Chinese and Hong Kong flags hung from a residential building in Hong Kong to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the city’s surrender to China. Credit … Kin Cheung / Associated Press
The Ping Shek Estate has long been a magnet for instagrammers eager to take snapshots of the sky framed on all four sides by the tall residential towers of the apartment complex.
Last Friday, hundreds of crimson Chinese flags appeared on the white balconies of two 28-story buildings in the resort. Each Chinese flag was flanked by two Hong Kong flags, which represented the emblem of the city: a white bauhinia flower with a star on each petal.
A pro-Beijing association distributed the flags on several housing projects, according to a Hong Kong state newspaper, Ta Kung Pao. The especially abundant sea of flags at Ping Shek soon became the conversation of the city.
People flocked to Ping Shek, home to about 30,000 residents living in about 4,500 government-subsidized apartments, to take photos of the show, and residents of the industrial district admired the exhibition in the square courtyards.
“It’s rare to see this kind of culture in Hong Kong,” said Grace Zhang, a 35-year-old resident who moved to the city from neighboring Guangdong province in mainland China nearly a decade ago. .
He said his 8-year-old son had been learning about class delivery and wanted to take a picture of him to mark the occasion.
Lam Yu, a 62-year-old mechanical engineering equipment salesman, paid a visit to see the flags. He stretched his neck and tilted his smartphone toward the sky to take pictures.
For him, the transfer meant the end of being a second-class citizen in his own city, he said, adding that it was difficult to see how the British people were gaining prominent positions in the civil service while ignoring the most qualified Hong Kong locals.
Initially apprehensive about how Communist Party policies would affect the city’s prospects, Mr. Lam, was finally blown away by China’s economic rise.
“There is no way to look at China’s development and not feel proud,” he said. “Unless you consider yourself Chinese.”
However, not everyone seemed to appreciate the show of loyalty in Beijing. Some neighbors hung sheets that broke the flag pattern.
Elsie Leung, a 63-year-old retired security guard, lamented that her building on a neighboring block could not be adorned with flags because her residents had complained.
Although several acquaintances from his church had emigrated, he said he felt positive about the future of the city.
Still, Ms. Leung felt uncomfortable with the suppression of liberties, especially after the closure of independent media and the arrest of Cardinal Joseph Zen under the national security law. The cardinal was the leader of a legal aid organization that supported detainees for protesting.
“If you say wrong, you can be arrested,” he said.
Police said Sunday morning that they were investigating reports of disfigured or stolen flags in Ping Shek and another nearby complex. There were no arrests, but by Monday morning all flags had been removed.