Then & Now | The fate of Hong Kong’s Jumbo floating restaurant recalls that of liner the Queen Elizabeth, which caught fire in Victoria Harbour and was broken up for scrap
- Converted from luxury passenger ship the Queen Elizabeth, Seawise University was to become a floating tertiary institution in Hong Kong until it caught fire
- Its hull later starred in a James Bond film, before being finally cut up for scrap; what little remained unsalvageable was later buried under reclamation
Heritage is a selective enthusiasm. Different individuals choose what to warmly remember – or conveniently forget; aspects of the past can easily become emotionally comforting “projection and transference” therapeutic exercises for other present-day concerns. Conflicting, contradictory collages of (mostly sensory) recollections vary wildly; none are inherently “wrong.”
Glitter and gilding are always easier to pass off as gold when viewed from a safe distance. Best not to look too closely at the foundations or back-of-house – and certainly not the unlovely kitchen barges, which sank at their moorings a few days before the main vessel departed.
Jumbo’s 1970s heyday epitomises this conundrum. Back then, much like Aberdeen’s floating behemoth, Hong Kong retained intact every conceivable Oriental cliché and stereotype, all amplified by amateur-level ham acting. Those times merit little nostalgia, particularly when contrasted with today’s vastly superior “patriot-ruled” city.
Back then, police were off the leash; corruption was off the graph; pollution was off the scale, and senior officials were cloth-eared duffers, blithely unresponsive to the public interest they allegedly served. And all were – ultimately – fully owned subsidiaries of a faraway colonial power.
In short, it was an “international, cosmopolitan”, irony-free export-processing/money-laundering zone, where poverty-stricken squatters huddled on grossly overcrowded, typhoon-swept rooftops while idle-rich bums perched over gold coin-studded toilet seats, attended animal-charity fundraising galas swathed in mink coats, and “let them eat cake!” was sweetly regarded as a genuine answer to real-life problems – a vastly different place, in every respect.