Forget HK, says Queen Mary 2 video
Tourism officials are looking into a complaint about a video shown to thousands of passengers on board the cruise liner Queen Mary 2 which described Hong Kong as an 'extremely polluted city' with 'inferior museums'.
In the video, British archaeologist John Reich, a lecturer on the vessel, said there was no point in passengers visiting The Peak because the pollution would prevent them from seeing anything.
He also said the Hong Kong Museum of Art was not worth visiting because it was inferior to those in Shanghai, and that dining in Hong Kong was hopeless because no matter how carefully passengers studied the menu, they would always be served the wrong dish.
In a letter to the Sunday Morning Post, Hong Kong passenger Donald Lam said the video was of a lecture Professor Reich gave to introduce passengers to the city a day before the vessel, the world's largest cruise liner, docked at the Kwai Chung container port last week. It was televised repeatedly on the ship following the lecture.
Mr Lam said he complained in vain to the cruise director over Professor Reich's statements.
A Tourism Board spokeswoman said it was investigating.
'We have contacted the operator and asked why such a video was shown to passengers. We are waiting for their reply,' she said.
But Michael Gallagher, public relations executive for the ship's operator, Cunard Line, said the company had no control over what onboard lecturers said.
'We will probably not be able to comment on what this particular chap is saying, but we are sorry if any offence has been caused,' he said.
'Hong Kong is a fabulous place and the vast majority of our passengers would enjoy Hong Kong, but we can't control what the lecturers would say.'
Mr Gallagher said he would raise the matter with those who had arranged Professor Reich's lectures on the ship.
The Queen Mary 2 arrived in Hong Kong on Wednesday on its 80-day maiden world voyage.
Professor Reich is a classical archaeologist who has travelled widely in the Middle East and Asia.
He is also the author of Culture and Values: A Survey of the Humanities and The Western Perspective: A History of Civilisation in the West.
His lecture on Hong Kong was part of the cruise's cultural enrichment programme.
