Crowds of Hong Kongers queued in sweltering heat on Monday to pay tribute to Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II, some expressing nostalgia for the city’s colonial past.
On Monday, a public holiday in Hong Kong, a line of people hundreds of metres long snaked through the business district to the British consulate where a condolence book had been opened for residents to sign.
The wait was three to four hours long but the crowds kept coming despite the 32 degree Celsius (90 Fahrenheit) heat and an air pollution warning. Hong Kong was a British colony for over 150 years and while the financial hub was returned to China in 1997, the past is engraved into its landscape, from street names and the ubiquity of English to the common law legal system.
Emily Ng, 30, was in the queue clutching a portrait she painted of Elizabeth II.
Her grandmother, she said, collected stamps with the queen’s image and “used to tell me a lot of stories about the royal family”. Ng said she had written to the queen repeatedly over the years and received replies from Buckingham Palace.
“I hence felt very connected to the royal family and even after the handover I would like to maintain that connection.—AFP
