The Party Life of Silvan Colani
November 2004 - Swiss Kwai Fong
I should probably have listened to the feng shui man earlier this year when he told me to "keep quiet" and "stay away from parties" during the Year of the Monkey (me being a Tiger, and the two apparently not getting along well). But somehow I let myself talk into the idea of organizing Swiss Kwai Fong, a Swiss-themed street festivals in Hong Kong's premier nightlife district, Lan Kwai Fong. Although I have never been much of a supporter of anything Swiss (quite the contrary, in fact, as most reader of this website can confirm), the challenge to put together what must surely be the first such festival of its kind in Hong Kong was intriguing enough.
The idea for such an event originated deep in the SARS crisis in May 2003, when in my capacity as Deputy Auditor of the Swiss Business Council of Hong Kong I voiced the suggestion of holding the annual Swiss National Day celebration in a public space in Wanchai, instead of its usual boring format of a closed-door, invitation-only Swiss gathering in some remote country club. It was a time when the reputation of Switzerland in Hong Kong was severely damaged, thanks to the watch fair fiasco that year, where Hong Kong people were allowed to visit Switzerland but not to exhibit their wares at the annual watch fair. It was a time when you better did not tell the taxi driver that you were Swiss, as he would have kicked you promptly out of his car.
Thus my idea to hold a public event on August 1st, to show that at least the local Swiss community was very much committed to Hong Kong and was equally appalled by the decision of our countrymen back home. The assembled guests at the Business Council AGM that May all listened politely and nodded in cautionary agreement but despite my pledge to personally get involved in organizing such an event in three months, nobody ever came back to me on that offer. I made a point of not attending the 1st August celebration that year (at another remote country club in Quarry Bay).
Turn the clock forward into early 2004, and Hong Kong welcomes a new Consul General of Switzerland. Francois Barras (by coincidence a distant relative of mine, since my uncle is married to a Barras in Crans-Montana) arrives with a bag full of ideas of promoting Switzerland in Hong Kong under the banner "Switzerland Greets Hong Kong". Among his many cultural, artistic, economic and gastronomic plans, he talks to Allen Zeman (the 'founding father' of Lan Kwai Fong) about a street festival in the area. As word of the idea spreads among a shocked Swiss community ("he wants to do WHAT?"), my name eventually comes up. Suddenly my Wanchai festival is back alive, albeit in a more up-market environment.
Initial meetings with the Lan Kwai Fong Association indicate that such a festival is indeed feasible, but not necessarily cheap. The LKF Association recently held a three-day carnival (with 80 booths) that cost over half a million HK Dollars - not the sort of budget we were likely to have. In fact, the Consulate had plenty of grand ideas - but no money to speak of. Thus we modeled our event more on a more frugal Canada Day party in Lan Kwai Fong, which was first held in summer of 2003.
Back in spring 2004, we had plenty of ideas for Swiss Kwai Fong: a climbing wall modeled like the Matterhorn, ski simulators, a virtual Wilhelm Tell shooting range and - my "piece de resistance" - a life cow, to be milked in the streets of Lan Kwai Fong. Despite our best efforts, most of them had to be discarded. There wasn't enough space for the climbing wall, we couldn't find the ski simulators, the Virtual Tell would have cost a fortune and there are no milking cows left in Hong Kong and bringing one over from the mainland would have resulted in significant quarantine problems. We also wanted a full-scale children's program for the afternoon, which due to our limited budget never got off the ground.
But I was never in doubt that the event as a whole would take place in some form or other. Starting off with a large committee of people interested in the idea, I realized early on that the only way to get this done was in a smaller, more efficient format. Stefan Herzog, Chief Bratwurst Officer of the Liechtenstein Princely Navy, was to be in charge of F&B, Marc Bruhlhart and his design company would help with decorations while the hard-working girls at Blaze Communication - hired by the Consulate to co-ordinate all of Switzerland Greets Hong Kong - lent their expertise on various other matters. And that was it: no big meetings, no big committees, just a few fun and dedicated people.
While the LKF Association would help with government permits and the like, we were fortunate to also gain the support of Chris Lenz and his Igor's Group (Stormy Weather's, Wildfire Pizza, The Cavern, etc.), who greeted our initiative with plenty of enthusiasm instead of the usual doubts and reluctance we encountered.
Dealing with the Swiss community was of course the biggest obstacle of them all. Given my previous experience (or lack thereof) in this regards this was to be expected, but somewhat disappointing nevertheless. While there was always general "support" for our event, some within the Swiss community got entangled in various minor issues and failed to rally to the cause. There are many exceptions of course, and those people directly involved in our little festival were very enthusiastic from the start. But the sheer effort of not offending anybody within the Swiss community was very tiring in itself.
Raising money was of course another (expected) obstacle. But despite many disappointments, the big names (UBS and Credit Suisse) came through generously as did Swiss Tourism, which supported the event. Additional funds were raised from smaller sponsors that rented some of our ten booths.
Then came the fun part of promoting the event. We tried our best to get into all the newspapers and for that purpose held a press conference the week before the event. I talked my friend Alex into wearing the cow costume for the press - and it worked wonders. Having been featured in at least four Chinese newspapers, he is now a local celebrity! In addition, I was invited to give a radio interview on a local station - in Cantonese! I barely understood half of what was said and the same thing can probably be said about the audience who had to listen to my rants about cheese and Sexy Heidis for an hour that Sunday afternoon. Good fun nevertheless.
Although we had to give up on some of our brightest ideas (in particular my 'life cow' project), we nevertheless maintained many great attractions. We kicked off the event at 4:30pm with a "Best Swiss Dress" competition for children, that was well-received and good fun. Swiss Tourism would fly in a 10-piece band, Sonalp, that plays traditional instruments in a modern, "world music" type of way. My life cow were replaced by two plastic cows kindly provided the Movenpick Marche on the Peak while I purchased two inflatable cow costumes on eBay which were a great success.
In addition, long-term resident Bernard Schmutz provided us free of charge with an original Sauber F1 car, which he owns and rents out for promotional purposes around the region. We had it parked in front of one of the bars and it was a great crowd draw (I would have loved to drive it up and down Lan Kwai Fong, but unfortunately it came without engine).
We hired two Sexy Heidis to entertain the crowds (but they turned out to be rather Lazy Heidis unfortunately), while the participating restaurants would serve some Swiss food and drinks during the event. The raclette at The Keg was particularly popular, with a long line forming the entire night and the Swiss people complaining (what else?) why there weren't more raclette ovens! It was even visited by a famous local food critic (of appropriate proportion) who declared it a Swiss delicacy.
We had Swiss t-shirts, Swiss caps, Swiss tattoos, Swiss flags, Swiss everything. If you weren't dress in red and white you simply were at the wrong party!
Another big draw for the crowds were the (real) St. Bernard dogs with proper Swiss-style barrels around their necks. People were scrambling all over to take pictures with the dogs, to the point that the police was sending in extra troops to maintain order! The cow performers in the inflatable costumes were also a big hit and really got into the action when Sonalp was playing outside Stormy Weathers. Indeed, the boys of the band from a remote corner in Switzerland progressively warmed to the idea of playing in the crowded streets of Swiss Kwai Fong instead of their usual stage setting.
Whether it helped to foster an image of the Swiss as a more fun and entertaining people is doubtful, but even if it simply reinforced the stereotypes of cows and alphorns - who cares? It was a good party after all...
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