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Brian Sze-hang Kwok, Fading Neon Lights: An Archive of Hong Kong’s Visual Culture, City University of Hong Kong Press, 2023. 202 pgs.

Brian Sze-hang Kwok may not know the difference between a trotting horse and a galloping one (p. 57), but there is no doubt that much of visual Hong Kong is being eroded. This is evidenced by the loss of neon signs without something else taking their place, even if in transfigured formats that may involve neither glitter nor glamour. For someone like this reviewer, who came to and then lived in Hong Kong for two decades, Hong Kong’s loss of its mojo is observable reality. Fading Neon Lights thus represents the efforts of many who are working hard to remind us of Hong Kong’s former glories. It is not lost on this reviewer that many of the author’s (and his team’s) conversation efforts are reduced to documentation (see the despairing plea on p. 171). This speaks to the difficulties facing those who value Hong Kong when resisting others who are too eager to take pause and ponder their ambitious changes.

The subtitle of the book categorises it as an archive. Indeed, the pictures included are stunningly beautiful. However, as the author is at pains to point out, the signs have been taken out of context, reduced to just print on a page, without the occasional flicker or deliberate animation, and without the framing mise-en-scène and noises. One also does not experience of being bathed in these unworldly colours when standing under the signs. The author’s team did what they could with photographing the signs during different hours of the day and at various angles. The result is a book that gives the reader a very good sense of what is missed when the signs have gone, precisely because what one experiences through the pages are the pangs for things that have passed. One thing I felt missing in the book was an index of all the signs featured in the volume. If each photograph could be given an indexical (say, Figure x.y, where x numerates the sign, and y any of the number of photos taken at different angles or times), then a full index could provide basic information like exact street location, dimensions, owner, type (as given in Chapter 4), date established, and date dismantled (where applicable). This would make the volume a true archive, and provide framework for others who may seek to enrich it. Perhaps it is not too late for the authors to consider an online platform within such a framework. That way, design students and others eager to help can pitch in by submitting photos and filling out a simple form. It would be costly, and may require more grants. Lord Wilson’s Heritage Trust, perhaps, in addition to Arts Development Council and other grant bodies?

The book is a wealth of information on neon signs in Hong Kong. Building from a basic ethnographic methodology, the study is augmented with a concise but comprehensive history of how neon came to Hong Kong and prospered there. The wisdom of the author’s team shines through in the taxonomy of signs so precisely articulated in Chapter 4. Chapters 2 and 5 together play the role of contextualising the signs for the reader who may not be able to experience these signs themselves in the actual environment. Chapter 6 offers a human perspective through a set of interviews that included the author’s own experience. It is nostalgic and poignant. All these chapters, crowd around and support what I believe is the thesis chapter 3. Ironically, chapter 3 is the thinnest of all the chapters, but it is the one where the author cries out explicitly to conserve Hong Kong, and to do so by saving the visuals of this city so embellished by the neon signs. To be fair, I do not think there is much more one can write as the author has done in chapter 3. If it has come to a point where it is necessary to tell others what is important and special about Hong Kong, then it seems fair to say that the writing is on the wall, and there are those who are whitewashing the warnings.

Clearly then, perhaps not everybody gets it. The book has offered very little in terms of such other possible perspectives. The only angle treated was that of public safety (pp. 42-49), which justified the removal of unsafe signs, and the costly maintenance of those in use. The consequence of which is that when maintenance become a liability, owners opt for dismantling. In between these lines, one should see that the same economic forces that brought the signs into being are also making them disappear. These economic forces are the aggregate of many things, including policies as well as the social system that put certain types of politicians in power. When mediocrity holds sway with no viable checks and balances, it is hard to expect vibrancy and vitality. I am not sure if I sense begrudging tones interwoven with beseeching ones, or if I am only resonating to what I perceive to be there. Beyond that, I feel one must not be concerned only with the people who view the signs from a comfortable distance. The amount of light pollution the signs bring is damaging not only to other co-inhabitants of the city (birds, bats, etc), but also to the people whose windows are laid to waste. I cannot imagine how blinding and irritating it must be for those who are compelled to live adjacent to some of the larger signs. The volume might find a better sense of balance by including those views. Would it be possible to search out and interview some of these people, and how they felt when signs were taken off their lives. They may not be a majority, but sufferings are not justified by nostalgias of the majority.

There is so much in this handy book that would sit well not only on the coffee table, but also in any library that hopes to showcase art and that hopes to enshrine how glorious Hong Kong was when it was the envy of the world.

How to cite: Wee, Lian-Hee. “Pangs of Things That Have Passed—Brian Sze-hang Kwok’s Fading Neon Lights: An Archive of Hong Kong’s Visual Culture.” Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, 27 Jun. 2023, chajournal.blog/2023/06/27/neon.

Lian-Hee Wee is a phonologist whose libertarian political views are founded on a naïve sense of empirical rationalism that believes rights and responsibilities apply even to predator-prey relationships. Animals also demonstrate how without government they have formed sustainable societies, contrary to doctrines driven by human incarnations of Animal Farm’s Squealer. Often frustrated by the ineffability of feelings, Lian-Hee is more readily intoxicated by affection than by alcohol, although when offered both or either, he might flee. He makes the guqin and xiao he plays. [Lian-Hee Wee in Cha.]

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