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Heritage conservation:
Youth awaken to local identity

Chu Hoi-dick, 29, from the InMedia, an online platform for activists, said the preservation of both the Star Ferry pier and the Queen¡¦s Pier was not about nostalgia for the colonial period. ¡§The real purpose is to let the next generation know about their past from the spatial setting of the city so that they can reflect on the present and create their future.¡¨

Mr Chu criticised that the government¡¦s current consultation system was inherited from the colonial governance model. ¡§Hong Kong people still do not have their grips on policy decision concerning public spaces,¡¨ he said.

Lee Yiu-kee of the Hong Kong Federation of Students, who is an organiser of the campaign to preserve the Queen¡¦s Pier, said the heritage conservation movement was not anti-development.

Mr Lee said local culture was ¡§the prerequisite of our economy¡¨. Hong Kong would be marginalised if the government continued to destroy the local culture, a unique hybrid of the East and West.

¡§Who would come to Hong Kong if it is just a city of skyscrapers?¡¨ the student activist asked. ¡§The government lacks foresight.¡¨

Ada Wong Ying-kay, chairwoman of the Wan Chai District Council, who was among the activists and youths on the day of the Queen¡¦s Pier protest, said it was ¡§very encouraging¡¨ to see more young people get involved in cultural preservation.

Ms Wong, who has been active in promoting community empowerment, observed that the young generation started to realise their Hong Kong identity.
Local people had been suffering from an identity crisis ¡V finding themselves neither Chinese nor British ¡V during the colonial period, when the education was suppressive in order to facilitate governance, she said.

At the same time, many Hong Kong people were immigrants or refugees from the mainland during the 1950s and 1960s. They considered the city as their shelter. And many people left Hong Kong before the return to Chinese rule in 1997 for the fear of communism. ¡§There was no sense of belonging,¡¨ said Ms Wong, who is a British-trained lawyer.

Ms Wong said the consciousness among the younger generation became more visible after the July 1 anti-government march in 2003.

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Young people demand to have a say in urban planning.