Response to reading - Documenting Cityscapes: Urban Change in Contemporary Non-Fiction Film
According to the book Documenting Cityscapes: Urban Change in Contemporary Non-Fiction Film, space are constantly changing. I think as I grew up, gradually I can understand this statement more than I was a child. When I was a little kid, I did not even realize the city was changing everyday because everyday was a new experience for me in this city. As time passed, I became aware of how much the city had changed. The older I get, the more I miss the old city. I think the transformation of the city is reminding me of how old I am and that how many years I have left in the world. Sounds like I am having an incurable disease, right? Haha.
The author also indicated that "everything that stands today may disappear tomorrow" and I was surprised that we have similar thought on things. Maybe we are the same type of people, very emotional type of people. Everytime I can't sleep, I think about what will be disappear tomorrow and I am really scared that things I treasure will suddenly fade away and I will lost everything I care.
The author specifically mentioned about "place of memory" -- when we associate feelings, emotions and experiences with a place, the subjective spatial history may ultimately becomes our place of memory. Any place can be the place of memory as long as we give it meaning and that we project our feelings and emotions onto it. According to the author, "the status only depends on the affective meaning that we project on a given space".
One thing that place of memory can benefit us is that it can help us to clean up our mind. To quote from the author, "places of memory help us explain to ourselves who we are, where we come from and, sometimes, even where we are going". From what we consider the place of memory, we can find out our original self by looking at the memories it brings. By refreshing our memories, we can understand oursleves more and we can remind ourselves our initial goal and dream. When we recall the memory of the past, we will somehow reflect whether we are living the way we wanted or not, and that reflection is significant for us to live better.
I really enjoy this book and I also appreciate this course. Thanks to this course, I realize how much Tsuen Wan means to me and I definitely like the whole journey through out the course. The lectures are great and those fieldtrips are interesting too. However, I must apologize that I did not come to the last fieldtrip that day. Actually I was suffered from insomnia in that period of time and I was feeling very sick that morning and hence I made that selfish decision of not coming to the fieldtrip. I felt really bad after that, I'm so sorry. :(