breathing space (16:9 crop)

GraemeNicol posted a photo:

Until I went to Hong Kong, much of my imagination of the city came from Hong Kong cinema, in which gangsters would inevitably drive up to Victoria Peak behind the city and have a good old shoot-out. And thus, before I came to Dalian I read the official tourist blurb about it being the "Hong Kong of the North", and of course I couldn't help but project some imagined HK-ness onto this unknown city called Dalian.

Of course, a few skyscrapers, a colonial past and some mountains doesn't quite compare to Hong Kong's indefinable HK-ness. It's nothing like HK, and nor should it try to be. It's not as if HKers will ever return the favour and refer to themselves in brochures as the "Dalian of the South". But still, in a nod to my former imagination, here's a freeze-frame from an imaginary HK-style gangster film set in Dalian.

In the following scene of the HK version five skinny guys wearing wifebeater vests and gelled hair enter stage right, carrying meat cleavers...but in the Dalian version they wear polyester patterned t-shirts rolled up over beer bellies, and carry beer bottles, still full of beer, for drinking, and just wave their arms a lot instead of actually cutting anyone up.

Better large of course...
Tai Shan, Dalian, April 2008.