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STATE OF THE ARTS

on the backs of four seated lions. Through the building, and its palm-lined concert hall, passed many of the great artistes of the day including musicians, actors and dancers. Pavlova was one; the famous female impersonator of Beijing opera, Mei Lan-fang another, as well as Dame Clara Butt, and the inspiring Spanish Flamenco dancer, L'Argentina. Great authors and playwrights like Joseph Conrad, George Bernard Shaw (a friend and admirer of Sir Robert Ho Tung, comprador par excellence), Noel Coward and Somerset Maugham all visited the Colony, but little of their talent rubbed off on Hong Kong; rather Mr Maugham put a number of high-placed noses out of joint with a novel about the amours of a certain colonial secretary. Little wonder that the literati found little favour in Hong Kong in those early years.

Nor, curiously, did the media of the day do much to kindle an interest in the arts. Though the English language press could trace its origins to the early years of the last century, beginning in Canton and moving to Hong Kong shortly after, there was little interest among the merchant princes of the day in the arts, unless it was to be seen among well coiffed and tail-coated celebrities attending a musical soirée. The Chinese press was a much later starter, partly due to the problems of setting and composing Chinese characters by hand and partly to the limited readership. The national reform movement and the spreading of republican sentiments among students gave it a boost in the 1880s. By 1895 there were 19 Chinese newspapers publishing; three years later the number had quadrupled. But the interest was almost wholly political – and national politics at that – and there was little if anything to say about subjects artistic and cultural.

The 280 000 Chinese who made Hong Kong and Kowloon their home at that time were left blissfully unaware through the columns of their press that the arts even existed. And besides the City Hall was not the place to which any but the very few educated locals repaired. Literacy was then the privilege of the minority, with Hong Kong boasting little more than 80 schools offering subsidised education to about 5 300 pupils, backed by a large number of unsupervised vernacular primary schools. Indeed, as late as 1913, the Governor, Sir Henry May declared the state of education to be ‘chaotic' - just slightly better than the arts.

Ballet and Dancing

The City Hall, built by public subscription in 1869 on land donated by the government, was thus a venue for Hong Kong's upper crust, not for the masses. It contained a museum, library, ballroom, supper room, theatre and a hall. To be sure, the theatre named Royal was not the first. Many years earlier, a matshed Theatre Royal was erected for perform- ances and since 1844 there had been an Amateur Dramatic Society; a similar group per- formed in Macau in earlier years for which George Chinnery painted the scenery and occasionally acted, Mrs Malaprop being one of his minor triumphs. The City Hall survived until 1934 when the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank, its neighbour, required additional space to erect its new headquarters. As some of its directors had subscribed to the old City Hall, there was little argument over priorities, and the gracious old building succumbed to become reclamation fodder.

Just shortly before this two ladies named Violet Capell and Daisy O'Keefe sought to popularise ballet and dancing in the colony and regularly staged shows at the Theatre Royal and at the King's and Queen's theatres. The young ladies of Violet Capell's classes included Chinese, Eurasians, Portuguese as well as expatriates. Though not the first dancing school to be formed, it reached out to all sectors of the community, albeit a wealthy and educated minority of girls fortunate enough to gain places at church or government schools, where English was taught and a Western outlook on life encouraged.

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