Vincent Yu, a photojournalist, had captured a series of photographs of the old Shek Kip Mei Estate. His photos deliver not only the images of the old Shek Kip Mei Estate but also the collective memories that people have who used to live there. “Shek Kip Mei is gone. Images remain and our memory” is the main theme of the photographs. This paper is a detailed discussion of the history of Shek Kip Mei Estate and also the analysis of this series of photographs.History of Shek Kip Mei
In World War II, many people left Hong Kong during the Japanese Occupation of 1941 to 1945. As Hong Kong stabilized after the war, people came back to their homes and people in Mainland China immigrated to Hong Kong because of evading from the Civil War. In only five years time, the population of Hong Kong surged from 600,000 to 2,000,000. With such a population surge, living conditions in Hong Kong were getting worse. Many returnees and refugees could not afford to live in proper homes, instead, they lived in squatter homes, often on the hillsides which were built with sheets of iron and pieces of wood. You could imagine those squatter homes were poorly built with no planning, not to mention fire service installations. At that time, fire accidents were common since Kerosene is being used for cooking which is dangerous and residents were lack of awareness of fire accidents. On Christmas Eve of 1953, there was a worst fire ever happened in Shek Kip Mei. Tens of thousands of people were made homeless overnight. All of their belongings and properties were gone in a sudden.
Living environment
The government could not turn a blind eye over such a tragic. They soon provided temporary shelter to the victims. The Public Works Department cleared up the affected area and built a series of buildings which known as the Bowring Bungalows within two months. The two-storey buildings with no washroom, no kitchen, and no running water were built in a hurry to accommodate the victims. Although the living conditions in Bowring Bungalows were poor and crowded as three families were living in a small flat, it was far better to roam and sleep on the street. The bungalows managed to provide temporary shelter to the victims but it was only temporal. In 1954, Urban Council suggested the government to build resettlement estates to provide long-term housing. Therefore, the very first public housing estate, Shek Kip Mei Estate, was eventually constructed. The eight six-floor buildings with flats of 120 square feet which have no partition, no water and electricity supply were planned to house five adults. Sometimes, 2 or more families were living in one single small flat. Residents have to share washroom and running water with people in the same floor. Quarrels are arguments were common among them. However, on the other hand, neighbours were in close relations as they took care of each other and shared the same identity with similar backgrounds. This was how people lived in Shek Kip Mei Estate.
Artist’s attempts
With the rapid growth and developments in Hong Kong, more and more decent housing have been built for the accommodation of the residents. The government decided to demolish obsolete Shek Kip Mei Estate in 2006 so that they can reestablish that area. Once it is being demolished, we would never see how people were living in the very first public housing estate, representing the milestone of Hong Kong Housing development. Vincent Yu, a photojournalist, were born and raised in Hong Kong who concerns the rapid development of Hong Kong. He noticed that something was vanishing in our city, something old but invaluable was eliminating by society. In this money oriented society, history, memories, heritage would never be on the top of the preference list. Shek Kip Mei Estate inevitably faced the truth of being demolished as its economic and social functions were being exhausted. There is no similar work was done to reserve the images of a place. Vincent thinks he should not sit and wait silently and let it be so he decided to visit the residents were still living there right before the demolition and took pictures of them. He tried to remain some vivid images through his camera. His invaluable book is a series of photographs of Shek Kip Mei Estate and also provided a brief description of the history of Shek Kip Mei Estate. Through these images and supplementary text, subsequent generations can have a sense of how Hong Kong had been changed from a small fishing village to now a famous cosmopolitan city.
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