Is Hong Kong basically cyberpunk land? Or at least the closet to it in the modern age?
>neon lights and Asian aesthetic, is literally where the aesthetic comes from
>face recognition cameras everywhere and other dystopian stuff
>high tech
Any that went to Hong Kong can attest to this? At least the last one?
It was in the 90s.
That would be shenzhen you dumb shithead.
nope not at all completely wrong
No longer
shenzhen is more cyberpunk going by your greentext
Nope, Hong Kong is a fucking sterile place filled with overworked loud cunts.
This is blatantly wrong.
How is it so? I worked and lived there for 10 years. Granted I didn't rub shoulders with people in Sham Shui Po or Mongkok but it's a ugly landscape of sterile mixed use commercial retail space.
People in HK are generally cunts. I work in finance, they are wretched cunts.
>Mfw degree in economics
>Haven't used it in 3 years
>Don't even remember anything in econ
I'm fucked aren't I? I wouldn't mind some shitty entry job where I just work on excel spreadsheets.
We're all fucked because our jobs are easily replaced by AI, my company is already discussing how to implement chatgpt in our work flows and hinted at performance reviews.
But don't work in HK, the expats remaining here are all part of the old-boys club and enjoying a few more years before retirement. Locals are aggressive cunts and mainlanders are slimy sneaky rats
While you are right about the finance and business most hkers are nice and friendly.
There is only one rule one universal rule and that is to not be an asshole.
Are they really nice though? Their definition of who is nice and who's an asshole is a very thin line. They're like macaques, everything is fine but suddenly they snap into a shitty little tree rat.
Maybe in 1990, but it was a more gritty type, not clean ...like fifth element
China shills keep spamming 'is x shithole in Chynuh cyberpunk'
average asian is a moron who thinks bright colors = sophistication, you are ALL indians
Okay, detroit moron.
Hong Kong was garbage when I visited.
Expensive, polluted, people shove you on the subway.
The place looks like it is stuck in the 80s too.
overexpectation is not a good habit anon
>fearmonger
First time in HK currently. It's obviously not like the 90s or some Wong Kar Wai film anymore, but there are very much still areas that have the same charm and aesthetic. If you are indeed interested in the HK neon, gritty, chaotic aesthetic then I definitely recommend coming ASAP because there's still a little left. Apparently the city is emptier than it was though and people are leaving quickly. Come soon, it's still pretty cool. 90s Hong Kong sounds like a fever dream though, I'm eternally jealous of anyone who got to experience it. Picrel.
>Apparently the city is emptier than it was though and people are leaving quickly.
>over populated city becomes slightly less over populated
could turn out to be a good thing if the shitty decades old buildings get replaced.
yeah but then it wouldn't have the same vibe. hong kong is cool because it's a unique blend of globohomo glitz and then dilapidated apartment blocks that are falling apart. the aesthetic wouldn't be the same without them
Hong Kong has really ugly women. Probably the ugliest of any major city in East Asia.
very true.
Since this thread already exists, I'll go ahead and ask this question here instead of making a new thread:
How's the cooming in Hong Kong?
Ironically, you will never have a cyberpunk life in East Asia. Cyberpunk boasts an oppressive CAPITALIST dystopia where the companies can develop themselves and do not have a care about what happens in the streets, where a weak state usually allows people to run amok in a lot of areas, where chaos basically becomes a ladder.
The reality is, this was an obsolete vision by libertarian writers from the 80s who believed that top companies would only focus on their own profit and the state would basically dismantle itself to the point that it would do shit like privatize police forces, but none of that happened. The state never abandoned any its power and deals heavily with major companies, and on the contrary, started reinforcing itself, especially China.
Hong Kong is no exception to this. The reason why a multitude of neons are part of the cyberpunk aesthetic is precisely because of this freedom of launching your own business. Which used to be true 60,50 years ago since everyone would try to get a fucking booth to sell some shit, but what you see today aren't new owners, but 3rd generation family businesses. But as the living expenses in HK get worse and worse, these signs are getting slowly but surely replaced with big brands. And even then, that brand of "cyberpunk" has never been foreigner-friendly. Most countries follow a protectionist policy of preventing you from just coming in and setting up your own business.
Take up the sights for what they are, Hong Kong is a grimy shitty place to be in where people have to pay NYC-levels rent with Taipei-levels of salaries unless they're in finance. There is no opportunity for you, and crime has basically been reduced to anything the government doesn't actively care about -prostitution, recreational drugs, since they are nothing but outliers.
The closest thing to being an "edgerunner" is to be a digital nomad, which would be an absolute waste of money to do in Hong Kong.
>neon lights and Asian aesthetic, is literally where the aesthetic comes from
The aesthetic comes from small business setting shop in an anarchic way. Most leading economies in East Asia had this powerful economic transition where they completely deregulated their economy in order to allow for the quick blooming of small family businesses. This usually stops when some companies start to become a threat the sovereignty of the state, at which point the state starts cracking down and imposes reglementation on the people. This last part is what cyberpunk writers do not deal with (either because they didn't predict it or because an omnipresent state prevents the setting from existing)
Richer countries in Asia are long done with this and have regained control of their countries, such as Japan, Korea, Taiwan, HK and Singapore. China is undergoing that process ever since Xi came to power, but the sheer size of the enterprise makes it a long and arduous process since some cities are still growing whereas others have accumulated way too much power for the government to just crackdown on (e.g Shanghai). If you're smart about it, you could still catch the train somewhere in SEA ,but these countries will never allow you to easily set up a business if you're a foreigner, and you always run the risk of getting coopted by their authoritarian governments.