Chinese, Hong Kong flags hung from residential building

The 25th anniversary of the handover of the city to China was celebrated by Chinese and Hong Kong flags hanging from a residential building in Hong Kong.

The Ping Shek EstatePing Shek Estate has been a magnet for Instagrammers eager to take snapshots of the sky framed by the apartment complex's soaring residential towers on all four sides. Last Friday, hundreds of crimson Chinese flags appeared on white balconies on two 28-story buildings in the complex. Each Chinese flag was flanked by two Hong Kong flags, depicting the city's emblem: a white bauhinia blossom with a star on each petal. A pro-Beijing association distributed flags across several housing projects, according to a state-owned Hong Kong newspaper, Ta Kung Pao. The particularly abundant sea of flags at Ping Shek soon became the talk of the town.

Grace Zhang, a 35-year-old resident who moved to the city from the neighboring Guangdong province in China's mainland nearly a decade ago, said it was rare to see this kind of culture in Hong Kong. She said that her 8-year-old son had been learning about the handover in class and that she wanted to take a picture of him to mark the occasion. Lam Yu, a 62-year-old salesman of equipment for mechanical engineering, paid a visit to see the flags. He craned his neck and angled his phone toward the sky to take photos. To him, the handover meant an end to being a second-class citizen in his own city, he said, adding that it was hard watching people from Britain get vaunted positions in the civil service while more qualified Hong Kong locals were passed over.

He said there was no way to look at China's development and not feel pride. Some people didn't seem to appreciate the display of fealty to Beijing. Some residents hung bedsheets that broke up the pattern of flags. Elsie Leung, a retired security guard, lamented that her building in a neighboring block could not be decked out with flags because residents there had complained. She said that she felt positive about the city's future, even though several acquaintances from her church had emigrated. Ms. Leung was unhappy with the suppression of freedoms, especially after the closure of independent news outlets and the arrest of Cardinal Joseph Zen under national security law. The legal aid organization that provided support to people arrested for protesting was led by the cardinal. If you say the wrong thing, you could get arrested, she said. The police said early on Sunday morning that they were looking into reports of flags being stolen or defaced from Ping Shek and another complex nearby. All the flags had been taken down by Monday morning, but no arrests have been made.