A couple of local bloggers are taking new looks at the environment, city design and history.

One blogger has even set up a unique company with his friend to revise a Hong Kong history ``frozen'' by the colonial period.

David Wong, a Eurasian who read political science and history at Yale, was listening to a guided tour of Edinburgh, Scotland, on his MP3 with Stefan White, his business partner, when his mobile phone rang.

``So I was holding two devices at the same time and it seemed quite logical to have one device instead,'' says Wong, 31.

The two were inspired in 2003 to create ``Walk the Talk,'' a mobile phone-led adventure through Hong Kong. The tour takes a cheeky look at Hong Kong through the eyes of historians and insiders who have seen the city from the outside.

In one snappy sample (no longer available) on the ``Mobile Adventures'' Web site, a voice translates the Cantonese slang for a famous Hong Kong landmark as ``the house of 10,000 orifices.''

That is in keeping with Wong and White's view that there is something unique about Hong Kong but that many locals are not yet willing to make an unorthodox pitch in this regard in an attempt to bring in more tourists.

``Hong Kong still tries to project itself as East-meets-West,'' says White, 32. ``There's a lot of East-does-not-meet-West,'' he says.

Wong and White like to give live-guided mobile phone tours to locals. They intentionally provoke these groups by suggesting that the clock tower in Tsim Sha Tsui should be eliminated, just like other buildings that have fallen to the wrecking ball and urban renewal.

``It's the Hong Kong people who find that idea objectionable,'' says White. Why? Just look at the dramatic sales of photographic history books, Wong says. ``Because buildings are knocked down so frequently, you actually have no memory landmarks,'' he says.

That, he says, leaves people here with ``a profound sense of alienation'' from their history, their roots and their culture. Another blogger has tapped into that vibe.

Jonas Chau, 29, started ``Wee Whale Adventures'' (http://weewhale.blogspot.com) during a sabbatical from an architecture job in Shanghai, after he felt Hong Kong lacked ideas on the best design practices for city landmarks from other cities, especially for projects to improve Victoria Harbor.

If there's one thing that makes Hong Kong's oily blue waterfront unique, he says, ``it's a lack of imagination.''

Chau's blog adds to the recent debate over what to do with the projects along the harborfront that greens, activists and residents have been trying to put a stop to for the past two years.

Chau, who studied architecture at Chinese University and worked in England, says that a lack of careful planning about the harbor turns the local experience into an ``existential crisis.''

He said Central, Wan Chai and Tsim Sha Tsui are not meaningful to locals because they lack seating and other amenities such as cafes, music or open air performance venues.

He also writes personal observations on current design themes being floated for the Wan Chai-Causeway Bay stretch of harborfront that the government announced June 28 it wants to attempt again to reclaim.

Chau has tapped into a feeling of activism that even the corporate types are getting into.

Recently, 106 corporations formed the Harbour Business Forum, headed by some of Hong Kong's leading corporations, to bring more ``best practices'' to harborfront planning.

``I think we need to pay more attention to the design [of the harbor], because it's not happening,'' says Chau. ``You've got a huge 30-story building next to you [and] you don't feel you're a part of nature,'' he says.

The best way to solve that problem is to create lines of communication between planners and the people, he says.

The bloggers said mainstream messages are too standard to satisfy their eclectic approach to something residents experience everyday.

``Hong Kong is a city that relentlessly pushes people towards the practical,'' says Wong. Blogs, he believes, are a chance for open-minded people to develop ideas and challenge the status quo in a very constructive way.

douglas.crets@singtaonewscorp.com