Last night, a longtime Hong Kong Belonger bent my ear about how this city was finished, kaput and completely f***ed, and how he was considering taking up a job in Bali.
Of course, he wasn’t the first person to tell anyone within earshot that the End Is Nigh for Hong Kong as we know it, or as our parents might have known it when there were $5 tea dances at the Golden Phoenix, $1.80 On Lok Yuen box lunches, amahs, rickshaws, when some guy named Bruce Lee was winning local cha cha competitions, the only international hotel was the Hong Kong Hilton,and the only venues for visiting acts like Sammy Davis Jr were the Lee Theatre and City Hall. An expensive apartment cost HK$1,500 a month. They were happy times where everything was possible. Li ka-shing was selling plastic flowers in North Point whereas Runme and Run Run Shaw started a movie studio called Shaw Brothers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBsNhemHkrk
Today, there’s so much in Hong Kong, but, most of all, a lethargy and anger and resentment and frustration hanging over the city. The lethargy is probably the reason why if travelling on Cathay Pacific these days, the service gets an E for Effort- if there’s actually any effort made to be customercentric. Wait: If a Diamond or Sapphire card holder, the service falls somewhere between fawning and servitude. Travelling from Melbourne to Hong Kong this week on Cathay Pacific’s Business Class made me wonder why I hadn’t just booked myself into Economy. For HK$23,000 more, there wasn’t much difference. The seats were slightly wider, but everything else was pretty much the same though one hopes those in Economy were spared the lamb bryani. And this somehow leads me to where, at least, I think Hong Kong has gone off the rails: Confusion and clutter with the wrong priorities.
This clutter includes a confused and divided media, overnight politicians with second and third hand views, of course, the Haves and the Have-Nots- like those traveling on Business or First Class and those in Economy- fleeting moments of optimism versus rampant pessimism, overnight xenophobia, and reading way too much into what’s been written by not very good political analysts and supposed journalists with their own views and transparent agendas. For fuck’s sake, let’s all take a Chill Pill and not take everything on board as being gospel. Let’s get everything in perspective before detonating an entire city that once was a barren rock. It’s been a long, strange trip to get here. And it’s been worth it.
Have we forgotten how it was? How much our parents went through to get us here? Are we now ready to throw it all away or let naïveté come around and stomp all over it? Have we forgotten how to think for ourselves and form our own views? Is Li Ka-shing always right just because he’s the richest man in Hong Kong? What’s he done for Hong Kong lately other than move his business interests to the Cayman Islands? Li ka-shing is becoming more and more Li Ka Shingles- a tired old “Superman” Li with two Boy Blunders for sons.
Should we believe everything Jack Ma says about the reasons why Alibaba purchased the South China Morning Post just because he’s a tremendously successful entrepreneur? Is, as he says, really going to help create a new generation of Hong Kong entrepreneurs? How, and where’s the starting point? What does it even mean to be an “entrepreneur” in Hong Kong today? Surely, an entrepreneur means starting from scratch with nothing to one’s name? And in a city with spiralling rents, greedy landlords and only those born with a silver spoon in their mouths having a head start and playing with mummy and daddy’s money, what chance does the person with no financial backing, but great talent have? Will Jack Ma bankroll them? Maybe he will. I’m willing to be surprised.
What’s any of these incredibly wealthy and successful people have to do with the plight of Hong Kong’s common man? They’ve made it and they’re travelling First Class. It’s easy to preach from the mountain top. What’s difficult is coming to grips and believing what’s going on at Ground Zero because of the clutter of headless chickens and a murder of crows all trying to be heard over the Gunga Din.
Sure, Hong Kong has problems. Every city does because this is a world gone wrong and, too often, wrong priorities guiding many into an abyss.
Hong Kong not only has a weak Chief Executive, but someone, quite rightly, distrusted, and which goes all the way back to before he got “elected”, and then, how he was given his current gig.
As a likeable politician, he’s no Justin Trudeau. Is he even a politician or just the robotic son of a Stepford Wife? He’s a Teflon man. And with the backing of Beijing, he’s simply a messenger. What can be done about CY Leung? Not much. The more protests, the more stoic he becomes. He’s an immovable beast with no plan. He’s a father with a problem daughter. That’s his priority.
And what about these protests? There are now so many protests, one has to wonder if all these have only helped take our eye off the ball and understand what’s really achievable- and what’s relevant.
What’s happening is watching a fractured Hong Kong with no one knowing who’s wearing the white hats. It’s Hong Kong against Hong Kong and taxi drivers against über drivers along with the usual Haves versus the Have-nots.
Wanting total independence for Hong Kong will never happen. One might huff and puff, but it will never blow that Basic Law down. Hong Kong’s former British masters have a lot to answer for- and which too many forget about- along with those Hong Kong Chinese who became Baronesses etc and sold this city out long before The Handover in 1997. They were busy feathering their own nests. They were selling Hong Kong down the Yangtze River.
Let’s just say, Hong Kong receives this independence some are clamouring for. And then what? Where’s the leadership going to come from- and will choosing this leader be a truly democratic success? Or another mess orchestrated by those who want to see this city fail- those flying First Class and with nothing to lose?
There are then many others who turn their backs on Hong Kong having total independence. Why? Because they wonder about what is not too silly: Total independence to do what- and by whom? What’s the end game and what will it look like? Cracked?
The usual suspects and their new and younger recruits who see themselves as a cross between Che Guevara, John Lennon, Mahatma Gandhi and Dr Martin Luther King? Please.
Chill out, stop the histrionics, always remember how far we- and this city- have come and don’t throw it all away for a pocketful of mumbles that are sometimes promises.
To bring about Change, we must change. But looking around, everything and everyone screaming for this change are becoming a blur. The Change being demanded has no shape nor form to it.
There is no strategic plan to any of it. Maybe Hong Kong needs some Purple Rain to stop everything looking so naive and stupid.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Fv_6bH8WUA