Hong Kong Resident A：
” I have grown up here for 25 years and lived here for 26 years. I have seen many changes here first hand. The State Theatre went from a movie theater to a non-movie theater, and then to a ping pong and video game arcade.
The State Theater has been out of commission for years. It’s been out of commission for years. The mall to the left has small stores, rather cluttered, abandoned, unmaintained, and feels like it still has rats.
In the 1950s (the building has been there for 70 years), I wasn’t even born yet. It was a movie theater, just for watching movies.
The movie theater has two staircases and you have to walk up the stairs to pick up your tickets. Now I don’t care about the theater, it’s small now. If the theater was built, families would watch movies during the day and have feelings, not just movies, theaters, but in North Point. Now there’s no movie theater in North Point. There were two all-night theaters, one right next to the other. Now most of them have moved away.
On reflection, the development of Hong Kong has made movie theaters less valuable, and perhaps it would be more cost-effective to sell the building [perhaps the New World development?] But the National Theater is also a building, and that building could be bought by a real estate developer. The mall has bread, stalls selling lollipops and the building. There’s not much inside the theater, just movies.”
Hong Kong Resident B:
” Also at that time I was looking at some more old photos and North Point was clearly called the Seven Sisters at the time and it just went back to that name. It’s like the trams all had this sign that marked it as the Seven Sisters. It’s funny how these are called the Seven Sisters when you’re reading. I’m going to cherish these now, it’s very simple.
In my previous job, I was in Tai On Lok public housing estate in Tai Lei King Wan. Every day was very happy because I could go to Tai On Lok for food and that was it. So what makes me happiest now is North Point. I’ve never experienced North Point in Little Shanghai. I have some impression of Shanghai.
North Point was seven or eight years in the past at that point in time, but it wasn’t known as Little Hokie yet. Little Hokie would have come into existence after the 1980s. Still, the situation is complicated, and the East End is still not very well traveled, so hopefully the traffic congestion will be solved in the future.”
Hong Kong Resident C:
” I’m imagining a more vintage oldest kind of theater, and then a lot of baroque, thick curtains, a kind of English feel, no, the Hong Kong look, very much in line with what I imagine Hong Kong to be, crowded.
It seems to me that at the end of such times he must be broken. My imagination is that he can stay there, but the worse the better. Yes, it doesn’t have to be dilapidated, but it has to retain one of his most original architectural styles. If he’s all decked out in a modernized Juwon, he’s no longer a Hwangdoo in his own right, so it’s better to let him rot.
I started out with some of those points because I didn’t know what he actually looked like, but at least going in it would make me feel like I was back at that stage when he was at his most prosperous.”
Hong Kong Resident D:
” When I chose this theater, I felt that it was more in line with my impression of Hong Kong, that is, in my impression of the 1960s and 1970s, Hong Kong should be more westernized and more lively, with bright lights. Then I saw that this theater is now in a state of decline, so I felt that I wanted to rebuild it and go back to the glorious Western Garden of the 60’s and 70’s. That’s why I chose this theater.
I would think that it is not quite the same as the cultural heritage I imagined, that is, it has not been protected, and it is directly in a state of decay and dilapidation. Even though the government has tried to rebuild it, or there are various activities, such as going back to that era and having movie tickets, it has not reached that level of splendor, that is, the idea of valuing and preserving the legacy has not been put into practice very well.
It was between 1960 and 1970, when Hong Kong was supposed to be doing relatively well, and then especially with its characteristic, the arched ceiling, I wanted to emphasize its characteristics, and then with the bright lights, the sense of ambience that I have just mentioned.”
the present in the future is the past 