Hong Kong, 19 February 2025: I’ve been dazzled by Doha’s Museum of Islamic Art, gushed over the Guggenheim Bilbao’s brilliance and marvelled at the Mona Lisa in the Louvre. Iconic venues all, each showcasing the audacious imagination and spirit of adventure which drives humankind. Just a guess, but I might have to lower my expectations when I visit Hong Kong’s new CR7 Life Museum.
Our city’s latest cultural attraction, due to open in July, is dedicated to the career and achievements of footballer Cristiano Ronaldo. It will be testament to “the power of ambition, passion, perseverance and hard work”, the organisers promise, and is “aimed at empowering youth and dreamers”. OK!
Before we go all highbrow and mock the idea of a museum honouring someone who kicks a ball for a living, we should crunch the numbers. Hong Kong is football mad. Our cramped city somehow still has space for 220 public pitches; despite the time difference with Europe, fans pack bars each weekend for big matches from England, Spain and Italy; the official Manchester United Supporters Club here has some 1,100 paid-up members.
And what about ex-United superstar Ronaldo? Now 40, he’s still scoring goals in the Saudi Pro League. He might be the most famous person on the planet, having just reached one billion followers across his social media platforms. He’s certainly the highest paid athlete, having netted – ha! – some US$260 million last year.
His pop-up museum, located in the K11 Musea shopping centre, will operate until May next year. Organisers are hoping to attract 12 million visitors. You can bet a fair few of those will be there on opening day, when the icon himself is expected to attend (although he won’t be playing football, thus imitating the infamous example of his great rival Lionel Messi).
Who said museums should contain only works of art or historical items? With its finger on the cultural pulse, Hong Kong’s Ocean Park plans to build a panda museum to help promote long-term interest in our city’s burgeoning family of bears. The latest attractions are twin cubs – popularly known as “Elder Sister” and “Younger Brother” ahead of a city-wide naming competition – born to mother Ying Ying last August. They made their public debut for thousands of visitors last Sunday. The theme park is now home to six giant pandas, the largest number living in captivity under the same roof outside mainland China.
Ocean Park chairman Paulo Pong reveals the museum will be developed in stages over the coming years. “We have many stories to tell,” he says. It will include an auditorium to host large-scale global conferences for discussing panda conservation. This comes after a pop-up attraction of 2,500 panda sculptures along our city’s harbour front, with sales of the exhibits raising HK$923,000 for conservation efforts. Are we suffering panda fever? Even the South China Morning Post has been moved to pen an editorial devoted to our furry friends, noting “it remains unclear how effective the black and white bears will be at luring overseas visitors, stimulating business or reviving the flagging economy”. Quite.
On the face of it, both museums align with our government’s grandly titled Blueprint for Arts and Culture and Creative Industries Development, which seeks to enhance the integration of culture, sports and tourism and to promote these to residents and visitors alike. As a cultural icon, sporting superstar and magnet for fans, CR7 ticks all the boxes. And we do, after all, have a government minister – currently Rosanna Law – responsible for all three sectors.
Before then, we can look forward to “Hong Kong Super March” – who comes up with these titles? – in which our city will stage a string of arts, cultural and sports events. ComplexCon Hong Kong, Art Central, Art Basel and a Pablo Picasso exhibition at the M+ museum are expected to draw a combined 400,000 attendees. Sports fans can lap up the World Snooker Grand Prix and LIV Golf Hong Kong tournament, whetting appetites for the hallowed Hong Kong Rugby Sevens, switching to the glitzy new Kai Tak Stadium, at the end of the month. Bullish chief executive John Lee estimates these and other events will attract 840,000 visitors and HK$3.3 billion worth of spending in the first half of the year.
This news will undoubtedly please Iñaki Amate, design industry innovator, chair of the European Chamber of Commerce and staunch advocate of our city’s need to attract international talent. Spanish by birth and global in outlook, Iñaki is my latest – and highly informative – guest on our Law & More podcast. Please listen.
As we seek creativity and inspiration to put Hong Kong on the world’s cultural map, we can look beyond our borders for inspiration. The just-opened HaHaHouse in Zagreb claims to be the first museum dedicated exclusively to making its visitors laugh, while a developer in London has unveiled grand plans to transform giant tunnels built to shelter citizens during World War II bombing raids into the capital’s biggest new tourist attraction for years. In mainland China, meanwhile, resourceful residents of rural Xiapu are acting out picturesque pastoral scenes and charging tourists to photograph them.
Elderly they may be, but also enterprising. They appear to have figured out – just like our friend Ronaldo – that it pays to make an exhibition of yourself.
Until next time, everybody!
Colin Cohen
Senior Partner
Boase Cohen & Collins
