Return to Tai O and visit to The Big Buddha

The Big Buddha

Tai O is such a fascinating place and I decided I wanted to return there (on my own) to draw; it’s difficult to do your own thing when you’re with someone else, however accommodating they are - it was great to visit with Mian and have some insight into people’s conversations - I think it’s natural to drop in on conversations and it’s something I tend to take for granted until I come up against a language as alien to me as Cantonese - then the only clues are body language and facial expressions. Its things like this that really make you feel like a stranger in a strange land.

This time I will take a different route to reach my destination - an MTR ride to Tung Chong and a cable car will take me high into the lush, green green mountains of Lantau, to the largest seated Buddha in the world; from there I can catch a bus down to Tai O.

The cable car journey (in a glass bottomed car) is quite something, swinging upwards as it does out of the high-rises of the town over a reservoir and into the broadening vista of Lantau’s interior, with views out to the north of the new international airport, and south looking upward to the majestic and mysterious peaks of the mountains, their summits cloaked in skeins of cloud. 
A young Cantonese woman asks me to take a picture on her phone, and proceeds to lie on the glass floor, making double V-signs and grinning crazily! I have to stand on the seat to get all of her in the picture (as this is what she specifically requests), I can’t believe I’m doing this, I only wish I had asked her to send me the picture for my blog - ah well, I’m sure you can imagine!

And then the Buddha comes into view above, he’s really is quite a sight as the cable car cranks its way upward towards the top station... and the usual tourist stuff - your cable-car photograph (no thanks!), souvenir shops, Starbucks etc. 
The Buddha himself is impressive and I want to do some drawings here even though it’s oppressively hot and humid, and so I do. The weird thing is that when you sit down to draw, people think it’s perfectly ok to come and sit right next to you and take your picture with them, using a selfie stick! This happens a number of times, plus a lot of people staring over your shoulder (same as at The Peak, and later in Tai O). I don’t particularly mind, but it doesn’t help my concentration so eventually I give up and go and catch the 21 bus to Tai O.

It’s mercifully cooler and slightly breezier down here by the sea. There are less people about on a weekday and I get my opportunity to do some sketching. The village is organic in its structure, in stark contrast to the repetitive monotony of the high-rises of Kowloon and Central. Its form has been shaped by successive ad-hoc building spurts, some devastating fires and more recently the construction of some larger more permanent structures. None of the paths are big enough for cars, and most of the commerce seems to be conducted on bicycles with towed carts, or sack trucks. All fascinating subject matter for the artist - winding narrow streets, stilted houses on water, kaleidoscope colours of market stalls, drying shrimp paste, hanging balloons of fish stomachs, drying fish of every size and shape… I could go on but I think you get the picture. 

Tai O - stilted fishing village on Lantau Island's west coast

Once more I’m confronted by thoughts of how long this can continue in this way. Tai O already relies more heavily on tourism than fishing for its survival. If the HK Government does nothing it can only continue as a weekend tourist destination, its younger inhabitants are moving to the more attractive mainland to seek their fortunes in ways other than the traditional pursuits of their parents and grandparents; and yet if the Government do legislate to protect it how can they do so with sensitivity? The village could easily become just a museum piece; perhaps it has done already. All I can do is observe, record, and wonder if it will still be here to see in the (not too distant) future.