Thoughts from the Field, Instagram Mosaic

I did fieldwork in Hong Kong from December 2010 until July 2012, and goodness knows how I underestimated the centrality of the smartphone in the research data collection process. There has been anthropological research on the role of mobile technologies in shaping/reshaping cultural practices; especially in regards to social communication and intimate relations, phone materiality translating into social capital, etc. There are the articles linking Facebook and Twitter with the Middle-East mass protests in recent years, and on the flip-side, articles critically questioning the true extent of influence social media has in the real world. But there is surprisingly little being written about how mobile technologies can affect the practices of researchers, to facilitate their work...


There are pragmatic reasons for getting a smartphone. During the first few months, I carried a digital voice recorder, a notebook, an army of pens, and a camera; it became incredibly difficult to handle all of these devices. Imagine having to jot notes in the middle of a jostling demonstration crowd, then having to dig around your bag for the camera to create a visual account of what is happening. After you've juggled these objects around, suddenly your phone rings... more shuffling ensues. In contrast, a smartphone enables you to do all those things on one device. My second motivation for getting a smartphone is because my digital voice recorder decided to boycott fieldwork-- it just died in the middle of an interview. So I figured that I needed a replacement, and one that would allow me to email the sound files to my computer immediately after an interview. (When I tried to salvage the sound files from my broken digital recorder, the dratted thing refused to upload anything onto my computer, and the speakers refused to work, so that is data lost...good thing I have the interview notes to rely on.) Then there is the peer pressure to be connected. A lot of informants-- or rather, a lot of Hong Kong people-- have smartphones, and they constantly relay information through Facebook and Whatsapp.  And without map apps, I might have spent half my time wandering around looking for meeting spots, especially in the chaos of urban Kowloon...

One of the unexpectedly useful tools on the smartphone would be Instagram (or any other photo-sharing app). I'm not their spokesperson, and I don't like their recent bout of shifty privacy, copyright/ownership, and user-rights policies. But it proved to be a mode of documentation that compliments fieldnotes. Although photos on Instagram can be terribly mundane (hello, cups of tea and noodle shops), it is a reflection of your everyday life. The first advice our class received before setting off to our respective research sites is that everyday life is mundane. Things simply don't happen all the time. Ethnographic accounts have pages of fascinating rituals and events from various societies; but this is often the work of anthropologists who have been out in the field for years on end. Secondly, recording the everyday is important, because it all adds up towards framing your entire field experience. Fieldwork involves studying and understanding the lives of others, but it also involves you living your own life. You might be in a location for a temporary period of time, but it isn't an experience that can be compartmentalised after returning to your institution. With or without knowing it, the fieldsite will change ways of thinking and ways of acting, and will follow you for a quite a while. So in this blog post, I'm including a smattering of images from my own fieldwork; ranging from protest scenes, to bookshops visited, the change in seasons, and local restaurants...

When you scroll through the Instagram photos at a later date, there will be things of importance in them that you did not notice when these images were first taken. The images change in significance as your research idea evolves. For example, I didn't even realise that I was taking so many shots of local architecture, until my topic shifted towards that direction. Somehow I unconsciously took images of things that really interested me, and it took a while for my conscious brain to follow suit. Indeed, using filters from Instagram can be seen as corrupting the integrity of the original image itself; it makes the image look processed, distant, remove, and artificial. There is a degree of insincerity coming from imposing a range of 'special effects' onto the images... then again, any form of photography (even with basic point-and-shoot cameras) involves depicting a form of reality in your own ideals. Just by framing a shot and deciding on the composition, choosing to use a specific type of film, adjusting the exposure and aperture, is a form of visual manipulation by the person behind the lens...but I digress. Personally, I found that my choice of filters often reflected my mood and feelings at the time the photo was taken (using filters to convey sentiments of melancholy, emptiness, vibrancy, nostalgia, solemnity, for starters). 

But, technology doesn't supplant the importance of having meticulous fieldnote-taking practices. Smartphones are a great help, but it is ultimately a tool that, as the cliché saying goes, is 'only as good as the person using it'. The researcher must still make sure that the collected information is well-organised, detailed, and that the information is approached from a diverse array of angles (visual/audio/textual, and comprising of different viewpoints). It shouldn't only include the facts of an issue, but cover the emotive responses this evokes from yourself and your informants. How the data is interpreted and presented to be of relevance to theory and ethnography remains the responsibility of the researcher.

Musings: The Hubris of Hipster Hubs?

This musing is inspired by a post on the Chai Wan hipster scene on the Tasty Treats blog. The writer is a friend of mine who specializes on food-related postings, but don't let that fool you onto thinking that is of limited scope. Afterall, in the field of anthropology, the role of food is often pivotal in many social interactions; thus it led her to write a piece about the nuances of 'hipster enclaves' in this city. She offers an excellent examination on the merits of having these enclaves around, as well as the potential issues they may bring. Although my previous post was appreciative of hipster hubs around Hong Kong, such as that of Sheung Wan, I must confess that I too find this aforementioned 'hip-ness' a draw and a drawback (the simultaneous embodiment of contradictory states of being; the zenith of hip!) 

The road to hipster hub of Sheung Wan

Some of my frustrations during visits to Sheung Wan are trivial. For example, after trekking uphill hoping to enjoy a cup of tea at a cafe, I find the cafe closed without prior notice (though in retrospect, it makes sense. Hipsters don't follow conventional understandings and flows of time.) Or when there are so many other hipsters and their brethren who linger around, making the area rather packed at times...and dare I say, render the area almost mainstream. Or the nasty feeling that develops when you realize how another individual has done the seemingly impossible; out-hip you with their clothes, their attitude, their speech...


Beyond these superficial issues, there exist a sense of dissatisfaction regarding the state of hipster hubs, especially in the way in which they present themselves as an 'alternative' to the chain franchises rampant in the city these days. I can't help but wonder; after setting up a series of independent shops in an area to create this 'hip' impression, what is next? Is there actually a concerted effort on the part of these shops to push and encourage others to follow in their footsteps of establishing small joints to combat the prevalence of chain franchises? (Is this even their motivation at all...or does it matter in the first place?) And if they are to act in opposition to the latter category, just how do these spaces embody a creative [re]invention of how businesses can be run in this city? Are they really an alternative? 

Another concern of mine would be the ephemeral nature of such hipster hubs. As Tasty Treats mentions, independent shops in these areas tend to be short-lived in light of high rents. They come, they go, and often without any outcry or notice from the locality. It seems to be a cycle that is repeated endlessly, an abstract form of limbo. I think for these places to become sustainable, not only must they be financially viable, but it must make themselves rooted to the area itself; to develop a presence, and a meaning, to the people who live around them. 

Tai Ping Shan Street, an example of a thriving hipster hub

The development of 'rootedness' is complicated and problematic, and I'll try to illustrate this using Tai Ping Shan Street. On the infrastructural level, the new establishments preserve the format of pre-existing businesses and residence buildings.The newer cafes and galleries are situated next to older scrap metal collection shops; there are no sudden high-rises and obscenely shiny façades to be found, bringing a degree of visual coherence between the new and the old. Despite this, I suspect there remains a sense of disconnect; to what extent are these new spaces used by, and engages with, the locals who have resided in the area for years? For example, there are a lot of locals and workers munching down pork chop rice meals at an old-fashioned diner at the bottom of the staircase, but not so much at Teakha (the old men I encountered in the area could only tell me that the tea shop 'opens late'. And during all my visits, it is frequented by young professionals and students.) Is it because there is a lack of repertoire between these new places with the old; a case where you can't force a sense of community or a connection to develop just by suddenly planting yourself to a place? Is it a matter of these new places not offering what the old-timers need? Or is it due to pragmatic issues such as price, since the newer places charge higher sums in order to survive in this city of insane land rent? (Thinking along this vein, would these new hip places eventually push out the older small businesses in the area, or change the profile of the local demography towards that of young professionals; thus unwittingly forcing a unexpected form of gentrification to occur? Maybe this outlook is far-fetched and a tad extreme...) 

Teakha offers nice drinks, albeit at a higher price than the traditional dai pai dongs (大牌檔, the traditional inexpensive Hong Kong diners that are becoming increasingly scarce) and cha chaan tengs (茶餐廳, restaurants that serve tea and can have menus encompassing Western, Chinese, and 'mixed' dishes.)

Another form of 'rootedness' would emphasise the local as opposed to the international. To what extent does the current string of modern independent shops reflect local Hong Kong culture? Many galleries and cafes in these hipster areas are like those found across the globe. Once you enter one of these spaces in Hong Kong, does it feel any different than if you were in Sydney or London? It could be an innocent intention, such as the creators of such spaces wanting to bring a different experience to their patrons; or it could call to a persisting subconscious/conscious recognition of overseas locales being the harbingers of 'culture'. 


I'm not sure if the lack of local character for many of these hipster spaces is deliberate, but it cannot be denied that there has been a long-running worship of the international in the Hong Kong psyche. It is maybe a remnant from the days of colonial rule where speaking English was coveted, or maybe due to the continued proliferation of 'foreign knowledge' in our education systems that has created a misguided myth of the cultural apex that exists 'elsewhere'. (Looking at the university curriculum, the names Marx, Foucault, Bourdieu, Wittgenstein, Arendt crop up. Not as extensive a roster from the Asian region.) Heck, it could even have something to do with the media we are exposed to, or the 'transient refugee mentality' of the city's heritage that left a mark of cultural 'inferiority'. (I've had the occasion to meet a researcher at Hong Kong University who once told me that Hong Kong 'has no culture'; by no means representative of the stance of academia on this issue, but it was scary to know that there are people that think like this. And in a quick survey conducted by Wooferten after taking the Yau Ma Tei locals to ArtWalk 2012 in Central, many of the attendees reckoned that there were more Europeans as opposed to Asians that evening because the former had a higher standard of 'cultural education'.) 


Whatever the reason, the majority of the population has easily allocated local diners, such as cha chaan tengs and dai pai dongs, as 'low-culture' venues, and having a cup of coffee in Starbucks is a vague symbol alluding to 'high-culture'. (Though it isn't as bleak as I just made it sound. There are increasing numbers of young people who visit the former for the sake of a novelty experience, or to understand more about Hong Kong history. Or maybe they just like the cheaper prices...) And for those hipster hub shop owners, even if you are not literally situated in the 'cultured international', having your space be designed to have semblance to that ideal is just as good. But referring to what I was trying to get at earlier; if an independent space focuses too much on the international at the expense of the local, it will limit its impact and meaning on the local social narrative. When such a space is threatened with closure, will the locals fight to protect it like they would for landmarks such as Sunbeam Theatre in North Point? Will they continue to remember its existence, and mourn for it after it is gone? 

Abandoned kitties...and abandoned culture of locality?

But if we wish to bring the 'local' into hipster hubs, this poses a new set of questions in itself. Just how can we go about doing this, and would it necessarily make these independent businesses unique to the point where their survival and propagation can be cemented into this urban landscape? Or does the creation of a hipster hub necessitate an international face superseding the local character, given that the 'hipster experience' in itself is an entity imported from overseas? (There are even jokes made about the possible ethnic group associations with the hipster way of living...see Stuff White People Like, for starters.) Should we thus discard this notion of 'hip' and the ideals of the hipster? And to ask even broader questions, what does local Hong Kong culture look like anyways...how do we understand culture for that matter?


For all these concerns, however, there are existing examples that shows how the mentality of 'cultureless Hong Kong' is changing. In the recent edition of Ming Pao Weekly #2275, there is a piece about a shop in Kowloon that transforms the Hong Kong iconic red-white-blue bag material into trendier items of modern convenience. And there were plenty of young people at the JCCAC handicrafts fair to show that there can exist a balance between the international and the local; to appropriate the techniques and cultural practices from abroad to create products that evokes locality.  Not to mention how Hidden Agenda, a performing and exhibition space in Kwun Tong, manages to place equal importance on inviting a good range of local and international bands/artists. So maybe the local and the international emphasis don't have be juxtaposing categories, and a balance between the two is attainable. 


Okay, so I guess my beef can be summed up as; these hipster hoods can't only be about the appearance, but they must have substance and thought to it. A simple statement that somehow needed several paragraphs to articulate. 


Despite all the grumblings and judgement coming from me (the latter being a hallmark of all hipsters-in-training), hipster hubs really are lovely places to go and remove yourself from the hectic pace that the rest of Hong Kong follows. And my misgivings about hipster hubs can be mollified under a holistic perspective; no matter how problematised such areas may be, for now, they do offer a reprieve from the increasingly uniformed face of shop fronts in current Hong Kong. 

Neighbourhood: Sheung Wan

Sheung Wan is an established hipster-hood in Hong Kong, covered by many publications and blog posts. Not only will you find the antiques market and temples (that hipsters love for its cultural allusions, and tourists love for the photo ops) Sheung Wan is home to many independent small-scale shops. You have your art galleries, design studios and offices, and cafes meant for hours of deep contemplation and scribbling away on Moleskine notebooks. The area also has one of my favourite places; The Coming Society on the first floor of 222 Queens Road Central, offering a good selection of Chinese and English second-hand books (and unlike some fussy chain bookshops like Page One, you're allowed to sit in a wingchair and read the books without the obligation to buy!) It is thanks to these small shops that help give a youthful and hip vibe to the area.

That being said, the entire area of Sheung Wan isn't all hip. Close to the main thoroughfares are the department stores of Wing On and Sincere, there lurks Starbucks and other major chain shops found throughout the rest of Hong Kong, and there are rows of shiny business offices providing an air-conditioned sanctuary of power-suit people. (Not to mention that the Beijing Liaison Office is a little more to the west of Sheung Wan, which could knock all the points off the hipster-scale for any area. But the Office is almost out of Sheung Wan and in Sai Wan, so the area's repute can still be salvaged...) Yet it is precisely the existence of these buildings that serve to offset the parts of Sheung Wan that are different and 'hip', allowing one to be even more appreciative of their presence.

This hipness radiates from the epicentre of Tai Ping Shan street. (If you are unhip and require the patronage of the huge MTR corporation to shuttle you to Sheung Wan, it is a bit of an uphill walk to get there. Not unreachable, but still sweat inducing. For an 'easier' time, get off the MTR at Central station, walk to the SoHo escalators, take it up until Hollywood Road, and head westwards to Sheung Wan. Shouldn't take more than 20 minutes.)  I'll leave my personal thoughts on this area (and hipster hubs in general) for the next post. For now, some snaps of the street and its surrounding areas: