ABSTRACT
Rapid modernization and development in Hong Kong and China in the last three to four decades have led to large scale destruction of the old and replacement by the new. Many of the heritage monuments have given way to high rise buildings. Likewise, among the populations of Hong Kong and China, the modern urban lifestyle with Western cosmopolitan influence has also led to a changing lifestyle that sometimes rejects the people’s own intangible cultural heritage. The result is that both tangible and intangible cultural heritage have gradually been decimated. In the early years of heritage conservation and preservation, the focus was on tangible cultural heritage. In the UNESCO conventions, the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) charter and guiding principles, heritage protection and management was governed by the so-called authorized heritage discourse that emphasized the authenticity, materiality, and monumentality of heritage, as well as its historical, artistic, and scientific values (Smith 2006). The result was that nations throughout the world focused only on tangible cultural heritage in the forms of buildings and monuments.
