Byebye Queen’s Pier
Tomorrow the Hong Kong government will pass the bill to demolish a listed historical heritage, the Queen’s Pier of Hong Kong.
It is a place we where share our collective memories, a place in the heart of central Hong Kong island. It is where all the Hong Kong governors arrived and departed, of which tons of Hong Kong movies being filmed, and probably the place where a lot of our parents first kissed. The plan is to demolish the pier, landfill it, and build highways over.
Hong Kong protesters tried their best to resist, but being termed as the trouble-makers who are wasting the tax-payers’ money and time, there is a polarization of opinions and it seems that they are being demonized to perhaps justify the ‘development’ plan.
I even met an older person asking me what’s a big deal about the Queen’s Pier? There is nothing as such as collective memory, he said, it is all political, totally manipulative.
Then I realize, again, some of us where just too intoxicated by the ‘Central value’ – everything should be like Central in Hong Kong. New, impeccable, slick, and grand. Develop, developing, developing. But as Lung Yingtai, Asia’s star cultural critic says, the glasses outside commercial buildings shine brightly and reflect the skyline. But a bird cannot tell it is not the real sky. It hits it, dies.You can’t help but ask, what has happened ten years after the handover?
