My ignorance was borne out on my first day when I found it impossible to remember faces. I mistook a shop assistant for a colleague, thought the bus driver was the same guy who drove my taxi earlier.
It feels taboo to say it, but having grown up in a caucasion community with little diversity, my brain is trained to focus on specific facial characteristics, which differ less in asian faces. In Hong Kong my model for differentiating faces has failed and it’s exposed how narrow my visual stimulus has been.
Aptly, in my first week I visited Hong Kong Heritage Museum’s latest photography exhibition - Beyond the Portrait - which looks at the state’s past century through the medium of portrait photography.
The exhibition was a good opportunity to reflect on these thoughts; the hundreds of pictures on show - from early studio photos to contemporary artist portraits - was a bombardment of new faces that I could stare at without shame.
Gradually, I’m getting better at recognising individuals in a crowd, but the experience has left me fascinated to know how I look to people here: which features of mine stick out to them? Can they tell my friends and I apart? Are they disappointed that I don’t match the western stereotypes that stare down from billboards and mall fronts?
I’ll let you know if I find answers…
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