31. ‘East Meets West (東西共融):’ Apprentices and Masters in Early Cantonese Paintings

Temple on the Henan Canal, Guangzhou (廣州河南水道旁廟宇). 1838, Auguste Borget (1808-1877). Colored lithograph. (Source: The Hong Kong Museum of Art.)

What can Cantonese art tell us about its history – and of Hong Kong’s history in particular? What of the reverse?

In some ways, these are secondary, almost redundant questions. It’s possible to grasp an insight into the traditions and culture(s) of Hong Kong – or more broadly speaking, Cantonese culture – without ever stepping into an art gallery; the territory has taken such pains to display and preserve much of its history that viewing an exhibition of paintings, sketches, sculpture, and other compositions almost dilutes the overall effect and grandeur.

Almost. That’s the key word, really, because art and history are very much intertwined in the fabric of Hong Kong culture. It shouldn’t be surprising, and yet somehow it is. For a former colony that has now inherited two contrasting legacies, Hong Kong art sounds (or sounded, to me) as if it has no tradition, or one whose traditions are engulfed by those of either parent – more likely the Chinese. It certainly gets little more than a footnote in the standard survey of art history.

That, in a way, drove me to visit the Hong Kong Museum of Art (香港藝術館) today – ok, it was Wednesday too, which meant free admission – to find out. And in one of the museum’s permanent collections – titled “Artistic Inclusion of the East and West (東西共融),” I think I found something of an answer.

28. “Motherhood (慈母心)”

My sincerest apologies for not updating recently – March has begun, but so too have midterms at HKUST, so the past few days were spent in varying degrees of studying.

But I just finished my first one yesterday (yes, it was a Saturday exam), and thankfully that allowed me (and Jordan and Melody as well) to watch a classic Cantonese film!  And as you might now guess from the title of this post, that film was Motherhood (慈母心).

Although I’ve watched one or two Cantonese films before – I can’t recall their titles – this was probably the first one that I chose to watch out of pure curiosity.  The film is one of a hundred “must see movies” that the Hong Kong Film Archive (香港電影資料館) has been promoting for the past year or so.  Given that none of the three of us had any experience watching ‘classic’ Cantonese cinema, we decided to check it out for ourselves.

So what’s “Motherhood (慈母心)” about?  Why consider it a classic film at all?  I’ll get to that in a minute – but first, let’s take a brief (condensed) look at the tradition of cinema and film production in Hong Kong.

27. Tsim Sha Tsui (尖沙嘴)

Wednesday afternoon/evening

We slowly wander through an exhibit on newspapers and print media in early-modern Hong Kong when, out of nowhere, solemn bells toll – to the tune of Westminster Quarters – over the loudspeaker.  One by one, we check the time.

“It’s 5:45?!?  Have we really been here that long?”

Jordan and Melody can’t quite believe it either, even though we remember that we entered the museum an hour and a half earlier.  Suddenly, the trilingual announcement declares that the museum will close in fifteen minutes.

We step up our pace (which has been little more than a comfortable stroll) and make our way to the exit.  “What should we do next?”

“Is anyone hungry?”

No, not at the moment.  It’s Wednesday, though, which means that we have another alternative to eating right away or (gasp) heading back to campus early.

We make our way to the science museum just across the open courtyard.

18. Aberdeen (香港仔)

The "walled city" (foreground, center-left) of Aberdeen (香港仔). But what is it...?

We stand along the promenade and take pictures of the skyline across the harbor.  This is Ap Lei Chau (鴨脷洲), an island south of Hong Kong Island’s southwest corner, and we are facing Aberdeen (香港仔), the main point of interest on our little weekend tour.

Between several apartment buildings across the water, however, I notice something unusually old on a hill.  It looks like a walled city, with tiers upon tiers of stone buildings.  Several signs are plastered along the slope of the hill.

Jordan takes out his monocular, and he and Melody take turns describing what they see.  “An ad for a recycling company…long railings…dirt and lots of stone structures…a lookout point…”

None of it makes sense to us.  But seeing as we’ve already been here for the past few hours, we decide to head back and take a look.

Thus begins – yet again – an adventure that none of us anticipated.

16. Kowloon City (九龍城)

Late Wednesday afternoon / Early Wednesday evening / Three weeks ago

I walk down Lancashire Road (蘭開夏路) – although “down” gives neither me nor you any real sense of direction.  But then again, I haven’t made any plans.

This is still Kowloon Tong (九龍塘), as evidenced by the large, recently-constructed apartments that tower to my left.  The street and sidewalk are both fairly quiet; only the occasional student and/or jogger pass by from time to time.

The road curves into another direction before beginning to slope downhill.  The sidewalk follows in due fashion, and I can feel my strides lengthening with each step.

Past Inverness Road, however, things begin to change.  The apartments in the distance look more aged than the ones I’ve been passing.  A sign points straight ahead toward Kowloon City (九龍城). Traffic becomes more audible, almost suddenly.  And soon, that dull din that’s become characteristic of Hong Kong emerges.

But wait: “Kowloon City (九龍城)?”  Isn’t this just Kowloon all over again – the flashing lights, the roar of engines, the clouds of cooking steam, the noisy chatter of pedestrians?

Not quite.  This is, after all, Kowloon City.

15. Kowloon Tong (九龍塘)

St. Teresa's Church, which is located in...

Out of nowhere, a church appears, standing next to a traffic interchange.  Farther beyond, apartment names evoke grandeur and elegance.  St. George’s Apartments; Grand Excelsior; Lucky Court.

Walk down any street, turn at any corner, and the street signs point toward alien-sounding roads and avenues.  Oxford; Cambridge; Waterloo; Lancashire; Inverness; Flint; La Salle.  (Where is “Inverness,” anyway?)

More apartment buildings.  A second church.  Trees and gardens almost everywhere.  Catholic schools situated on steep streets.  Schoolchildren in uniforms walk in groups.  There are conversations in English.

It’s around 4:30 p.m., and somewhere in this unfamiliar place I realize that I’ve forgotten to bring a map.  Not that I planned on going anywhere.  But I need one to give me a definitive answer to the unlikely question, the one that’s beginning to confuse me:

How did I end up in Great Britain?

The short answer, of course, is that I never left Hong Kong, let alone Kowloon.  On the contrary, this area is Kowloon Tong (九龍塘).

The question can – and does – deserve a longer answer though.

13. The Lung Yeuk Tau Heritage Trail (龍躍頭文物徑)

The entrance to Wing Ning Wai (永寧圍), one of a number of largely preserved walled cities and villages along the Lung Yeuk Tau Heritage Trail (龍躍頭文物徑).

We stand outside the village gate in hesitation.  It’s late afternoon; the sun is preparing to set behind the hills of Kowloon and Hong Kong Island.  The road is quiet, save for the occasional car or minibus that passes by.  We can hear children playing somewhere in the village.  Dogs bark in the distance.

“So…can we go in?”  Jordan asks.

I’m not sure.  I look around and find the village notice board.  A cursory glance reveals notices about drainage repairs and the evening curfew (8 p.m.), but nothing about entrance restrictions for visitors.  Farther out, a sign points toward our direction: Wing Ning Wai (永寧圍).  This is certainly one of the stops we recognize.  But the residential feel – this is still a village, after all – makes an entrance seem a little uncomfortable.

“I think so.  There’s nothing around here that explicitly says we can’t.”

We slowly step in.  And as the narrow path unfolds, I am struck by the very fact that I – an outsider, with no claim to Hong Kong beyond heritage – am here, in a preserved village, amidst the peaceful lives of local residents.  Not just me, but three of us: all outsiders, equipped with cameras and curiosity, but few connections.

And yet, here I am, and here we are.  Three more visitors on a heritage trail, straddling the divide between not-so-past and not-so-present, between not-so-public and not-so-private.

It is difficult to explain.

12. Mong Kok II (旺角二)

The Tin Yuen Book House (田園書屋) - just one of several bookstores along Sai Yeung Choi Street (西洋菜街) in Mong Kok.

Saturday evening

Up one flight of stairs, then another.  The crowd outside is still noisy but disappearing.  It’s getting warm, almost uncomfortably warm.

Finally, doors.  One leads into a hair salon; the other leads to a bookstore.  If you know me well, you’ll know which one I was looking for.

I step in.  It’s quiet, save for the tentative footsteps of other visitors who are browsing the shelves.  And seeing as this is a bookstore, I begin to examine the shelves myself.

On any other day, and probably in any other place, I would spend hours at a bookstore like this.  The shelves are packed with titles of all kinds – fiction and literature, culture/civilization (largely Chinese but occasionally Western), health and well-being, philosophy, history, art, sciences, social sciences, reference works… And then there are the peculiarities (or rather, shifts in emphasis) that come only with Hong Kong and other Asian bookstores – there are even more shelves devoted to books for learning English and Japanese, and scores of workbooks and guides for Hong Kong schoolchildren (though I suspect it’s the parents who will be more excited to browse this section than the students themselves).

It’s the latter category of shelves that grabs my attention, and once I find the section I scan rapidly.  Colors of all hues, shades and tints alike.  But after five minutes, I give up.  I move on to the section devoted to languages…no dice.  One last check of the culture and civilization books? Nothing.  I quietly maneuver my way back to the door and leave.

There are, quite simply, no books on how to read – or at least improve one’s reading of – Chinese.  Not the people, not the culture – but the language itself.