The international media mourn a floating seafood eatery that most who live in the city have never even been to.
Famous landmarks can be funny things. Ask a New Yorker whether they have stood in line to go up the Empire State Building, an Italian whether they have been anywhere near the Leaning Tower of Pisa − or even a Zuercher who has actually taken the Jungfrau railway to the top of Europe − and you are likely to get the same blank stare.
The Jumbo floating restaurant in Hong Kong, which capsized the Monday in the South China Sea, was kind of the same. But the sinking did captivate the international media, with the BBC calling it iconic, and CNN terming it the world's largest of its kind.
The BBC even went so far as to say that more than 3 million guests had eaten there, including the Queen, Tom Cruise, and Richard Branson, and that it featured in a number of movies, including a James Bond film. But they must have been among the last guests it ever had as it would be very hard to find anyone living in Hong Kong who had ever actually eaten there, pre-or post-pandemic. It was, in hindsight, a veritable tourist trap.
Not Exactly Seaworthy
Importantly, the reporting also accentuates the different perceptions between those outside Hong Kong and residents actually living in the city. After the story broke, the local gossip on social media was that the sinking had been not completely accidental given the restaurant had been carted all the way out to the Paracel Islands between Hainan and Vietnam, where the water depth on the open sea was over 1,000 meters.
Although the company owning it said marine engineers had inspected it and obtained all the necessary approvals for transport, those on social media may be on to something. From the image above, the soon-to-be-sunk seafood restaurant clearly does not look much like an ocean-going vessel.
