HANS EBERT ON POSITIVELY FOURTH STREET.

Hong Kong can’t be run by committee and neither can it be run by fear and guesswork and research groups and hires from the pages of LinkedIn and The Peter Principle.

Hong Kong most definitely needs independent thinkers like the city’s original entrepreneurs, and not those with a hangdog herd mentality IF the city is to pull itself out of the quagmire of congee that has set in.

In all my many years in Hong Kong, I have not seen a more disparate city, surviving instead of living, drinking from a half empty glass and seemingly forgotten how to manage expectations, and without coming across as a cockeyed optimist, able to look on the bright side of life and get back onto the sunny side of the street.

There’s way too much of blindly playing Follow The Leader when supposed self-styled leaders continue to stumble, have lost their moral compass and whatever balls they might have had along with their bearings.

Hong Kong doesn’t need another government funded “Yes, Minister” shell like CreateHK and the empty promises delivered around two decades ago by the then government man for all reasons- The Dunk-Duncan Pescod.

Gawd, no. 

Hong Kong doesn’t need a new version of him, but this city does need an indie creative spirit, where we might not always agree, but, somehow, something new and relevant appears when least expected and kicks us into gear and also up our collective asses.

This way of working was why Hong Kong became the exciting, unique Asia’s world city that was a magnet for so many. 

Soulless and often arrogant entities were never ever leading the creative charge. 

They couldn’t and they still can’t. 

They did what they did best and didn’t try to be what they were not.

It was those entrepreneurs and the advertising agencies, plus clients who believed in themselves, and in what we could deliver with them plus those with the wherewithal and confidence to make a difference, these were who made the barren rock come alive.

Those who could read the tea leaves and intuitively see the dangers of The Peter Principle and how power corrupts are the individuals who took Hong Kong on the journey of its life.

It wasn’t only about thinking outside of the box, it was about burning the box and screaming out aloud like James Brown did and saying, “Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag”! Ugh! GIT ON UP!!!

It was us Everyday People following our own beliefs who made the Now and the tomorrow happen for us.

The older and wiser we became, and more successful we got, we invested our time in creating a future for the generations to come.

We didn’t grow older to let greed take over and create a toxic garden surrounded by a need to be Oliver Twisted and constantly want more and more of everything that no one could take with them from here and when their time was up.

Do we want the next generation to look back at our doing and say, “Boy, you baby boomers really messed things up with your screwed up thinking when you could have done so much better to give us a better inheritance”?

I sure hope not.

Some say that I am negative, and to them, I say,look at my life journey and that of my parents who arrived in this city from Ceylon by ship- penniless- and then see what we had to overcome to be the people we became.

We may not have been RICH, but we were happy and our happiest times were when living in Hong Kong.

It wasn’t about owning property and winning on the horses or the Mark 6 and being greedily and giddily famous on unsocial social media full of influencers and KPIs that’s just pie in the sky stuff.

It was about being yourself, being true only to you and being the best you could be without asking for anything in return.

Of course, when you knew that you were being taken for a ride, you backed up the car, stepped on the accelerator and came hard at those who criticised what they didn’t understand.

Nothing has changed when it comes to being taken for a ride: You come down hard on them.