Farming against real estate dominance 175
I [Bella Yip] went to Melbourne, Australia to take a short course on
environmental protection and ran into a baking institute called The Convent.
The Convent was built in 1805 and has been using an ancient oven for a
hundred years. Ten years ago, the institute became a target of urban
redevelopment. Local residents joined hands to petition against the plan and
started a court case, which lasted for seven years. The residents eventually
won [the case] at court and were able to keep the ancient architecture. The
wild yeast used in this baking course was originally from the Convent
(Chan Chun Kit 2010, pp. 108–11)The class was thrilled to keep this special gift—the 10-year-old wild yeast from
the successfully preserved Convent and now kept in Ma Shi Po. Bella taught us how
to “feed” the wild yeast by adding flour and water every week, suggesting that we
pass it on to more people when it grows too big. She said before saying goodbye,
“The wild yeast is like a seed. I hope you can spread it around as much as you can.”
The story of the yeast, the handmade bread, and the free farm tour together
make an unconventional baking class. It is not so much about bread making.
Instead, it highlights the benefits of and the intersections between natural food, a
healthy lifestyle, and the need to fight for them as rights. The class goes beyond
satisfying the tastes of middle-class organic food lovers. It critiques urban,
processed food products and the modern consumer lifestyle more broadly. Indeed,
what many take away from the workshop is the feeling that they did not just finish
a baking class but rather had a day of learning about local farming in Hong Kong
and developing an understanding of the importance that everyone have access to
affordable natural food. I quote the following from an interview with a Ma Shi Po
frequent visitor that appeared in a newspaper:
I know that the land developers are acquiring their land. My kid Elaine is too
young to understand what is happening. The way out is to take her to the farm
more often and take more pictures. I will show her the pictures when she is
grown up and let her understand the rural changes
(Ng Wing Sheung 2013)Farm tours, organic markets, natural workshops, cooking classes, and insect
watching sessions are not new attractions in the New Territories. Commercial
farms and business entities have similar activities to cater to local, well-off, and
educated customers as a cultural experience or leisure activity. The Ma Shi Po
farmer’s market and the workshop strategy similarly fit into the global middle-class
demand for “cultural consumption,” in which the consumption of natural products
or organic food is now attached with new ethics and values of social responsibility
and green lifestyle. Critics might see cultural or ethical consumption as purely a
more intensive commodification and smart marketing in global capitalist modernity
that finds its niche among a growing urban class of “bourgeois bohemians.” Žižek,
for instance, criticizes cultural and ethical consumption as providing alternative
“social distinctions” for the urban middle class, enabling them to gain pleasure