About a year ago, as I was slowly adjusting to my classes at HKU, I first heard of the saying, “Hong Kong is a cultural desert,” and it baffled me.
As a foreigner, I couldn’t understand what it meant because my impression is that where there’s tourism, there’s culture. But once I imagined myself as a local, it was easy to disengage with the conventional art world, get absorbed in cosmopolitan living, and start seeing the everyday as an exercise of economic power.
Hong Kong was probably not immune to the rise of postmodernism in the 1960s, seeing the canonization of modernism’s avant-garde revolution transforming towards a bourgeois culture (Storey, 2012). Nevertheless, my brief travels and friends who I met in Hong Kong were able to change my perspective in seeing the city as a cultural place.
A spectrum of the hyperreal – from Disneyland to Chernobyl
Hong Kong Disneyland lists attractions and entertainment separately on their website. The Festival of the Lion King is my favourite entertainment show during my last visit because it reminded me how delightful it is to watch singing performances live. As an audience member, I appreciate watching or hearing something I can’t do, which during a musical would mean the amazing theatre talent of cast members.
On the other hand, the Jungle River Cruise was narrated by a “trusty skipper”. In my opinion, this ride had the highest potential to educate visitors because of the diverse nature tours that exist outside Disneyland, yet the park staff decided to highlight dramatic script and reflect the True-Life Adventures series which it was based on. Riders of the Jungle Cruise today aren’t likely to be familiar with the films, unless the writers are attempting to relate to an audience that would be in their early 50s.
Jean Baudrillard, one of the most influential postmodern theorists, used Disneyland as an example of hyperrealism based on his philosophy that simulation generates models of something real despite not really existing. Together with the example of Chernobyl tours in the abandoned city of Pripyat, images of its stained town marker and iconic yellow Ferris wheel standing erect after 34 years of non-use show signs of decay that refuse to be forgotten.
The Pripyat amusement park never opened to visitors, yet the photos portray a kind of wistfulness for something that never happened. A passive viewer might wonder what is real and what is referential? To which Baudrillard answers, “When the real is no longer what it used to be, nostalgia assumes its full meaning.” Juxtaposed with Hong Kong, Chernobyl is a literal example of a cultural desert that experienced complete evacuation in 1986, and yet many cultural works such as documentaries, fiction films, and video games have referenced the nuclear energy disaster, giving Chernobyl and the ghost town of Pripyat some relevance in people’s consciousness all over the world.
This contrast between light (Disneyland) and dark (Chernobyl) tourism signifies the purpose of hyperreality which is to conceal certain facts by presenting the imaginary. However, hyperrealism does not suggest that people cannot distinguish fiction from reality. In fact, some artists may argue that as an art genre, hyperrealism is an illustration of superb skill rather than an attempt of a new form of hyper-expression that intentionally blurs the line between art and reality (Lansroth, 2015). Howard Becker (2008) might call this the process of art worlds turning to a craft orientation, differentiating ‘academic’ art from ‘commercial art’ in terms of the requirements that an artist subordinates himself to.
Reflections on my creative legacy
Since the only way I know to express myself is through words, my art world is the literary world ‘complete with appropriate ideologies, aesthetics, and forms of social organization’ (Becker, 2008). The craft of writing, much like art as Becker describes it turning into craft, also transforms to what is called academic or creative writing, while the other to what is called commercial or technical writing.
Looking at these photographs, I realize how fortunate I am to develop cultural understanding and knowledge about events that are outside my lived experiences. When I think about the function of craft in culture, I remember a few of my English teachers in my youth:
Mrs. De los Angeles (d) who asked me to read out my first written essay in fifth grade
Mr. San Diego who taught me how to read, write & copyedit the news for the school paper
Mr. Paglicawan who selected two of my poems as finalists in the high school poetry contest
I was trained to become friendly with classical literature, although I don’t consider myself a well-read creative writer. I was trained to read financial reports and write marketing briefs, although I don’t consider myself an excellent business writer. Doing this reflective exercise has made me more conscious about my perceptions regarding arts, craft, and culture as well as how much of it is real and hyperreal.
On selecting Disneyland for my photo essay
Even though I am critical of its underlying capitalist themes, Disneyland has opened a lot of opportunities for talented performers to excel as artists. Because Disney is a global company, it is constantly under pressure to promote multiculturalism in its attractions and shows, which is why I couldn’t help but feel some ownership after recognizing the faces of cast members who look just like me.
Hong Kong may not be my “Home Kong” yet, but it has been home to many of my people, and I acknowledge that culture is found in places where lived experiences are shared and legacies are created.
References
Becker, H. S. (2008). Art worlds: updated and expanded. University of California Press.
Lansroth, B. (2015, December 10). Hyperrealism in Art - Ultimately, Is It Art or Skill? Retrieved from https://www.widewalls.ch/.
Sampson, H. (2019, November 13). Dark tourism, explained: Why visitors flock to sites of tragedy. The Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/.
Storey, J. (2012). Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: An Introduction. Routledge.