Postcard reflection FOUR

Naturally when you visit a different city you begin to compare it to where you live and the daily life you’ve become accustomed to. It was today when we took the 4X to Wah Fu Estate that Hong Kong made me question whether Australia and both England are doing things the ‘right’ way. The country is run on a set of decisions that are argued as the best, the most profitable, the most effective and so on but when you come across another country with a different outcome that also wholeheartedly believes they are doing what’s right/best there has to be some leeway to accepting this other perspective. The history behind Wah Fu means that it has an ageing community with a lot of elderly men and women who sit, eat and talk in the streets. I think there are two principals here that make this a possibility. Firstly, the religion and (as a generalisation) the Asian culture are very respectful of their elders. This encourages them to comfortably walk around the streets without threat or fear from others such as jeering or snide comments. But secondly the design of the space is beneficial for this to happen. Where a lot of areas of Hong Kong are built on the defensive design principal — areas such as the MTR which has few seats hence discouraging people from sitting and lingering, and shopping centres with very little seating in free areas in comparison to cafes where it is then appropriate to buy something as an exchange. To be able to notice how these are important factors, we must compare it to Australia. There is both an attitude difference and a special design difference. The respect for those older often ceases to exist and I would think there’s a sense of intimidation because of this. Furthermore although we do have encouraged seating areas and discounted pension prices which would work well to entice people to get out and move about the city, the locations of nursing homes and retirement villages are often very segregated from the rest of the city and suburbs and are quite closed off. This means that although there is an area designed specifically for them it does not integrate with the rest of society.