Living in a cage in Hong Kong SAR
I am returning to imagery of Hong Kongs Special Administrative Region to get some ideas of what kinds of objects might be left outside a home. Whilst looking around I came across this image of a man sitting on his bed. I read a little more and was shocked that this is his rented living space. $150/month to live in a cage! According to the webpage displaying the image living in a cage is one step up from being homeless on the streets. Even our prisons which are effectively cages aren’t like this.
[accessed:]12/06/2010, Living In Cages In Hong Kong Photos, http://www.photographytips.com.au/living-in-cages-in-hong-kong-photos/
Macau’s Special Administrative Region Of The Peoples Republic Of China
This evening I have spent some time looking at Macau, China. Macau is one of the two Special Administrative Regions of China, the other being Hong Kong. The SAR’s are regions of China that are capitalist in nature, enjoy strong economic links with the west and are governmentally and politically separate from the rest of China. The SAR’s have their own legal system, import and export rules and even their own driving rule system. This happens under China’s “One Country, Two Systems” principle which provides the two SAR’s with the ability to make their own decisions to a certain degree without the intervention or direction of China.
There has been a large influx of people moving to Hong Kong from the Chinese mainland. This has caused Hong Kong to consider independence from China.
Google Earth has some good shots of the general architecture of Macau.
13/11/2008, Google Earth Application, Search term: Macau China, Location: 22˚12’06.00″N 113˚32’39.56″E
The data on population density is pretty gripping stuff. For example Nottingham is only slightly less dense population wise than Tokyo:
462 Tokyo, Japan
population 34,250,000
Area in square miles 3,025
Density of population 11,300
474 Nottingham, UK
population 666,000
Area in square miles 61
Density of population 10,800
Stat gathering
Today I started to consider the global population and their density in different areas. I have found some statistics to work from.
Population Density Stats. The data presented in this document is a list of countries based on how densely populated they are, in descending order. I thought the UK was tightly packed until I saw pictures of the places at the top of the list. This links to the work of Photographer Michael Wolf which I will look at later on. (Michael Wolf)
I’ve found a few world maps that will be useful, one displaying a comparison of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the worlds countries. One that shows the subjective well-being of the worlds countries, basically a happiness map. It will be interesting to compare these things and draw conclusions.
The darker image in this gallery is a photograph of the earth taken at night. (2/11/08, Nasa, http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/49259main_flat_earth_nightm.jpe) which show the light pollution created by developed countries. It quite literally looks like the GDP map, maybe GDP is really Global Domestic Power?
