are still more attached to their previous country.

Minimum

Daily home feeling

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Foreigners

Maximum

1. object 2. furniture 3. indoor space 4. building 5. outdoor space 6. neighbourhood 7. Kowloon 8. city 9. country

Spread of the home feeling perception in Hong Kong

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PURPOSE OF HOME

After going through the diverse interviews and higlighting the differences between foreigners and hongkongers, it is also interesting to notice they have also a common vision of home. Where everyone meets is to see home as a place where they can express their true identity. Where they can be themselves in a confident and safe way, without restriction. Because of the Hong Kong lifestyle (either small individual flats, either proximity with the family) most of the millennials have the need of at least a second place where or they can express themselves. This second place has yet to be define more precisely. What caracterises those places? How a place becomes a home? To try to answer those questions, it is good to start from the building and looking at the relationship people can have with it. I chose to study the rowing center used by the PolyU rowing Club through the same approach of the three R : rituals, relationships and restrictions.

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PURPOSE OF HOME

EXPRESSION OF SELF IDENTITY

CULTURE

FAMILY

INTEREST

CARACTERISTICS OF HOME HAPPINESS BELONGING RESPONSABILITY SELF EXPRESSION CRITICAL EXPERIENCES PERMANENCE PRIVACY TIME PERSPECTIVE MEANINGFUL PLACES KNOWLEDGE PREFERENCE TO RETURN

PHYSICAL STRUCTURES EXTENT OF SERVICES ARCHITECTURAL STYLE WORK ENVIRONMENT SPACIALITY TYPE OF RELATIONSHIPS QUALITY OF RELATIONSHIPS FRIENDS + ENTERTAINMENT EMOTIONAL ENVIRONMENT

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CENTRAL THIRD PLACES Oldenburg theory For other people we can notice the importance of the third place, which may be specific to Hong Kong. Where Ethan finds a box to contain his home, Hongkongers put more importance on social space shared with a community. In countries where houses are bigger the need of those third place are less important as more of the identity can be carried by the personnalisation of the living space. Third places have been a concept to characterize space where people socialize and feel familiar with and which are not family home or work place. Those spaces can be places like cafes, libraries, schools, barber shops18... The importance and the social construction of those places change according to the culture of the population taken in account but exist in most civilization of the world in a certain way. They are important for interractions and help the people to create a sense of belonging.

8 points that makes a third place19 : Neutral ground Leveling place Conversation Open, accessible Regulars Non pretentious Playful mood A home away from home

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-can come and go freely -social equality between people -main but not obviously central activity -long open hours, meeting occupants needs -welcome newcomers -accepting quality -’let’s do this again’ spirit -warmth, intimacy, belonging

18 Oldenburg, Ray (1989). The Great Good Place: Cafes, Coffee Shops, Community Centers, Beauty Parlors, General Stores, Bars, Hangouts, and How They Get You Through the Day. New York: Paragon House 19 Pete Myers. Going Home: Essays, Articles, and Stories in Honour of the Andersons. Lulu.com. p. 37

FIRST PLACE SECOND PLACE THIRD PLACE

Familly housing Work Other social places

Hong Kong third places for millenials Through the interviews it is noticeable that the third place has a major role in their life. Don, Tak, Jacky and Angel even picked the third place for the interview. If in Western countries the third place can be place after the family housing as housing tends to be larger than in Hong Kong, the ‘third’ position in Hong Kong may not be obvious. The complex point comes when we talk about foreigners in Hong Kong. They are not attached to their flat but to something else. Even for Jacky the third place is not really clear because he is talking about his desk. It would be like the desk at his family is a third place within the flat. Neutral ground Leveling place Conversation Open, accessible Regulars Non pretentious Playful mood A home away from home

-in his own bedroom -within family space -through social media -meet his needs has he personnalized it -family + contact on social media -tailored to himself -place of choice for him -warmth, intimacy, belonging

This can apply on Aimée’s phone, Andrew’s computer and of course Sylvia’s desk at the studio. New technologies have bring a new twist on the third place as described before, creating a new categrory of inner third places.

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MECHANIC OF A THIRD PLACE Area of influence Opened in 2001, the Jockey Club Shek Mun Rowing Centre has welcomed the PolyU and CUHK team a few years later. Before that, all the team were stacked in the Sha Tin Rowing Centre built in 1985. Teams practice all year long on the Shing Mun River, but during summer teams come everyday and use the facilities all day long. For that reason, most of the rowers see those buildings as a home. I spent the three months of training studying the attachment between the girl team and the building but also the surroundings. The map presents the direct area we use for practice. After the mark 2000 there is still more than a kilometer of river we can use, but no one in the team pointed it out during my questions.

Fo Tan

Sport Institute H

Sha Tin Rowing Centre Mark 2000

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Mark 0

Jockey Club Shek Mun Rowing Centre

Mark 750

MTR

HKSI

g e

Red Heart Canteen Star Seafood Floating Restaurant Shek Mun MTR

111

0 1500

112

750 1750

1000

1250

2000

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Appropriation On this first part I asked the team what important places make the neighbourhood, if beside the Rowing Centre there are other places where they feel at home. I also asked them about the physical boundaries of the home feeling. On a second part I focused more on the building itself. I asked them about the core place of the home feeling, if there was only one room important for them that made the Rowing Centre important. In both case we can notice two different kinds of places. First kind is what I call social places: they are more about the activity happening there rather than the place itself. I named the second category landmark. They are symbolic objects that are highly personal to each member. A few team members named the same one but the feeling attached to it is not shared, not born from social exchange but rather from an internal process. As often, the two categories are permeable and some places are not stricktly in one or the other. Also, the classification may change for one person to another, depending on each experience and feeling.

Pontoon Common room 1750 750 Girls changing room Gym room 2000 Ergo room Car park Riverside Boat house

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SOCIAL

LANDMARK

HKSI Shatin Rowing Center Mark 0 Mark 750 Mark 2000 Mark 1750 Red Heart Canteen Shek Mun Rowing Center Pontoon Common room Star Seafood Floatting Restaurant Riverside Girls changing room Ergo room Boat house

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Two centres, two atmospheres

STRC boat access and multi purpose balcony

116

STRC central training room loaded with ergo machines

117

Pontoon

STRC ground floor

Boat washing area

SMRC ground floor 118

STRC first floor

SMRC first floor

Relationships Girls changing room

Balcony Gym room Common room Ergo room

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Relationships and restrictions

Before moving to Shek Mun Rowing Centre (SMRC) PolyU rowing club was in the Sha Tin Rowing Centre (STRC) with the seven other universities and other users. A few years ago, two teams moved to the more recent building. The team still sometimes use the old rowing centre for ergo training and I could experience both centres. Through the interview of Tak, but also while talking to members I realized that the relationship between the team and the STRC is different from the team had with the old centre. If they serve the same purpose, the two buildings have a few important differences. The old one has rooms to monitor the regattas but small changing rooms and only one big training room shared by everyone at the same time. The new centre has a common room, a gym room and a smaller ergo room. The space to wash the boat is also bigger with more water pipes available. TEAM HABITS In the older centre the resources where limited, «teams had to fight» over water access, bathroom, boat slings. Everyone had to «move really quick» according to our coach Manho. He said the competitive mind was strong. Now that the team has moved to the Shek Mun location, there is more space and «the team has become less competitive» as there is only one team we can compare with. But he finds the facilities better. If at first the building has been opened without filters on the windows and the room where too hot in the sun, this has now been improved according to another teammate. TEAM RELATIONSHIPS Shek Mun Rowing Centre is more comfortable to use for the team as there is more private places. The team can «stay longer and to have snacks and rest». People were also staying together in Sha Tin but it was less comfortable. Nevertheless, Manho says that the bonding of the team may «not be affected by the building that much as the real bonding is created by the experience, crying, eating, winning or losing together what matters», no matter where the team is.

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RESTRICTIONS If Sha Tin was more intense, She Mun has the quality of being more comfortable. The building offers more flexibility. The main drawback is the fact that She Mun is harder to reach than Sha Tin which can be a problem during the school year. If the filters on the windows were already a progress there is still room

for improvement in some details like the air conditioning or in the rules in the building made without taking care of the teams needs. Coabitation with the other team also has become more complexe. Where in the old rowing everyone is training in the same room, in the new one the different rooms allow teams to play hide and seek. People of CUHK «are not familiar», being just PolyU in a room create «a sense of belonging» and feels «private».

121

Rituals

122

123

Girls changing room

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For obvious reasons, there is no people in the pictures but the changing room has been chosen as core of the Rowing Centre. It is a highly intimate room where the talks are the most casual. It is also the place where we transform our appearance from normal people to team members and the other way around after training.

125

Soap Shampoo Equipment

SHARED

126

TEAM

LOCKERS

Sunscreen Equipment First aid kit

DRYING

UMBRELLAS

127

Common room

SLEEPING

128

STRATEGIES

129

Sleeping

130

Training

Chatting

Massage

Floor is lava

Resting

Massage tool

Listening to music

Boys bags

131

Gym room

132

133

Training

Chatting

134

Checking the phone

Watching the regatta

Sleeping

Stretching

GYM

AND

COMMON

ROOM

Same size for those two almost equivalent rooms. We happen to have almost the same activities in both, except for the use of the gym machines. But we do sometimes take weights to the common room to train. On regatta day, the gym room belongs to PolyU while the common room belongs to CUHK while on everyday practice we keep avoiding mixing but switch rooms during the day.

135

Pontoon

SUPPORTING

136

THE

TEAM

When it comes to keep teams separated the pontoon is no exception. Most of the time all the boats of a team will come or leave together. The result is that when one team is using the pontoon, the home feeling can unfold. If at this moment someone from another team comes then he would be perceived as a stranger. If another team is already occupying the space then we try to use the second access and stand far from them.

Help

Cheering

Chatting

Resting

Team meeting

137

Ergo room

138

Waiting / supporting

Training

Because of its size and equipment (eight machines make one boat training at a time) this room is only used for its purpose. We almost never rest there as it is too hot when people are training. On special occasion, we stay to support the rowers. But because of the intensity of the training it is a symbolic room for the team.

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Boat house and boat washing area

BOAT HOUSE The boat house is the only space not shared, we lock it ourselves. No one steps in the boat house of another team. For PolyU, one red boat carries the symbol of the team. But the team is attached to every boat, each member caring for the boat he is training on. This is also a space we can appropriate with photos above the entrance, trophies, bikes, fridge, clothes and everything you could need on a boat. BOAT WASHING AREA Link between the boat house and the pontoon, it is where we are most likely about to exchange with other teams when it is crowded and we need to move boats around. Because it is also where we have water access, water fight can happen. We also have other activities like team pictures or celebrations there.

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Photos

Trophies

Training

Red Sausage

Resting

141

Team meeting

Flip flop throwing contest

Boat care

142

143

Balcony

144

Training

Drying wet clothes

BALCONY Sometimes the two main rooms are already occupied and we end up using the balcony for the same set of activities. But it is also the place where boys can dry their clothes between two training session, and the best spot to watch boats on the river. ROOFTOP Even if the building as a large rooftop, it is surprisingly not used.

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Relative intimacy SOCIAL / PUBLIC

INTIMATE / DOMESTIC

- Rowing activities are highly social as each boat is a close bonded team

Sleeping Changing Resting

- Nevertheless, this social display always remains within the team boundaries. Our red outfit is creating a limit and inside this space we can feel at home. Outside this boundary we are back in a public building.

Showering Storing shower products Massage BODY RELATED ACTIVITIES Sitting on table Listening to music Checking the phone

Eating Chatting

Training Watching regatta Stretching Cheering Decoration items Drying clothes

Team meeting Supporting Boat care ROWING ACTIVITIES

Hilghlighting home kind activities in the rowing centre

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Between all the activities we could have in this building there is a few things we can notice:

- Thanks to this behaviour we can see blooming highly intimate activities like deep sleeping, but also meal sharing on the floor or sitting on furniture.

Context matters The Rowing Centre studies shows us that third places as home exist in a context, like Hayward work was presenting. The physical structure needs to be confortable and have enough caracteristics on his own to be identified as unique, but flexible enough to offer appropriation in decorations and uses. It also needs to be linked to a neighrborhood as a context framing the building itself. But what is also important is third place as a home exist in a certain expand of time. For older rowers like Tak, their memories are still mostly attached to the old rowing centre while people who have now practice both like Manho aknowledge the new one as home. So the third place as home exists in certain conditions at a certain time.

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HOME AND IDENTITY THE RISE OF THE THIRD PLACE From the theorical part, we had a first approach of the close relationship between home and place, as home is presented as a specific place. But if for a long time home was considered as the first place where the family is, my work may have bring a variation on this thesis. Hong Kong Millennials, from the city or elsewhere share a new way of making home. No longer a single place as it used to be for previous generations, home is now scattered not only in different places but can also take the shape of an object. The other difference is that the familly house is no longer central in their life, even if it is still needed for some, but spaces called third places are now a priority. As housing condition in Hong Kong is so congested and pushes families in small spaces, millennials canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t develop their full identity within the apartment. Even in the case of the most family oriented interviews (Angel / Tak), they still need third places for their own life. In other cases, instead of having a full space where they can express themselves, millennials invest an object like an inner third place, an artefact with the same caracteristic as a third place but at a smaller scale. IDENTITY EXPRESSION Home is a mental perception of who we are so home is directly linked to our identity. This is why an identity crisis leads to a home crisis. As well as a home crisis can create an identity crisis. If there is no place to anchor the mind, this one will drift and get sick. People only attached to people through internet connection may have a lack in their life as the mind cannot find a safe space but only a safe mental position. Ultimately those people will need to create a space around them to feel secure and rested. At larger scale the identity of the environment also needs a certain definition.If a neighborhood, a city, a country having an identity is having a crisis this can threatened the home feeling of the inhabitants, leading the population sometimes

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to relocate (as the retrocession of Hong Kong did for the Hongkongers). The identity of the place needs to overlap the identity of the people living in it. In the case of Hong Kong, its diverse identity both allow all kind of people to settle but may weakened the sense of belonging of long time installed population. The question now is how can home feeling can be reinforced for people who struggle build it in Hong Kong ? And how can it be secured for people who feel it weakened as life goes on ? Hong Kong is certainly facing a new chapter of its history rising new challenges for the inhabtitants and their home.

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FAMILY

MILLENNIAL

150

THIRD PLACE OR INNER THIRD PLACE

As home is no longer large enough, millennials needs (inner) third places to express their identity

IDENTITY

HOME

MILLENNIAL

THIRD PLACE

CITY

If the identity of the millennial is aligned with his surroundings, the home feeling is possible

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IDENTITY

CRISIS

MILLENNIAL

THIRD PLACE

CITY

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If the identity on one of the elements is not longer aligned, then a crisis occurs

IDENTITY

CRISIS

MILLENNIAL

THIRD PLACE

If the identity on one of the elements is not definied of if an element has a rupture in its identity, then a crisis occurs

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PROJECT STATEMENT THE RISE OF THE THIRD PLACE Home is a complex matter, studied by different fields through time. Because itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a fluid concept, changing according to people, culture and even time, no one can give a proper formal definition of home. After focusing on a group of millennials in Hong Kong, we could identify a specific shape home can take for them, a concept used to be called third place. Third place has also been described and analyzed, but were remaining behind family house and work. In the case of Hong Kong millennials, this place has become central due to crowded housing and intense work life. IDENTITY EXPRESSION This third place can become a home when it allows the person the express their identity in a complete a comfortable way. It can be through the activity done, the people gathering in that place or any other that fit the user. The identity of the place and its inscription in the neighborhood around should echo the identity of the user, but also to a bigger space around. The question now is how can home feeling can be reinforced for people who struggle build it in Hong Kong? And how can it be secured for people who feel it weakened as life goes on? Hong Kong is certainly facing a new chapter of its history rising new challenges for the inhabitants and their home. If third places are more and more central in the life of millennials, can we imagine a place where both locals and foreigners could anchor? A shared identity born from what makes Hong Kong unique. On one side, some third places struggle to find an appropriate place to settle, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the case for example of Hidden Agenda. Indie music bands are legion in Hong Kong but have only a few places where they can play live. Through music, lots of different population can collide and anchor themselves, either by playing or by being spectators. On the other side, third places need to remain at a quite small scale. Mall cannot be home for the public they receive. But that doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t mean third places should stand alone, they could belong to a network that develop all over the city.

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Bibliography

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https://www.realsimple.com/magazine-more/inside-magazine/your-words/home-meaning https://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/mar/04/home-social-housing-moving-swaps-identity https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/jul/31/cathy-come-home-50-years-homelessness-mental-healthproblems http://www.businesstimes.com.sg/real-estate/prison-cell-flats-in-hong-kong-show-limits-of-home-supply-policy https://vimeo.com/65620112

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Iconography

All the image are the property of Mathilde Gattegno Exception on the pages : 6-7 : Pantone, https://www.pantone.com 21 : Scannell, & Gifford. (2010). Defining place attachment: A tripartite organizing framework. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 30(1), 1-10. Gustafson, P. (2001). MEANINGS OF PLACE: EVERYDAY EXPERIENCE AND THEORETICAL CONCEPTUALIZATIONS. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 21(1), 5-16. 22 : Lewicka, M. (2011). Place attachment: How far have we come in the last 40 years? Journal of Environmental Psychology, 31(3), 207-230. 26-29, 46 : Jacky Au 52 : Tak Ho Tang

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Thank you note

First I would like to thank all the people I have interviewed as for most of them I also studied their everyday life and went beyond the interview, espcially Sylvia who has to bear with me on a daily basis. A special thanks to Jacky for doing off tutorials and helping with his mad skills. Thanks to Andrew for typing down an interview and doing a first proof reading. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m sorry I think I just did much more mistakes after you left. Second proof reading was done by my mom, who had been reading all the work Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve done since the very beginning, so it is a lifelong thank you. Then I would like to thank the PolyU Rowing Club who allowed me to stalk them for three months straight. Thanks to the girl team to fill the map in a cheerful attitude. I really appreciate the concentration you all put in it. Thanks to Manho and Tse for the bonus interview in the car, perfect Hong Kong efficiency. Thanks also to My Jiang, even if the interview is not featured in the capstone, the document you shared have been more than helpful. And in general I want to thank anyone who have been listening to me thinking loud and tried to help organized me my thoughts. You all have been showing interested and felt concerned by the topic, which was making me believe this capstone was worth the investment.

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THE HONG KONG POLYTECHNIC UNIVERSITY URBAN ENVIRONMENT DESIGN 2017

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