Lion Rock spirit still casting its spell on Hong Kong
From working folks trying to get ahead in the 1970s, to pro-democracy activists in 2014, the term has become symbolic of the city’s development and evokes powerful memories
Lion Rock spirit was a term that emerged during the 1970s, referring to the “can-do” attitude of Hong Kong people, specifically the baby boomer generation in a period when the economy was growing.
The term was coined after the RTHK television series Below The Lion Rock, which first aired in 1972 and ran until 2016. It featured stories about the city’s industrious working people. The series took its name from Lion Rock in Kowloon Country Park, which has become symbolic of Hong Kong’s growth.
Rita Chan Man-yee, who rose from production assistant on the show during the 1980s to become an executive director, said the focus was always about “reflecting the social situation”.
“We wanted to produce a programme to relate the situation of the Hong Kong people, and what they were thinking at that time,” she said. “We did not have a particular ‘spirit’ in mind, but I think in the early days it was about people being poor and working to improve their living standards.”
Chan said episodes in the 1980s and 90s revealed how Hongkongers were emigrating ahead of the handover in 1997 because of uncertainties about the future. She said shortly after the millennium, the focus shifted to the nature of the changing family dynamic and the human aspect of Hong Kong. By 2015, she said, the series was exposing the city’s housing crisis.
