Then & Now | Dear Hong Kong Tourism Board, enough of the clichés – the city just isn’t what it was
- ‘Pearl of the Orient’, ‘East meets West’ – milked for decades, these weary Hong Kong tropes, hackneyed beyond redemption, continue to be recycled
- Recent unintentionally hilarious promotional clips designed to attract tourists show how devoid of ideas the city’s tourism marketing strategists really are
Now that Hong Kong’s hermit-like isolation is finally ending, tourism – one of the four pillars of the local economy – seems desperate for revival. Proclaiming somewhere a “hub” means little when punctured inner tubes remain unrepaired, and the wheels themselves fell off some distance down the road.
Still the platitudes roll on, regardless of actual circumstances. “Pearl of the Orient” – that worn-out local cliché – has been trotted out once again, most recently by Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu at a relaunch function.
But determinedly saying that something is so – and as many times as deemed necessary – is not the same as ensuring interchangeable strings of words align with public perceptions, or aggregated lived experiences.
All right-thinking persons are now urged to tell “good” Hong Kong stories to the world. But does unimaginative recourse to time-expired “Pearl of the Orient” imagery really help turn things around for the better?
These days, most sensible people merely shake their heads in weary distaste at such utterances, and remain silent. For might not some hitherto unsuspected charge – “inciting hatred and contempt” – crash down upon their foolish heads, simply for pointing out the obvious?