According to the article by Ackbar Abbas, the concept of disappearance refers to a tendency to timelessness and placelessness, and he seems to believe that Hong Kong best exemplifies this concept.
As a Korean, I had lived in Seoul for a long time (16 years and a half). After visiting such cities as Tokyo and New York, I had this frustration that Seoul, compared with these cities whose uniqueness had astonished and enchanted me, was rather dull and boring, having nothing to offer but a confused topology, broken skylines, labyrinths of unimpressive streets, perpetual stress, and pneumonia. Perhaps this judgment was based on my wrong perception that Seoul was a kind of floating city, cultureless and traditionless, always forced to adapt to technological changes. When I was young, I was deeply biased against the city where I had been born, and only later did I come to fully realize how this city is brimming with beautiful memories, collective and individual. Now, I am more than interested in exploring the culture and the tradition that form the consciousness of the city, and I think this change would not have been possible had it not been for my 16 years of living in Seoul.
I feel forced to tell this story because it illustrates how difficult it is to ‘know a city.’ Indeed, Hong Kong looks like a place where several distant timelines intersect and several identities coexist. It is also interesting to note how Hong Kong, unlike other famous cities, is constantly and rapidly adapting to changes and its spatial aspects are always in the process of being shaped by its complex history. Yes, yes, all of these may well be true, but who doesn’t know that? Every inhabitant, every tourist is aware of the spatial amorphousness of the city and its historical complicatedness. As I read the article, my impression was that the author was stating the obvious, and made little effort to go beneath the surface. Commenting on Hong Kong’s architecture and the historical process by which it was shaped might be helpful in regurgitating some conventional prejudices about the city, but that tells nothing about lived experience and individual memories. And in fact, lived experience and individual memories are much more closely related to art and, in this particular case, the power of cinema. I think this tendency to define what a certain spatial entity is and to formulate some theoretical concepts that pretend to capture the essence of it is what harms and limits the true potential of art. When one makes an artwork closely tied with a city, one must go for the specific, for the particular, without caring about theories, concepts, and cliches.
I am not sure about the purpose of the article, but all I can say is that one must be very careful when it comes to making generalizations about a city.
Yumin Kim 3035745740
Interesting, you brought in the example of Seoul and described it in a way similar to how you believe Abbas has framed Hong Kong. This may lead us to consider whether the points made by Abbas can be applied to other highly globalized cities, or as you suggest, is not as useful precisely due to its generalizing nature. In future, do try not to exceed the word count excessively.