In Abbas’ Hong Kong: Culture and Politics of Disappearance (1997), Hong Kong is presented as a city of disappearance, where there exists a gap, or hysteresis, between the city and its representation through media and architecture. Hong Kong exists in a limbo between its identity as a British colony and a Chinese city, and an overarching sense of nostalgia colours our image into one of a fleeting, unstable nature. Abbas contends that our image of the city is one that views Hong Kong from a distant and impersonal lens; architecture and iconic landmarks are used as easily recogniseable symbols to represent Hong Kong. Yet they are merely symbols, seldom reflective of historical truth or profound cultural identity. Abbas expands on this notion of preserving landmarks and architecture as a means of acknowledging history, and points out “preservation is not memory”, and it is “selective and excludes dirt and pain”. Hence, our image of Hong Kong and her colonial past is one of romanticisation and denial.
In addition to its image, Abbas provides further commentary on the placeless nature of Hong Kong architecture, criticising the modern system that allows Hong Kong to be represented by buildings that are aloof and indifferent. exuding a false sense of power. Hong Kong is rife with problems of hyperdensity, which leads to the necessity for and proliferation of “anonymous, high-rise blocks”. Hong Kong’s culture is underpinned by a capitalist hunger, which leads to the exploitation of space to satisfy ‘efficiency’ and ‘productivity’ for economic gain. Once more, there is a sense that Hong Kong’s cultural identity is lost or faded, and what we see of the monuments that make up this city is a constructed image.
This begs the question, how can we look back on history without nostalgic bias? How can we authentically preserve the past and authentically maintain our present cultural identity? The Bank of China Tower, the ICC, the high-rise buildings and skyscrapers of Hong Kong are not representative of cultural significance. They are monuments, signifying power in an economic and political sense, but glossing over the realer facets of Hong Kong. In our lives, we rarely truly care about these buildings as they are impersonal symbols. What we need to preserve authenticity is not the anonymity of architectural monuments, but the mundane and the street-level; heterogenous, complex, and most of all, human.