Wednesday 26. September

After brainstorming ideas yesterday, today we set out to buy materials to create our intervention. Then we met up with Albert to get a tour of his atelier, which was so interesting! I think using design to raise awareness about dementia is so fascinating, especially since it really affects a lot of an aging population. It is often difficult to treat and empathize with this cohort of people, so creating installations that can put one in their shoes is so clever. Over dim sum lunch, Albert reviewed our intervention ideas, and gave us feedback on how it could be improved before Friday. Because our direction changed after his feedback, we unfortunately could not use some of the materials we had already purchased that morning. But that seems to be how the design process works. You are constantly re-iterating and improving upon ideas and in the end, it may not end up being exactly what you invisioned in the beginning.

“We wanted to create something that people can burn into the afterlife”

“People with dementia can’t remember if they had already switched something on our off.”

“Imaging how hard it was to get people to participate in your interaction last week. You have to create a booth where people will want to come and engage.”

“Can we get enough time for lunch today?”

Tuesday 25. September

Today we had the opportunity to brainstorm our ideas for the four main goals, and fill in our “How might we” statement. We each came up with a final sentence, and then voted for our favorites. The two projects that we will work on are 1) keeping food local, and 2) zero food waste, which was the sentence that I actually wrote! However, we were assigned groups by random, so I was put in the “keeping food local” group, which also had a very interesting premise!

After lunch, we have an absolutely amazing talk by Viktor from Food Link. He did a very informative, humble, engaging, fun talk about his work and gave many important insights about food waste distribution in Hong Kong. He provided many anecdotes that gave so much local color and also really inspired some of our ideas for our task intervention. I think it is so wonderful what he is doing, but one important take home point was that he is only solving one small part of the bigger problem….reducing the amount of food wasted. However, the root of the problem…why is there so much waste in the first place?…has yet to be addressed.

Quotes:

“Food waste has doubled in the last 5 years”

“Last landfill in hong kong to fill up will be in 2020! After that, we will ship our waste to Taiwan.”

“Almost 500,000 mooncakes could have been dumped away, whoever was in charge of purchasing should be fired.”

“A lot of the elderly like to hoard.”

“Kids are our ambassadors for change, they can each their parents how to reduce waste”

“A model that works well in one country will not necessarily work well in another country. You must understand the local logistics in order to succeed.”

Monday 24. September

Goal: to learn

Reflection: Today, we had an informative lecture given by Susan about food economy, the digitalization of food, the effects of food waste on the environment, etc. We then were presented with potential challenges to work on for the next few days. After the morning session, we made our way to the Vegetable Marketing Organization where we learned how they support local organic farmers, and also are maintaining and indoor garden. It was an educational experience, and it was interesting to learn about how innovation is being applied to how food is produced, and also the limitations that such an organization faces when trying to rethink how organic food is distributed and grown. The day ended with a presentation of our weeks’ work to our fellow classmates. In the evening, we practiced “no food waste” activities by eating leftover vegetables from a boat picnic on Saturday for dinner.

Quotes:

“30% of food grown is lost or wasted, creating CO2, which creates greenhouse gases leading to climate change”

“Food security is a big thing”

“In the future, you will be able to 3D print your food”

“Some people are using new technology because they CAN. But SHOULD they? and is it really better at the end of the day?”

Susan: “Shall we do some exercises?”
Jaira: “Yes!”
Sandro: “No! I don’t have any pants on!”

After being handed a pamphlet written in Chinese characters, “I can read it, I just can’t speak it.” –Jaira

Wednesday 19. September

Goal: To explore

Task: To find ingredients to a traditional Hong Kong dish

Questions/concerns: How do the locals know the difference between the quality of the meat/fish from each stand? They all look the same! What would make a local buy from one vendor and not another? Do they have a personal connection to the vendor?

Experience: It was an interesting experience to go to the wet market to look for ingredients. Coming from Taiwan, the atmosphere was familiar, with tons of fresh produce out in the open, live fish, fresh meat, shops packed with plastic bags of dried goods, etc. Albert had mentioned that there is another way that the sellers show that their fish is fresh. Might it be that they slice the fish and the heart is still beating? This is one of the experiences that was completely new to me. And I was actually surprised how long the heart could beat for after the fish has been sacrificed. Another thing that stood out to me was when the store owners decided to put text in English. To me, it meant that they wanted everybody, even the tourists, to be able to understand if it was “fresh meat” or “organic cows,” etc. The English vocabulary of the local vendors was very limited, and while I could get by with Mandarin, there were some I was not able to communicate with. I wonder what they think of is. There were frogs, cut-up fish, tied up animals that I know in other countries pictures would not be allowed. However, the locals did not seem to mind that we were taking photos. They even asked if I wanted to buy a frog! Overall, the store vendors were very friendly and did not mind our gawking eyes.

Quotes:

“Maybe their level of sanitation is lower because there are cats crawling everywhere!”

“So many little plastic bags”

“Maybe each meat stand sells only 1-2 whole pigs at a time? I only see two tongues and just a few legs”

“We are such tourists here…”

“A lot of these sauces/spices we can buy all at the same stand!”

“This is why I don’t cook Asian food, there are too many sauces with names I don’t recognize.”