60s / 90s Dissolving People

Hong Kong City Hall was founded in 1960 and was designed to shape HK as a community and a new society blended with East and West traditions.  City Hall is very important as it symbolizes the style of old colonialism and the transition from Chinese traditional style to an international style.  Underlying the social changes was Hong Kong’s pivotal economic shift away from regional exports to manufacture for Western markets which is a commercial and idealogical transformation.  Local life-styles also began to diverge from that of Taiwan or the Communist Mainland.  The population found itself for the first time, alienated from China and eventually contributed to the idea of “Citizenship" and “Community".  The idea was generally accepted by the most population in the late 1960s, and a sense of belonging was gradually built up.  For example, cantonese broadcasting, nine years free education and Clean Hong Kong Campaign, etc. All these help to promote the idea of ‘community’ and sense of belonging.  However, this kind of concepts and images are casted by the government, while the government also portrayed official representation of Hong Kong and of Hong Kong people.  The external presentations of the city of economically independency and western-style exportation were now absorbed into the self-perception and daily lives of Hong Kong people.  For examples, while the government portrayed images of smart, efficient, diligent female secretaries to promote exports or attract overseas investment, local factory workers dreamed of office jobs and more privileged young women adopted sharp modern fashions with a crispness of design enough to avoid any suggestion of the bar girl.  [editing]