Hong Kong’s Lion Rock spirit celebrated by Canto-pop legend Sam Hui deserves cheers

I thank the Canto-pop legend, Mr Sam Hui, for his free mini-concert on Easter Sunday and his message of hope during these troubled times. I enjoyed every moment of it, only to be pulled up short by an online article where a young Hong Kong politician, Mr Nathan Law Kwun-chung, belittled the show for disseminating an old-fashioned community ethos and losing touch with the millennials.

Solidarity, in Mr Law’s words, is founded on common political standpoints, but I would say it stands on appreciation and mutual respect.

Recently, one of my friends commented that the government deserves no credit for coping with the Covid-19 outbreak in Hong Kong. But while everyone was resting at home, or going out of their way to sneak out with friends at the weekends, it was the government officers who worked round the clock to devise pragmatic plans to save lives, protect jobs, assist those stranded overseas, and pacify the discontented.

Of course that is their duty, but we can’t discount the dedication and hard work behind their silent effort.

On a broader note, when Mr Law referred to the can-do spirit of the 1970s and ’80s, I wondered who were the ones fighting tooth and nail to make our home better. Not me, not him, but the generations before us whom he so despises for “clinging to the status quo”. Now that society has prospered, should we wipe out their contributions and wreck everything?

Tradition is the accumulated wisdom of the past. There is every reason for the young to take pride in, and inherit, the deep-seated Lion Rock Spirit: pragmatic aspiration, industry, forbearance, tenacity and tolerance. So we should stop implying that those who thrive on hard work are sycophants of the Communist Party of China. This is not logical.

I am 18, and I understand that it is in our DNA as youngsters to advocate change. But, as problems come and go, the need for change in this decade would not be greater than that in the last. Our predecessors do not have a lesser right to live life to the fullest than us.

So, let us step out of our little echo chambers, count our blessings, be humble to our parents and grandparents, and, above all, remember that the world does not owe us a living.

Norman Wan, Aberdeen