Here at Howzit-HongKong.com, we’ve been moerse (very) impressed at the effort put in by the South African Consulate in Hong Kong in promoting our country’s honour of hosting the world for the FIFA Football World Cup in June 2010.
Local Hong Kong businesses have joined the party and added their own events to the groundswell in anticipation of the world’s biggest sports event back home.
It is more than clear that world-wide, South Africa, and in a wider scale… Africa, is currently the flavour of the month.
I regularly visit the new K11 Mall near my apartment and have been impressed at the levels the promotions department of Hong Kong (and the world’s) only Art Mall have gone to in promoting Africa and South Africa. In late March, K11 hosted a South African dance troupe to kick-off their Africa focus. All over the Mall, exhibits and fotographs featuring Africa can be seen while their frontline promotions staff are all kitted out in African-print uniforms.
Last week, I popped in to the Jason’s Grocery Store at K11 for my weekly provisions and took the following pictures:
The K11 frontline staff are dressed in African-style uniforms:
Well done K11 Mall! You are playing your part in focussing local attention on South Africa in 2010!
This kind off African/South African-promotional initiative is but one of the un-recorded spin-offs of the FIFA 2010 World Cup that often go un-noticed. Howzit-HongKong.com can only hope that local events like this will in the future help to welcome more Hong Kongers, Mainland Chinese and other Asians to South Africa.
That, for us, will be the REAL benefit and legacy of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.
Ke Nako. It’s our time.
Mike Jansen
K11 is a high-rise building located in Hanoi Road, Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon developed by New World Developments. Underground it can be accessed via the pedestrian walkway from the Tsim Sha Tsui MTR towards Tsim Sha Tsui East MTR. The building features a 340 000 square-foot, 6-storey shopping centre beneath the Hyatt Regency Hong Kong.
