The Hong Kong Book Fair returns amidst the pandemic and in the era of the national security law!

 

 Not a protest march but a small part of the large crowd

of people in line to get into the Hong Kong Book Fair!

 

One of the books on sale at this year's book fair

 

Also on sale at this year's Hong Kong Book Fair
 

After one year's absence due to the pandemic, the Hong Kong Book Fair is back.  There officially still is a pandemic on but you'd not think that if you saw the crowds at the event. Actually, I did think it when I was stuck yesterday -- which I figured would be a less busy day at the fair than this weekend -- in a massive line for the event outside the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre -- but I stayed calm by telling myself that: (a) I have been fully vaccinated (with the gold standard BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine); and (b) outdoor transmission is far less likely than indoor transmission.

 

Inside, there still were lots of people but more physical distance in between.  I am not sure how truly effective the social distancing arrangements implemented there would be if there were people in the crowd carrying the coronavirus though -- with the way things were designed seeming more geared towards getting people to jump through metaphorical hoops than anything else -- but with just one local transmitted case in Hong Kong in the past 40 days, I hoped that I'd be safe enough.  Something else that did help to assure me that I was physically safe: Everyone I saw at the book fair had masks on, and properly too (as in, they didn't have their noses sticking out over their masks).     

 

Speaking of security: this was the first Hong Kong Book Fair being held post the coming into being of China's security law for Hong Kong.  So quite a number of booksellers and fair visitors were more fearful than they would have been in previous years.  Still amidst reports of self-censorship having taken place, I was gratified to find a range of tomes available for sale still, including at the University of Hong Kong (HKU) Press booth (whose offerings included ones in English and Traditional Chinese by Johannes Chan, the human rights lawyer who, in an alternate universe, would have been the HKU's pro-vice chancellor, and also Leo Goodstadt's A City Mismanaged: Hong Kong's Struggle for Survival (whose publication date of May 2018 shows that things weren't exactly peachy keen in Hong Kong even before the extradition bill protests broke out in 2019).

 

I've also seen reports of people being horrified that books by Xi Jinping and touting Communist Chinese thoughts were on sale at the book fair -- but, if truth be told, it's not like pro-Beijing tomes weren't on sale at the book fair in previous years.  Also, similar to what I found in previous years, pro-Beijing -- or even outright Beijing-owned companies -- like Chung Hwa, Joint Publishing and the Commercial Press had large stalls in physically prominent positions -- but if you ventured into the heart and depths of the book fair, you'd find stalls with offerings were more interesting, diverse and even geared towards more liberal-minded readers.

 

Among the books on sale at this year's Hong Kong Book Fair that caught my eye for different reasons: books by Joshua Wong and George Orwell (a bilingual copy of whose Animal Farm, illustrated by VA Wong Sir, I came away with) long with Chris Patten, Boris Johnson (on Winston Churchill), Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, Donald Trump and Rudy Giulliani (the sight of which got me laughing!).  I also was gratified to spot copies of Timothy Snyder's On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century  on sale at more than one stall, and even a number of books about the extradition bill protests -- whose sellers remain determined not to bow to censorship pressures and prosecution fears.

 

Actually, what really was novel -- and sad to see, as far as I was concerned -- at the book fair this year was the (Chinese language) books about migration to the United Kingdom.  Along with the many reports (a number complete with heartbreaking photos) of people leaving Hong Kong in droves, they drive home the fact that an exodus out of this beautiful but so troubled city really is in progress.   

 

For sheer weirdness though, I think the stall selling stuff like those ridiculous Hong Kong police teddy bears that first made their appearance on National Security Education Day this past April 15th is hard to beat.  Belonging to the Royal Hong Kong Supplier shop owned by a former policeman, it has items that look like propaganda for the current police force but also ones that play on the nostalgia some people have for the British colonial days.  In all honesty, I think many fair visitors reacted with incredulity, more than anything, upon encountering this stall -- and were more inclined to take photos of the items on sale (I imagine for evidence and to show their friends) than to actually buy them!   

 

And yes, there are stalls at the book fair whose main offerings aren't books.  One I did like seeing was Shui Pan Workshop's, which is devoted to sketches of scenes and personalities from iconic Hong Kong movies.  The first year that I saw them at the book fair, their main focus appeared to be John Woo's A Better Tomorrow.  Since then, they have expanded to include illustrations from A Chinese Ghost Story and now also are venturing into the realm of Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain (all three of which, incidentally, also are the subjects of books published by HKU Press that are on sale at the HKU Press book fair booth)!