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Olga Wong

The government has agreed to acquire memorabilia of Linda Lin Dai - left untouched in her flat since she killed herself 43 years ago - for use in exhibitions, but has no plan to recreate the movie star's home in a permanent setting.
Items to be acquired before April, when the late star's son plans to start renovations on the flat, include personal belongings and film-related memorabilia, as well as items that reflect the life of the rich in the 1950s and 1960s. Legislators are calling for the items to be displayed in a dedicated museum.
Linda Ching Yuet-chue - known as Lin Dai on screen - committed suicide in her bedroom in 1964, shocking her fans and the film community, who knew her as the Elizabeth Taylor of the East.
The Jardine's Lookout flat and its contents have been kept intact but since her husband, Lung Shing-fan, died last year, their son  has been planning renovations.
The artefacts also include memorabilia of Lin's father-in-law, Lung Yun, a former leading figure in the Kuomintang who went over to the communists and organised resistance from Hong Kong.
Any items not taken by the government will be removed before renovations start.
Looking at the untouched flat on a recent visit, the son's godfather, barrister Cheng Huan, said Lung Shing-fan must have loved his wife very much. 'The things frozen in time here are not expensive or intrinsically valuable, they are just sentimental,' he said.
'They are interesting in the context of Hong Kong and Chinese history. Ideally, these items should be transferred to a museum or a room that would be recreated with the same atmosphere. You cannot expect a person to live in a time capsule forever. Once it is renovated, everything will be gone.'
A spokeswoman for the Leisure and Cultural Services Department said the government had reached initial agreement with the Lung family that items of Lin's would be acquired by the department. Research would also be carried out into the items in the collection and the life of Lin Dai for exhibitions.
The spokeswoman said the department had made a detailed photo record of the Jardine's Lookout home but there were no plans to recreate it elsewhere.
Choy So-yuk, chairwoman of the Legislative Council's sub-committee on heritage conservation, said the home and contents should be reproduced in a museum.
'Lung Yun is a historic figure and what was left behind by him is surely heritage,' she said, adding his connection with Lin Dai should be one of the themes of the exhibition.



Deal assures memorabilia of 1960s movie star Lin Dai will live on in public hands