Art attack: how Hong Kong's cultural providers will cope with budget cuts
How will performing arts and museums fare under budget cuts? Two senior officials discuss the challenges ahead in the third in a series on influential figures in Hong Kong's cultural scene
With billions of dollars being spent on new cultural facilities, you would think the government could afford to fix the stage rigging system at Kwai Tsing Theatre or replace a decrepit piano at the Cultural Centre post-haste. Apparently not. Financial Secretary John Tsang Chun-wah's pessimistic outlook on government finances has ushered in an era of austerity that is deeply felt at the Leisure and Cultural Services Department, which runs 80 per cent of the city's performance arts venues and nearly all its museums.
Before the public gets to see the West Kowloon Cultural District or the new East Kowloon Cultural Centre, they may have to put up with subpar standards at existing facilities.
The irony is not lost on Elaine Yeung Chi-lan, the LCSD assistant director in charge of the performing arts division.
"We feel schizophrenic when the government talks about creating an international art hub," she says.
Yeung and fellow assistant director Chan Shing-wai are among the many civil servants who have spent their careers shaping our cultural experiences. They are important cogs in the largely nameless, faceless machinery and their anonymity obscures both their considerable power - and their challenges.
The rigidity of public services inevitably brings trials and tribulations, but there is a sense of crisis at the LCSD's Sha Tin headquarters - created in 2000 when the government dissolved the Urban Council and the Regional Council - as the department suffers a double whammy of tighter operational budgets and filibustering by lawmakers, which has put major projects on ice.