174 Ka-ming Wu
On Sunday morning, the Ma Shi Po Community farm is already crowded
with visitors. There are homemade jams, fresh vegetables, handmade bread
fresh from the oven, free film screenings and free herbal tea. The vendors and
the local customers have lots of chitchats. Ma Shi Po Community Farm is a
small place but full of the scent of people. It meets here on the second and the
forth Sunday every month
(Lee Pui Man 2013)Positive media coverage of the community farm such as the above is ubiquitous
and usually appears in the leisure/travel sections of newspapers or magazines in
Hong Kong. During the summer holidays of 2013, a lifestyle magazine even
recommended the Ma Shi Po Community farm as a top outdoor choice for kids.
Cultivating lifestyle consumers’ civic engagement: Bread-making
workshop
Today Ma Shi Po village shares the same fate the Convent Institute had ten
years ago. Both are threatened by the forces of urban development.
(Chan Chun Kit 2010).The Ma Shi Po campaign is not only good at attracting visitors, it is also
good at engaging them and making them understand the goals of rural activism.
Shortly after the farm’s opening, the activists organized several key workshops:
bread making, soap making, and ecological night walks. These workshops have
in the last few years attracted hundreds of people who initially had no interest
in matters related to farming in the New Territories. Through their fondness for
handmade or natural products and associated lifestyles, they are pulled into the
campaign and get to learn about social issues such as food safety, alternative food
networks, and the concept of rural-urban coexistence. I joined one of the farm’s
bread-baking workshops in 2011, together with 30 people who learned about it
through Facebook and paid 200 HKD per person for the class. That day, the class
members ranged from middle-class families and high school girls to housewives.
First, the organizer put four to five of us at a table and provided each table with
a basin, roller, and sifter. Next, the instructor, Bella Yip, another leading Ma
Shi Po activist, started the class by introducing the uniqueness of wild yeast, its
fermentation process, and how it adds an authentic and natural flavor to bread. We
also learned of the fact that most commercially made bread is made with artificial
flavors, chemical catalysts, and preservatives for a longer shelf life. Then the class
started the steps of sifting, mixing, rolling, and the rest. While the dough was
baking in the six big ovens, the activists gave the class a free tour of the Ma Shi
Po Community Farm. At the end of the workshop, the participants not only got
to taste the freshly baked bread but we also got a small gift: a small piece of wild
yeast. Bella Yip told the class the unique history of the wild yeast, a story later
covered by many magazines in Hong Kong.