Hong Kong Airport: Better Than Disneyland
E-shopping. Cell phones. You love all technology in any form, and what you
are glossing over is that this stuff is homogenizing the world. It's turning
Hong Kong into some sort of New York City, with its highly refined versions of
such Western paraphernalia as Nine West shoe stores everywhere. Of course
people in Hong Kong will shop on online. Why? Because it's there. And now Hong
Kong is even getting a Disneyland, the last thing it needs, in the year 2005.
So in five years, we'll be able to ask ourselves if we'd rather travel to
Orlando or Hong Kong ... and if we'd be able to tell the difference once we got
there. Oh wait, Florida is the place with the palm trees, right? I can
understand why Hong Kong feels as if it needs a shot of something to revive its
flagging tourism industry. But really, the problem is not that the city lacks a
Magic Kingdom. This is simply not a city that screams "vacation destination."
Try instead: "Money!" "More money!" "How about going up in a skyscraper and
making some money today?" Apparently the Chinese government's decision a few
months ago to import the movie Mulan unleashed a mighty appetite for all
things Disney. So we're going to get another of those infamous theme parks on
Lantau Island--near the brand-new Hong Kong Airport. While the last thing any
place in the world needs is a Disneyland, I think there are special
circumstances here that make the incursion even more distasteful. Putting
Disneyland on Lantau Island can only distract us from the airport itself, which
seems to me to be the perfect iteration of a modern-day theme park, with its
brilliantly modern design that effortlessly propels travelers to their gates,
their luggage, a brand-new rail link to downtown Hong Kong.
The airport already offers everything that Disney is promising: excellent
public restrooms. Theme restaurants that serve dim sum. A lack of litter.
Harrowing rides (on airplanes). It even has entertainment--in the form of
trendy shopping. (The airport houses an outpost of the it's-cool-to-be-Chinese
Shanghai Tang department store with its trademark teddy bears--which are far
cuter than any Disney character that I've come across while eating themed fast
food.) In fact, if I were running the Bureau of Tourism for the Chinese
government, I would bill the Hong Kong airport as a destination in itself.
