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Wong Siu-pong (director), Obedience, 2024. 71 min.

Although Wong Siu-pong’s latest observational documentary, Obedience, does not actively stir emotions in its audiences, it is laden with unspoken weight. Featuring the shabbier streets of Hung Hom, it examines the impacts of a new rail line construction and menacing urban renewal approaches on the neighbourhood, where some people’s livelihoods depend on recycling items and waste collection. Threaded through the film is the Kwun Yum Treasury Opening Festival, an occasion when worshippers can “borrow money” from the deity—mortals receiving a sacred blessing through a piece of red paper with an imaginatively high amount written on it. This is a form of seeking reassurance and optimism when life is not easy, and plans go astray.

A sense of precarity sets the tone of the film. Close-up shots capture the haziness obscuring the lighting of skyscrapers following the Lunar New Year firework display. An unsettling wide shot of serpentine queues cordoned off in Fat Kwong Street Playground creates suspense. Smoke fills the screen again: hands cling to paper offerings and burning yellow incense sticks in front of a temple doorframe. These shots are not accompanied by dialogue, which strengthens the commotion. The first audible phrase is, in fact, “多謝合作” (do1 ze6 hap6 zok3, “thanks for your cooperation”) from a safety broadcast, reinforcing the obligation to comply.

The film then follows different burdensome lives: elderly outsourced refuse station staff whose long working hours do not guarantee decent pay, and young and middle-aged people who gather recyclable goods in exchange for a small amount of money. Navigating the streets is easy for most people but not for them. One moment captures a rare display of tolerance by a bus driver who refrains from honking when a trouble-stricken rubbish cart blocks the way. Another shot shows a lady further straining a contracted refuse worker, who is about to tie up an already full sack, by throwing in more rubbish. These scenes reveal hidden social hierarchies, exhibit the limits and capacity for human compassion, and highlight the accessibility of roads.

One particularly striking scene, as if shot in slow motion, depicts a Sisyphean image: rubbish collectors wearing self-made ponchos crafted from black refuse sacks from head to toe, pushing trolleys piled high with bin bags. Their bodies being wrapped is a staggering image, instantly leaving me with the association of body bags. Together with their movements, these echo scenes of hearses turning left and right, agitating the audience with the fact that Hung Hom is a long-established hub for funeral businesses and the deposition of human bodies and cremated remains. This fortifies the concept of cycles and prompts audiences to question: What constitutes waste?

The film also draws attention to the role of paper in Hung Hom’s business ecosystem—something I, even as a former kaifong, had never fully realised. At the festival, worshippers buy paper offering sets from nearby shops. Kneeling hawkers hand out wallet-sized red paper charms with 財神 (coi4 san4, “god of wealth”) or 貴人 (gwai3 jan4-2, “noble person”) printed on them, making one feel guilty if they take one without offering a payment. Of course, there is also the recycling shop, where waste collectors receive appraisals and learn how many pennies their hard work is worth each day.

There are extraordinary angles showing heights and perspectives that audiences are not able to see in daily life. For instance, a wide shot at night shows some incognito tong lau blocks in the foreground, contrasted with the illuminated Royal Peninsula housing estate and the brightly lit K11 Art Mall (a product of modern renewal) in East Tsim Sha Tsui in the background. This visual confrontation forebodes the erasure of old composite buildings for monotonous real estate projects that often disregard the resettlement or needs of long-term residents, homogenising and dissociating the neighbourhood.

Uncertain if it is the director’s message or a pure coincidence, I am nevertheless intrigued by the changes in an elderly rubbish collector’s red cap. When she first wears it, the red is vibrant. The second time, the colour has faded. This resonates well with the neighbourhood’s loss of Hung (red)—its inevitable loss of vibrancy as new developments displace old elements that matter to its current inhabitants. I also recall one of the legends related to the neighbourhood’s naming: when a worker first constructed a well in the area now designated as Hung Hom, red-coloured water overflowed onto the ground, hence the name Hung Hom 紅磡 (hung4 ham3, “red ledge”).

The director opens the film with an African proverb: “Where the water boss is, the land must obey.” Considering one of Hung Hom’s own legends, after so many years, no one knows the location of the well or has been able to confirm its existence. Does Hung Hom have a watery foundation then?

How to cite: Yeung, Vanessa Winghei. “A Place’s Sorrowful Tomorrow: Wong Siu-pong’s Obedience.” Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, 7 Jan. 2025, chajournal.blog/2025/01/07/obedience.

Vanessa Winghei Yeung is a multilingual arts and heritage professional. Having lived in Hong Kong and Rome, she is now working to make Glasgow her home. Her writing has recently been featured on the website of the International Council of Museums (ICOM) and in the Scottish Book Trust’s Book Week Scotland Teaching Toolkit. Her short story, Victoria Harbour, was performed at the Liars’ League Hong Kong. Currently, she dedicates her efforts to writing about and researching decorative arts and modern architecture in pre-war Hong Kong. Her first academic article, exploring a fascinating yet short-lived interior decoration and furniture company, Arts and Crafts, Limited, is under peer review with the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch. In anticipation of the centenary of Art Deco in 2025, she is collaborating with a professor on a book celebrating Hong Kong’s Art Deco heritage. Follow her documentation and research journey: @artdecohongkong. [Read all contributions by Vanessa Winghei Yeung.]

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