At the Queensway print counter last winter, a clerk slid two proofs across the glass: Traditional Chinese first, English below, both aligned to the same unforgiving grid. Nobody called it elegant. It was more useful than elegance, a civic contract set in black ink and vermilion correction marks.
A city is edited in public
The argument after 1997 was often staged as a choice of flags, but the daily settlement happened at smaller scale. A bus route notice in North Point, a court circular in Admiralty, a housing leaflet in Sha Tin: each one decided which reader arrived first and which reader was asked to wait half a line.
Order is not silence. Order is every resident finding the same door.