West Kowloon Cultural District and Hong Kong culture policy

When the government has chosen the first prize winning entry to the concept plan competition foe the West Kowloon Cultural District, submitted by a team led by Norman Foster and Partners of the UK, as the basic of the masterplan, however, a
cultural district is useless and wasting money right now.

Firstly, Hong Kong cultural foundation is poor, even we have had some of museum in Hong Kong already. It is because Hong Kong traditional Education does not encourage student to try to be an artist. There are many kind of art education in Hong Kong, such as music course, dancing course or visual art course among the Hong Kong Secondary, Primary and kindergarten schools, but the students are suppressed by their homework and exam. They usually don’t have much time to develop their artwork. A lot of parents are also encourage their child to earn money rather than to develop their art.

The government does not know much culture also. Government does not have their policy and eyesight. They approach art and culture as a money tree. When West Kowloon Cultural District is going to build, government tag this project as “an
important strategic investment of the HKSAR Government to support the development of arts and culture in Hong Kong.” But the truth is they are doing a lot of thing to destroy Hong Kong local culture. For example, they decided to rebuild the
Wai Chai Market, where have strongly Bauhaus style.

Another example is Choi Yuen Village Literature Musuem . As China governement decided to build high speed railway in Hong Kong, (West Kowloon Culture District is the terminal in Hong Kong.) they destroy the agriculture in Choi
Yuen Village. As Hong Kong whiter and artist supported the resident in the village, they set up the literature museum and curate an exhibition and a music concert located in the village. This exhibition and the concert encouraged a lot of people to
support the village. It was great to experience of feeling culture in a new way in Hong Kong countryside, a lot different kind of works, such as performance, visual art, drama and concert, this event could be the Hong Kong agriculture educational
starting point, however, the government did not treasure it, they still let the brute railway worker invaded the village. Although high speed railway will not benefit the most of the Hong Kong people , “development” is the most important for them,
property develops can massive build on the railway station derivatively. Definitely but sadly, it is collusion between the government and the haves.

The ideal is renew the Hong Kong old building as new culture block including The Wai Chai Old Market, rather than giving the lands to property develops to build commercial block. If it could be success, the building could keep their old style, mass
of capital could be save also. Meanwhile, government had better develop new culture and education policy, let’s raise up people the eyesight level of the culture, as if the culture foundation is rich enough, artist, curator, whiter and all of the Hong
Kong people will really benefit, the Hong Kong art scenes could be healthy grown.