Off the Grid

Have you ever thought of living a self-sustainable life?

Every day we try to keep pace with the fast urban development, doing our jobs in exchange for fulfilling basic needs and enhancing living quality. The city’s infrastructure that we rely heavily upon is a safety net for lives as well as an indicator of a civilised society. Yet, the more sophisticated development becomes, the more it resembles an intertwining net that covers our lives and city.

It sounds like a natural way to live, but not everyone agrees.

Some of us choose to do things the opposite way. They leave their own living area and refuse to be limited to a life over-reliant on the city. They return to the basics and wish to develop their own ways of life and attitude. People call them the “off-gridders”. Cutting off the urban supply of water and electricity, they instead make use of the materials in the surroundings and the nature for infrastructure. Not only do they lead unique lives, but they also manage to solve the issues of survival.

So do these off-gridders choose to do so to protect the environment, defy the mainstream, demonstrate self-directedness in their fate, or for other complicated reasons? How many challenges can we cope with in life when we are away from the comfort zone that we are familiar with?

This five-episode series follows the life of “Wild Man” MOK Ho-kwong, who has long craved for a life in the countryside, and sees how he travels to Canada and Japan with a view to putting complete self-sustainability into practice. He will weave across forests and cities as he visits off-gridders from different countries and explores with them how they should start a life “off the grid”.