Silence

Hello darkness, my old friend
I’ve come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence

In restless dreams, I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone
‘Neath the halo of a street lamp
I turned my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence

And in the naked light, I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never shared
And no one dared
Disturb the sound of silence

Sound of silence. Simon and Garfunkel

She wears a large pink plastic hair roller to hold up her black bangs, with long hair flowing down her back in perfect waves, alongside flawless makeup. Completing her ensemble is a gold leather purse, matching her elegant spring outfit of pale green and white. Flat white sandals make her task easier as she walks past the food-laden table outside the French-style bistro for the fifth time, her steps unsure on the uneven cobblestone of the historic courtyard.

I sip my leafy green mojito, feeling the condensation from the cool glass in the hot, humid air.

On the other side of the table, two shorter girls dressed in black hide behind their cameras. With their wildly gesticulating hands, they let the walking girl know what to do. She keeps backtracking, with a different look on her face, and a different hand on her purse. She never stops to taste the food she keeps passing by. Take 1, take 2… after five takes, the trio stops recording and sinks on the three chairs around the set table. The videos get checked, the hair is fixed, and the plastic hair roller is now lying next to the plate with the chicken wings. The bacon and egg sandwich must be cold by now. No one touches it.

My waitress brings me another drink, catching me watching the absurd scene that is taking place at her cafe. “It’s quite something, isn’t it?” she comments. “It happens four to five times a day. They take photos and videos with food and then they leave. They never eat the food.”

I am back in Hong Kong after 25 years. How some things are still the same – the smells of street food, wet markets, Chinese medicine stores, and air pollution. The constant noise of traffic, jackhammers, and the beeping of the pedestrian lights. Early in the morning, you can hear the birds wake up to the rising sun, their song carrying over the incessant hum of running air-conditioning units. The screeching call of the Asian Koehl, Hong Kong’s version of a cockatoo.

The neighbourhood we lived in – the steep streets, tight alleyways, the escalator taking you down to Central in the morning and back up in the evening. The rest is endless steps, bars and restaurants, and apartment buildings so close together, that you can fold your neighbour’s laundry.

How things have changed here in Hong Kong. Some of the changes are very obvious – like the TikTokers in front of my eyes creating online content. Back in the days of dial-up, your computer needed to perform a symphony to get online. It also weighed a ton, which made leaving home with it very impossible. Cell phones were not a thing, yet, and neither was social media.

Life in Hong Kong before the 1997 handover? I am having flashbacks to what life in this city looked like over two decades ago.

Arriving in Hong Kong was different. The airplane landed – smack – in the middle of the city, allowing its passengers an intimate insight into people’s tiny apartments and lives. An act of great trust, as the planes always came extremely close to the surrounding buildings when landing or taking off.

My arrival at the newly built airport on one of the bigger outlying islands Lantau, on the other hand, has a futuristic feel to it. Vast land stripped of any lush vegetation normally found on the Hong Kong islands. Anonymous tall buildings, endless runways, and construction sights are hidden in the smoggy air. A high-speed train takes you straight to Hongkong Central in a quick 25-minute ride. It used to be that if you wanted to get to Lantau, you had to take a boat or swim!

Taxis had ashtrays, not seat belts. To ride with my newborn son in tow took a lot of trust. Open the back door, lay the baby on the plastic-covered leather seat, leave the door open, walk quickly to the back of the running taxi, open the trunk, put the foldable stroller in the boot, close it, hurry back to open the back door to find your baby still lying on the backseat. Gather up the baby into your arms, and close the car door. Tell the driver where to go. Today, the taxis are the same. My baby is 26 years old now and wouldn’t fit lying down on the backseat any more.

The city now seems more crowded with people, and more tall buildings have gone up. The high-rise we used to live in is still standing. I walk there to have a look – it looks older. Aged. Not as fancy as I remember it and relatively small compared to the other apartment buildings around it. The school I used to teach at is still there, and so is the British Military Hospital where our first two boys were born.

Other things, however, have disappeared, vanished:

Gone is my favorite restaurant in Wan Chai where we spent endless nights watching fresh ducks being delivered through the toilet window and turned into a delicious meal of Peking Duck.

The British flag. Replaced by the infamous Five Star Red Flag, officially and in broad daylight on the day of the Handover on July 1, 1997. We were there.

Other things disappeared overnight, quietly and without any explanation. The Pillar of Shame at the University, commemorating the 1989 Massacre at Tiananmen Square in Beijing, was taken down by the Chinese government in the middle of the night to protect national safety.

Civil rights are diminishing drastically – since 2020, civil rights in Hong Kong have been sharply curtailed. Many pro-democracy activists have been arrested, silenced, or forced into exile. Dozens of civil society groups have been disbanded. Outspoken media has shut down. Many disillusioned, young professionals and middle-class families have emigrated to Britain, Canada, and Taiwan.

On the wall of a public building, I see a sign announcing the 10th anniversary of The Holistic Approach to National Security. A new national security law (Article 23) was passed a couple of weeks ago that allows for closed-door trials and gives the police the right to detain suspects for up to 16 days without charge. No outcry, no protests, no pressroom raids like in 2019. Instead, a deeper, quieter wave of adaptation among Hong Kong residents who are living under the threat of more extensive restrictions.

A friend tells me that half the population supports the new government. The other half does not. They learn to keep quiet or leave, only to get replaced by pro-China citizens. Many just keep their mouth shut and go about their lives. When Britain handed over control of its former colony to Communist-led Beijing, China promised to keep Hong Kong’s relative freedom and way of life unchanged for the next 50 years. Instead, it took much less time than that to change everything.

In a western-style cafe, over Avo toast and an extra strong capp (missing sunny Australia a bit), the waitress tells me that the city has changed since the 2019 protests, the NSL (National Security Law), and the pandemic. There’s a strange climate of fear, she says. I see police officers stopping people on the street, demanding to check their phones. And I am sure it is not their food posts on Instagram they are worried about.

Just like the 1964 song by Simon and Garfunkel “Sound of Silence,” in which the inability of people to communicate with each other is described, a future where interactions become all the more surface-level and indifference seems to grow, people turn to consumerism more than ever before. The number of Instagram influencers in Hong Kong is growing. Over 85% of the total population in Hong Kong uses social media, which equals almost 6.5 million social media users. I see long line-ups at the hip Bakehouse bakery where young influencers line up patiently to get that shot with the famous egg tart. Social media as the new opiate for the masses. I don’t like egg tarts anyway.

Back at my table at the French bistro cafe. This place used to be the old Victoria Prison. One oppressor replaces another. A place of crime turned into an entertainment hub. In one of the former courtrooms, now bar stalls, an old sign reads SILENCE. The irony is not lost on me.

The three girls pack up their things and move on to the next Instagrammable moment. The plates with food untouched in the afternoon sun. I am sure, the wings would taste great with my cocktail. I’ll make sure to take a selfie with it! And keep my mouth shut while I eat.

(Disclaimer: My apologies for any inaccuracies, generalizations, or oversimplifications. I tried to read up on the subject and base my notes mainly on my observations and impressions. Also, please excuse any errors in grammar or spelling. Chat GPT is not accessible here in Hong Kong. I am on my own lol.)

(Addendum: Upon return to Sydney, the draft to this blog had disappeared from my blog site. Coincidence? Good thing I had a copy saved. Enjoy)