Hong Kong Cashes In On ‘97 Return To Chinese Rule Souvenir Peddlers Gear Up As ‘Ultimate Consumer Event’ Approaches

Snacks, drinks and steaming bowls of noodles are not the only things offered passengers on the train speeding from Canton to the Hong Kong border these days.

As Hong Kong quickly approaches a return to Chinese rule, tourists can also snap up souvenirs commemorating the July 1, 1997, handover. Attendants cruising the train aisles now hawk specially minted coins and other mementos.

T-shirts, watches, crystal statues, cigarettes and even a pornographic magazine called “Hong Kong 97” are just some of the products entrepreneurs are marketing ahead of the change of sovereignty.

After all, the event is - as the Hong Kong Standard newspaper has described it - “the ultimate, once-in-a-lifetime consumer event.”

Communist China, which views the handover as the historic reversal of Western colonial subjugation, has publicly frowned on 1997 gimickery. To discourage commercialization, it even abolished trademarks that use “1997.”

Nonetheless, a Chinese company took out full-page ads in Hong Kong newspapers touting a brand of cigarettes called “1997.” Ten deluxe packs appropriately cost 199.7 Chinese yuan, or about $24.

Another company reportedly plans to market a 1997 beer.

Tens of thousands of tourists are expected to converge on Hong Kong when China regains control of the British colony at midnight between June 30 and July 1, 1997.

“I’m hoping to make a lot of money,” said Juliet Risdon, a Briton whose firm specializes in mementos and gifts.

Souvenir firm representatives are touring hotels offering “everything from T-shirts and caps to brooches and tie pins,” said Elizabeth Irons, who handles publicity for the Furama hotel.

“There’s going to be memorabilia until it’s coming out of our ears,” she said.

Already there are calendars that count down the days to the handover and the array of T-shirts with messages such as “The Great Chinese Take-Away.”

Hotels stand to reap a bonanza. A suite at the Furama overlooking Hong Kong’s panoramic harbor will cost $756 a night, with a four-night minimum stay. Even so, Irons said, the hotel’s 517 rooms are booked solid.

The Ocean Palace Restaurant and Nightclub in Kowloon serves a “97-Return Banquet,” with specially titled dishes such as “Happy Handover Day” and “One Country, Two Systems” - the arrangement whereby Hong Kong will stay capitalist under Communist Chinese sovereignty.

Said Yeelina Chu, the restaurant’s deputy managing director: “1997 is such an important day. We wanted to do something spectacular.”