JOHN BATTEN GALLERY / Lunar New Year 2005
Lunar New Year 2005
Over the last eight years I have sent out - by email - a photographic essay of images of Hong Kong’s Lunar New Year (or Spring Festival); I suppose a visual celebratory postcard without the red glitter! I wish you a Happy Year of the Rooster (or, variously, in English, termed Chicken or Cock)!
Most of these photographs were taken on the first day of the New Year (in Cantonese: ‘chor yat’) and cover the Sheung Wan, Central, Wan Chai, Causeway Bay, Tin Hau, North Point and Sai Wan Ho areas of Hong Kong Island - the older parts of Hong Kong that roughly track the middle sections of the tram route that runs from Kennedy Town (the western end of the Island) to Shau Kei Wan (the eastern end)...
As in previous years, I have predominantly
focused on Hong Kong’s unique
vernacular street decoration which, when combined with this year’s New
Year festive adornments, reveal a gentle side to this city of bustle and pace...