Wednesday, February 21, 2007
The Joys Of Faking It
Yes hello readers, this is Live blogging from my beloved hometown, Hong Kong.
Apparently, the government plans to crack down on pirated goods sold at the upcoming Lunar New Year fairs. "Operation Raptor" (yes, that's the name) pledges to halt the sale of luxury good and merchandise at markets all over the city. They'll have their work cut out for them, considering our city's penchant for counterfeits.
For instance, the Cheif Executive election charade continues to unfold and the government's half-hearted attempts at conservation are so blatantly counterfeit as to invoke ire among many residents. It's like the only genuine we have left in HK is the freaking Cheung Chau Bun Festival. Opps! It seems that the festival organisers have just announced that they will decorate their towers with plastic buns this year, rather than the real thing (they're not as ugly, apparently)
Ahh, fakes. We love to buy fakes, like our grade-A copy Louis Vuitton handbags, because it helps us pretend our lives are more glamourous and opulent than our pedestrian reality actually is. Likewise, our faux-bun totems on Cheung Chau help us pretend we're preserving our traditions when thery're nothing but a fake, plastic imitation.
The government buys into the same philosophy when it comes to heritage conservation, putting on a show purely for appearances. What is the point in preserving part of the clock from the old Star Ferry pier or recording it's sound to be played in the Museum of History? Demolishing and rebuilding our historical structures without the first thought to their cultural values leaves them nothing more than meaningless assemblages of bricks and motar.
Considering Murray House in Stanley Bay, once filled with historicity, now filled with Thai restaurants. Or the clock tower in Tsim Sha Tsui, once part of the original Kowloon-Canton Railway, now sticking out like a "Dolces and Gibbana" T-shirt beside the ugly-as-hell Cultural Centre and the tacky Avenue of Stars. Without it's original context, it looks about as authentically Edwardian as the new eyesore of the Star Ferry pier on the other side of the habour.
The government's holiday crackdown on the market pirates serves only to reflect the insincerity of their other pledges. They play at being more politically progressive and more concerned about the preservation of our cultural heritage than they really are, and like the somewhat unconvincing Gucci purse, if the cursory glance passes muster, that's good enough for them. Perhaps, however, they're right about one thing: we should stop being content to be palmed off with shoddy, second-hand fakes.
Happy CNY everybody.
1:04 am
Do you wannabe a superstar?
