Final Project: A Soundscape Study about Kwun Tong

https://soundcloud.com/erinyan0418/sets/soundscape-kwun-tong

Kwun Tong is an old district with dense population. In the past, most of its land uses are residential area and industrial area. However, it has been a changing community along with the urban development in Hong Kong. From this soundscape study, we could get to know more about this changing community.

To start off, first take a brief look on Kwun Tong’s history. In the 1950s, Kwun Tong was one of the industrial villages in Hong Kong. There were many densely packed industrial buildings. However, in the 1970s, the development of factories reached its peak. Not only Kwun Tong, but the whole industry. In 1979, Kwun Tong MTR station was opened. During the 1990s, some of the factories in Kwun Tong started their relocation to Mainland China. In 2000, some of the empty industrial building was changed to commerce use. And in 2008, the Kwun Tong Town Centre Project was launched.

My soundscape project on Kwun Tong can be divided into three parts: The Old Kwun Tong, Kwun Tong under redevelopment, and Kwun Tong today.

First let me talk about the old Kwun Tong community. Kwun Tong was actually the first new town in Hong Kong. Also, it was one of the key industrial villages. Therefore, the soundscape I could find in Kwun Tong was mainly from industrial estates. During the 1960s, there were a lot of mainland people coming to Hong Kong. They have become the main source of manpower of the manufacturing industry. Some of them lived in Kwun Tong resettlement area and Kwun Tong government low cost housing estates.

In community aspect, Kwun Tong is always a place being described as a place has strong human bonding between people. Although there are different people with different background living in the community, they live in a harmony and composing neighbourhood that has good human touch. From the soundtrack of hawker, we can see how they live harmoniously in their own way. And today, we could still find some of the soundscapes kept since the old days. The soundtrack of buses noises is a good example. In the past, when there was still isn’t MTR connecting the districts, buses were the main public transports which people used to travel. However, as the launch of MTR station and redevelopment work there, some bus lines were changed or cancelled so there isn’t much buses noises as before.

About the redevelopment work, it was carried out by the Hong Kong Urban Renewal Authority. There are a few principles which they claimed to have followed during the redevelopment work. These principles include creating quality and vibrant urban living, replacing old buildings so to provide a better living environment and neighbourhood, enabling rehabilitation so to prevent urban decay, maintaining and restoring buildings so to sustain local characteristics and culture, and lastly, enhancing and strengthening the socio-economic and environmental fabric for the benefit of the urban communities.

For the Kwun Tong Renewal Project, it actually includes both redevelopment and rehabilitation. For the redevelopment part, it includes the Hang On Street Project which targeted to be completed by 2021/2022 and also the Kwun Tong Town Centre Project. Apart from redevelopment work, the Hong Kong Urban Renewal Authority also carried out rehabilitation in Kwun Tong, including the Operation Building Bright, Building Rehabilitation Loan Scheme and the Rehabilitation Materials Incentive Scheme.

The Kwun Tong Centre Redevelopment Project is actually the largest scale of urban renewal project in Hong Kong. It was located in Kowloon East Kwun Tong Town Centre Yue Man Square. The project was divided into 5 periods of work, with estimated 12-year-completion time. It is expected to develop as a new business landmark with residential, tourism(hotel), business, leisure and transportation in all. It will also be developed as the highest GREEN percentage town area in Hong Kong. This project is expected to finish as early as in 2021, while the development area 1 has been finished in 2014. The health centers and clinic are currently in operation. The Dental Clinic from Department of Health and Kwun Tong Community Health Centre are both located there. For the development areas 2 and 3, they have begun the construction work in early 2015. They are expected to be finished by 2019, where there will be commercial and residential developments, leisure and recreational amenities and also public transport. For the development areas 4 and 5, it is all about commercial development. There will be commercial buildings, hotels and a shopping mall bigger than APM (currently the largest shopping mall in Kwun Tong district).

In the past, all the factories are only used as manufacturing use including electronic products, clothing, print, flour mill, plastics and watches. Some of the electronic products are mainly sell and export to overseas countries. Plastics industry was once the major industry in Hong Kong. However, when entering to the 1970s, there were several reasons which led to the relocation of factories. These reasons include inflated labour rate, inflated land rate, military factor and the oil supply problem. Since then, most of the factories were moved to the Mainland China for cheaper and further development.

There were two old bazaars in Kwun Tong, named Mut Wah Street Temporary Hawker Bazaar and Hip Wo Street Hawker Bazaar. Their constructions were cursory. It was hard for the hawkers to work here. Under the redevelopment project in Kwun Tong, now there is a new bazaar to re-accommodate the hawkers mentioned above. The Tung Yan Street Interim Hawker Bazaar is a re-provisioning facility for the two old bazaars. It was opened in 2014 and it was located on Tung Yan Street. The new bazaar can accommodate a total of 125 stalls. It provided fixed hawker pitches, accommodating all the licensed hawkers. The new hawker bazaar is well equipped. It got an advanced air system, an escalator and a lift. These are new sounds. At the same time, it keeps some old sounds too, including neighbours’ talking, radio and conversation between mini bus driver. However, although the new bazaar is much more attractive than the two bazaars before, people still hardly visit there because of the failure of urban design.

After a few years of development, Kwun Tong has changed. For the factories, most of them were closed down nowadays. For the community, old shops were moved or closed. Old apartment houses were demolished and replaced with new private houses. Commercial buildings are entering continually. The whole district is totally different from the one in the past.

There are a few constructions completed at the moment. These constructions included Park Metropolitan, Kwun Tong Community Health Centre, AXA Tower, COS Centre and Paul Y. Centre. Because of the Kwun Tong Town Centre Project, old apartment houses were or will be demolished. At the same time, a private housing building “Park Metropolitan” entered. The Park Metropolitan is a new private housing estate. It was completed in 2014 and it was located on Yuet Wah Street. It looks very luxurious and grand, however, it can only comprise 299 residential units. Park Metropolitan is a private area. Usually, only residents can get in. In the lobby, I can only hear the conversation between two security guards. Compare to old housing estates, its environment is quiet and comfortable.

Before the renewal project, there was a Jockey Club Health Centre in Kwun Tong. Under the redevelopment project, it was now renewed to Kwun Tong Community Health Centre, which it is now bigger and the sanitary environment is better. The Kwun Tong Community Health Centre is a new general out patient clinic. It was completed in 2015 and it was located inside Park Metropolitan. The medical facilities, environment and the workflow were much improved.  With the relocation and expansion, Kwun Tong Community Health Centre upgraded their facilities. There is a braille and tactile floor plan of UG/F at the entrance. Also, there is a television in the pharmacy too. People can take advantages from the new equipment. 

Kwun Tong Town Project attracted some businessmen operate here. Wile factories moved, commercial buildings entered. The Paul Y. Centre is a Paul Y. Engineering Group Limited’s building. It was located on Hung To Road. Hung To Road is sparsely populated, so is Paul Y. Centre. It is quiet most of the time during my visit. Only when people work off, it will be a bit noisy.

Apart from the Paul Y. Centre, there is also the AXA Tower. It is AXA China Region Insurance Co Ltd’s building. It was located on How Ming Street. The AXA Tower got an excellent environment. It is well decorated. There is a large lobby and a beautiful water pool, which created a quiet, enjoyable and comfortable environment for people.

There is also the COS Centre. There is no anchor tenant and it was completed in 2015. It was located at Tsun Yip Street. COS Centre is one of the latest commercial building in Kwun Tong. There are only a few tenants, so many spaces are empty. It was extremely quiet. It nearly noiseless even when the escalator works or when the door closes.

During my visit to Kwun Tong, I’ve interviewed a young woman who has lived there since she was born. I’ve asked her about her opinion on the redevelopment work and the neighbourhood. She said that there were great differences before and after the redevelopment work. Before this project was launched, she said that the human connection was much closer than nowadays. People always chat with people they meet on street. After the redevelopment, since there are much more “outsiders” coming to the district, the human touch is much weaker than before. However, she agrees that the redevelopment work helped improve the community including the new interim bazaars and the Health Centre. She is looking forward to new shopping malls in the future. However, she also states that the construction work somehow affect the environment during the project. The continuing construction work has worsen the air quality and annoys her every time she walks nearby since there are so much noises.

To conclude, I think the redevelopment work really helps to improve the community by adding in new components into the community. However, I think there should be better ways to preserve the new things as they still have their historical and cultural values in them. For example, I think the new bazaars could be built in a more convenient location so that more people can visit there and the hawkers could have better sales. Apart from these things, I think the most serious problem caused by the redevelopment work is the noise and pollution caused during the construction work. The noise and different kinds of pollution really affected the community a lot and it lowered the living quality of the people living there. I hope this problem could be solved eventually as the project goes on and on.

Fieldwork 2: Soundwalk in Stanley

Soundscape Project – A trip to Stanley

You can find the soundtracks here: https://soundcloud.com/olympia-hui/sets/standley

In the soundscape fieldwork project, me and two of my groupmates went to Stanley and do a soundwalk for 1.5 hours. We wandered around the Stanley market and some nearby places. Through this project, I’ve found that I hear more sound than I usually do, some even I won’t notice normally.

Stanley is a place full of historical value. An origin place of native Hong Kong Island people, named after the former UK Prime Minister “Lord Stanley”, during 1842, it was a temporary administrative centre of the British Colonial government. More than that, St. Stephen’s College was used as a concentration camp for the whites by Japanese army during the annexation of Hong Kong. Therefore, it is said that Stanley is actually witnessing the changes in Hong Kong history.

Apart from historical value, Stanley is also famous for its cultural value. First of all, it’s the place where people usually go for a walk on the wooden path at Stanley promenade, it construct in 2006, made by wood, when walking on the path you can hear the footstep clearly, also the sound from the playground.

Back to our project, we recorded a total of 14 soundtracks during the walk. Each soundtrack represents a specific culture or natural value which we found them interesting. First of all, for the cultural aspects we recorded a track at the entrance of Stanley market of tourists speaking the language that can’t distinguish they were speaking, they spoke loudly and sounded excited in the soundtrack are more than one people continuously speaking, during our soundwalk, we met a lot of tourists from different places as can be told from their skin colors and their languages. Hong Kong always attracts people from all over the world no matter which cultural background they’re from

Secondly, we recorded the conversation in the Stanley market .Stanley market is a great variety of products (eg. paintings/portraits, clothes, furnishings, souvenirs), most of the shop owners can speak at least 3 languages, and visitors are mostly tourists (evenly distributed among Asian tourists and foreigners). The soundtrack was conducted in non-fluent English and with some Japanese from the tourist from japan, they were bargaining about the price of a painting, bargaining culture in Hong Kong local market is common, there is much cultural integration and it somehow shaped the tourism culture nowadays. The Western people hope to know more about the Chinese culture through travelling to Hong Kong and vice versa.

Thirdly, we went to the Murray House. It could be the most remarkable spot in Stanley it used to be an old building in Central. However, in 1990 it moved to Stanley due to development of central, after revitalization there are restaurants. In 2015, the LINK took over this building it became a 3-level H&M store, many people criticized that H&M does not match with this historical building. Outside the Murray House, there are a few smoking workers complaining about their jobs are tired but low salaries, because of many repairing work in Hong Kong. The other side, new couple taking photos downstairs, with historical scenery and beautiful sea views, photographer yelling upstairs. We can see a combination of the past and the modern here.

After that, we recorded a local music playing from an indie shop, they play music for attracting tourists, and selling local clothes/ accessories. The song was composed by a Hong Kong local band called supper moment, a four-member Cantopop band formed in 2006, and the song they playing call 沙燕之歌, this is a theme song of a Hong Kong Film.

Another soundtrack is not local music, In the soundtrack, you can hear relaxing music from a bar and grill playing jazz, many foreigner chatting with each other. Next to the bar, coffee shop owner preparing for their costumer, introducing the menu to them, it would be a place that couple tourists love going there.

We also recorded the sound of the children laughter, repeated footsteps, ball bouncing, adults cheering, and enjoyable sound from children playing balls. The start of the football class, coach yelling rules to the children with taught in English, and they replying the coach excitedly, high-pitched footsteps created by the friction between shoes and the ground, the reason why class in English because nearby neighborhood are mostly foreigners.

Apart from football, there are also children playground at the Stanley plaza, it took over by The LINK, and refurbished in 2011, added two slides and some climbing facilities, residents which have children living in the public estate and luxury residential nearby.

As for natural sound, we recorded the sound of waves. You can hear strong and repetitive sound with not very heavy waves. It’s a good sea view where people usually go for taking wedding photo/committee photo, somebody was fishing there and hitting the rocks. There was calm water next to the sea, a child was looking for pebbles, throwing pebbles with his mother, some birds chirping at the begging, the pebbles dropping in the water.

To conclude, Stanley is a attractive place that full of historical place with long history, combination of Chinese and Western cultures. Yet, we can still find out a lot of cultural essence in Stanley which helped construct it as a renowned tourist spot in Hong Kong.

Fieldwork 1: Soundwalk in Tsim Sha Tsui

Soundscape Project – A trip to Tsim Sha Tsui

You can find the soundtracks here: https://soundcloud.com/olympia-hui/sets/soundscape

In this soundscape fieldwork project, me and two of my groupmates went to Tsim Sha Tsui and do a soundwalk for about 2.5 hours. We wandered around the TST pier and some nearby places. Through this project, I’ve found that I hear more sound than I usually do, some even I won’t notice normally.

Tsim Sha Tsui is a place full of historical value. It was once the transportation junction of Hong Kong since the Star Ferry Pier and the Kowloon-Canton Railway (KCR) terminal both located at Tsim Sha Tsui. More than that, during the early 19^th century, an incident happened at Tsim Sha Tsui called the “Lin Wie Hee incident” which was one of the causes of the First Opium War. Therefore, it is said that Tsim Sha Tsui is actually witnessing the changes in Hong Kong history.

Apart from historical value, Tsim Sha Tsui is also famous for its cultural value. First of all, it’s the place where people usually go during festival time. The streets are crowded and packed with people during every festival. Lights and installations will be set up to decorate the street. Besides of festival culture, Tsim Sha Tsui is also known as the “United Nation” in Hong Kong since people can find different cultures there including the South-Asian, the British, the Korean and also the Muslim. There are different buildings representing these cultures including the Chungking Mansion, the Peninsula Hotel, the Islam Mosque and the Korean street.

Back to our project, we recorded a total of 9 soundtracks during the walk. Each soundtrack represents a specific culture or natural value which we found them interesting. First of all, for the cultural aspects, we recorded the sound of a wedding. One of the Hong Kong Marriage Registry is located at Tsim Sha Tsui, just next to the Cultural Centre, where many Hong Kong people choose to have their ceremony there because of the breath-taking sea view. From the soundtrack, we can hear the people are calling others to take a group photo. Although it’s noisy, we can still feel their excitement through their voices.

Secondly, we recorded two tracks of tourists speaking. The two soundtracks are tourists speaking English and Mandarin respectively. During our soundwalk, we met a lot of tourists from different places as can be told from their skin colours and their languages. Hong Kong always attract people from all over the world no matter which cultural background they’re from. This is because of Hong Kong’s history. Hong Kong’s culture is a combination of the Western and the Chinese since Hong Kong had been under the rule of British Colonial Government from 1841 to 1997. During this period, there are many cultural integration and it somehow shaped the tourism culture nowadays. The Western people hope to know more about the Chinese culture through travelling to Hong Kong and vice versa.

Thirdly, we went to the Star Ferry Pier. It could be the most remarkable spot in Tsim Sha Tsui. It has a very long history of development where it was built since 1898, which is about a decade ago. Before the Cross-Harbour Tunnel was built, it was the only transportation connecting Kowloon and Hong Kong Island. Therefore, it had a high usage in the past. Although the number of people taking the ferries is decreasing, it is still a favourable transportation among tourists. We recorded two soundtracks that are related to the Star Ferries. The first soundtrack is the ticket vending machine. The ticket vending machine has a longer history than the octopus card. Before the invention of the Octopus card, people all used the machines to buy the tickets for taking the ferries. All you need to do is to insert required amounts of coins and the machine will give you a plastic token which is sometimes blue or brown. The second soundtrack we recorded is the sound before boarding. There are mainly two types of sound in the soundtrack, one is the electric-controlled gate and the other one is the metal chain. Both are used to secure the people waiting at the pier. We can see a combination of the past and the modern here.

After that, we recorded the sound of the movements of luggage. In the soundtrack, there is muffled sound of the moving wheels of the luggage. As we wandered around Tsim Sha Tsui, we found that there are many tourists carrying luggage, which are usually Chinese tourists. We think it’s because there are many luxurious stores located on Canton Road which attracted the grey goods traders or the rich people in China. Also, it’s related to the implementation of policy on multiple-entry permits in 2009. The problem still exists even in 2017.

Another soundtrack is the Anti-Falun Gong. In the soundtrack, you can hear noisy and repetitive speeches saying that Falun Gong is bad for people. The sound is clamorous which makes people feel very uncomfortable and annoying. The reason why they chose to promote their beliefs in Tsim Sha Tsui is that there are many mainland tourists. The Falun Gong and the Anti-Falun Gong association are both from China which they mainly target on mainland people. They see Tsim Sha Tsui as a favourable spot for them to spread their messgaes.

Last for cultural sound, we also recorded the sound of the construction work at the Avenue of Stars. The construction work creates many noise which makes people uncomfortable. The sound is loud and annoying, and also earsplitting. It reduces the number of tourists. It comes from the renewal project of the Avenue of Stars. It was built in 2004 and now the government introduced the Augmented Reality (AR) technology there to increase Hong Kong’s competitiveness and can attract more tourists.

As for natural sound, we recorded the sound of waves. You can hear strong and repetitive sound of the big waves. The Victoria Harbour is renowned for its deepness and wideness. These are favourable for goods trading which the harbor leads Hong Kong economy and tourism for the past decade. However, rapid reclamation these years reduces its advantages and attractiveness.

To conclude, the sound we recorded in this fieldwork is mostly a low-fi environment. Yet, we can still find out a lot of cultural essence in Tsim Sha Tsui which helped construct it as a renowned tourist spot in Hong Kong.