In the Starbucks Bing Sutt (冰室; transliterated as “ice room”) at 13 Duddell Street in Central, the air conditioning is appropriately strong, and well-dressed twenty-somethings are snapping photos of the retro decor on their iPhones. Starbucks commissioned local lifestyle store G.O.D. to take the Bing Sutt - itself a distinctively local fusion of Western and Chinese tastes, serving pineapple buns as well as Western snacks such as ice cream - and produce a stylish modern twist on this 1950s Hong Kong institution. Great PR move, Starbucks - even on a weekday afternoon, the Bing Sutt was full of admiring visitors who nibbled on taster portions of that other Starbucks attempt at East-West fusion: coffee-flavoured mooncakes.
The trend of nostalgia that Starbucks is successfully coasting on has a serious political side to it, in the shape of the cultural preservation movement that drew attention and lots of support for its protests against the demolition of Queen’s Pier and Star Ferry Pier in Central. Local awareness (本土意識), as an aspect of Hong Kong people’s political identity, was the subject of a talk given on Friday by Professor Law Wing-sun (羅永生) of Lingnan University, coorganised by the Democratic Party and the independent bookstore Hong Kong Reader (序言書室) in Mong Kok. Broadly speaking, Professor Law argued that Hong Kong’s local identity resists the myth of a monolithic Chinese identity imposed by an imperial central government in Beijing.
The talk and subsequent discussion moved quickly from the theoretical framework to an impassioned discussion of local politics before and after the Handover, covering plenty of ground. Perhaps most instructive was the mood of the conversation, which oscillated between [the speakers’] optimism that Hong Kong has something unique to offer the Chinese-speaking world, and [some audience members’] pessimism that Hong Kong will be eclipsed by its Mainland competitors. Although the public has, at best, a superficial notion of what local “identity” encompasses, these oscillating moods are themselves part of the city’s psyche: Hong Kongers who lived through the uncertainty of the 1980s can probably identify with the temptation to feel pessimistic about the future one day, and optimistic the next.
I’d have liked to hear more about just what defines Hong Kong’s self-image as an act of “resistance.” After all, residents of Dallas or Cardiff also have reason to distinguish themselves from the political centre of their respective countries; people from Shandong or Shanghai take as much pride in being from Shandong or from Shanghai as Hong Kongers do in being Hongkongese. So how is Hong Kong’s attempt to differentiate itself unlike Shanghai’s, which presumably has no overt pretensions to “resisting” an “imperially imposed” identity?
Hong Kong Reader deserves a plug, so here it is: a thoughtful selection spanning everything from Continental philosophy to avant-garde Chinese poetry; good company; interesting events (see above); if their philosophy section were my bookshelf at home, I could die happy. Samson introduced me to Daniel, one of the owners - he’s the type of erudite, well-read philosophy major who makes flaky comp lit majors look, well, flaky. For an absurdly small fee, you can take home a “membership card” that entitles you to a further reduction on their already reasonable prices. They deserve all the support they can get - if the bookstore stays afloat (and there’s every sign it will), its existence alone will prove the pessimists wrong. Yes, my friend, I’m looking at you.
Find Hong Kong Reader here:
旺角西洋菜南街68號7字樓(銀行中心Body Shop對面)
7/F, 68 Sai Yeung Choi Street South, Mongkok (MTR D3 Exit, Above 1010 telecom shop) ?
