Vault of the Sky

This image was taken in Kowloon. There is nothing particularly special about the buildings in this image, they are a mundane sight found all over Hong Kong. Yet somehow they evoke a feeling of being boxed in, limiting where you can or cannot go, giving you the sense that in order to navigate around them, you have to push these buildings aside or scale them to the rooftop.

Being a refugee in Hong Kong has its great deal of challenges, whether it is just having enough resources to barely survive but not enough to really live. Anything involving an identity card usually locks us out of it, because no one really wants to deal with the recognizance paper we hold in lieu of identity card. The general public's lack of awareness of our existence and the rampant misinformation of refugees. The cold, distant and inhuman interactions with the immigration and most of their personnels. Trying to navigate the law and overcoming legal hurdles. Legally unable to work and support ourselves to build a stable and peaceful life, nor even allowed to contribute to society through volunteer work or community service, that last one is a complicated topic though. But all this, is just the tip of the iceberg, and while I want to mention more here, the point I want to get across is that you cannot help but feel boxed in.

While pushing these buildings of challenges aside, practically requires divine intervention, scaling them on the other hand, seems to be the only way forward. No doubt a herculean task, but the buildings are filled with all sorts of people, and some of them are willing to lend a hand, to bring you up. And as I make my way up, I hope to find people who can bring me closer towards the sky, or better yet beyond it.