Fair's pictorial books on heritage prove popular with youth
Hong Kong's young readers are turning to books on local culture and history, made more accessible by a growing popularity of 'comic essays'.
Nestled among the vast variety of books at the Book Fair are many types of pictorial books, which tell the story of Hong Kong, including tales of Queen's Pier and the old Kai Tak airport.
One author, Albert Sung, who has written and illustrated The Sung Family - a story of his family's life with a history of Hong Kong as a backdrop - said these kinds of books often reflected local culture and history, interspersed with black humour and social commentary.
That these books have more images than words, Mr Sung said, made them more attractive to young readers brought up on comic books.
'Young people don't like words too much,' he said. 'They often find hard-data history books too boring. These books are certainly an easier approach to telling them the history of local culture.'
He added that a lot of younger readers turned to history as a means of finding their own identity.
Urban sociologist Denny Ho Kwok-leung from the Polytechnic University said many young people were not confident about their future, so they looked back to the old days as a way of dealing with the present.
'They use collective memories to romanticise the past for the redevelopment of the future, to reinstall the past generation or to protect the good old days.' he said.
He explained that a lot of young people saw the past as more idyllic than the future, while some adults also refused to embrace adulthood, remaining 'kidults'.
The comic essays may be a new form of media, Dr Ho said, but he was worried about their use. 'It may result in a lack of imagination among younger readers,' he said.
