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Blasting Red Hot Chili Peppers on his jukebox, this artist (left) stations himself on a bench in Soho.  Brian Ermanski says he loves sitting there to observe people go by. 

Just a few feet away, this street performer (right) has a different take.  He was arrested for busking a couple days ago and is fed up of the city.  If he had a choice, he would like to live in Israel. 

This song comes to mind.  "New York City, I don't know why I love you.  Could be you remind me of myself..." Gil Scott Heron.

To read a recent New Yorker article on Gil Scott Heron, click here...

Being a street photographer can be tough in Hong Kong.  Our fellow citizens are not exactly camera friendly.  Usually, I accompany my shots with a big smile and a compliment and I’m let off.  Last Friday, I had the toughest encounter so far. I walked past the small alley between Pedder St and Cinema Lane where shoe repairmen, locksmiths, block printers are at work in traditional green stalls.  I snapped a few shots of a key shop and the locksmith at work.  This man did not like my presence.  When I tried to give him a smile like I usually do, he was not impressed.  I told the locksmith that I took the picture because his stall looks amazing and its rare to see a key shop like that now, but he didn’t like that either.  I apologized and proceeded to walk away towards the MTR station, but the locksmith chased after me, screaming at top of his lungs and barricaded me into a corner.  He wanted me to show him the photos, and I would like to have shown him as well, but I was using a film camera. “你玩我呀!”he screamed, not believing that anyone in this day and age would still be using film.  I promised to bring him the photos once they were developed and he could keep them, but that didn’t satisfy him either. As he screamed louder and louder, a brave young man, let’s call him “Clint”, stopped to help.  Clint tried to calm our angry man, telling him that photographers help promote their businesses.  He went further by saying that 歲月神偷 “Echoes of the Rainbow” helped save 永利街 Wing Lee Street (click here for our post on the film and the street ) and how it would be impossible for Wong Kar Wai to recreate a period of Hong Kong if we were not allowed to take photographs on the street.  I was very impressed by his speech and to have met a film buff trying to protect my rights on the street, but our angry man had no idea what Clint was talking about and started to take his anger out on him, our poor street hero.  The idea of preservation really went over the locksmith’s head.  He insisted on calling the cops, so we did.  When the policeman arrived and kindly explained to him that there is no personality image right in Hong Kong, therefore the person who takes the photo has copyright to that photo and not the person in the photo (click here for more information on copyright issue).  The locksmith walked off, annoyed, still muttering under his breath.  I am intrigued by the locksmith and would love to have a proper conversation with him to find out what made an angry man, but that bridge has been burnt.  If you are reading this, Mr. Locksmith, I sincerely apologize and hope you can understand that I am merely documenting our time.  

Here are more tough shots...

Every time I visit Tokyo, I feel like an addict getting my fix of cultural oddity.  The great thing is, you don’t have to go searching; it is out in the open, wherever you go.  I got my dose when I craved for a bowl of steaming hot ramen.  The latest guidebook tells me to visit a ramen shop in Shibuya -I quickly obliged.  The waiting line is out the restaurant, check.  The restaurant space seems very compact, check.  The plastic ramen bowl displayed at the entrance look more real than the real thing, check.  Nothing is out of the ordinary, until the line leads me a vending machine.  Hm… I proceed to learn that the menu is displayed in the vending machine, items by item.  We are supposed to pre-select and pre-pay our meals before even entering the restaurant. Because of my previous brief encounter with the language, I was assigned to order lunch for our group of 5.  Well, in my case, it was easier than ordering with a real person.  I roll in the coins and tickets spit out of the machine.  5 ramen, 3 eggs, 3 seaweeds, 2 pork, 3 beers and 2 tea tickets later, our meals were ordered.  Then a waiter hands out a sheet for each customer to fill out.  Before I could ask what it was, she disappears.  I could sorta make out the form, something to do with the soup base’s intensity and the thickness of the noodles.  We check our preferences and wait some more. 

Finally, our turn comes: the curtains draw.  In front of me lie 2 rows of individual booths, you know like the ones in telemarketing offices.  Out goes a customer and the next–in-line fills it up.  My turn comes and I wave goodbye to my friends who are being led to other booths.  I carefully lay out the tickets on the table in front of me.  A hand comes in and grabs them behind yet another curtain.  A few minutes later, the same hands place a bowl of steaming hot ramen in front of me, accompanied with a bow.  The hands retreat and the curtain slams shut.  The place is quiet, and the only thing that can be heard is the slurping sound made by the dozen odd customers.  I join in the slurp rhythm… And… of course it is phenomenal! I slowly peer out of the booth to see if I can locate my friends to give them the eye signal of approval, but all I could see was 2 rows of heads studiously slurping away.  I settled down to clean out the best bowl of ramen I’ve ever had, confined in my little booth.  Done! And the next customer takes my place.  No single human contact required.  

 

Untitled from deemah.hk on Vimeo.

I eat internet etiquette for breakfast. GET IN ME BELLY!

I believe I belong just outside the generation that you see now running amok anonymously over our shared cyber space. My fingers do not naturally curl to ‘asdf’ and ‘jkl;’ and I don’t have a USB port in my ass. I can still remember the funky dial-up sound, and I remember all too well having to wait for jpegs to load. So, maybe I’m not supposed to get it. But this? Or OMG that? Who are these ADHD barbarians at the gate, frothing and foaming at the mouth?

I get that PEOPLE LOVE TO BE HEARD. That anonymity may make it possible for you to be whoever you want sans responsibility. That you just don’t have to wait anymore for things to load. I get that maybe you’re 12 years old, and mommy and daddy think the internet is an excellent babysitter. I get that being snarky is fun.

What I don’t understand is the war-cry of “first!”. Or its counterpart, the devolution leading to “twenty-fifth!”, which quite possibly is a very high number to count to. I don’t understand why it’s personal (if you clicked the fourth link above, you know just how personal). I don’t understand why you would take the time. Frustrated? Masturbate. Downright angry? Choke the chicken. Bored? Spit shine the trophy. It's the perfect band-aid. It’s why the internet is SO popular. And if you’ve already taken care of that, smile. You’ve just "rubbed one out for great justice". Be happy.

As to all generalities, there is always a caveat. Maybe you share a room with your grandmother or your folks make you keep the door open or you’re afraid of the sneaky ninja masturbation police. It's ok. We've all been there: "I was crying, that's why I have all the tissues out. The lotion is for my dry skin, hello. I was just letting it breathe." Bloody despots. Get caught speeding just once, and they never forget your face. Though it hurts to imagine an internet world without a happy ending, I suppose if you can't make love you make war. And since we live in a time of no accountability and no comeuppence, the next best thing to do with your broadband connection is to shout at the world. Find orgasmic release via irrational but therapeutic comments. Discuss in excessive detail exactly what you would do to that celebrity. Pretend to be self righteous and then sleazy all in one thread. Pick a fight. 

Damn those sneaky ninjas. Damn them all to hell. Look what you made me do.

Organized Chaos by Flora Lau from deemah.hk on Vimeo.

When you or me or the googler nation can’t find anything but biscuits and a series of streaming MP3 downloads for a slightly goth looking set of eyebrows by the real name of Dmitry Meshcheryakov, do we have a problem? The googler nation can’t care because they don’t know what they’re missing and who really goes past four O’s unless they’re fishing for skimpy pictures; so, we, borne or affiliated or tickled by the nine tongue twisting sounds of dialect fu, must take this cyber slight personally.

For it is so rare to find a word or a phrase that can do so much for you without becoming less that it originally was. Deemah is an interrogatory, it is a term of endearment, it is curiosity, it is frustration; one of those one word + different emotional inflection = different word. Ethereally from the sticky sweet mouth of a caring significant other or verbally spat, smoky and ashen with little dark bits in it; it even lazily reflexively falls off your lips as strategic buffer, followed nonchalantly with a noncommittal grunt or two or three. Deemah is the new fuck, sans adjective usage.

So I’m asking, politely, on bended knee, that we lift our pet phrase of multi-functional convenience to new levels of notoriety by the bootstraps, and with that in mind, let us consider the opposition. Currently google-approved numero uno, Deemah Juicy, with its sexy sentimental ma and pa shop credentials and considerable range of fruity and tropical flavors – now in surprising peppermint! – and all things wafer, mammoul, or cookie, splashing vibrantly and colorfully and yummy yummy in my tummy. For god’s sake, you can even email the CEO directly. Sure, they’re not hiring right now, but let’s not hold it against them.

While I may have a soft spot for the small guy in a Keynesian wrestling match, I fail to appreciate  number 2 to 20,000 or so of google's exponentially decreasing ladder of celebritydom. Granted I’m quite tone deaf and Russian techno remix music is not my forte, but if after 10 sober minutes I can’t be sure what you actually look like despite my mad skills in the jpeg fishing department, then we have a problem when you're trying to overwhelm the nice ma and pa shop trying to milk cheap internet marketing exposure and our linguistic lexicon. (I seriously think I may have put Deemah Juicy back on top with all of my journalistic rigor and fact-checking.)

I’m sure he and the other Deemah variations are all very nice people - here’s looking at you Deemah Obaid – but this call to arms is about more than us making funny pictures, it’s about you being discerning with your mouse click. Do it. Make us number 2. Or at least on the first page without typing “.hk”, cause that’s demeaning. Please?