At the end of the line: Wo Che Village through a local artist's eyes

We follow illustrator Rainbow Leung to her home village and find that ordinary life inspires extraordinary art

By Derrick Chang 18 October, 2009

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Illustrator Rainbow Leung is at the start of a very promising career.

Newer buildings have cropped up in 200-year-old Wo Che Village, which is split into the upper and lower areas.

As a child, Leung would escape to this rooftop of her family's house and spend hours daydreaming.

Leung set up her exhibition to resemble the Spartan surroundings of Wo Che Village, using her rooftop as the centerpiece. Everything in the exbihition room was made by Leung, down to the papier-mâché ants crawling along the roof.

Next to her sketches, Leung hung clothing made by her grandmother. Laundry is traditionally dried on bamboo poles in the village.

Leung's grandmother moved to Wo Che Village more than 40 years ago. She has witnessed the devastation of Typhoon Wanda in 1962, the shrinking of the harbor around Shatin from land reclamation and the skyscrapers that have sprung up in the past few decades.

Local characters feature strongly in Leung's work, such as the noodle sellers in this drawing with their dogs.

Leung holds her drawing of a barber named Hui. Hui's face lights up when Leung arrives -- he explains that she is one of very few young people in the village who visit his shop.

Always alive with chitchat, the barbershop is an informal meeting place for the older generation in the community.

Leung's bed hangs over the work station where she does many of her drawings.

Leung's family is supportive of her ambition to become an illustrator, unusual in Hong Kong's finance-driven society.

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Rainbow Leung is a 23-year-old artist with a journalist's touch. As a child growing up in Wo Che Village, she was curious about local people, asking them endless questions about their lives. Then she would draw pictures of them. Not simple representations, but lifelike portraits that brought out each person's unique character.

Leung's drawings have been compiled into a book, "Upper and Lower Wo Che Village." The book also includes anecdotes of Leung's life in Wo Che Village, as well as some of those old stories picked up from colorful characters. Her drawings are being exhibited at Art and Culture Outreach until Sunday, October 18.

For this installment of our 'At the end of the line' series, Leung took us to her home village to meet the people and see the places featured in her work, revealing to us how the seemingly mundane can inspire the extraordinary.

Wo Che Village

From Shatin MTR station, walk along the railroad tracks in the direction of IKEA. Keeping to your right. You will pass beneath a bridge and then see a sign for Sheung (Upper) Wo Che village.

Derrick Chang is a Canadian photojournalist based in Hong Kong. His work has appeared in Time, the New York Times, CNNGo, Huffington Post, and other Asian media outlets. He enjoys hiking from one mountain village to another, waiting for the golden light and dining on street food.

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At the end of the line: Wo Che Village through a local artist's eyes

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