Va Disparaître / Markets of Hong Kong

This post is about the Fabric Market, a secluded corner in Sham Shui Po, which is going to be demolished in a matter of weeks or even days. This recent photo was aged on purpose, as this is what the Fabric Market will soon become – another forgotten memory, a page in a heavy book of Hong Kong’s past.

This view will sink into the piles of old Hong Kong photos being sold here and there around the city. Airplanes flying low over Kowloon, bike rickshaws, junk sailboats, Victorian ladies with white umbrellas, Sham Shui Po Fabric Market. And an antique striking clock hanging from a bamboo beam with its immovable hands always pointing to seven minutes to six.

A drawling Chinese song is being quietly played by an old tape-recorder attached to the plywood ceiling with white silk strips. It is used as a background radio receiver all day round but I was able to see an audio-cassette inside its slot. I wonder, what music might be recorded on that tape?

Having recognized the past of the future, I give up posting more faded photos. Blow off the imaginative dust and look at the present colors of the Fabric Market as I have seen them, and as they still may be seen on the day that I write this post.

“Va disparaître”, an inscription penciled on the back of one of the old Paris photos taken by Eugène Atget in 1912. “Will disappear”.