Yearning for the days of Uncle Walt
When I was growing up in the great American heartland, the Walt Disney Company was embodied by an avuncular figure who appeared on the family television every week - first in black and white and later in marvellous colour - to introduce the children of my generation to a cartoon world of fun and fantasy.
That figure was the venerable Walt Disney himself. Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Daisy - these were some of my dearest childhood friends. I spoke to them in my dreams and begged my mother and father not to change the channel until Uncle Walt had exhausted his hour of airtime.
My parents obliged, of course, because everyone in America, including adults, loved Walt Disney.
I was, and always will be, a Disney child. Even now, the summer is never complete until my own two children and I have seen the latest Disney offering at the cinema. This year it was Herbie: Fully Loaded, but the family tradition started 11 years ago with The Lion King.
Invariably, we have a great time.
With all this in my background, why, then, do I view with mixed emotions the imminent opening of Hong Kong Disneyland? What bothers me about Disney is not what it represents to me - that will forever remain one of the treasures locked away in my childhood - but rather, what the company has come to symbolise to much of the rest of the world.
Disney has come a long way since those days when, through the magic of television, Annette Funicello, the Disney poster girl at the time, led a wannabe Mouseketeer through his paces in the privacy of his living room in the American midwest.
It was with pride that he wore his Mickey ears, with glee that he sang the Mouseketeer anthem and, of course, with adulation that he viewed his lovely, energetic leader.
Now Disney is everywhere. Uncle Walt, who died in 1966, would no doubt be amazed at the worldwide reach of his vision.
But he would also be stunned (and hurt) by the criticism and downright hostility the company encounters as Mickey and Minnie dance their way across the globe. While most Disney-bashing falls into the category of cheap shots fired in envy at a phenomenally successful and enduring company, there is nevertheless an overarching theme to these attacks that fits our time just as surely as Annette and the Mouseketeers suited mine. Disney is seen by its critics as one of the foremost symbols of America's imperial culture. The Little Mermaid has become Pocahontas, who has morphed into Mulan.
As Disney expands and evolves, its detractors wonder whether it is truly embracing multiculturalism when the race of its heroes changes but their values and personalities remain the same. And now that this colossal metaphor for Americanism has come to Hong Kong, it is patently clear that some of us would like to invite the World Trade Organisation protesters to town a few months early to tear the place down.
But as we project our frustrations onto this big, easy target in what is now called Sunny Bay, we should consider that Mickey and his cast of friends have not really changed much over the years.
What has changed - and changed dramatically - is the perception of the United States beyond its own borders. The warm afterglow that followed the country's victory over an evil foe in the second world war - a radiance that, as a child, I associated with Uncle Walt and his fabulous creations - is long gone, replaced by a much harsher light. So, sure, I have mixed emotions - for a lost childhood and for a lost America. As for Disney in Hong Kong, let us pay our money, go to Space Mountain and have some fun.
Kent Ewing is a teacher at Hong Kong International School. This is a personal comment
