Dear Editor,
I am writing to voice my opinions on whether my school, St. Watson’s College, should be pulled down as part of the redevelopment of Choi Hung. Pulling down a school for redevelopment of an area is actually not a good idea as the value of the building is far more treasurable than other buildings like shopping malls and houses.
Seemingly, pulling down the school is good for the development of the area, but the precious value of the building is something that should never be overlooked. Some people may say that the school should be pulled down because there is a need to get more space for economic development of that seemingly poor area. Yet, a school is a special place. This place provides education and has been the growing environment of uncountable alumni and teenagers. They grow up in this school, make friends in this school, learn in this school and experience ups and downs in this school. The building has carried numerous unforgettable and precious memories since the day it was established. It is always considered that economic development is vital to an area, but we should not undermine the importance of the collective memories a building brings. We can demolish a shopping mall, we can pull down a car park or even a house, but not a school. We can demolish everything but not anything that carries collective memories.
People may argue that collective memories are just something intangible and useless, as after the area is redeveloped, a better living and working environment will be provided, so people should sacrifice and tolerate. Nevertheless, these people have underestimated the power of collective memories. Just like in the demolishment of the Queen Pier, seas of citizens gathered at the place to protest violently just to stop the government in pulling down the pier which carried their treasurable memories in the past few decades. Although the activists failed at the end, the image of the government has since then been tarnished seriously. Therefore, collective memories are not useless and unimportant. Depressed economy can be rebuilt, but a vanished collective memory could be a permanent loss. Please cherish our collective memories.
What’s more, many people may think the school is very old, have the risk of collapse and may be dangerous to the people inside. Yet, there are many other ways to improve the building structure, for example, rehabilitation with constant maintenance which produces less waste and costs less at the meantime.
Also, our school is located at the outskirt of Choi Hung, pulling it down or not will not affect the redevelopment plan so much. So, why do not we keep the school which is cherished by many people? Meanwhile, our school has a long history of nearly 80 years, so it has become a landmark of the area. For that reason, if our school is pulled down, what has been lost is not only a building, but also a symbol of the whole place.
Furthermore, if our school is really going to be pulled down, all our students and teachers will need to shift to a temporary location to have lessons. According to the redevelopment plan of the area, our school will move from Choi Hung to the Northern District in Hong Kong! That would be a great ‘disaster’ to many of our students and teachers as over 70% of them live in the nearby Choi Hung. The temporary school will be very far away from Choi Hung, so students and teachers will need to look for a totally new route to school and the high transportation costs may even cause financial burden to them, not to mention the blow to our learning incentive.
Considering its irreplaceable values, it is thus necessary and meaningful to save our school. It is simply so cruel of the developers, or even the government, to focus on money and economic development only. Therefore, please, save our collective memories, save St. Watson’s College!
Yours faithfully,
Chris Wong
Chris Wong