Culture & Leisure

A van parked at the end of the corner while people were strolling down the street of booths in the West Kowloon Cultural District. Unlike other common food trucks, this van was hanging around and selling books. "Nine books about Kowloon City," the banner hanging on the van said. This unique van is owned by Rolling Books, a project aims to encourage reading culture to children living in Hong Kong's remote areas, especially to those in underprivileged families. Rolling Books has been funded by the SIE Fund HK since last year. The Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship Development Fund (SIE Fund) aims "to create social impact through innovative solutions that address poverty and social exclusion and seeks to foster the well-being and cohesion of society," the government said in an online press release released in mid-January. "A stationary bookstore is too passive for promoting reading culture while a mobile van carrying books around can actively bring the fun of reading to different places and connecting with different people," said Mr. James Chong, the founder of Rolling Books. As a previous owner of an upstairs bookstore which selling mainly art and humanity books, Mr. Chong wants to promote literary and artistic culture through the project even it is particularly focus on children books. Rolling Books was invited to introduce books about the old district during the Kowloon City Art Festival this year. Mr. Chong selected nine books specifically to illustrate the landscape and history of Kowloon City in Hong Kong and match the theme. "There are a lot of books here that are not usually found in mainstream bookshops," Mr. Chan Nan, a customer looking for books by the van, said. She suggested it was good to recommend books with a theme of old Kowloon City, By orienting book recommendations for public …

While the notorious housing condition for the poor has been the top concern of many from the working class in Hong Kong, Janas Lau Pui, a local artist specializing in children’s book and graphic novels, decided to make it a relevant topic to children by creating an illustration book. "Usually, the stories for children are about daily activities like going to the salon or going to the zoo but I want to use it as a tool to communicate with children about social issues," said Ms. Lau. Born and raised in Hong Kong in the 80s, Ms. Lau once experienced living in a cramped flat, a 300-feet space with nine family members and a double deck bed. "I wonder why the living condition nowadays is even worse than I had 30 years ago, so I want to produce a piece and raise people’s awareness about it," she said. Named as "Where is my next home?", an exhibition for the book is now held inside a nostalgic Cantonese dessert store in The Mills, an industrial place that has been revitalized into a cultural complex consisting of retail shops, co-working spaces and start-up hubs. Having been published in countries like UK and Australia, Lau's illustration book has an international readership. She recalled that a 9-year-old reader from Australia once asked why the rooftops of the buildings in Sham Shui Po were so shabby in her book. Ms. Lau told him to go and observe the buildings in that area and explore the reasons behind it. Ms. Lau thinks that it is hard to explain or watch news programmes with children, so it would be easier to open topics about social issues by using a children’s book. "I think this topic is too advanced for my four-year-old boy, which he can't really relate …