Hong Kong goes back to basics
With many abandoning long-held habits and luxuries, people begin to focus on what really matters
With the pandemic claiming more victims and spreading fear around the globe, things once considered important no longer seem so. People are giving up embellishments and vanities and are turning their attention toward the basics: food, shelter and security.
Queenie Gong, a high-power insurance company executive and fashionista, would blow HK$30,000 ($3,871) a month on designer clothes. She would know if sparkle was still the rage, if fuchsia minis and pink fedora punk tops were in and where the hemline index currently sat, until the world became a “little more real”.
“The pandemic transformed me,” said Gong. “I was shocked to find how vulnerable life is in front of the disease. The luxuries we put on give us only ostensible glamor, satisfying our vanity. But when disease comes our way, glamor becomes nothing.”
She has cut luxury spending a full two-thirds and said these days, she shops for value. “My appetite for fashion has dulled. Now I love ‘ basic, natural and sustainable’, and things that are timeless and comfortable”, said Gong. “I’ve really changed a lot.”
Gong’s elevated fashion sense has been replaced by anxiety; the virus remains constantly on her mind. “I have to acknowledge there’re too many uncertainties this time around. Nobody knows when this will end. The heartfelt insecurity urges me to reflect on my ways of consumption. ‘Is there any point in being pretentious, if I don’t have much disposable income?’, I ask myself,” lamented Gong.
The pandemic awakened Linus Yip, another high-power executive, to the pleasure of grocery shopping, deciding it was not right for the family maid to take all the risk. Yip, chief strategist at First Shanghai Securities, posted a picture of himself on WeChat — Tencent’s instant messaging app — holding a bag bulging with meat and vegetables.
“It was my first time, as far as I remember, to buy food at the wet market alone. It was fun. I didn’t even know grocery shopping was an important part of life, until now. Thank you, my family, for what you’ve done.”
Yip’s life was all about work. His wife and their maid did all the household chores. “The only thing I needed to take care of was to be focused on my work.
“Before, I was well-fed. Now, I feed the family,” laughed Yip, grateful for the free time to “return to his family”.
“The feeling is amazing. The knowledge that I can make contributions to the family other than earning money is so reassuring.”
Candy Tang, a successful entrepreneur and mother of two, has hunkered down at home for months since her projects came to a stop, but found new value in a deeper bond with her “little angels”.
“I bustled around all day, before the pandemic,” said Tang. “The pandemic upends and quiets my life, but on the other hand, it has made me realize what I’d missed of my kids’ growing up.”
“Why do people have to stay at home?” she asked her elder son Kosmo, not expecting an articulate answer from the 5-year-old. “Because bats have a virus. Pigs eat bats’ feces and get sick. Then, we eat pigs. We get sick,” he said.
“His answer wowed me,” recalled Tang. “I never expected he learned so much from school, could remember it, and articulate it that way. He has grown so fast.”
Taking her family to Repulse Bay, Tang said that Kosmo waded into the water to gather floating refuse, “lecturing” about how garbage damaged sea life and the planet.
“I was amazed by my precious son’s sensibility and decisiveness. I was touched and motivated to join him,” said Tang. “As an adult, we may do nothing because we think that one person’s effort won’t make any difference to the environment. But the child’s world is black and white. It’s pure and simple.”
The child’s world is like a mirror, reflecting how simple life can be, said Tang, in retrospect. “The pandemic is unprecedented. At the same time, it’s my first time to realize that life is about doing subtraction … subtracting the complexity, ambiguity and negativities.”
The pandemic, as with most crises, will leave indelible marks. Many of the changes will be permanent, experts have said. Gong’s shifting attitude toward fashion reflects possible
changes in how the future world will do business.
Fashion is the spirit of the times, said Katalin Medvedev, an international dress and fashion scholar from the University of Georgia.
“Fashion mirrors what’s going on,” she said. “People now need comfort the most … anything that is simple, predictable and consoling.
“Hard times have always changed people’s attitudes to fashion. This was the case during the Great Depression when consumption slowed down, or during World War II when people started to make do and mend. In the last recession, people started to buy safe things, timeless and durable pieces,” reflected Medvedev.
Charles Benight, a psychology professor at the University of Colorado specializing on how people recover from disasters, said COVID-19 brings the kind of uncertainty and ambiguity that feeds fear and anxiety. Human resilience comes from the senses — we see, smell, hear and feel — to gauge what is happening, said Benight.
“Until we figure out a long-term way to manage the crisis, some people will be more on edge and more vigilant. Their behavior will change, concentrating on keeping one’s family and oneself safe.”
Business closures affecting millions, sudden loss of a job or income and the trauma of knowing the virus still rages haunt people who know not when, or if, life will return to “normal”.
Chen Zhansheng, associate professor of psychology at the University of Hong Kong, said varied definitions of “self” exist in different contexts — as an individual, as a family member,
and when networking under social circumstances.
“But with the social distancing, the third ‘self’ becomes less relevant. Then, we naturally dedicate more time and energy to the first two selves,” explained Chen.
In reallocating attention to one’s inner self and family, one will ask, “who am I”, and “what role do I play”, said Chen, adding that these are the most basic life questions.
Amid crises, instinct prompts one to find shelter to restore a sense of safety and emotional balance, noted Chen.
“That’s a built-in coping mechanism,” he said. “At this point, we tend to identify ourselves and our family as the safest shelters, or ‘nest’ or ‘den’ as we call it. It offers a break space for us to get away from the threatening situation.”
Saying he would meditate on life before COVID-19, Yip said: “It’s the pandemic that reinforced my perception that life is simple and doesn’t have to be opulent. The pandemic brings some basics in life back to the surface. It motivates me to get rid of some complexities, to collect my thoughts and to embrace simplicity.”
Lifestyle changes also manifest in travel patterns.
While traveling abroad is inaccessible due to COVID-related restrictions, Hong Kong people have rolled with it, and are returning to nature. Hiking trails, fishing villages and beaches on the outskirts have received more local visitors during weekends.
“Outdoor exercise has been part of daily routine for many locals. It’s just that in the time of lockdown
and work-from-home, people’s need for an outdoor break gets stronger,” said Samuel Wong, project officer of Designing Hong Kong. Shared public spaces are a vital part of the city fabric. “As a gathering spot for family and friends, public areas offer not only a physical space but a welcome sense of togetherness and community.” The getaway is essential, Wong noted, especially in such times.
In Hong Kong, people are almost certain to demand more public spaces, reckoned Wong. Many residential buildings have rooftop areas, which can become gathering places. In the Netherlands, he said, rooftops of multiple residential buildings are linked to form large recreation areas open to the community.
“In some old districts in Hong Kong, like Kowloon City, buildings are in close proximity and low-rise, which makes it feasible to construct an expansive rooftop across the buildings,” said Wong.
“We need to look for chances to provide more breathing spaces in this highly dense city to meet the growing demand for outdoor spaces,” said Hendrik Tieben, an associate professor of architecture at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
People are realizing that the joys of tourism do not have to derive from long-haul or cross-continental travel, he said, suggesting pedestrianizing secondary roads that are not frequently used by vehicles, for at least part of the day or widening sidewalks.
“There will be an attitude toward other forms of simple pleasures. People will likely turn to appreciate places close by, locally,” he said.