Originally posted by Aaron Lam on October 15, 2017
Hi everyone,
For A1, I was inspired to use my smartphone as a critical lens to explore Hong Kong and take my assignment and you, the audience, with me on a journey. As a Canadian expat, I wanted to not only explore Hong Kong’s immense smartphone culture but show you what I get to experience every day in this incredibly vibrant city. I had never used my device to record a movie, much less complete a project, and the challenge of using the smartphone as the primary tool pushed me to explore the physical space of the city with an analytical approach. I wanted to understand why 75% of my fellow Hong Kongers and I seem to be so addicted to our smartphones. I decided to challenge myself and only use my phone for this assignment to shoot, record and produce a short film documenting my experience of exploring Hong Kong’s busiest mobile market – Sin Tat Plaza.
The video was recorded using my Sony Xperia Z3 Compact Smartphone and also edited with the default Movie Creator software. The music was written, performed and recorded by me also on my phone using FL Studio Mobile and the narration was recorded on the default Audio Recorder software.
I hope you enjoy and I look forward to hearing what you think.
I’ve been here! Customization, choice, and competitive prices really define places like these.
In a city as dense as Hong Kong, I think it’s easy to see how smartphones are depended upon as windows and spaces to escape into. On the subway for example, you’ll see people gaming, talking, browsing, listening to music, etc on their devices — doing anything but acknowledging the people in such close proximity around them.
As a former international school teacher in Asia, this post really brought back a lot of the cultural dependence on smart phones that I first experienced in Vietnam. I was also pretty surprised to see the reliance on this technology when I arrived in 2012, very early on in the smart phone revolution. At the time I had an iPhone, but the popularity of android was really interesting. I think that with android there is more of an ability to customize and swap parts that is definitely part of the smart phone culture in Asian countries.
I also found the connection to politics incredibly interesting. This post was made in 2017 and I am writing in 2020. Since the, there have been even more political triggers between China and Hong Kong: Umbrella Protests for independence, the fight for 5G supremacy, and of course what we are experiencing right now: the Corona Virus which started in China. Social Media, and a lack of firewall in hong kong, has allowed for a revolution that was basically fueled by the internet and smartphones. Global reports of police violence went viral when the protests heated up last summer. In part, I am sure, because of the incredible access to smart phones in the country.