In 1997, where a sense of the imminence of Hong Kong’s disappearance pervaded, there was an intense desire for an identity.
Yet “Hong Kong is a space traversed by different times and speed, where changes has no clear direction.” As a “para-site”, it had always had a tendency towards timelessness and placelessness.
Therefore, the harder people attempted to define it, the quicker the complex space disappear into a facile, ersatz one-dimensional image.
Hong Kong architecture, which intimately related to the city’s definition, had failed to link history, space and affectivity. Preservation denied any pain and dirt. Together with the too-easy receptivity of Hong Kong people, space was homogenised in the colonial gaze. Market “eroded” places and turn the heterogeneity into a “copulation of clichés”.
All these efforts to make Hong Kong appear, had in contrary, made it disappear.
These are very intriguing and I began wonder what is it like in 2022?
Tsz Kiu, Wong 3035941447
This is a thought-provoking and poetic reflection on Hong Kong’s disappearance. I appreciate your thinking that “All these efforts to make Hong Kong appear, had in contrary, made it disappear.” The question you raised at the end is reflective. You may wish to further reflect on Hong Kong’s “instant transition” while “under the colonial gaze.” What has disappeared, and what has been preserved? How do these transformations shape and reshape Hong Kong’s cultural identity?