Cardboard Boxes

Task 1- Visual Essay

Hong Kong is known as a harbour city, it provides labour and resources necessary for sustained commercial growth that led to its becoming one of the world’s major trade and financial centres. The community remains limited in space and natural resources, with the problems of overcrowding and trade fluctuations. Because of the limited resources, local people are trying to reuse things as much as possible. The object I chose, cardboard boxes, one of the objects that can be seen everywhere in Hong Kong. Cardboard box is the most reuse object and it also created a form of economy within local people.

It is common to see ‘cardboard grannies’ on any street in Hong Kong, they are the senior citizens who pushing trolleys through the streets search for discarded cardboard boxes and collect them for financially support. Those boxes are accepted by the local recyclers and return small sums of money. However, there is still difficulties for the cardboard grannies to survive in this less business-friendly society. According to the South China Morning Post, “Social workers and academics in Hong Kong, have suggested integrating cardboard sellers with the recycling industry so that they can have a normal job earning proper wages and, more than that, their dignity.”

Area in Hong Kong that I documented the cardboard boxes is almost everywhere I go for meetings. Those areas include Sheung Wan, Wan Chai, Causeway Bay, Tsim Sha Tsui, Mong Kok, Yau Ma Tei, Wah Fu Estate and Cheung Chau. Cardboard boxes are clearly visible in those places; however, they are not all cardboard boxes. There is form boxes, plastic boxes, steel and wood boxes.

What I found interesting when capturing the cardboard boxes is that they are not only used for packing. The usages are surprising me, different size of cardboard boxes have different usage. The small boxes can be used for collecting coins and paper bags for pudding food in roadside shop. The big size boxes usually for shelter, seating and as partition. Mostly found in Central area in Sunday by domestic workers. I was surprised when I walked through there, I didn’t know what happened. Until a friend told me that the domestic workers only have a day off for the whole week and Sunday is the day they can catch up with their friends from the same place. As they are sitting on the floor, they mainly use cardboard as seating to sit on with friends talking or eating. Cardboard is convenience for the workers to use and easy to find, it’s free to collect everywhere. After they use it, they can out them beside the bin and the cardboard grannies will come and collect or even they can sell carboards to the recycler for a small amount of money. Hong Kong gives a vibe of fast paced lifestyle, just like the life of cardboard, as a package for product first, then flattened to use as a seating mat or shelter, lastly collected to be sold and recycle again. Fast and convenience without wasting it.

While I was visiting Cheung Chau island, I discovered the local people usage of the small cardboard for putting paper bag. It was a shop selling barbeque, they put a little cardboard box at the front divided, there is some paper bag for food at the back part and for the front lattice I saw some coins, but I am not sure is it a coin box.

When I was walking around the central area, on the upper Lascar Road, where a lot of antiques shops located. The road is like a small market with shops on both sides. Most of the little souvenirs were being put inside the cardboard boxes to display. There is different kind of things you will never expect to see. There is colour watchbands, old 90s CD disc, old newspaper for wrapping pottery, old Ching Dynasty wooden curving, some display of fruits and vegetables, books in the bookstore, empty at the corner of the road and some boxes are as trash bin beside the road.

After all the discovering, what I related the cardboard boxes with Hong Kong was the local architecture. I saw the cardboard boxes stacking beside the road, they are just like the high-rise building of Hong Kong for me. The cardboard is everywhere and closely associated with the city, not only on the road and also inside the buildings. Some boxes are flattened outing up on the trolley reminds me of the layer of people inside the train at the peak hour. This is just my personal aesthetic appeal, not offense to any other culture or people. I see it cute to relate them. I have a few sketches focus on the shape of the boxes, they are just like the outline of the buildings and skyscrapers.

Hong Kong is a fast-paced city, I love the chaos and the lifestyle of how the city presenting.I don’t understand about economy or politic, I only see the city in shape and blocks. I like how the small lanes can collude the main roads to the other side of the area. I like the stairs are remained the same in the old movies. I feel like I am travelling through time to the age where Takeshi Kaneshiro is running on the central-mid-levels escalators in the movie called “Chungking Express” and those Pai Dong, where LeungChiu Wai is eating.

Cardboard boxes hold product for a while which is being thrown after used as a temporary placing. The material is fragile, breakable, not water proof and for only one purpose. However, in Hong Kong, I see the vary of using the cardboard no matter what the material base is.

Witten by Than Than Yin

All images are taken by the writer

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