1 October 2023

It was reported that Hong Kong began to revive the night economy. Since COVID, people in Hong Kong shifted the lifestyle and went home in the evening earlier than, say, five years before. While there were two or three dinner rounds in restaurants before, restaurateurs are now happy with a full house with only one round. Night markets are still there, but stalls close early, dismantling the few items tabled. There were times when stall owner number outran visitors’.

 

After SARS in 2003, we complained about the lack of tourists. When tourists came back to pack the shops with trolley luggage on Canton Road, or jammed the MTR platforms to race for compartment seats, we then complained about the overcrowded areas. When the tourists did not come anymore, or they just came for day trips and spent less, we suffered further. There is no end to our “misery”, it seems, when our economy depends much on the tourist industry. With a few years of promotion of one-hour living circle in the Greater Bay Area, many Hongkongers prefer to spend time across the border.  Now we complain about why they don’t spend much in Hong Kong.

 

Ask anyone with remote knowledge of Hong Kong, they will tell you that Hong Kong is one of the cities with top cost of living, because of housing issues and everyday expenditures. Services seem to be the core industries we offer; that is, intangible labours and ideas, rather than tangible products, are sold. The danger of such an economy would be the domino effects it brings about. When one area suffers, the rest will soon be affected. If we depend much on one area, or import of a certain material or item, once it ceased to supply, the whole economy would suffer. Take the electricity supplies of the September episode as an example.

 

No doubt, our city has  co-dependent relationships with many other cities, and at times being led by the nose. But it will be wrong to put all eggs in one basket in terms of economy. To safeguard economic security, not only do we need to familiarize ourselves with the legal systems, as well as the international relationship with countries concerned, but we also need to develop a healthy relationship with them, so that negative economic impacts would not affect us too much should undesirable situations arise.

 

Hong Kong healthy nightlife and night markets were once a ray on the pearl of the orient, let it shine again.

 

Anson Yang