[-empyre-] Week 3 - Towards a drift in values? (part 1/3)

[Maurice Benayoun]

Thanks, Tim and Renate for inviting me to contribute to this
prestigious circle of artists and scholars. In a time of global
distancing, online discussion seems to be the most appropriate way of
debating at the global distancing era.

Like my predecessors did, I will say something about the
socio-geo-political context. I presently live for more than 7 years in
Hong Kong. It is a very special situation. Everybody is aware of the
position of HK on the political tectonics map. Hong Kong is at the
same time in and out of the rising superpower of China (one country/2
systems paradigm), and with a past colonial status that still affects
the Hong Kong mindset.
Last year, for 8 months, we have been experiencing major political
unrest terribly handled by the Chief executive: Carrie Lam. All the
city has been closed. Not really the airport, but all the education
systems, public transports, and even the shopping malls are well known
to play a big role in HK society. To this situation, we have to add
most of the roads clogged by protests and blockades. It is a bit
difficult to understand from outside how the “be water my friend”
(Bruce Lee) tactics lead to an erratic distribution of actions giving
an apparent discontinuity to the situation, alternating chaos with
some eerie peaceful moments.

The result is that we were actually confined at home. 2 months after,
a totally different motive had a similar effect. Hong Kong is a small
city (7.5 Millions) with a common border with mainland China. CityU
campus where I live is 30mn from Shenzhen by subway and many of our
students (up to 90% in MFA) are from Mainland China. We have been
aware of the virus very early. Here things are perceived differently
from most western countries. When I arrived 7 years ago, it was very
common to see people wearing facemasks when they have the flu or any
contagious diseases. At CityU, we had already hand sanitizer provided
next to the elevators. Many friends used gel all day long, often
before eating. This is the consequence of the painful experience of
the SARS in 2003, when a doctor from Mainland China contaminated, by
ricochet, 1755 people, killing 299 generated a high level of sanitary
awareness.

So, there is no mandatory confinement in Hong Kong. But besides some
expats suffering from the I-am-the-king-of-the-world syndrome,
everybody wears face masks, people practice social distancing in
public space (excepted in IKEA store during the weekend) and most
people avoid large meetings, as the official limit is set to 4. This
cultural background may explain the very low death toll in HK (4,
0.5/million) compared to the average of western countries (between
50-500/million).

coming 2-3/3