A row over the Hong Kong Heritage Museum is a window on China
Museums are yet another front for Communist Party control
The Hong Kong Heritage Museum is beguiling and eclectic. Visitors wander through a colonial-era reading room and a full-sized replica of an opera house made of bamboo. An exhibition on Bruce Lee features quotes of the actor urging people to “be formless, shapeless, like water”—a slogan that roused pro-democracy protesters in 2019. It may be a hotch-potch collection, but it represents “our collective memory”, says Kacey Wong, a Hong Kong-born artist who has exhibited there: “So it’s very important.”
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This article appeared in the Culture section of the print edition under the headline “So long, Hong Kong”
Culture February 3rd 2024
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