Hong Kong Flower Show 2019

I was pretty excited about this flower show because of two reasons. One was that I had never been to a flower show during my lifetime in Hong Kong, and secondly it was a nice signifier to the fact that spring had arrive. Technically the weather in Hong Kong had already made it feel like it was spring when it was still considered winter, and in Korea people were still wearing down jackets, so it can give you an idea on how warm Hong Kong is throughout the year. 

Generally speaking, in countries where seasonal changes are highlighted by significant changes in temperature and nature, and having been in a country with four definitive seasons really made me look forward to spring. The perfect spring weather for me is when the weather is kind of cool, but there are patches of welcome warmth throughout the day. People start wearing more colorful clothing, and you can start to notice the shift in color tones in nature; turning from the faded browns to the steady growth of earthly greens, and buds of color emphasizing the scene. These details are something to really look forward to mentally and emotionally; after begrudgingly containing yourself indoors from the cold weather for a good four to five month. 

Theses kind of details are not available in Hong Kong, so I thought maybe going to a flower festival would give me a psychological boost. A tonal change in my physical and mental chemistry, kind of like that feeling you get in your chest when you get nostalgic about something. It was an artificial effort to package the sense of spring for myself, and I thought it could be better than nothing. On this occasion, maybe nothing would have been better.

The flower show itself was not bad, and that was all it really was. It was exactly what I had expected; an artificial representation of nature, and it was nice and colorful. It was positive. It was also full of nature. The kind of nature that we see all too much of. People. There's a new phrase that I learned here in Hong Kong where it goes something like 'mountain people, sea people'. Just an ocean of people with eye canons making all sorts of ridiculous poses in order to create that perfect shot. I'm pretty sure the people there were thinking of me just alike, and I don't blame them, but the fact remained that the en mass of people really did not help the experience. This was also supposed to be a weekday...

I tried my best to get as little people in the shots as possible, but it was not an easy task. I'm pretty patient with letting people pass by in order to get that in the moment shot, but on this day it was pretty much impossible. I had to manually cut them out of the frame. Looking back at the pictures now had made me realize that I was glad that I had visited the event, and the images that I got from the event was not bad. The experience was not memorable, but it was something to do in the least.