Opinion | The death of book stores and other heartbreaking changes in Hong Kong society
By Philip Yeung, university teacher
PKY480@gmail.com
The death of book stores and other heartbreaking changes in Hong Kong society
In my younger days, I harbored the dream of living an ideal life: being the proud owner of a book store, earning a comfortable living, breathing the books that I love. That dream is no longer viable. These days, on the subways and buses, it is a rarity to see passengers holding or reading a book or even a newspaper. Without exception, every dumb head is glued to the smart phone.
If you drop into a book store, instead of seeing an abundant display of attractive books for incidental reading, you are more likely to see shelves of exam preparation books next to a dizzying array of stationery and other trinkets. The physical book store has died an early death. Consider this its early obituary. In the twinkling of an eye, one book store after another has closed in rapid succession, including my beloved book store on HKUST's Clear Water Bay campus. It has ceded its place to a Starbucks. The other book store on the campus that I now work suffered the same fate and is shuttered for good. The owner, who once radiated the pride of ownership, was forced to cut her losses, as she was bleeding money at the rate of $80,000 per month.
She has bowed to the harsh reality. Books can now be purchased far cheaper online. The closings of book stores have ushered in the disappearance of the book-reading habit. Book-reading is not just for nerds. It's at the heart of liberal or whole-person education. I remember an old saying, "The child who reads is the child who leads". With their heads stuffed with exam questions, there is no room for creative ideas. The mind becomes a desert, an infertile place starved of intellectual nourishment, inhospitable to the growth of a sharp mind or fresh thinking. Creativity and promiscuity in reading are inseparable bedfellows.
Call me old fashioned, I lament the loss of something else in Hong Kong: a sharp decline in civility. The city was once famous for its universal politeness, and for being rule-abiding to a fault. But in my recent visits to the city, I noticed a disturbing change. When I approached a stranger at the bus stop, asking for directions, I was met with a look of suspicion. My fellow passenger physically recoiled, and kept me at a safe distance. She brushed me off with a curt reply, and put an abrupt end to my unwelcome intrusion. She probably saw me as a hustler or worse. Neither of us enjoyed the brief encounter. The old civilities have gone with the wind.
Yes, political hyperventilation has died down, but Hong Kong cries out for social regeneration or moral rebirth. Thanks to an overdose of toxic politics, our everyday interactions are no longer lubricated by trust and respect. Strangely, in mainland cities, the street cleaners still display good manners and good cheer. They might be poor, but they have not been embittered by political division or scarred by violent confrontation.
Hong Kong faces a long road and a steep climb back to the normal. I feel a rush of nostalgia thinking of the good old days when friends could agree to disagree on politics. In the past year alone, I have lost two childhood friends to politics. They now see me as the sworn enemy with whom dialogue is neither possible nor desirable, simply because I am sympathetic to China's cause in my writings, defending the underdog against wholesale, one-sided, hostile Western media demonization. I am ghosted for good. The old separation between the social and the political has been abolished. If you are identified with one camp, you are barred from the other. You will not be spoken to or socialized with. Socially, you have ceased to exist. That is the human tragedy and real costs of the city's unrest. Everything is politicized, nothing is exempt, not even life-long friendships or street manners. We have paid dearly for Hong Kong's decade of living dangerously. The city's brand is badly damaged; ugly politics has left its image in tatters. I see no upside to this downward spiral.
So, give us a break. Stop glorifying hot heads for subverting our rule of law, or trashing the norms of a civil society. Hong Kong has gone sideways and southward. The bloody and blind fight for meaningless "universal suffrage" is for the birds, and only for the jail birds.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.
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