Opinion/ Letters

Hong Kong public parks’ heavy-handed approach to rules are a barrier to relaxation

Unlike parks in London and Paris, Hong Kong’s outdoor recreational spaces welcome visitors with a series of notices prohibiting various activities

Letters

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Published: 12:50am, 20 Mar, 2019

Updated: 2:32am, 20 Mar, 2019

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Thanks to a legal discrepancy, officials recently suspended law enforcement actions against smoking and other activities, such as the removal of plants and walking on grass, in around 450 public recreational facilities. Photo: Dickson Lee

I had mixed feelings on reading Alex Lo’s column “Blunder may mean a free-for-all in Hong Kong parks” (March 13).

I have long resented the Leisure and Cultural Services Department’s practice of putting up at least 10, sometimes over 20, notices at public park entrances forbidding this or that, giving a most negative impression to overseas visitors used to parks being places for free and easy relaxation.

Blunder may mean a free-for-all in Hong Kong parks

I enjoyed the vast expanses of green below the Eiffel Tower in Paris or in Hyde Park in London where people lay down, sat or walked around at leisure. The LCSD seems very mean, assuming most, if not all, Hongkongers are prone to being lawbreakers.

In my youth, one could sleep on park benches. Not any more, given that the LCSD installed armrests in the middle of benches to make lying down impossible. The cause is Hong Kong’s tragic failure in civic education with overemphasis on academic results, more precisely examination grades.

Rupert Chan, Mid-Levels