"Building on Disappearance: Hong Kong Architecture and Colonial Space”
in Hong Kong: Culture and the Politics of Disappearance.
Blunt truth be told, this is not the reading piece I initially hearted for. I was bombarded with the harsh fact that I couldn’t find an access to Matthews Gordon’s “Ghetto at the Centre of the World”. Disheartened, I said “Farewell” to the idea of composing a reflection piece on Gordon’s book and instead commenced my reading on Ackbar Abbas’s - Hong Kong: Culture and the Politics of Disappearance. As it turned out, Abba’s work, despite being written in 1997, still holds much relevance to the city washed away with another 18 years. Time, however, was already of quite an essence when I altered my choice of book so I could only read the chapter I was assigned to. There are a few chapters hung with titles that seem to be aligned with my interests but none of them was with inevitability to be read in the assignment. “Building on Disappearance: Hong Kong Architecture and Colonial Space” - this big chuck of words, happens to be the name of the chapter I was assigned to read, churn, reflect on. Whilst secretly hoping to read other chapters like ” Wong Kar-wai: Hong Kong Filmmaker” or “The New Hong Kong Cinema and the Déjà Disparu”, I diminished my reluctance towards “Building on Disappearance” and started reading it.
I didn’t have high hopes for the chapter merely because I found the topic itself rather tedious to be totally frank. The chapter itself is fused with abundance of examples of city space and architecture of various kinds from the pre-1997 era of Hong Kong; a time period during which I was just a kid, a young one; and now I only have blurry, somewhat distant yet close memories of those bygone days. I did encounter certain difficulties reading this chapter as for one, I was not familiar with the urban development of Hong Kong in the pre1997 era; and two, I feel like the chapter was set out to be a bit too ambitious. The novel and insightful ideas (and not to mention loads of name-dropping of buildings) can be easily sought in the chapter but it’s quite hard to grasp the central theme of the chapter for the theme itself seems to be constantly shifting throughout the chapter. The general grips I have on the themes are as followed:
The chapter, despite its efforts exerted on depicting and analyzing the identity of Hong Kongers and the space, the architectures surrounding the citizens, the space itself hasn’t never been granted the true attention of the chapter. The chief goal never halts to twirl around the revelation and anchoring of the “floating identity” with Hong Kong- the city and her people. The ever-changing, transient canvas of the city is the product of Hong Kong’s unique past as a colony of the British which also happened to be at delicate position at the world map.
“The floating identity” is a term with such steel in terms of accuracy. We, Hong Kongers have been trying so hard, so unbelievably hard to locate our identity all along. So far, we have met disagreements among ourselves; I’m not gonna name which side is with absolute righteousness simply because that’s not my point here. “The floating identity” is something, I really think, we can all agree on for once. I wanted to say we are somewhat like a drifter who doesn’t mind drifting but this allusion lacks something, a necessary drop of precision maybe. Floaters: we are more like. Abbas mentioned the British in a way, helped induce this distinct identity of ours as a strategic measure to dilute the people’s feelings towards both the British and the Chinese so as to diminish potential conflicts and challenges as much as possible. We float above the patriotism of both sides. And that might be a good thing for a city that’s budding. We then spent most of energy and time on fostering a firm foundation and soon bright (financial) prospects for the city and her people. But as the handover creeping in and what happened with the tiananmen square massacre, our cling to the floating identity seemed so loose all of a sudden. As of now, our cling to it is getting weakened each and every day. And that’s not something we should or can afford to dismiss or handle lightly. The space and buildings in Hong Kong are for sure changing with the political sphere undergoing such a big shift. Hong Kong, as described by Abbas is an “open City”; one that could distance herself from all other similarly affluent cities like Taipei or Tokyo. The city became highly receptive to styles of kinds. ‘Hong Kong is an “open city,” exposed to all styles and influences: from the vernacular to the colonial, from modernism to post-modernism…Hong Kong has neither a fixed identity nor the inhibitions that come from it.’ Even before the official transition in 1997, the Flagstaff House, initially “an impressive colonial-style building constructed in the 1840s” and later the headquarters of the British military and then the residential building for the British forces was preserved to be a Chinese teaware museum and declared as a monument in the late 80’s. What Abbas really suggested in this example is staggering. The example, explained by Abbas, was vivid proof of how space and history could be lost so smoothly, unnoticedly. At first, it seemed to be a win-win situation but the preservation is the most stinging factor causing the disappearance of the space and the history tagged along with it. That’s some rather shocking ideas to digest when I first read it but as I give the ideas more and more thoughts, the only conclusion I can come up with is even more horrifying. I fear the disappearance will only get worse. Complete annihilation of culture and identity is not the current government aiming for but what the current rulers of the city scouting for is a big, heavy anchor to fixate Hong Kong and her people to certain identity. “The floating identity” as one of few things that we truly unitedly share as Hong Kongers is bound to be wiped away; and with that, the space, buildings, history are likely to tread the same path eventually.
The chapter, whilst what I remember or hit me the most is the floating identity, also mention themes like city and buildings in cinema: how buildings and space are shaped and projected on screen might lead to people’s different perspectives towards the city. That reminded me of the video I watched a while back. What if the space and buildings of a city never gets to play the city itself? Wouldn’t that be of high complexity and paradox towards this theme? Well, I don’t have absolute answers for it either. But if you are interested, do watch the video below for you might find your answers in it. (Plus it’s a really inspiring video (channel), you might learn something / a lot from it too. (well I hope.)