Nostalgia rules
The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a surge of popular interest in Hong Kong heritage by default. But can the momentum be sustained and the reinvention of tradition taken to the next level? Joyce Yip weighs the pros and cons.
A few blocks away from the Bridges Street YMCA, on Peel Street, cocktail bar Kinsman serves tipples shaken with Cantonese spirits like black glutinous rice wine, sourced from a distillery nestled on the slopes of Tai Mo Shan - Hong Kong's highest peak, located in the New Territories. Kinsman's interiors mimic a Wong Kar-wai film set. Bar co-founder Gavin Yeung says that the idea is to conjure up a feel of "looking back at old Hong Kong through a dusty windowpane".
Visitors to the Soundtrack of Our Lives exhibition, held from July to September, are still talking about its heartstrings-tugging re-creations of '90s-style environments - a cha chaan teng and a zeitgeisty repair shop complete with cathode-ray tube TV monitors, among others. Held at Tai Kwun - the site of Hong Kong's erstwhile Central Police Station, Central Magistracy and Victoria Prison - the show was a celebration of two '90s Cantopop legends, composer Joseph Koo and lyricist James Wong.
