A new, very occasional feature?
Other peoples images create different stories in our minds. Sometimes we get the narration, like me blogging here and you reading. Other times, we just have an image with no story and need to fill in the gaps with our imagination.
I recently got hold of a 37 slide box of Hong Kong. It was at a thrift store and by the estimated age, the photographer is either elderly and releasing possessions (as people often do in later years), or already passed on and their family have offloaded the life collection of things. A bit sombre – but ultimately we don’t take anything with us after life, and things we hold dear do not necessarily have meaning to those we leave (also – most of us cannot keep the collective possessions of our ancestors!). Anyway, back on the positive track:
NOTE: All images with text are the text of the photographer written on the slides. Also click into the photos – Gallery shows some as zoomed in portrait when most of series are actually landscape.
It was really interesting to see Hong Kong in the [estimated] mid/late 1960’s (based on landmarks, cars and writers language – anyone who can date more please comment). I visited roughly in the new millennium, or for my younger readers, this century. These images predate my memory and images by nearish 40 years! – quite a lot of the area had changed.
One clear difference was the volume of ‘boat people’ – either Tanka fisherfolk, or if I have guessed the date wrong by about a decade,Vietnamese refugees post Vietnam War (1975-1990s). Looking at the tram images, the city is so smaller compared to my visit and current day!
I wonder. Was the photographer one of the two posed on the summit above?
What’s burning on that hill in the background of the cityscape images?
Perhaps the floating restaurant gives clues to the age of the images. I don’t think it is the Tai Pak?
The Markets in part don’t look so dissimilar to my visit. Hustling and bustling for produce. No phone cases or plastic widgets for sale in these photos though!
In front of The Mandarin Hotel we see the Hong Kong Cricket Club – now the Chater Garden. Peak British Colony era stuff with some ‘ole sports’ having a swing as the photographer snapped his shot!
So many images of the ports and fishing communities. Hong Kong long had a solid traditional fishing industry. The Industrial History go Hong Kong group stated “The total population of boat dwellers in Hong Kong was estimated at 2,000 in 1841, 150,000 in 1963 and 40,000 in 1982…” – I think these photos perhaps show the country at its peak for boat people, before things began modernising more and reducing.
Middle, second to bottom row of the above selection also show the fascinating mountainside cemeteries in the background I believe – just as built up and crowded as the living city & so visual compared to the essentially hidden ones in some countries.
Taking the shot out of order, I close off with the above. One of my favourite of the 27 (as is the opening one).
We will likely never know the photographer, their trip and the real stories that unfolded, but their images now live on in this very different time and space, giving us a glimpse of the past.
Colour Slide Film: Agfa CT18
Scanned on a Kaiser Baas PhotoMaker Touch (also found at the op shop on a different visit)
MikeHawkey.com 
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