Advertisement

Flying Sand | A real ‘sharing economy’ – not Airbnb and Uber – is the remedy for a city that has lost its way

The so-called sharing economy is, at its core, a fraud. Take a trip to your nearest public library for a taste of the real thing and a reminder of what Hong Kong direly needs

Reading Time:3 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
0
Hong Kong Central Library in Causeway Bay. Public libraries are the real ‘sharing economy’. Photo: Felix Wong

I think it would be fair to say – without fear of contradiction – that Hong Kong is a confused, messed up and pretty unhappy place these days.

If our shared metropolis were a dear friend you bumped into after not seeing them for a while, their well-being would almost certainly cause you concern. Their mood and deportment would prey on your mind and might even lead you to suggest therapy of some kind.

Political strife, generational division and financial uncertainty consume the public discourse, and that’s just at home. The wider horizons, even if we fail to see them due to domestic navel-gazing, present us with what appears to be the choice of a slow death by climate calamity or a quick and nasty nuclear nightmare.

Ocean Park closes Halloween attraction after man found dead inside haunted house

And just when you thought the constant stream of signals that all was not well couldn’t get any more depressing, up pops the bizarrely macabre news that an all too real corpse has been discovered in the haunted house “attraction” at the Ocean Park theme park.

Tourists on Victoria Peak in Hong Kong. Political strife, generational division and financial uncertainty are consuming public discourse in the city. Photo: EPA
Tourists on Victoria Peak in Hong Kong. Political strife, generational division and financial uncertainty are consuming public discourse in the city. Photo: EPA

Straight out of the “you couldn’t make it up” box of stories, it was – as metaphors go for a city that has lost its way, is increasingly possessed by the ghosts of its past and fearful of what lies ahead – as stark, and dark, as they come.

But all is not lost. Could it be that a dying attraction of a very different kind is the tiny light at the end of the tunnel?

At first glance, recent criticism of the government by the Ombudsman, Connie Lau Yin-hing, over the ludicrous fact that officials have been spending wads of our hard-earned money on hundreds of thousands of books and other reading materials for public libraries and then dumping them in our jam-packed landfills, seems yet another reason to reach for the nearest bottle of mind-numbing liquid.

Advertisement
Select Voice
Choose your listening speed
Get through articles 2-3x faster
1.1x
220 WPM
Slow
Normal
Fast
1.1x