What reminds you of home? Is it the smell, the food, the architecture, or the people? I left Hong Kong 24 years ago and to be honest, I don't remember much. What I do remember fondly is the smell of stinky tofu - deep fried pieces of fermented tender tofu and eaten with hoisin sauce and hot sauce; a smell that I could detect blocks away, luring me to a giant wok full of oil churning out all sorts of delicious fried goodies. These street vendors are harder and harder to find but luckily I found some near our airbnb two blocks away!!! But I digress. What I missed the most about Hong Kong are the wet markets - fresh meat, seafood and vegetables lining the street; a robust and familiar community of vendors working hard and citizens grocery shopping and bargaining over strands of green onions as a way of life. That is home.
The best part of the trip was undoubtedly watching my maternal grandmother, my paw paw, with my kids. It was the first time they met and every second of the "i want to kill myself" feeling that I felt traveling 20+ hours with two toddlers was worth it for just that moment. Lugging a camera with a clingy toddler made photographing challenging and there were so many aspects of the trip that I wish I could capture but just couldn't - ah, sometimes parenthood isn't about doing everything we want to do, correct?
Anyways, sharing my favorite photographs from Hong Kong here...these remind me of my roots and I hope you love them too.
Developed and scanned by the amazing FIND Lab. All taken with the Pentax 645N and Rolleiflex 2.8E.
Po Chi Fung is a Ventura County Lifestyle Family and Newborn Photographer, also serving Ojai, Santa Barbara, Santa Monica, Thousand Oaks, Oxnard, and other surrounding areas. She captures real-life moments with a documentary approach on film to tell your family's story.
