【Poo】

credit: Joe Lui

Is poo a waste?

Or is it just we are yet to understand what it truly means to us? In fact, like you and me, feces is composed of 70% water. The rest of it are organic materials such as undigested food, old body tissues faded out by metabolism, dead bacteria bodies losing the fight with our immune system, and minimal elements such as calcium and iron.

It smells terrible!

A result of high concentration of gases like indole and skatole it is! Surprisingly, under proper concentration level and temperature, these gases generate floral smell like citrus and jasmine.

Amazing, isn’t it?

It can be our bias on poo nowadays. In the past, it is highly regarded as “floating gold”! Animals, plants and fungi have developed symbiosis tightly with poo for long.

I am no prophet, and in no capacity to predict the future. As a lucky person born in the 70s, I witness the modernization of the city, its digitalization, aging as well as globalization.
Along with such observation on the changes of the Earth for more than half a century, I witness those applied on the nature too: deserted country parts gradually resided with sky-climbing trees, yet the sea resources is exhausted due to over-fishing; a fire outbreak destroy lives in forests, while the ice used to seal the North and South Poles have been melting down, turning them into a new world favoring residence of tropical creatives.
The nature of Hong Kong has been changing as a result of human activities, on local species, endangered species, invaded species, ornamental garden plants, and genetically modified species that gradually become the “features” of local ecology. The incapacity to read through the nature has become a “natural ecology” of Hong Kong people.
The reality is like that. To iterate, I am not a prophet, I can’t tell what the future of Hong Kong will be like with such a vigorous burning flame of changes. Perhaps we can decide its future by taking reference from the past.