Source:
https://scmp.com/lifestyle/article/1814976/watch-club-71s-grace-ma-1989-2003-and-what-bar-means-her
Lifestyle

WATCH: Club 71's Grace Ma on 1989, 2003 and what the bar means to her

Grace Ma behind the bar at Club 71

What happened in and around Tiananmen Square 26 years ago still affects Grace Ma Lai-wah, the owner of Central bar Club 71. Her eyes start to well up as she thinks back at what happened.

Watch: Club 71 - a place to remember

“I was too tired, I couldn’t sleep. When they announced martial law I couldn’t sleep,” she recalls. “My [now ex-] husband told me they opened fire; I couldn’t believe it. I think at the time I was so traumatised I went numb. I only remember going to work, getting off work. I didn’t look at the news. I just did what I could. Everyone needs to do their work.”

In response to the crackdown, on September 2, 1989, her then husband and a few others opened Club 64 just off of Lan Kwai Fong that became a salon for journalists, legislators like Leung Kwok-hung, and famed cinematographer Christopher Doyle.

Regulars at Club 64 in Lan Kwai Fong in Septemeber 2004 doing an ad hoc musical performance. Artists include Yank Wong (second from left) and Priscilla Leung Siu-wai (third from left), while cartoonist Zunzi (extreme right) looks on.
Regulars at Club 64 in Lan Kwai Fong in Septemeber 2004 doing an ad hoc musical performance. Artists include Yank Wong (second from left) and Priscilla Leung Siu-wai (third from left), while cartoonist Zunzi (extreme right) looks on.

Since Ma worked as a medical secretary in Central, she would help out after work. While the bar’s name was a way for people to remember June 4 every day, it was too much for her to bear.

Ma later became a co-owner of the bar. When it changed hands, she moved on and opened a place off Hollywood Road which she named Club 71, after the massive July 1 protest in 2003 by Hongkongers against legislating to implement Basic Law Article 23 on national security, in which over half a million people came out in the streets.

Grace Ma was going to call the bar Retreat, but a customer persuaded her otherwise.
Grace Ma was going to call the bar Retreat, but a customer persuaded her otherwise.

“After it was renamed 7-1 [July 1], I felt much better, happier. I said to people half in jest that not having the name Club 64 made me the happiest,” she says.

Nevertheless, some décor still alludes to June 4; the ceiling has a mural of a blue sky and clouds, some of which look like the Goddess of Democracy statue.

She says the bar, with its eclectic décor and political undertones, is a gathering place for people of various backgrounds and professions to meet, and some groups, such as professors from the University of Hong Kong, continue to congregate there once a week more than a quarter of a century later.

On June 4, as it does every year, Club 71 will open around 10pm after the candlelight vigil in Victoria Park, and a box will be set up for patrons to donate money, with part of the proceeds going to the Tiananmen Mothers group.