It has been ingrained in us as part of our common sense that we cannot eat or drink in libraries. However, you can, in fact, eat sandwiches or cold food and drink coffee in the National Library of Wales (the main hall); or, if you don’t mind a walk, in Hugh Owen Library. It is more than a matter of hygiene. Nor do I believe that the Welsh cleaning team has got the ultimate ingredient to clean all the dirt they encounter. So, what makes these two sets of rules, the Hong Kong one and that in Aberystwyth, incompatible, or even contradictory, with one another?
The difference, I think, lies in trust and manners. I am writing this because of love, not of hatred. That is also how Edward Said treats literary criticism—instead of finding errors in a text, we critique out of love. I have no grudge with Hong Kong Libraries; but the difference has been fascinating me. I must try to get an interpretation, if not an answer.
Perhaps, the Authority in Hong Kong doesn’t trust its people. That is it. Some squeeze sandwiches’ wrappings into the gaps between seats on the bus; others spill coffee over in a mall without cleaning it (or at least trying to do so) before they leave. So, when a general respect for the public infrastructure is already hard to earn, how can the Authority trust its people to care about the local libraries? How can we be sure that when a person dampens a book, he would ask the librarian for help?
I am not being biased here surely there may be some people like that in Wales. But the rules reveal it all. Sadly, Hong Kong is still far from trusting its own fellow citizens who have contributed to its shaping.