let me explain through interpretive puppet show

The sham shui po residents prepare to argue their case using shadow puppets (video by vartivist). The whole puppet show is on the Chinese blog.

The first half of the show tells stories of the residents' everyday-lives, showing their neighbourhood relationships and their love for the community.

The second half of the show presents the neighbours’ wished-for outcome from the government and the renewal policy. They wish that the tiger and the pilot (symbolizing the government and the officials) would listen to them and understand them, that they would stop to tearing down their community, and that the district would develop into a world famous and wonderful repair centre (something for which Sham Shui Po very well known).

An update on the project of inviting the Secretary for development to tea. The politician, Mrs Lam, has now written to say she is very busy, but she has sent a car around with staff to take photos of the location.

Here is another article from the newspaper Apple Daily from the 10th March 08. The reporters interview some of the residents about their life in Sham Shui Po.

And here is the latest article, from HKET, 20 March 08. This report documents one of the nights as the neighbours wait for Mrs Lam to come and join them for dinner. The reporter said that s/he was touched by the neighbours: how they prepared the food, how they practiced chatting with Mrs Lam, how they care for each other…

[thanks to Marsha Lui for summarising and translating]

And finally, here are all the postcards telling the story of 18 shopkeepers and their families who have become the social core of the block under threat. The first one has been translated into English by fabulous Zoe Yuen in Shanghai.

The postcards are written in Cantonese, recording the verbatim language of the shopkeepers. (Written text in Hong Kong is usually rendered in a formal 'written Chinese style' with a grammar and vocabulary that does not sound the way people speak).

when words were earth

This was contributed by Madeleine Marie Slavick, a Hong Kong poet, photographer, activist and fabulous woman. It's the last part of an essay.

when words were earth

Activism seeks to educate, to promote seeing that which is not always apparent or easily represented, that which is obscured and obfuscated, that which challenges the status quo, and that which we are not allowed to see, let alone comprehend, through our mainstream media. It begins with a cry followed by a charge to action, motivating us to change that which is clearly unjust, unjustified, reckless and sinister.


Poetry on the other hand, invokes our sense of justice through a sublime knowing, through the epistemology of experience, of the senses. Through poetry, we understand longing and separation. Pressed: When Words Were Earth, by Andrew Johnson is distinctly an amalgamation, a hybrid text, a poetic activist desire for something other than what it is.
It is a witness, a gesture, a reminder, a call.

-b. h. Yael, 2005
(filmmaker, professor, installation artist,
www.bhyael.com)

Article in HKET about 'Community Life Story Image'

Here is an article from the Hong Kong Economic Times. (Here is the link to the newspaper:
http://hket.com)

Summary:
Reporting on the 'Community Life Story Image' exhibition.

The article discusses why the neighbours protest against the redevelopment, and why they use this way of protest. Reporters interview some neighbours about their life story. They also remind readers that redevelopment is relevant to everyone in the city.

[summarising and translation by Marsha Lui]

Here is video of one of the dinner meetings (waiting for Mrs Lam) from the Chinese SSPK blog.

Invitation to Dinner

The creative dissent, or 'happy action' being engaged in by the Sham Shui Po Kaifong is beautifully effective. People are less scared of art than politics, and find it easier to engage. Two major newspapers covered the art exhibition and then came to photograph the locals in their native habitat. No amount of worthiness could get them out there before. I can't find it in the Ming Pao website, because i'm illiterate. Have a look at Apple Daily's articles:
First Article 10 March 2008 Summary: Reports on the action of inviting Mrs Lam to dinner. Introduces the stay-behind plan by neighbours and the feedback from Development Bureau. Also reports on some community-life stories from the neighbours.


Second Article 10 March 2008


The Community's current 'happy action' is a re-thinking of the hunger strikes that previous activists have used at the Li Yuen Street 'renewal' and the Star Ferry/ Queens Pier 'renewal'. (Both have been renewed to the ground). Instead, they are inviting Mrs Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor, JP, Secretary for Development to dinner.

Ms Lam visited the hunger strikers in other communities and got good press, but did not in the end do anything. The Sham Shui Po community wants her to listen this time. They are setting a place for her in the garage where the community meets, and will wait for her each night for 14 days. Obviously, they are also using the community dinners to pool ideas and focus energy. Tonight is the fourth night.

Here is a video i took of a 'daydreaming workshop' at the same garage, run by a visiting dutch artist, Elena Simons.

(By 'daydreaming', Simons means powerfully visualising and describing the impossible future you intend to create, and having the community as a whole align on the one vision).