On the way to Jiageng Park (嘉庚公园 - JiāGēngGōngYuán) in Xiamen (China), I noticed this old bulk carrier, which seemed to be totally abandoned. The silhouet of the ZhongShengHai 87 (众盛海87) had something phantasmagoric, with the surrounding Xiamen fog.
If this ship is waiting to be dismantled, its little brother, the ZhongShengHai 88 is still sailing on the South China Sea. It has just left Hong Kong yesterday, to reach Guangzhou's port.
The 2011 year has been marked by an exceptional flood in Thailand, resulted in a total of 815 deaths and 13.6 million people affected. This disaster made headline news for weeks, and most of us may remember it.
But the flood also affected adjacent countries, such as Cambodia. During my travel there, I met some farmers who converted to tuk-tuk drivers, as their land crops were totally devastated. Also, aids provided by the government wasn't enough to feed families that count 3.3 children per woman in rural areas (2010).
This picture has been taken on the way to Chong Khneas Floating Village. Those palm trees are usually never flooded. But the lake was so high that time, that a sudden thunderstorm changed the lake into a violent and wavy sea for a couple of minutes.
Grey clouds in the sky, pavement wet by a close shower, a cafe theatre, a contemporary art gallery, the red telephone booth. London.
Anglers are numerous in Hong Kong. What would be more natural for a city surrounded by ocean ? During lunch time, it is even possible to see warehousemen throwing fishing lines without rod. The perfect 30-min break.
For the past 2 months, the West Kowloon Cultural District welcomed some strange inflated mobiles on its site, for the exhibition Mobile M+: Inflation! . Among them, a famous giant lotus blossom by Choi Jeong Hwa, and the polemical 15 meters-high "Complex Pile" by Paul McCarthy...
Beside the artworks, some concrete cubes have been displayed to remind the title of the exhibition. I shot this kid while he was posing for his mum's high-tech mobile phone. To me, he looked like making fun of the word "inflation", as if this notion was far away from his concerns. And by extension, far away from the Asian world ones ?
Shopping is one of the favorite activities of Hongkongers. The city is unsurprisingly packed with malls, that take an important place in the everyday life. Some of them even offer special equipments, such as this ice rink at Elements. That day, kids were playing a hockey match.
I shot this surreal painting at the Hong Kong Art Fair 2012. This is the work of the Korean artist Yongbaek LEE, who performs in all fields of contemporary art, from media art, sculpture, and photography, to painting. The realism and flashy colours of this one instantly caught my eye.
Some other Yongbaek LEE's artworks are available on Google Art Project.
During a company outing in Xiamen (China), we visited the Shuzhuang Garden (叔庄花园 - ShūZhuāng HuāYuán) located on the south of Gulangyu Island (鼓浪屿 - GǔLàngYǔ). With its freighters in the background, this garden embodies contemporary China, trying to reconcile its ancestral traditions and the omnipresent industrial power.
The classic pictures of the floating market of Cai Be (Vietnam) show a multitude of boats, loaded of colourful fruits and vegetables. But the surrounding shanties and their high TV antennas left an even bigger mark on my mind.
Since always, the Chinese use to preserve fish by drying it under the sun. It is a good way to keep the catch surplus and expensive fishes for more appropriate days. Moreover, it is believed that eating certain food such as oysters during Chinese New Year celebrations will bring good luck. Each year, this tradition makes all sorts of fishes popping-up all over China. And a maritime city like Hong Kong is not an exception.
Zomppa published a nice article about dried fish in Hong Kong and its outlying islands.
