When all Hong Kong must fetch up at the Chanel end of Canton Road at exactly the same time BY LAW to attend the New Year's Parade.
Lonely Planet once stupidly suggested this event was great, an unnecessarily hyperbolic word which can only suggest the editor accepted a bung.
It is the most tedious horrible celebration of naked advertising that anyone could dream up. A plastics factory output of branded floats trundle by for what feels like decades. At the end of it your brain is saturated by Cathay Pacific and the Jockey Club.
In between the floats, trek the dance troupes, glamour girls and marching bands. To their credit, they endeavour to whip us into a frenzy of hoo-hah, I suppose to wrestle the whole charade into a carnival-type atmosphere, but it is a doomed attempt.
We know, and they know, that corporate sponsorship is far too important to mess with, so beneath the thin skim we can only see fake joy, organised celebration, oiled progress, and professional marketing.
But I enjoyed the event better this year. Mostly because half way through we escaped the crowd control police to find a rice burger and chips. I also amused the juvenile part of my brain by photographing a promotional chocolate milkshake and a pair of sex shoes.
Now, back to the parade with some dragons and a giant fish (the latter probably advertising a restaurant).
1 comment:
And once you've seen one New Year's parade, you've seen them all. It's the same with the Carnival parade here in town. I don't go see it anymore either, although there rests no death penalty on it if I don't. Forced happiness is such an awful thing to have to endure. It's there in all cultures.
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