Before I relocated to Happy Valley from Hollywood Road in Central, I bought myself a small souvenir for the good memory of Hollywood Road where I have lived for more than a decade. That is the “Hollywood Road” coaster.

For those who live on Hollywood Road (aka Antique Street), you won’t miss the unique feature there — the very plaque embedded in the manholes of Hollywood Road — and you can only find such road features here on the entire Hong Kong Island.

The coaster I bought from local small business “Tiny Island” may look oddly familiar. It is of course a genuine replica of the iconic plaque you see on Hollywood Road. Local media reported in the early days when the plaques were planted, they went missing quickly, forcing the police to investigate to try to catch the thieves.

The coasters — realised in solid brass and faithful to the original — are not cheap at all and they feel quite heavy. But memory is priceless, isn’t it? How fortunate now we can own a replica piece of Hollywood Road, the first modern road competed in Hong Kong by the British colonial government since the soldiers landed on the “Pearl of the Orient” more than a century ago.

Hollywood Road is a very interesting one, a reflection of the mixture of Western and Chinese culture. On one side of the road, there is the oldest Chinese temple on Hong Kong Island, Man Mo Temple, where the local tycoons and community leaders used to meet and decide on important issues, often in closed-door “dark box” manner; on the other side, there is the former Police Headquarters where the British government tried to keep social orders through the rule of law.

Nowadays the old Police HQ has been already turned into a big art and culture complex. “Hong Kong will only get better tomorrow.” (香港明天會更好) That’s what ex-Chinese President Jiang Zemin once famously said.