Even though Hong Kong is by no means in the same “anomic breakdown” as places like Greece, the over-worked, over-shopped, over-crowded youth of the city seem to have much in common with the unemployed, underpaid youth of an emptying Athens. Faced with a foreclosed future, many youth have decided to simply leave: emigration from Hong Kong is now increasing at the fastest rate since the mass-emigration of the pre-handover period of the early 1990s.[ii] Despite relatively low unemployment (four to five percent) due to a still-ascendant East Asia, there are more subtle signs of the crisis: demand for mental health services has more than doubled in the past decade, it is commonplace now to hear people speaking about the cultural “death” of Hong Kong, and what used to be routine protests against government developments and the mainland government quickly snowball to increasingly uncontrollable proportions. The recent student strike and (re)occupation of the Central district (and now Admiralty, Mong Kok, Causeway Bay and several other key nodes in the city) are only the latest in a series of such events.
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