Slow Down Tourists...(2/8)

Have recently read a market report and surprisingly the report pinpoints that France is the number one destination in the world for tourists. Amazing, but I doubt how true this could be...Well, tourists in Paris, though, can truely and easily be located now in town. As a sacrosanct of the Parisians, many offices and restaurants are closed in August, and the working class can go enjoy their session of the 5-week annual leave somewhere outside the city. The Provence, Normandy or nearby countries like Italy, Spain and Germany are the usual place to celebrate their off-time during the season. Only on July 1, there were around a million voyagers departing from airports and train stations of Paris, and this summer carnival (or what I see the "hollowout" effect) continues in August. Most of my counterparts, fair organisers and companies freeze their business from debut August for maybe two weeks, and it is so obvious in the town that the meeting places or busy train stops you used to encounter tons of local people become so quiet now...except the presence of tourists.

This is the season of tourists in Paris. You will see more tourists than Parisians on the street. If you want to talk to someone on the road, try your English first. This is funny but real. The next question I am asking is what attracts people to this lovely city, and there are more reasons than what you can think of. Yes, this is a lovely place to travel, if you would like to choose a city to go. No matter the Paris Plage, the shinning Tour Eiffel, or the press conference of Mona Lisa, the city possesses everything you want and some more you desire. Comparatively, do we still talk about the City of Life for Hong Kong? What kind of life would that be I am not sure. It is a sort of blurring life which we find our eyesight wider and wider, but then we cannot even see one single thing clearly. What is so special for Hong Kong now? When you travel to more and more cities, you will feel more frustrated about the direction and the way Hong Kong is turning to be the so-called precious moment for tourists. I am not denying its attraction or demonstration of a commercial city but we are not unique anymore. Disneyland does not belong to the East actually. Traditional buildings and features in the city are demolished one by one. We replace our landscape with tall and taller buildings. We warm up our city with the internal air conditioning system. We turn the colour of our blue sky. We compose music of ringtone on the street. When you want to know more about the history of Hong Kong, you find nowhere but perhaps only the yet to mention "History" Museum in Tsim Sha Tsui. Of course, we still have that same photo with a classic browny junk on the centre of the Victoria Harbour. This is a pity.

Being a tourist is like an investigator or an explorer somewhere in the outer space. The world is small but the world is big. When you find out more about this world, you may want to slow down a bit your footstep of where you are marching to...