The Ping Shek Estate has long been an attraction for Instagram users who want to capture snapshots of the sky framed on all four sides by the high-rise residential towers of the apartment complex. Last Friday, hundreds of crimson Chinese flags appeared on the white balconies of two 28-storey buildings of the complex. Each Chinese flag was framed by two Hong Kong flags, depicting the city’s emblem: a white bauhinia blossom with a star on each petal. A pro-Beijing association has distributed the flags at various housing projects, according to a Hong Kong state newspaper, Ta Kung Pao. The particularly abundant sea of flags in Ping Sec soon became the talk of the town. People traveled to Ping Shek, home to about 30,000 people living in nearly 4,500 state-sponsored apartments, to take pictures of the spectacle, and residents of the industrial neighborhood 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 almost a decade ago. She said that her 8-year-old son was learning about the tradition in the classroom and that she wanted to photograph him to honor the occasion. Lam Yu, a 62-year-old hardware vendor, visited the flags. He rubbed his neck and turned his smartphone to the sky to take pictures. For him, the tradition meant the end of being a second-class citizen in his hometown, he said, adding that it was difficult to see people from Britain take famous positions in public administration, while more educated Hong Kong locals were being violated. Initially worried about how the Communist Party’s policies would affect the city’s prospects, Mr Lam said, he was eventually carried away by China’s economic rise. “There is no way you can 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 faith in Beijing. Some residents hung sheets that dissolved the flag design. Elsie Leung, a 63-year-old retired security guard, lamented that her building on a neighboring square could not be decorated with flags because residents had complained. Although several acquaintances from her church had emigrated, she said, she felt positive about the city’s future. However, Ms Leung felt uncomfortable with the crackdown on freedoms, especially after the closure of independent news agencies and the arrest of Cardinal Joseph Zen under the National Security Act. The cardinal was the leader of a legal aid organization that provided support to people arrested for protesting. “If you say the wrong thing, you could be arrested,” he said. Police said early Sunday morning that they were investigating reports of counterfeiting or theft of flags by Ping Sec and another band nearby. No arrests have been made, but all flags had been removed by Monday morning.
