The View | What did Hong Kong do to become so uncool?

The main game is blame in Hong Kong these days. It is always someone else’s fault. Our problems are much more basic than that and it has nothing to do with fault. It is because Hong Kong is just not cool anymore.

We are like a great new theme restaurant that is full for months, making pots of money, and selecting lucky diners from the lines at the door. Then one day the bookings dry up, the punters walk past, the crowds no longer gather, because a new eatery has just opened up down the road. It is more cool than we are; we’ve lost the mojo; and we’re just not new and hip anymore.

Like heat, cool is relative. Ever since China opened up, Hong Kong was seen as cool from the mainland. It was the place to have property, to shop, to keep your money. Nowadays, mainlanders can scour the world for cool. London is a cool place for property, for the kids to go to uni, and to see a show in the original Soho. Great Britain has the Queen – she’s cool. Europe has culture and extraordinary cathedrals and the coolest of cool chic. How cool is the Casino Square in Monaco? Hanging out in the bistros of SoHo in New York is too cool. Hong Kong’s SoHo is okay but Beijing has its own SOHO in pretty cool Sanlitun. Hong Kong’s Disney is okay – but it’s now much cooler to go to Shanghai’s sparkling new one. Mainlanders are just as likely to holiday in Asia and Australia and keep their money in Panama as they are in Hong Kong.

Cool is not made, it just happens. K-Pop and Psy are cool, with J-pop being left behind (I’m told). Animes are still cool; Yao Ming and David Beckham are cool. John Terry (perhaps a better football player) is not cool. Hello Kitty was cool but is now less cool. Ordinary and old is not cool; quaint is cool.

We have helped ourselves become uncool because in trying to pander to modernism and the mainland customer, we have lost our authenticity, our quaintness, our uniqueness, and our Hongkongness. We have trams, which are cool, but everyone has an MTR.