How the legacy of beloved Hong Kong comic strip Old Master Q lives on
Alfonso Wong’s beloved comic strip still resonates with generations of Hongkongers nostalgic for a simpler time
Beloved by children, parents, aunties and grandparents alike, this tall, thin, bespectacled and mustachioed gentleman clad in traditional Chinese attire seems to have emerged straight out of the Qing dynasty to observe, under his furrowed brow, the boomtown Hong Kong has become.
Old Master Q (老夫子) is too honest, too trusting, too kind for the city’s dog-eat-dog ways, but one who always gets up and dusts himself off.
By the character’s side are: Big Potato (大番薯), a portly Master Q mini-me; the bookish and reliable Mr Chin (秦先生); the gold-digging Miss Chan (陳小姐), adored by Old Master Q but who ditches him for the first rich guy that comes along; and the wealthy but petty Old Chiu (老趙), who is constantly pranking our hero.
Wong’s array of characters could be harsh judges, cruel even, reflecting what many saw as a rise in selfishness and money worship. Crime, scams, the widening gap between rich and poor, and barriers between Cantonese and English speakers were regular themes, and pop music, modern art and high fashion all came in for mockery in the decades after the booming colony saw its population hit 3 million, while across the border mainland China increasingly closed itself off to the outside world. These were Hong Kong’s boom years and Wong captured it all in his cartoons and never shied away from anything prickly, including the city’s transfer of sovereignty from Britain to China in 1997.