Hong Kong’s new culture minister must get her priorities right

Rosanna Law Shuk-pui, the city’s new secretary for culture, sports and tourism, is enjoying quite the warm welcome. Even wearing a red jacket to a Legislative Council meeting to introduce the Blueprint for Arts and Culture and Creative Industries Development three days into her new job was enough to get her compliments.

This perhaps reflects the lawmakers’ frustrations with Law’s predecessor more than anything. Seeing a new face was enough to get lawmakers’ hopes up.

But Law’s honeymoon period was short-lived. The blueprint has not been well-received, though it must be said it was not her doing. There has been disappointment with its lack of content, especially on the strategy front. It did not cover much that has not been said before, and it did not reveal any bold or innovative initiatives either.

One lawmaker was especially critical. Adrian Pedro Ho King-hong took issue with the use of Hong Kong Coliseum, which is notorious for being hard to secure. Ho cited examples of how many times local artists have been rejected to put on their concerts there. While Ho is wrong to assume the coliseum was not in use during non-concert days, he is not wrong in pointing out that the application and approval process could be more transparent.

This latter point is something that fellow lawmaker Ma Fung-kwok also mentioned. A veteran lawmaker and representative of the sector, Ma said he believes the approval process could be sped up with higher level of transparency to address the problem with public perception.

With the ambitious aim for Hong Kong to become an arts and cultural hub and regional centre of mega-events, it is imperative that these venue-related issues are addressed. The bigger problem with our city’s venues is an old one: the lack of them.