From dive bars to neon lights: a look into the underside side of Hong Kong’s colourful nightlife
Photographer’s old images from his teenage years in city offer rare glimpse
The largely undocumented underside of Hong Kong’s nightlife goes front and centre at an exhibit featuring the work of a photographer who spent his teenage years in the city more than 40 years ago.
Greg Girard, 62, first set foot in Hong Kong in 1974 after an 18-day freighter journey from San Francisco and found himself “hooked” on a “mesmerising” city. The Canadian national stayed for a few months before travelling around Southeast Asia, but in 1982, he returned to the city and took up residence for 15 years.
Girard’s collection of pictures – named “HK: PM” and taken before he became a professional photographer – depicts Hong Kong’s nightlife as he saw it from 1974 to 1989 and is being exhibited at PMQ until Sunday.
“When I was making these pictures I was young and not thinking about posterity or anybody looking at them after some amount of time,” the now Vancouver resident says.
Confessions of a Hong Kong underage drinker: vodka, jello shots, heavy make-up and a fake ID – after all, she’s only 14
“I was showing what Hong Kong looked like to me and making pictures that registered the Hong Kong I was living in.”