Honestly speaking, with all the mixed messages flying around from all and sundry and an appalling downturn, downgrade, and a downpour of nothingness, nothing matters.
Like “Hello Hong Kong”, different vouchers and all those other slogans and buzzwords bandied about at various “philanthropic” talkfests, opinion pieces on social media and in the mainstream media and bathroom walls, we, who still choose to live in Hong Kong, are not only confused, we’re quite sickened by the sycophantic need to belong to the club that’s the total opposite of Mensa.
We’re at some buffet table of goofy ideas and dim witted dim sum and then some with those who opine actually writing how it’s time to “not just talk the talk, but walk the walk”.
Really, man? It’s taken someone this long to toss this into the ring with the rest of the kitchen sink?
Well, just let this sink in- and see what I did there: Hong Kong is dazed and confused by a tsunami of mediocrity, stupidity and incompetence.
It’s really hard to imagine that here was a city that once upon a char siu bao brought together game changers like David Tang, Sir Run Run Shaw, Bruce Lee, an artist like Anita Mui, the excitement when Sam Hui brought out Hong Kong music dubbed “Canto Rock”, and when there was the youthful enthusiasm and unbridled creativity of a new breed of filmmakers, restaurateurs and ad people.
Not everyone was great and not everything made one say, “Shine on you crazy diamond”, but what was here was a VIBE.
Even transparent grifters and shysters and those who kept reinventing themselves and returning for more had a certain amount of tacky panache that was accepted with a certain degree of humour.
Today, there’s NO vibe in Hong Kong because, for whatever reason, there’s a blanket of boredom, and flatulence very often orchestrated by creaky, boring old farts out there prodding everyone else with so much of everything else that nothing ever gets done.
It’s all stuck on the same old chords and another chorus of “Shallow”.
These are the people who have robbed this city of words like Hope and Inspiration and suffocates good people from being happy because these are serial harbingers of bad news and useless gossip.
Do I REALLY need to be told that someone named David Eustace will be joining the Hong Kong racing training ranks?
What I care about is Hong Kong continuing to be conned by style over substance and a city divided by the nouveau riche Foo Foos and those lost in the grass roots of the Fah Fahs.
For me, Hong Kong in 2023 and moving into 2024 reminds me of a Far Side cartoon- the brilliant work of artist Gary Larson who, decades ago, used his cast of characters comprising cows, aliens, squids, bears, deer, cockroaches, ants etc to show the foibles of humans.
Study the cartoons below and learn.
