TIME FOR HONG KONG REIMAGINED AND TO FIND HAPPINESS.

Hans Ebert
8 minutes ago
5 min read

Let’s maybe start with a little pimple therapy and build from here to things more multi dimensional and actually relevant to life, especially in Hong Kong where I have lived for over fifty years- important things like the costs of living with happiness instead of surviving with worry and fear because this city is STILL struggling with a locked down mindset…

I’ve been asked about why turnover at the Hong Kong races last Wednesday night was down by over 13 percent.

Think I care?

If hazarding a guess, maybe it’s a combination of the rather “fatuous” ‘live’ sounds emanating from the Beer Garden these days, and THAT rather ghoulish video with, apparently, over a million views in a day featuring some unknown girls and one odd man out flouncing around an empty and spooky looking Happy Valley racecourse?

Honestly, I just don’t know- but I do know- and don’t give a toss…

There was then, South African rider Keagan de Melo handing in his riding license to the Hong Kong Jockey Club and returning to South Africa, where he’s sure to be in huge demand and much happier.

Could Hong Kong and Hong Kong racing be losing their shine to the international world?

More importantly, have Hong Kong Belongers- lost their moral compass and what are their life priorities?

Surely, horse racing is not a life priority? And if it is, could this be because of a community not thinking beyond what’s put in front of them?

There’s more…

Other than the now tediously ubiquitous news about more five and ten year plans for this and that, which is way too long a time to ring in changes, and the former “Asia’s World City” looking a tad lost, confused, old and almost a dumping ground for budget tour groups from Shenzhen in China, international tourism is happening in dribs and drabs with nothing of any significance and substance.

Hardly being attractive magnets for tourism are goofy and childish promotions featuring a giant yellow rubber duck in the harbour, chubby red balloons, the ubiquitous drone shows and fireworks displays, Ocean Park in its death throes and an extremely worrying drop in the standards of English.

Experienced political figures like Regina Ip and Michael Tien have reached compulsory retirement age and one can’t help wondering who their replacements are?

What those who see through the smoke and mirrors and wishful thinking are many in Hong Kong who are past their Use By date playing for time and clutching at straws.

Most are very possibly using time to think about pensions, their possible legacies and life after retirement as the odds of many of these lofty plans coming true are extremely slim.

Why? Because many of those who came up with these plans are now in their sixties and seventies and not going to be around for the long haul.

Those industries around the world doing cartwheels about a few successes need to read the tea leaves and understand what the various shifts in political changes could mean to their businesses.

For example, think about 34 year old Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani being voted the first Muslim mayor of New York City.

Watching the interview below with David Remnick of the New Yorker, he comes across as knowledgeable, confident and a breath of fresh air compared to in the old world of even older politics.

There appears to be actual leadership qualities in him and he comes across being convincing and likeable and ready for prime time.

It was a humiliating defeat for Andrew Cuomo, the Republicans and the 79 year old Big Orange wearing his pampers and sitting in the White House who, these days, is looking to be deep in thought about perhaps his swollen ankles and where everything is heading. Either that or he is asleep.

Nothing is what it really is, he chillingly said while thinking of ways to meet up with Sanna Marin, the former thirty something prime minister of Finland, one of the happiest countries in the world along with Denmark.

As said over and over again, people make a country or a city and it’s their infectious positivity that inspires creativity and happiness and brings about long needed paradigm shifts.

A city like Hong Kong is desperately in need of HOPE and HAPPINESS.

Everything else being distributed are just, well, cheap substitutes for what’s really needed- emotional attachment through STRATEGIC THINKING that ignites New Thinking, creative work and offers more focus than another oversupply of tidbits with very little demand.

What Hong Kong needs is everything that leads to- yes- HAPPINESS.

Happiness is darn hard to achieve because of how the city was mismanaged during and since Covid and the lockdown period by the lady chief executive who was replaced.

This is is not to say that Happiness can’t make a comeback in Hong Kong.

For this to happen, there’s a need for teamwork from new teams and not more subservient corporate boffins as those who have been given decades to produce the goods continue to fail but are not held accountable.

One can run, but no one can hide from the proof of incompetence in the sago pudding.

Hong Kong needs to make a GREAT BIG COMEBACK and without the corporate lah lah bollocks.

Hong Kong needs some inspired new thinking.

There’s a desperate need to REIMAGINE HONG KONG that will help us move away from hackneyed ideas appealing to the lowest common denominator, and which only brings down standards and creates a generation of dullards.

Let me leave you with a couple of examples of Hong Kong creativity from almost forty years ago, all of which makes one wonder why we tolerate the continued production of mediocrity, the costs of which can go towards creating a NEW and innovative Hong Kong immediately and not dependent on airy fairy long term plans.

In my many years in Hong Kong, I worked very closely with Daniel Ng on the launch and sustained success of the McDonald’s business.

He and I even founded a music label to help mainly kids learn English through pop music, an idea I shared with someone who was passing through Hong Kong.

I was starstruck by this individual because of his track record. The next week, he helped himself to the idea, the name of the project and even the business partners. He never made the idea take off.

In advertising, I won the Gold award at the prestigious London Advertising Awards. This was for the campaign created for “ethnic minorities” like myself that succeeded in giving almost 9000 individuals in Hong Kong the Right of Abode in the United Kingdom.

I also worked on the launch of STARTV, MTV Asia and PCCW.

Together with my friend Norman Cheng, we ran the regional offices of Universal Music and turned EMI Music around from having a four percent market share in the region to 24 percent.

In between, I created the Happy Wednesday brand for the Hong Kong Jockey Club and ran it for twelve years.

I have worked with everyone from Hong Kong artists like Jacky Cheung, Faye Wong and the Wynners to international names like David Bowie, Robbie Williams, Gorillaz, Norah Jones and others.