Cheung Shan Wan

Cheung Sha Wan is  the place where I spent my childhood and still my favourite community now. :D

Missing those time when my granny was holding my hand to primary school and helping to finish my artwork in Visual Art classes every morning...Love the times when our best family frds were living near by and they ran out of the flats once they heard us shouting their name on the ground floors of their house block....REALLY MISS EVERYTHING WHEN EVERYONE'S THERE.

I couldnt tell much about why I love that place and the very first reason of telling people why is the memories that me and my beloved ones shared there. I love to hang out there and always find there is a peaceful place to live since the streets are almost empty every weekends. I guess Cheung Shan Wan is not a very ideal place in the younger generations' mind since it's quite an old town now and people would like to afford better apartments somewhere near the sea maybe. I used to visit my dad daily and helped out a bit in his company but now the company has closed and I still like to walk pass by his old company area to see if the shop is taken by another industrial use or what...but the shop is still empty; nothing's there. My dad has been working on his business for 20 something years and I thought that he had some sadness and uncertainties by the time he sold his business...But he told me that it was just a way to make a living and he's okay with the decision.

This is the street where my dad's shop is used to locate and I lived there for some years as well. This place is filled with 田生集團's banners nowadays; and a lot of sex workers are working there too. Pink color lights can be spotted easily. Somehow in my mind I think renting the places for those sex workers is one of the trick that the land property company is playing. I hate seeing those pink lights and posters in neon colors everywhere.

And suddenly I had an idea of why I love that place so much while I was shopping for dictionaries there.(haha so random!) This place is not yet dominated by big business groups and still a lot of independent shops and stores where residents can get what they need with lower prices
! I can see one of the reason I like to hang out there is those independent shops provide me a n unique social communication and (window)shopping time! People there are nice and friendly! I used to have my photos printed out in a photo house there and once the owner helped me changing my photos formats from cmyk to rgb with an extra software that he downloaded just for my case! 

Another reason is the lovely mysterious old buildings! There are a lot of old buildings there and by looking at the words on their outlook and stairs, it's not hard to see what those flats were used to be such as clinic, photo houses, kindergartens and even performing arts academy!!!!!!!!!! I tend to picture the old happenings at those flats!!!! They are fascinating for my imagination!!! Here are a few pics that I took,

 

However, a lot of old buildings are pulled down due to whatever kinds of development projects...miss them. City development process is on going with a high speed....we are forced to accept it... :( but I am excited to see how Cheung Sha Wan will be like in the future!

Cheung Sha Wan has been changing heaps compared to this picture taken within these years...

P.S That was the largest pornography cinema in 852(!!!) with 2 houses and using film instead of DVD!!! I used to freak out when I walked by...now it's closed and I can't help wondering who's gotta rent/buy this place and how he/she will use this place(?!) This is a very unique location since almost every cinemas are now located in shopping mall...

Check out those links if you are interested!

http://talkcinema.wordpress.com/2007/12/29/%E6%98%9F%E8%BC%9D%E6%88%B2%E9%99%A2%E3%80%80%E5%85%83%E6%97%A6%E7%B5%90%E6%9D%9F/

http://hongkongfilms.mysinablog.com/index.php?op=ViewArticle&articleId=889119

This is a personal sharing and hope you all enjoy reading it heehee :D

xx

FRANCES