After 25 years of teas and canapes, dimsum and scones, swinging salon doors and old Chinese waiters, the iconic China Tee Club is closing down to make room for a 4-storey Abercrombie & Fitch store in the old Pedder Building. It pains me to think about how A&F will strip out the charming tiled floors, slowly rotating ceiling fans, rustic brass taps and the rest of its colonial 19th-century Hong Kong ambiance. They're also kicking out another Hong Kong icon Shanghai Tang as well as On Pedder to make room for its fat (American) arse. One can just hope that rather than gutting out the place they'd work sympathetically around the old woodwork and classic interiors.
But, A&F are not the ones to blame. It is the real fuel behind giants like these, LV Gucci Coach etc (just throw in any brand name) - China money. It's a love-hate relationship, this one, between us here in former British-colonised Hong Kong, and those in the big country up north aka Mainland China. The number of cash-rich millionaires that flock to Hong Kong with their stacks of notes and eagerness to blindly sweep up branded goods like Chinese people at a buffet will only go up and up and up. Businesses in Hong Kong love their money. We NEED their money. But this rocket fuel for big international chains and oligopolies are wiping out what little remains of a colourful and interesting sino-colonial history that made this territory stand out from so many other big cities.But then again perhaps mine is the last generation that will reminisce over something so 'old school'. When the we-don't-use-textbooks-anymore-we-use-ipads-generation takes over they won't even know what they're missing.
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