As the sun has now properly turned its dial up to 'hot' on the island, our town's popular hot spot of McKenzie is once again coming to life, which means I will now give it a wide berth!
It's just too trendy for me! I won't deny that the place looks great and it is lovely to see it so full of atmosphere and good times, but I personally miss the McKenzie of a couple of years back, which was a family beach lined with a mix of trendy and traditional; busy but not sardine-can busy. Its new incarnation plays its music too loud and leaves its sands littered with cans.
There is a fine balancing act between progress and tradition. We want to progress, we want to be modern, we want the latest things and the coolest places, of course we do. But we want to keep our identity too… our charm, our character, our customs, our original face. But we simply cannot have our cake and eat it too.
The danger of fighting so hard to keep the traditional is that we end up making the traditional false. We put the old in (metaphorical) glass cases so that we can preserve it, desperately trying to make it last, but in the process it becomes contrived. It becomes just a jewel on display. I don't want this! I want our Larnaca of old to naturally continue and for people to love it and cherish it so much that we don't have to fight to stop it dying – and in the process put it in a glass case. I want it to naturally, and normally just be part of the town.
I am not against modernisation or progress – without it we would still be riding donkeys and having to go to the toilet in a hole in the ground. Without it we wouldn't be getting our lovely new Piale Pashia, new bicycle lanes and attracting the trendy folk from all over the island to McKenzie. It's just such a fine balancing act and I don't know how long we can continue to juggle.
Larnaca is a fantastic blend of old and new, but my fear is that people will so embrace the new that they forego the old and we will eventually end up being some space-age town. We are not there yet, but the changing face of McKenzie is a small step in that direction, as sooner or later, the traditional restaurants that have been there for years just won't be able to compete with what the young and beautiful want. They will be ousted for yet another trendy place to take their spot and we will be left only with fast food and over-priced salads.
I have no conclusion to this comment, other than to encourage everyone to rediscover the roots of Larnaca – as well as enjoying the modern trappings – so that both can continue to co-exist, and so we can prevent the traditional from eventually being bullied out.
