Yuen Tsuen Ancient Trail redux (photo-essay)

Last week, I put up my first photo-essay of the Yuen Tsuen Ancient Trail hike I went on back in February. Going as my hiking party did from Tsuen Wan, this meant that the hardest part of the hike -- an ascent of over 400 meters in about an hour along a path that was observably bereft of tree cover for the most part -- was completed first.

What was left to cover was not completely a breeze though -- seeing as Yuen Long district remained some distance away. Fortunately, it really was a very nice day weather-wise. And the company wasn't too bad either. So much so that my Yuen Tsuen Ancient Trail hike experience was a thoroughly pleasant one; even more so than the first, shorter hike through Tai Lam Country Park that I went on with Roz's Hiking Group back in September 2007...

More than 30 Hong Kong hikes on, I'm still
not too knowledgable about the biology of the territory
-- consequently, I'm not sure whether these trees
are diseased or just naturally look this... picturesque!

An idyllic spot on the way that, alas,
my hiking group didn't really
pause and linger all that much at!

Walking by the above, I got to thinking that
nature's achieved what many landscape gardeners
would love to be so aesthetically pleasingly arrange!

Speaking of walking - here's showing
some hikers doing precisely that ;)

One of the streams that runs into the pretty sizable
body of water within Tai Lam Country Park
that is the Tai Lam Chung Reservoir

A ruined but still functioning shrine
along the Yuen Tsuen Ancient Trail

Maybe not that impressive a sight
during the dry season but
still good enough to photograph to me!

Civilization at the Yuen Long end of the trail --
albeit one still far from the concrete jungle image
that most people possess of Hong Kong! :b

Advertisement (This week's Photo Hunt theme)

Have you heard about how, when deciding which place to eat at in areas full of eateries, the best one will be the eatery with the longest queue (or just plain line for those of you who don't understand British English!)? At any rate, this free form of advertisement seems to be all this dai pai dong without even a large sign to its name needs!

(For enquiring foodie minds, the dai pai dong in question is located on restaurant-laden Gough Street, opposite the also pretty popular Kau Kee beef noodle shop. And no, it's not just the recession that seems to be attracting people to this budget eatery -- as the photo in this week's Photo Hunt entry actually dates back to more than a year ago now! :b )

Twenty years on

Hong Kong remembers:
Candlelight vigil in Victoria Park
earlier this evening

A small part of the estimated 150,000 people
who attended

The Past is a Foreign Country may be the title of a book by historian David Lowenthal. But in that same book, he states that "The past remains integral to us all, individually and collectively".

Earlier tonight, a sizeable number of Hong Kongers remembered a deeply shocking as well as sad event that took place in Beijing 20 years ago. I am so glad that they did.

Because, in the immortal words of George Santayana, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it". And goodness knows that I really don't want to see a repeat of that terrible event that I will never forget even though I "only" watched it unfold on television thousands of miles away.

(Apologies for the photos being not as clear as one would like them to be. Still, I'd like to put them up on the blog to help document the occasion.)

Hiking the Yuen Tsuen Ancient Trail (photo-essay)

It used to be that the Yuen Tsuen Ancient Trail was the main path used by hardy folks to go from the market towns of Yuen Long to Tsuen Wan (or vice versa). These days, however, this 12.5 kilometer long footpath that takes one clear across Tai Lam Country Park (which occupies some 5,370 hectares of land in the Western New Territories) through some pretty scenic sections of Hong Kong's second largest country park serves a largely leisure purpose: that is, as a favorite hiking route.

At the same time, those contemplating hiking the Yuen Tsuen Ancient Trail should bear in mind that, when one adds in the distance between the Tsuen Wan end of the path to the nearest bus stop in the area (at Allway Gardens) and that needed to get from the Yuen Long end of the path to the nearest minibus stop in that area (over in Tai Tong Tsuen), the total hiking distance is actually closer to 15.2 kilometers. Also, that one will go from about 50 meters above sea level to over 400 meters above sea level and then back down again to about 20 meters above sea level.

Is it worth the exertion? I believe so -- and actually would rank this among the top five hikes I've been on in Hong Kong thus far. To give you some idea why, here follows the first photo-essay with pictures taken along this trail that gets one realizing how tough folks were -- and life was -- in days gone by:-

Between urban land and country park
lies cultivated greenery of the kind
few expect Asia's World City to possess

Ditto re land that looks to still be farmed
in a pretty small-scale and traditional way

The signboards in the photo are where
the Yuen Tsuen Ancient Trail officially begins
over on the Tsuen Wan side

A view of the trail as it hugs the sides of hills
and one rounds a corner of it

Looks like we're miles from civilization, right?

Yet not that far away, if one were to look
down below, this is the scene one would see!

Also, here's a view from the Ancient Trail
that takes in the Tsing Ma and Ting Kau Bridges

Leaving you for now with a glimpse of
a more forested part of a trail that
takes one through a range of landscapes...

To be continued by way of another photo-essay (but of course!)! ;b

Book(s) (This week's Photo Hunt theme)

It's been a while since I took a photo expressly for the Photo Hunt like I did this morning since I'm usually able to find a suitable photo (or more) for a theme by perusing my ever-growing personal digital photo archive. Even more unusually for a Photo Hunt, I felt obliged to take a photo in my living quarters of some of my personal belongings.

This circumstance is attributable to it being so that, as Nuala Rooney observes early in her book about Hong Kongers' experience of high density domestic spaces, "[w]hile high density is certainly a phenomenon increasingly associated with most major cities around the world, in Hong Kong, where only a third of the total geographic land mass can be used for building, affordable spaces tend to be small" (At Home with Density, 2003:2).

Put another way: living in high density domestic space encourages one to want to head out of it. (Though, I have to say that for me, it's also a case of my being pretty happy to live in a small apartment because I know my lifestyle involves being out of it for most of my waking hours!)

But if I needed further encouragement to venture out into the rest of Hong Kong, I've also got -- as I think can be seen in the above photo -- hiking guide books galore as well as books on exploring Hong Kong's streets and checking out local culture and heritage. Of those I have, I'd like to single out the following for being invaluable guides to this part of the world that I've come to realise is more than just a Movie Mecca:

- Michael Ingham's Hong Kong: A Cultural and Literary History (Signal Books (Oxford), 2007),

- Jason Wordie's Streets: Exploring Hong Kong Island (Hong Kong University Press, 2002)

- Alicia M. Kershaw and Ginger Thrash's Above the City: Hiking Hong Kong Island (Hong Kong University Press, 2005); and

- the Country & Marine Parks Authority's Hiking All in One (Friends of the Country Parks and Scout Association of Hong Kong, 2005)

Finally -- Ashes of Time Redux!

In honor of the fact that for a desert epic,
Ashes of Time Redux (and the original Ashes of Time)
sure has a lot of shots of water in them!

At last -- a film that I've waited for over a year to check out -- one that is but a revised version of a film made in 1994 and that I've seen multiple times already -- has finally opened in theaters in Hong Kong!

Though, I should point out, not that many theaters. Most notably, the cinemas with three of the biggest screens in Hong Kong (Golden Harvest's Grand Ocean in Tsim Sha Tsui, MCL's JP in Causeway Bay and the BEA Imax in Kowloon Bay) aren't showing the movie. Also, despite my thinking it would be, an on-line check of today's screenings showed that they aren't packed at all... which is why I decided I could hazard going all the way to Broadway Cinematheque in Yau Ma Tei -- probably the multiplex in Hong Kong that would attract the most respectful and appreciative audience for the film -- after work this evening to watch the Wong Kar Wai desert epic.

Do I like Ashes of Time Redux? I think it suffices to say at this point that I literally felt my hair stand on end and shivers going down my spine at the end of the screening (and I hope that I won't spoil it for anyone when I disclose that I think it a wonderful tribute to Leslie Cheung that the last shot that one sees before the end credits start to roll is a close-up of his face). And, upon coming out of the theater, was tempted to run up to the ticketing counter and buy a ticket for the immediate next screening of the movie!

Somehow, sanity prevailed. Or, rather, I was lured back to my apartment by the promise of being able to watch the original Ashes of Time on DVD for comparative purposes -- only to find, alas, that my DVD has "died"!

So until I get a new Ashes of Time DVD, I'm going to have to rely on my memory of the film in recalling it. Which means that the following comments about Ashes of Time Redux versus and vis a vis the original Ashes of Time may be off base. If so, I hope that this entry's readers will let me know about this, albeit gently! And if you agree with -- or have further thoughts upon reading -- them, I'd appreciate your letting me know that too!

***

Among the most noticeable changes from original film to redux version are those involving the beginning and ending scenes. Re the former: the original lines appear to be missing, as are -- as David Bordwell has noted -- the more explosive parts of the sword battle between Ouyang Feng (Leslie Cheung) and Huang Yaoshi (Tony Leung Kar-Fai).

As for the latter: the whole entire final montage, including the short shots that have Brigitte Lin Ching-hsia atop a bed of red chili peppers as well as making like a martial Mary Poppins in the rain, is missing. And I'd be lying if I were to say that I don't miss seeing them. And yet, the new ending, like I related above, has a strong emotional punch for me...

Another section of the work whose new version I have mixed (bitter-sweet?) feelings about is the scene in which Murong Yin (Brigitte Lin) caresses Ouyang Feng while pretending/imagining that he's actually Huang Yaoshi (and Ouyang Feng indulges in his own imagining/fantasy that the woman caressing him is actually his brother's wife (Maggie Cheung Man Yuk)). For while the original version came complete with a moody, mesmerizing music track, this scene plays out sans music entirely in Redux -- so what you hear is the onscreen characters' breathing... and your own intakes of breath watching what still is a visually breath-taking -- and, for me at least, emotionally devastating -- minute or so of film.

All in all, it is very noticeable that not only is the music often softer and more subtle (and more classical in tone -- the synthesized sounds are gone) but there actually seems to be less of it overall. Actually, less "noise" in general -- as an example, Brigitte Lin screams just once in Redux versus, if I remember correctly, on three different occasions in the original movie.

In contrast, the outdoor desert scenes and establishing landscape shots have had their color tones turned up so unnaturally high that I got to thinking from viewing those visuals that Wong Kar Wai is a latter day Fauve. (And while I can understand those who have been unhappy with this move, I actually am not that upset by it. In honesty, I think I'm just too happy overall to finally see a clear version of the work -- one which I have seen on 35mm film as well as DVD, VHS tape and VCD!)

Story-wise, things have not been as simplified as I had worried would be the case. Those familiar with the original Ashes of Time might think some of the visual clues as to who loves whom and such aren't that necessary. At the same time, I don't think their addition is that jarring -- and, actually, it does seem rather nice that as a consequence of this impulse, Carina Lau, Maggie Cheung and the actress who plays Hong Qi (Jacky Cheung)'s wife now look to have more time on screen than in the original film.

***

In conclusion: In the almost immediate aftermath of viewing the film, my feeling is that Redux is a work that I could see myself growing to love as well as the original Ashes of Time. And if nothing else, I must say that I love the experience of watching Brigitte on a big screen in a wonderful movie, parts of which do feel novelly new as opposed to wonderfully familiar.

Also, if hearing Ms. Lin speaking Mandarin while the other stars do so in Cantonese can be a bit disconcerting, what really struck me more was how she really did act so very expressively with her voice as well as the rest of her. Put another way: what a tragedy it was that this goddess of an actress worked in Taiwanese and Hong Kong cinema in eras when, for the most part, the preference was to dub rather than film in synch-sound... for based on what I heard and saw courtesy of Redux, I really would have loved to have heard as well as seen so much more of her than has been the case!

Hong Kong decadence

Waffles, Hong Kong-style

This one's for you, duriandave -- in honor of our recent e-mail conversation about Hong Kong eats... in particular, such decadent delights as Hong Kong-style French toast (a recipe for which can be had here -- courtesy of a Malaysian homemaker!) and waffles topped with -- and I can personally vouch for this as this is what I had earlier today (and took a photo of -- see above) -- butter but also peanut butter, sugar crystals and (sweetened) condensed milk!

Are these foods bad for you? Probably! But does it hurt all that much to have it once in a while? I'm hoping not because, honestly, they really are so delicious that it's very hard to resist partaking of them once you come to know of their very existence. (And yes, I do recommend that visitors to the Big Lychee -- particularly those that consider themselves foodies -- give them a try... along with more famous (and "traditionally Chinese") foods... :b)