It's noisy, colourful and stands in sharp contrast to slick SoHo. Every summer, the Yue Lan or Hungry Ghost Festival dominates Central for a day. Elderly women spend hours folding gold and silver paper into bullion. To ward off the restless spirits, roast suckling pig and fruit are offered, along with paper Lear jets and Rolls-Royces. The culmination of the event is the burning of the paper offerings in the evening, to keep the ghosts at bay for another year.
Yet this year may have been the last time the festival takes place in Central if the government's plans for its redevelopment are pushed through. The threatened disappearance of the Hungry Ghost Festival is the basis of Coming Near You: The Destruction of Central Hong Kong, the latest exhibition at John Batten Gallery.
Photographer Leong Ka-tai grew up in Central, studied engineering in Texas, then served an apprenticeship with a photographer in Paris. He now lives across the road from his childhood home. Although he concentrates on photo-graphy for publications, Leong had two successful exhibitions about Sars in 2003. City Heroes was launched at the HSBC Building's concourse, and illustrated how quiet, unassuming people can become heroes. Sars Heroes: In the Eye of the Storm was presented in malls such as Sha Tin's New Town Plaza, and examined the disease through those it affected.
'This was like a sort of journal for me,' Leong says of his latest exhibition. 'In 2001, I had time on my hands, and I decided to photograph what happened during the festival over the course of a day.'
Leong sifts through his photos in the John Batten Gallery, explaining each one. 'That evening, it was raining,' he says. 'They told me it rains every year until rice is distributed to the elderly. Then it stops just in time. An old man down the road makes the paper effigy of the Hungry Ghost king on Aberdeen Street from scratch. Many return to pay respects to their ancestors because their ancestral altar is still here.'
During the next five years Central Market and former police quarters on Hollywood Road and Aberdeen Street are expected to be sold and redeveloped. Much of the area between Queen's Road Central and Gage Street, and between Bridges Street and Caine Road, may be demolished. Victoria Prison and the former Central Police Station are being considered for commercial use, and developers are building towers such as the 44-storey block near Man Mo Temple on Hollywood Road.
All of these changes threaten to alter the area held dear by people such as Batten, Leong and Roger Ho, who worked with Batten on the exhibition. A long-time supporter of Central's preservation, he has published a book on the area titled Hong Kong Heritage Zone.
