Hong Kong identity grows little by little

When another mansion near central Hong Kong seemed doomed to be torn down this spring to make room for a skyscraper, public protests forced the government to buy the building and announce plans to convert it into a museum.

When a sewerage project turned up 2,000-year-old pottery on the Kowloon Peninsula this spring, crowds showed up at the local history museum to see a quickly arranged exhibit of the fairly mundane artifacts.

"I was shocked that people were so interested," said Louis Ng (吳志華), the executive secretary of the government's Antiquities and Monuments Office.

Hong Kong's population has grown tenfold since the end of World War II. One popular theory of why local pride is emerging now is that many assumed in the years leading up to handover that they would have to move when the People's Liberation Army arrived.

Now they have concluded that it is safe to remain and take a longer-term interest in their homes.

generational split

Paul Yip (葉國華), a 61-year-old former adviser to Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa (董建華), perceives a generational split. Old age is claiming an earlier, pro-China generation that either emigrated from the mainland or grew up with the anti-colonial sentiments that remained common here at least into the 1960s.

Yet for all the growing enthusiasm for the past, there remains an appreciation of the benefits of the present. Vendors in the Wanchai Market were divided one recent morning about the building's future.

Old hands wanted to save it. Younger workers spoke enthusiastically of the government's promise to build a new, air-conditioned market next door if the current one was torn down.

Yeung wanted it both ways.

"The government should move us," he said, "but keep this building for the tourists."