Journal writing 2

Second Journal issue based writing:

Conservation of heritage vs. Economic development

Conservation of heritage started when the Queen Pier ended its service. Now, Wan Chai Market is being concerned from the demolition, because of the proposal of the Central (IV) reclamation. Therefore, the local action and other organizations are fighting against the government, urging the government to save the citizen’s memory of the old buildings. However, government emphasizes the importance of the economic development. Therefore, what is the balance between conservation of heritage and the economic development? What are the criteria to determine whether the old building should be conserved?

Heritages are the buildings which have special style of construction (mostly traditional style), last for a long span, have a historical meaning, and bring citizen’s memory back. Whether the buildings should be included in the conservation is not determined simply by the long span or history of the buildings, but it should consider the trends of the development at that time. In the 21^st century, the fishing boats and villages can’t be conserved since our living style is changing, from engaging in fishing or farming to commerce or financial sectors. To continue and meet our future development, the fishing and farming facilities have to demolish. Similarly, the conservation of heritage should not only consider the willingness of the citizen, but also consider the development of next generations, in order to live under well-developed infrastructure.

Also, conservation of the heritage should consider the meaningfulness and the usage of the buildings. In fact, some of the heritages have no usage after a particular period, such as Queen Pier. In early 90s, Queen Pier was constructed for ceremonial activities, such as inviting the Queen Mary to depart at the pier. It has no definite uses after the handover of Hong Kong in 1997. It is meaningless to protect the pier. Meanwhile, the traffic congestion is getting more serious in Central. To enhance the traffic flow, the demolition of Queen Pier is raised. Therefore, the determination of rescuing the Queen Pier or not is decided by the usage of the pier. Although in citizen’s mind, the historical meaning from heritages is quite subjective and different, preserving architecture should follow the criterion, which is not to influence the stability of the development in the society since harmonious society can motivate the discussion between the policy-makers and the citizen around the city.

Nevertheless, not all the heritages have no usage and have no clues to rescue, such as Wan Chai Market, which the construction is designed as Streamline. This market maintains the citizen’s memory about the Japanese occupation. Japanese at that time used the market for storage of the foods and giving aid for the soldiers, fighting against any attackers. Wan Chai Market, looking like a floating ship, are now treated as another place for elderly to rest. From the interview of ATV News, most of interviewers told that they are willing to protect the kinds of buildings since there are fewer and fewer buildings have this kind of architectures. Since the urgency of traffic jam is not serious in Wan Chai and the construction of the highway can be built between the buildings, the Streamline Market can be preserved if the government doesn’t take action to destroy the heritage. Therefore, the next criterion is to find out clues, which can preserve old buildings directly, before the demolition comes.

Overall, I think that there are different criteria we can follow in order to approach the balance of the economic development and the conservation of heritage, like consideration of the historical meaning and the usage of the buildings, the trend of the economic development and finding any solutions before the demolition. Although getting the full-support for taking an action is rarely possible, there are different keys to neutralize different opinions, through the discussion between the government and the public and collecting the view from the consultation, I guess one day we gather our views and establish well-developed infrastructures for the next generation.

Journal writing

First issue-based journal writing

Do servants need to increase salaries?

        Recently, Donald Tsang has proposed a plan of increasing about 5% of salaries of civil servants because of the great economic environment and the surplus of government budget. However, this move explores different demonstrations, especially the workers who participate in public services sector. Then, what are the problems when the government planed to increase the civil workers’ salaries? What should the government do at this moment?

        First, I think that government has not considered the response of the public towards the plan. The main reason is lack of conversation to the public. In fact, to most of the policies, government will consult public’s point of view before the policy is established. However, when the government discusses about the salaries, there is gap between the public and the government. It seems that the government is not willing to disclose anything during the salaries’ investigation. So, when the plan is passed by Legislative Council, some people may think that the government always considers the civil workers first. The communication gap between the public and the government hence becomes greater and greater.

        Besides lack of communication, the second reason is that the government treats the servants differently from the workers who work in public sectors. This leads unfairness to the public sectors. Since the government has reduced the fund or resources on the public sectors last few years, the organizations feel stress on allocating the resources and promoting the incentive of workers. As a result, the workers believe that government is able to raise the fund to the public sectors after increasing the salaries. The demonstrations hence occur recently to ask for more resources.

        To cure with the problems, I think that the government at this moment should satisfy what they want as the demonstrations will affect the steadiness of different services. It is no contribution to the society. The government should also consider the ability of public sector to operate. With limited resources, public sectors will reduce the expenditure and provide poor quality of the service. Hence, there is no choice to stop the demonstration except accepting their demands, although this suggestion increases the burden of the government budget. If the government has worries about the burden, it can communicate with different sectors to draw the conclusion of the arrangement of resource allocation.

In the future, the government should enhance the transparency of any public-interest policies to the public. Although the government have revealed the investigation about the salaries each year, it is also essential to involve different sizes of companies in order to get the balance. This can allow the government controlling and handling the situation easier after the policy is introduced by the government. Also, the government should equalize the benefit of the civil servant and the public sectors. This can prevent arguments with different sectors

I hope that the government reflects on the planning of salaries and establishes policies with intelligence in the future