IN CAPITALIST Hong Kong, even icons can be had for a price. And for a brief time, $2 million would have let you reef the sails on one of its last sailing junks - a craft whose image has been flogged for nearly half a century in advertising and promotional campaigns - and float off into the sunset. In the end, the sale of the Duk Ling was withdrawn on January 23 - but the uncertainty over its future serves as both a metaphor and catalyst for Hong Kong's search for a replacement promotional icon for the Hong Kong Tourist Association's red junk logo.
It is a divisive issue. The city's officially recognised logo signifies little more than the art of misrepresentation and should be junked for one which accurately reflects Hong Kong in the new millennium, argues one camp. There haven't been sailing junks for nearly half a century.
On the other hand, the HKTA points to research that shows the junk as the most instantly recognisable symbol of Hong Kong.
So is the territory in need of a new logo? 'A number of people have noted that the junk is a long-gone symbol of Hong Kong which has little relevance today,' HKTA chairman Selina Chow Liang Shuk-yee declared recently.
The 'batwing' junks - so named because of the shape of their sails - used to characterise what was considered one of the strongest and most seaworthy vessels on the seas. As early as the ninth century, the flat-bottomed boats were ferrying merchants to Indonesia and India.
More recently used in fishing fleets, two boats would work at night alongside each other, connected by poles laid from hull to hull and from which were hung lanterns to attract reef fish.