Two Years Later Not Forgotten

People marched in black two years ago today

Two years ago I was sitting at the airport in Vancouver when friends were texting me. "Are you coming to the march?" 

I was sadly waiting for my flight to go back to Hong Kong.

But I later saw the images of 2 million people who came out and peacefully marched from Victoria Park in Causeway Bay to Central that took hours for them to complete in the stifling heat.

Hong Kong was profoundly changed after this

With one voice they were telling Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor to withdraw the extradition bill, but their slogans fell on severely deaf ears.

So much has happened in two years. June 16, 2019 seems like an eternity.

But people will never forget what happened on this day. 

All these anniversaries related to the protests are coming up and memories will be bitter sweet, yet again.

Learning Cantopop 101

Each day of the year has a Cantopop milestone

 

I met up with a friend today for lunch and then afterwards we went to the fifth floor of Times Square in Causeway Bay where there is an exhibition called Cantopop 101.

Apparently there are three different shows tied to this, dividing Cantopop into different time periods from the 1980s to the 1990s, 1990s to the 2000s, and 2000s to 2010s.

On the exhibition boards made of particle board are clipboards, each with a piece of paper attached to it representing one day, so there are 365 of these sheets of paper, each hung by a clipboard. Each piece of paper meticulously charts what happened in the Hong Kong music scene on that day in different years.

Photos of Cantopop artist Joyce Cheng Yan-yee

It could be a particular singer was born, or a group was first formed, someone's first single was released, a concert was held, or someone died.

It's quite an impressive compilation of Cantopop trivia, but also I'm sure it evokes a lot of memories for people who grew up in these decades and listened to these artists.

There are a few Polaroid shots of artists today and they are signed. They aren't formal portraits, casual and fun.

In the middle of the room are some colourful stools. My friend told me that on specific days artists will come in and perform a "silent concert" where attendees wear headphones to listen. All the concerts have sold out already.

The curator of the show is Colin Mak, a DJ with 90.3FM. The exhibition includes a telephone booth-sized recording studio where attendees can record their feelings about the show and the best ones will be aired on his show.

The aforementioned compilation of the sheets of paper for every day of the year? They have also been made into a book, only 903 copies (the same number as the radio station 90.3), and they were sold out in minutes.

Cantopop memories in shape of tree

This shows how much people love Cantopop, how it has defined who they are, how much they want to preserve it, and worry about its future.

With the Communist Party recently bearing down on Hong Kong when it comes to movies and art, it won't be long before it impacts music, literature, plays, dance and operas.

There is also talk of encouraging more Mandarin to be used in Hong Kong... so what will happen to Cantopop?

A beautiful black and white graphic on the wall shows important musical milestones that start from 1931 and like rings on a tree, grow wider and wider, ending at around 2010. What will happen to this tree after 2021? Will it continue to grow or will it be chopped down soon?

Cantopop 101

Until July 1

Shop 5017-519, 5/F, Times Square, 1 Matheson Street

Causeway Bay

 

Central Post Office's Days are Numbered

The Post Office in Central will most probably be demolished

 

The General Post Office in Hong Kong's Central district may face the wrecking ball soon.

The government is putting out a tender for developers to use the land the post office is on as well as a giant patch of land north of it that could be worth HK$40 billion (US$5.12 billion) to HK$60 billion.

The previous GPO was knocked down in 1976

However, for many people, the GPO is a building worth saving, as they are tired and frustrated of seeing old buildings knocked down without much public discussion.

The GPO was built in 1976 to replace the old colonial-style post office that was also knocked down the same year to make way for the Central MTR station. At the time the new GPO had state-of-the-art mailing facilities, and heritage enthusiasts say the building has a unique post-war modernist design.

There have been repeated calls to save the post office over the past few years, but the government claims preservation would undermine the overall development potential of the site. The government has even said demolishing the building is a condition of the sale.

This is a bizarre reason when compared to Singapore's Fullerton Hotel, that was previously the city state's post office too. Admittedly the former Fullerton Building is much more grand than the GPO, but it was still repurposed to good use.

Meanwhile a few Hong Kong-based architects have proposed a number of ways to reuse the post office building, as it is only a small part of the total plot of land. 

Some architects suggest making it a cultural space

Others suggest keeping the building as a main connection point between the harbourfront areas and MTR station, the Star Ferry and other buildings, or to turn it into a cultural space.

Ivan Ho Man-yiu, an architect appointed to be the technical adviser for the land bid, was not keen on the ideas for conservation that have been proposed so far.

"It seems that nowadays when we think of preserving anything, we think of converting it to a museum," he said. "But with technology nowadays, actually many museums are going virtual... For physical museums, I am not sure what it will end up like in the future."

Ho's dismissive attitude isn't reflective of what many Hongkongers want. The government made a terrible mistake in how it handled the closure of Queen's Pier in 2007 and moved it hundreds of metres away. In fact the bid demands that the future developer will have to reconstruct the old Star Ferry Clock Tower close to its original location, to become the focal point of the new harbourfront and have a visual connection with the harbour.

The grassy land plot is included in the bid

It's a pathetic attempt to go back to right a wrong but build a completely new one, in other words construct a "new antique" much like the reconstructed traditional Chinese buildings in China.

Many people are expecting a monstrosity of a shopping mall there -- but why compete with the giant ifc mall right across the street? The easiest would be to build more offices, though the coronavirus pandemic has changed employees' and employers' minds about going back to the office and needing so much space.

It will be interesting to see what bids come in by the deadline this Friday June 18, and which development plan the government decides to choose in the end. Maybe no one's bids will pique the authorities' interest. 

One thing's for sure though -- the public's opinions don't count. Period.

Word of the Day: Lying Flat

White collar workers to university students are "lying flat"

A new phenomenon has emerged among young people in China. It's called "lying flat" or 躺平 (tang ping). 

From white collar workers to university students, they are tired of the rat race of having to work long hours for little pay that will not get them any closer to owning a home, let alone a car or start a family. Hence they are "lying flat".

There are even T-shirts that read: "Do nothing lie flat youth" that are selling online.

Young Chinese people are tired of the rat race

 Elaine Tang works at a Guangzhou-based tech firm and says the term resonated with young Chinese who saw the odds stacked against them.

"In recent years, property prices have skyrocketed, and the gap between social classes has become wider and wider," said the 35-year-old, who has been married for seven years but has yet to have children.

"The rich and the authorities monopolize most of the resources, and more and more working class like us have to work from 9am to 9pm, six days a week, but still can't afford a down payment [on a flat] or even the cost of having a child."

Comments like this are making the Chinese authorities nervous because they don't want young people to stop being productive members of society. How else are they going to pay for pensions and taxes? And what about encouraging families to have three children per family now?

But the domestic economic slowdown caused by the coronavirus pandemic and trade tensions with the United States have made people more receptive to the "lying flat" idea.

Young people feel income inequality is too great

"Local officials and scholars are concerned about the phenomenon of lying flat [because] it reflects young people's resistance to the current social and economic model, as well as their confusion about the political order," said Peng Peng, executive chairman of the Guangdong Society of Reform, a think tank connected to the provincial government.

There's also another word called "involution" making the rounds. It was originally used in anthropology to describe agrarian societies that stagnate because, while their workload increases, a person's output does not or cannot.

This is what is happening now because of the pandemic and the trade war, where everyone has to work harder than before, but they are faced with stagnating incomes, unemployment concerns and soaring costs for housing and child care.

Tech workers were among the first to comment on the involution in their lives, because those at big firms often work at "996" culture, working from 9am to 9pm, six days a week. Others have joked about the new work ethic as "007" -- where one works from 00am to 00pm, seven days a week.

While the Chinese government is trying to suppress this movement online and using celebrities to denounce it, too many young people relate to this relentless work schedule for little pay and they will definitely find other ways to show they are "lying flat".