A thread on the de facto absorption/dismantling of a renowned HK Chinese University-based research service institute apparently for being too exposed to charges of collusion with foreign forces. CUHK produced its excuses on Christmas Day. Apple Daily story here.
In keeping with this festive spirit…
Farewell to the Hong Kong I Loved by Bloomberg’s Matthew Brooker. Vice on Hong Kong’s post-2019 disfigured urban landscape…
the disfigured streets of the city serve as a symbol of both their crackdown on dissent and the popular resentment simmering beneath the surface, ready to erupt at a moment’s notice as it did in 2019.
A trailer for Japanese documentary Montage of Hong Kong about the 2019 uprising. And a draft sample chapter from a collection of essays on the subject, Hong Kong Between ‘One Country’ and ‘Two Systems, due out soon (this one’s from June 2019 – quite prescient).
Call me old fashioned, but I am rather partial to HK’s so-called disfigured urban landscape. Critically, the city is once again safe and the people can go about their daily lives unimpeded. For instance, I like the idea that if I take a bus that passes through the Central Harbour Tunnel it will get there (and on time) and won’t have its roof speared by steel poles that have been lobbed from the Poly U bridge by some black-clad, gobby revolutionaries – the said structure now sports its own steel cage. On the aesthetics front it is obviously sub-optimal, but I can live with it.
Before 1997 there was no street vandalism. It was one of the many metrics at which British Hong Kong outperformed Britain.
Then in the teenies street vandalism crept in, unconquered by officialdom. Looking back letting the feral street urchins get away with spray painting was a marker leading to the 2019 troubles.
@ Chef Wonton: If you have the time and the inclination, perhaps you’d enjoy the recent film entitled “Banksy And The Rise Of Outlaw Art”.
The rise and evolution of ‘Street Art’ is actually fascinating. I believe that with a bit more awareness about that particular form of expression you won’t blame ‘spray painting’ for the popular protests during the past 20 months or so.
Though, admittedly, someone who uses the term ‘feral street urchins’ may need a stronger dose of reality.
peace and goodwill – Happy New Year!
Would have thought a better barometer was events in China post-2012, or the elevation of CY 2.0, but to each their own. The feral Legco majority probably has far more power to cause trouble to any normal member of the public than any “street urchins”, so these sort of references tend to puzzle someone that prefers safety and stability like myself…