Review of a Musical: Love Your Neighbor or Not (《愛里？不理？》)

 

Love Your Neighbor or Not (《愛里？不理？》) is a musical produced by the Hong Kong Federation of Youth Groups, aiming at raising people, especially youth people’s awareness about the ever diminishing relationship between neighbors. The story is set in the “Oi Lei House”（愛里居）, an old housing estate which is about to be demolished by the government. Most of the residents support the rehabilitation of the old estate as they can move to a new estate with better facilities. In the meantime, a group of enthusiastic secondary students, who are residents there, feel pity to have their home being demolished, and decide to launch an event to encourage the residents to sign a petition for objecting the rehabilitation of “Oi Lei House”. Throughout holding such event, the residents’ disinterest towards their actions has made them puzzled. Meanwhile, a property developer feels discontent towards these students’ actions. He decides to impose pressure on them, and one of the students is beaten up by gangsters as a result, which has aroused the students’ concern about the sparse relationship between neighbors nowadays.

This musical is successful in showing some factors driving the ever diminishing relationship between neighbors to a large extent. It can be reflected from some of the scenes. First of all, there is a scene showing the time while the students fail to find a neighbor of them to sign a petition for them, a friend of them tell them that all residents are concentrating on watching TV and “no one is going to show up”. It has reflected the social phenomenon regarding people’s disinterest about the affairs happening in their neighborhood, as they rather “watch TV” instead of caring about the students’ actions of concerning the community.

Secondly, there is a scene showing the time when some students are making effort in encouraging residents to sign, their parents come out and object their actions, urging them to leave immediately and saying that “Children should not care about such matters”. It has reflected the truth that some parents in Hong Kong are unwilling to let their children express their opinion towards social issues, which has suppressed their freedom of speech as well as their enthusiasm towards social issues.

Thirdly, after a student is beaten up by gangsters, other students rush home and report this to their parents, so as to seek a helping hand from them. However, none of the parents are willing to help him, and even think that he deserves such consequence as “young people should not be so nosy”, while some of them are afraid about the consequence of helping him, such as being revenged after reporting it to the police. The social phenomenon of people’s reluctance in helping each other, and their selfishness in “maintaining their own benefits” is clearly shown. Such scene has clearly illustrated how such value retained in modern people’s mind contributes to the sparse relationship between neighbors nowadays.

The story then develops with Miss Lee, the students’ teacher, recalling the memory about the good old days in which neighbors in “Oi Lei House” (i.e. Miss Lee is a former resident there) were enthusiastic in helping each other and were tied closely with each other, while telling students about such memories makes them more determined to build a good relationship with neighbors afterwards. It reflects the importance of getting someone to arouse other people’s awareness towards something. As Halbwaches argued about “social frameworks of memory” that, “Provided that individuals perform their essential duties, they are free to live and to think as it pleases them, to form their opinions as they wish. Society seems to stop at the threshold of interior life. But it well knows that even then it leaves them alone only in appearance” (Halbwaches, 1992). It means that people’s hardhearted attitude towards different things may only be true on their surface. Each of us may actually get more positive feeling about particular issues. If there’s anyone showing up and arouse their awareness towards it, their “passion” and “enthusiasm” may appear eventually. Such fact could be applied on the issue of “neighborhood”. On the surface, many people may be hardhearted towards maintaining a good relationship with their neighbors. However, if anyone comes out and emphasizes the significance of “neighborhood” and the importance of maintaining a good relationship with their neighbors, it is likely that people’s enthusiasm in doing so can be activated. Hopefully, audiences’ “passion” in improving their relationship with neighbors could be enhanced after watching this musical.

References:

Halbwachs, M. (Ed and translated by Coser L.A.) On Collective Memory. United States: The University of Chicago Press, 1992. Print. 50, 51.

Image obtained from:
<http://www.facebook.com/NEIGHBOURHOODFirst>

MAN Ho-Fai Ronald