Hong Kong Diary
Following is a diary written by Ms Josephine Khu of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. This was received from the H-Asia discussion list. The diary is unique and closely related to the return of Hong Kong to China on July 1, 1997. We would like to present the diary here for readers who are interested in the development of Hong Kong. We will continue to make the diary available as it progresses.
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No. 1
May 12, 1997
Steven Leibo of H-Asia has asked me to write a "Hong Kong Diary" for H-Asia readers. This is to consist of a series of regular postings of personal impressions and observations of life in Hong Kong during the months preceding and following the territory's transfer of sovereignty from Britain to China on July 1, 1997.
The handover promises to be one of the most heavily-covered media events of the decade, and the subject of much academic scrutiny. In writing this Hong Kong Dairy I will not, in ay way, seek to duplicate such endeavors. Rather, I will simply recount details of everyday encounters and occurrences in my own life as a resident of this territory in the hope of conveying to the reader some sense of what it is like to be living here during the handover period.
Mindful of the desire of readers to determine the position from which the writer of a diary may be experiencing events, it is appropriate for me to introduce myself to the members of H-Asia.
I am a Chinese-Canadian Ph.D. candidate in modern Chinese history at Columbia University. I have lived in Hong Kong for two years and am currently working as a research associate in the history department of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. My dissertation research is on frontier development in late imperial China, with a focus on the Qing military's role in fostering Chinese settlement in Taiwan during the eighteenth century. My job with the Chinese University involves conducting research into Chinese law in the late Qing/Republican period. I am not, therefore, an expert on Hong Kong or on contemporary mainland China--but merely an interested observer of developments affecting both places.
China's resumption of sovereignty over Hong Kong is almost universally considered a historically significant event. But in what sense precisely is it so?
One common view is that the handover marks the final end of China's humiliation over the control held by imperialist powers of her territory. The force of this interpretation is somewhat blunted by the decline of Britain as a great power (imperialist or otherwise) after World War II, and by the assertions of some Chinese and Western scholars that, had Chinese Communist leaders been truly determined to reclaim Hong Kong for China in 1949, they could have done so at that time. Even more significant is the recent clam by a former senior official of the New China News Agency in Hong Kong (China's de facto embassy in the territory) that Chinese leaders had not made up their minds to resume sovereignty ovr Hong Kong in 1997 until the then British Governor of Hong Kong, Sir Murray MacLehose, unexpectedly brought up the issue with Chinese leader, Deng Xiaoping, in 1979, effectively pressing the point.
The handover may also represent the dramatic spectacle of an authoritarian Communist society gaining control over a free, capitalist one. Certainly, when the Sino-British Joint Declaration on Hong Kong's future was signed in 1984, this seemed a likely possibility, despite the Declaration's promise to put into place an arrangement of "one country, two systems". It is much less so now, when loosening economic and political controls in China seem often to give the impression that China is capitalism's new frontier and that the Chinese government may have too little control, rather than too much, over the country.
What the handover does do is call to mind China's weakness when she was forced to cede Hong Kong to Britain in the nineteenth century. That the return of Hong Kong coincides with the emergence of China as an economic and political force in the world since that time makes the handover a convenient symbol for this development.
Of course, the event is far from being merely symbolic. To Hong Kong citizens and to those with economic ties in the territory, the transfer of sovereignty may bring sea changes to their lives and futures. In the decidedly mixed views held by a significant portion of Hong Kong's population regarding the prospect of coming under Chinese rule, the handover also marks how far China has yet to go in achieving the undoubted desire of its leaders for the mainland to become like the society over which it will be taking control: prosperous, orderly, governed by the rule of law, and free without being democratic.
One may also argue that the handover throws into focus Hong Kong's evolution into a third stage in its relationship with China: utterly peripheral when ceded to Britain, perhaps essential during much of the history of the People's Republic--and now, merely useful. Inputs from Hog Kong will continue to assist China's economic development but their absence will probably no longer be a serious impediment to China's modernization.
Under British administration Hong Kong was first a gateway for an opium trade that helped to weaken China. But after 1949, when China was closed to much of the outside world, it became a channel for a foreign trade that helped to sustain the country. In recent years, Hong Kong has served as a force for China's modernization. Hong Kong could certainly never have served in this latter capacity to the extent that it has, had the territory remained under Chinese rule. If Britain owes China a moral debt for forcing the legalization of its opium trade upon China, perhaps the handover can also be regarded as a symbol of the repayment of that debt.
No. 2
May 18, 1997
Today, the newspapers reported the unsurprising news that property prices are now higher in Hong Kong than in Tokyo. Over the past few months, the territory has been experiencing a remarkable surge in real estate transactions and prices. It appears that such activity is fueled largely by speculation, with many investors believing that wealthy mainland Chinese immigrants and businessmen will surge into the territory after the handover--creating enough demand for housing and office space to raise prices beyond even their present stratospheric levels. To my husband and I, who own no property, all of this would be a matter of indifference--were it not for the fact that stores and restaurants in our neighborhood, which we frequent, have been disappearing with aggravating regularity. Gone are the Cantonese roasted meat take-out and the Thai restaurant across the street. Gone is the fresh fruit and vegetable store nearby. Another store selling kitchen utensils and household odds-and-ends has also disappeared. All in the space of little more than a year. They have all been replaced with--yes, real estate agencies. In the past months, potential buyers have been trooping through our building to view apartments put up for sale by their owners. In fact, last January, the flat in whichwe live changed hands. We first learned of the matter when the new owners telephoned us to make an appointment to view their new acquisition. They had, it appeared, bought the place sight unseen. They were not foreign residents, making their investment decisions from abroad, but locals who, as they had no intention of living in their newly-purchased apartment, assured us that we were quite welcome to continue our tenancy. Naturally, we did not ask them how much they had paid for this place. But we had an idea. A sign which periodically hangs outside our building informs any interested buyers that flats here are priced to sell at a minimum of somewhat more than US$700,000 for the smallest units, measuring 560 square feet. We live in the largest-sized unit in the building. It is purportedly 640 square feet in size but is actually far smaller, since it is a local custom to measure flat size not in terms of the size of the flat itself, but taking into account the space occupied by the corridor outside the flat, by stairwells, by elevators, etc. When we returned to Canada last summer, I visited my sister's 550 square-foot flat in Vancouver for the first time--and discovered that it was far more spacious than ours. I should mention that the high prices being asked for the apartments in our building are no indication of the quality of their construction. Our building is a new one, and we are the first tenants ever to have occupied our apartment. Yet the floors are visibly uneven, and less than six months after we moved in, the crooked walls began to crack. Nor does our building offer any amenities apart from a small swimming pool which is open for only two or three months of the year. Even then, residents must pay a fee each time they wish to use it. In fact, in terms of size and general amenities, our flat is comparable to the university-owned studio apartment that I lived in while completing my Ph.D. course work in New York City. It is sobering to think that, here in HongKong, I am occupying real estate of a value that would purchase a mansion or at least a sizeable house in many North American cities, while never having graduated from the living conditions of a North American student.
No.3
May 26, 1997
Earlier this week, I received a call from Wesley, an unemployed Chinese-Canadian lawyer from my home town of Calgary, Alberta. He wanted to arrange a convenient time to come and use my computer to write cover letters and print out c.v.s. Wesley arrived in Hong Kong only a little over a week ago and is in the middle of the serious business of searching for a job.
Ethnic Chinese who have grown up in the West do not stand out physically from the local Hong Kong population. However, their perfect English, often imperfect or non-existent Chinese and, sometimes, something in their manners and movements distinguish them from those raised in the territory. It would be impossible to begin to describe how many such people--people like myself--I have met, and even become acquainted with, in Hong Kong. It is unlikely that any statistics are kept on how many of us are residing here, but it is certain that we number in the tens of thousands, at the very least.
Like the newly-arrived Wesley, it was not so much a desire for adventure, the hope of finding one's roots, or any other reason related to sentiment that brought many of us here. Rather, it was the news of higher salaries and better job opportunities in Hong Kong than are to be had in the West, coupled with serious recessions in our home countries, that caused so many to take what was often the difficult and unwelcome step of moving away from a familiar, comfortable environment to crowded, alien Hong Kong.
At least this was the case with all of the five people I am acquainted with from my home town that are living here now. They are all of Chinese extraction, but were born, or at least raised, in Canada. Wesley, as a fourth-generation Canadian, is the most "Canadian" of us all.
Sally came first--about five or six years ago. Speaking only basic Cantonese, she learned in addition, basic Mandarin, and now, at the age of about thirty-five, holds a high executive position with a large multinational firm. Brad, in his early thirties, speaks no Chinese at all. When he arrived three years ago, he immediately found a job as a journalist with a major international news service. Irene also arrived three years ago, and also speaks no Chinese. Because she could not find work in Canada, despite holding a bachelor's degree in economics and another diploma in accounting, she began her working career in Hong Kong. Only twenty-five years old, she is now earning at least US$60,000 a year.
But it is Tina's story that I like best.
Tina is the twenty-four year old daughter of one of my mother's friends. A little over a year ago, I received a call from my mother informing me that Tina had recently arrived in Hong Kong to seek her fortune, and that I must be very kind to her. Tina, she explained, had never been outside of Canada before. In fact, this was the first time in her life that she had ever lived away from her parents' home. She was now staying in the cramped apartment of a distant relative, whose own daughter had been obliged to move into another relative's home in order to make room for Tina.
I called Tina and invited her over for dinner at our place. She arrived, a pretty, shy, culture-shocked thing, with very pleasant manners. She was, indeed, as my mother had described, "very well-trained". During the course of the evening, she told us that she had come to Hong Kong because her B.A. in English literature had only led to a job as a receptionist at the office of a local newspaper. After one or two unhappy years in such a position, she had concluded that there was no possibility for advancement in her workplace, and few other opportunities elsewhere in the country. But, so far, living in Hong Kong was not proving to be a happy experience, she confided. She had been here for a month now, had yet to find a job, and each time she called home, she ended up "blubbering".
Hoping to console her, I told her that, although there was much to get used to in Hong Kong for someone from Calgary, Alberta, she would soon realize that this city is nevertheless one of the cleanest, most orderly, and least polluted of the major cities in Asia. She should try living in mainland China, I said. She would soon understand how relatively lucky she was to have her first encounter with Asia be with Hong Kong.
From the miserable look that appeared on her face, I understood that this thought had brought her no comfort. Instead, I was mortified to realize that I had only succeeded in making her feel even more inexperienced and insecure than before. So it was no surprise when, after she left us, we heard little more from Tina except for a call, one week later, to tell us that she had found a job as a reporter with one of Hong Kong's English language daily newspapers.
But although we have had little contact with Tina herself, we have heard all about what has been happening with her from my mother, who gets the news from Tina's proud mother. Let me just say that, one year after coming to Hong Kong, Tina is now the features editor of a magazine, is earning about US$40,000 a year, has her own apartment, an extremely active social life, and a very nice boyfriend, who she proudly introduced to us not long ago.
Our parents left Asia to seek greater opportunities in the West. We have returned to find them here in Hong Kong. This is why Wesley had the confidence to sign a long-term lease on his apartment this week, although rents in Hong Kong may be the highest in the world, and although he, too, speaks little Chinese, and has yet to find a job.
No.4
June 2, 1997
Yesterday afternoon, quite by chance, I happened upon a demonstration held to commemorate the deaths that had occurred during the Tiananmen Incident of June 4th, 1989. I had not known that such an event was going to be held at that time, having been too busy taking care of my Canadian houseguest,Dan, to have read the newspapers for the last two days.
By a stroke of fortune, Dan and I arrived just as the demonstrators had assembled together in the Central business district, and were waiting for the signal to begin their march to the headquarters of the New China News Agency, the Chinese government's de facto embassy in Hong Kong. The signal was given, and the demonstrators filed past, carrying placards in funerary colours of black and white, and shouting slogans demanding that the Chinese government reassess its verdict on the June 4th incident. Others held up signs calling for the release of Chinese dissidents Wang Dan and Wei Jingsheng. A mock coffin had the following message in Chinese painted upon it: "The dictatorship of butchers will leave a stink lasting ten thousand years" (Tu2fu1 zhuan1zheng4, yi2chou4 wan4nian2).
I do not think that I was imagining that a palpable sense of urgency surrounded the event. It is very likely that such demonstrations will be prohibited after Hong Kong reverts to Chinese sovereignty a few weeks from now. Thus, the march was also about the protection of civil liberties in Hong Kong after the handover. Placards in Chinese proclaiming "Stride past '97" (kua4yue4 jiu3qi1) were also being waved about in large numbers.
Given that one measure of the depth of people's feelings towards a particular issue is the extent to which they are moved to dig into their pockets, I made a point of peering into the donation boxes that were being passed around, and noticed that people had given very generously: HK$100 bills (worth approx. US$12.80) predominated, and several HK$500 bills (US$64.00) could be seen. Nor did everyone wait to be approached before contributing. On two occasions, I saw bystanders call out to the people carrying donation boxes to come over to receive their contributions.
The only shop to be seen in the immediate vicinity, a bookstore which is always open on Sundays, now had a "store closed" sign hung on the door. Its staff had temporarily abandoned all thoughts of conducting business, and could be seen pressed against the glass windows, eagerly observing t= he progress of the march.
I was much impressed and moved by everything we were seeing, including a heavily-pregnant woman marching past, but Dan, worldly-wise, merely remarked, "They're going to have get a lot more people out than that before they make an impact." The last demonstrator filed by, and Dan and I went off in the opposite direction to see more of the sights of Hong Kong.
Today, reading the newspapers, I learned that the organizers of the march, the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of the Patriotic Democratic Movement inChina, have estimated that 7,000 people joined in the demonstration--a figure considerably higher than the police estimate of 3,500.
Unless the number of participants had swelled precipitously by the time the demonstrators reached their destination, we can certainly say that we had not seen more than about 3,500 people in the march.
A small lesson, perhaps, that the righteous may sometimes be more enthusiatic than accurate, and that the upholders of state authority are not necessarily always to be disbelieved.
No.5
June 5, 1997
A candlelight vigil to mark the eighth anniversary of the deaths associated with the Tiananmen Incident of June 4th, 1989 was held yesterday evening in Victoria Park. 55,000 people are reported to have attended. It was the last such ceremony to be held before Hong Kong's reversion to Chinese sovereignty--and perhaps the very last time that it will ever again be heldin the territory.
Earlier that day, I had lunch with three young students, Hong Kong-born and bred, and asked whether any of them planned to attend the event. Being somewhat acquainted with their views on various issues, I thought it possible that they might. One of them, several months earlier, had pressed a book written by the student dissident, Wang Dan, into my hands and insisted that I read it. He would not take no for an answer. Another had told me, "Most people under forty in Hong Kong want an American-style democracy." From the third, I had heard various versions of the view, "There is nothing we can do, anyway."
On this occasion, that last outlook apparently prevailed. They all looked embarrassed, and it became clear that only one of them (the possessor of the Wang Dan book) was entertaining the idea of going--and even he was undecided.
I arranged to go with a Chinese-American friend. We met at a subway station and, together, made our way to Victoria Park. The subway station closest to the park, and the approach to the park itself, was teeming with people. We entered through one western entrance. Making our way past the entrance was a sweaty, claustrophobic ten-minute ordeal. By the time we had managed to enter the grounds of the park, it was almost time for the ceremony to begin.
We found a place to sit on the slightly damp ground, and waited expectantly. Loud music was issuing from a large loudspeaker several metres in front of us, and large screen (though appearing small in the distance), showed a night scene. It was some time before we realized that this screen had been erected in order to transmit the activities taking place on a stage located somewhere else in this very large park.
The ceremony lasted perhaps an hour and a half. It consisted of stirring speeches and inspirational songs, all delivered in a darkness alleviated by the lights from the streets and buildings outside the park and, within the park, by the flames from the thousands of candles held by participants.
How can I best describe the poignancy of the event? Perhaps by confessing that it was difficult to maintain my original intention of remaining strictly an observer.
In keeping with this, we had brought no candles. We had, in addition, not seen any candles being distributed or sold in or around the park--although they must have been, because so many people held them. Many people around us also lacked candles, and appeared to be trying to obtain some.
A man in his mid-thirties, sitting behind us, gave the people around him the five or so extra candles he had brought. Later, somehow, he must have managed to find some more. About half an hour into the proceedings, I felt someone give me a slight tap, and turned to see his little daughter, perhaps three years old, holding out a lighted candle towards me.Throughout the ceremony, we watched the screen in the distance. There was a strong feeling that all present were taking part in a significant and stirring experience. People called back enthusiastically when slogans were shouted out from the loudspeaker: "Reassess June 4th!" "Free the jailed participants of the people's movement!" "A democratic China!" "Long live democracy!" "Long live the rule of law!" "Stride past 1997!" "Never forget June 4th!"
It was, however, a little surreal to be responding en masse to images seen only from a screen. From where we sat, we had no sense even of where the main venue of activities might be--the park was so large and so filled with people. In the darkness, watching this transmission of scenes of a stage full of leaders, lit up dramatically by flames leaping from open braziers, it felt a little as if we were participating in a weird fire ceremony, at once futuristic and primitive.
The ceremony came to a dramatic conclusion with a flood of chanted slogans. As the crowd disbanded, the atmosphere of the streets reasserted itself. We squeezed our way towards the exit, lining which several people, standing beside donation boxes and stalls, were shouting into megaphones, "Please show your support!" They appeared to be trying to outshout each other--the whole effect being similar to that of hawkers on market morning. We eventually realized that they were representatives of different activist groups, each trying to solicit donations for their own group. Here was the practical aspect of that elevated experience in which we had just taken part.
About half of my candle remained. I have put it away as a memento of the evening. It is really surprising to learn for how long a six-inch, wax candle can burn.
No. 6
June 10, 1997
Last week, an invitation arrived in the mail from Jonathan and Vicky Wattis, proprietors of Wattis Fine Art, a gallery exhibiting and selling antique maps, prints, paintings, and photographs of Asia. It was a notification of the opening of their latest exhibition, entitled "Early Views of Hong Kong, 1841-1900".
Two weeks ago, on our last visit to the Wattis', Jonathan had told us that this exhibition is to consist primarily of old photographs, most of them of colonial buildings and landscapes no longer in existence, or so altered as to be almost unrecognizable to the late 20th century Hong Kong resident.
It has, of course, been timed to coincide with the period immediately preceding and following the handover.
At the time of that visit, on a Sunday afternoon, the invitations had yet to be sent out. The book that Jonathan has put together of this exhibit, in collaboration with local historian Arthur Hacker, had also not yet been printed. Jonathan looked as harried as it is possible for a true professional, and an Englishman who has received years of training at Christie's, to look. In other words, apart from the fact that he was sweating profusely in the air-conditioned room, and from some irregular rapid blinking of the eyes, he appeared much as usual. For once, Vicky, his Filipino wife, was absent, having succumbed to the pressure and gone out to play tennis.
We have known Jonathan and Vicky for about a year now. It has been a fulfilling, if financially ruinous (the latter on our part, not on their's) relationship. We are still trying to recover from a purchase made two months ago, of a rare 19th century map of Beijing, executed in a hybrid Chinese-Western style, and bearing a bookplate indicating that it had once been part of George Morrison's collection (which the Toyo Bunko in Japan apparently believe they own all of).
So we are aware that the Wattises have had an unusually good year. But of course, this is not a normal year--it is the year that Hong Kong returns to Chinese rule. It is also a year which is seeing many of the Wattis' old friends and customers return permanently to their home countries. As with other expatriate-based businesses in Hong Kong, the Wattis' fear is that, even with a growing Chinese clientele, business will suffer after the handover.
Therefore, this past year, they have been staging exhibitions in what can only be described as a frenzy. This latest show is merely the climax in a series of six or seven held since last September. One purpose for all this activity has been to cater to the desire of departing expatriates and Hong Kong emigrants to bring away with them souvenirs of their time in Hong Kong.
However, not all of the exhibitions have had Hong Kong as a theme. Last fall, an exhibition on maps of Asia highlighted Western maps of China. Jonathan has told us that, in the past nine or ten years that he has run his business in Hong Kong, the chief interest among customers has been on maps of Southeast Asia and of Asia in general. However, this past year, customers have been showing a new interest in maps of China in particular--a development probably attributable at least in part to the upcoming change in sovereignty.
In the end, we decided to go to this show on Hong Kong photographs, but decided we could only afford to buy the book based on the exhibition. This we did yesterday.
The book was ready, and Jonathan has had 3,500 copies printed. Most of them have been bought by two or three Hong Kong-based financial and trading institutions for distribution to favored clients in commemoration of the handover. Apparently, however, many of the corporations Jonathan approached expressed interest in the book but, ultimately, were unwilling to associate themselves with a volume on the colonial period.
In common with so many of Hong Kong's inhabitants, most of the beautiful, Western maps of Asia that constitute the staple of Wattis Fine Art, have crossed through stretches of ocean more than once, and have in their lifetimes passed through different homes in different countries. It is to be hoped that residents here will not lose interest in these maps after the handover--if only so that modest, understated Jonathan, and sweet, unpretentious Vicky will not themselves be leaving Hong Kong any time soon.
No. 7
June 17, 1997
Two weeks ago, we said good-bye to a 30 year-old British acquaintance who is leaving Hong Kong to move to Singapore. This acquaintance (let us call him William) is not your average Western Hong Kong expatriate, in that he was born in Hong Kong and has lived here nearly all his life, apart from a period when he was sent to Britain to receive a high school and university education. In another sense, however, he is quite typical of Western expatriates in Hong Kong, even very long-term ones: he does not speak or understand Chinese.
I was reminded of William when, a few nights ago, I attended a formal dinner, where I met Jane (not her real name), another Briton of about the same age as William. Her family, like William's, had been civil servants in Hong Kong for many, many years.
During our conversation, she revealed that in all the time her parents had worked in Hong Kong, they had never learned to speak any Chinese. Nor had she, while growing up here. They had, she said, never needed to use Chinese. Now back in Hong Kong again, Jane has a well-paid professional job, and has no immediate plans to return to Britain. So far, her lack of any Asian language skills has not impeded her career in the territory.
William and Jane are people of unusual charm. Both are extremely sociable, and are particularly adept at maintaining the kind of constant,light-hearted chatter that makes a formal social function both bearable and excruciating. Their company is undemanding, untroubling.
Perhaps the only disconcerting thought occurs when one learns that they have grown up in Hong Kong--this, because it is impossible to see any evidence of their ever having spent their formative years surrounded by another culture . Both appear thoroughly British in accent, manner, and mentality. They eat British food in preference to Chinese food (which William actually dislikes). Both plan to send their children to elite, private British boarding schools in order to give them a chance to associate with children from desirable families so that they will "have the contacts", as Jane said. Neither, apparently, associates much with local Chinese, except for the ones they must encounter at work. In a moment of great candour, Jane told me that in all the years that her family lived in Hong Kong, they had been to a Hong Kong Chinese home only once. I doubt whether she has since. Perhaps, after all, this very loyalty to British culture and lack of interest in cultivating local Chinese friends is the visible result of their upbringing in Hong Kong.
Despite what seems to be a lack of any particular affection for Asia, William and Jane are determined to remain in this part of the world for as long as they can. Why? Simply because salaries for professionals are much higher in Hong Kong than in Britain--indeed, average incomes in Hong Kong are now higher than in Britain. This is also the case with salaries in Singapore. Because of their families' long association with Asia, William and Jane are aware of this as perhaps other Britons are not. Job-hunting in Hong Kong was also a much less daunting process for them than for those without family and friends in the territory. It was, in fact, natural for them to return to Hong Kong to work. Indeed, I have been told that in the Scottish village where William's parents are from (and to which William hopes eventually to return), nearly every family has sent someone to Hong Kong. We have all heard of impoverished southern Chinese villages made prosperous by remittances from family members working in the West. William's village, apparently, is one example of the opposite phenomenon.
Perhaps Jane is right--that she, too, will be able to follow in the footsteps of her parents and carve out in Hong Kong the kind of professional career she wishes to have, without ever needing to speak a word of Chinese. But William has already concluded otherwise. William did not receive the promotion that, in the past, he could have expected to receive, given his professional qualifications and years of working experience. His extensive and impressive British Hong Kong family contacts have been deemed to count for little now. He is certain, however, that he would have received this promotion had he possessed the ability to speak Chinese.
William's solution has been, not to begin learning Chinese, but to move to another part of Asia where he can continue to advance in his career working entirely in English, and still live a more financially comfortable life than would be possible back in Britain. Jane is still here, and still does not feel any need to learn any Chinese. Perhaps she will be following soon.
No. 8
June 22 1997
About two years ago, a young family from Hong Kong moved next door to my parents' house in Calgary, Alberta, making them the third Chinese family in our street of about 14 houses, and the fourth non-white family. They were among the many Hong Kong people who, lacking confidence in Hong Kong's future, had made the move to settle in Canada.
I believe that my parents watched them somewhat anxiously at first. When we had moved into that home about twenty years ago, we had been the first non-white family on that street, and one of the first in the neighborhood.
The people around us seemed friendly but, one night, not long afterwards, eggs were thrown at our windows. It happened only once, but it was a sobering reminder that, although the law might protect our rights, it had no control over the feelings of our neighbors. It was imperative that we, and the other non-white families who were to move into the neighborhood, do nothing for which we might be blamed, for the disreputable actions of one might arouse hostility against us all. Fortunately, the family from Hong Kong has behaved like model citizens.
Educated, English-speaking, and middle-class, they have "fitted in". Their child attends a local school, and they themselves have acquired the North American mania for do-it-yourself home and garden improvements.
Not every Hong Kong person with fears for the territory's future possesses the resources, the education, the language skills or, indeed, the desire to settle in a Western country. What are such people doing to prepare themselves for life after the handover? Some have moved to Singapore or Taiwan. But some, it seems, are deeming it a sound strategy to move into mainland China itself.
Not long ago, an acquaintance told me the story of her working-class Hong Kong relatives. Fearing future upheaval in Hong Kong, and believing that the rapidly-developing cities of south China will one day become more economically vigorous than Hong Kong, her uncle and his friends (once all elevator repairmen, now managers) have established residences in one such growing city. Together, they have purchased the top four floors of an apartment building there so that "they can all know who their neighbors are and keep an eye on and maintain each other's flats". One way of dealing with the problem of lawlessness in south China and the possible hostility of neighbors is, it seems, to BECOME each other's neighbors. Her relatives apparently do not regard these residences as mere investments, but as second homes to which they bring their children on weekends and holidays in order to familiarize them with the people and ways of southern mainland China.
Her uncle's three nephews have gone a step further. Three years ago, they sold off their Hong Kong apartments, purchased residences in south China with the proceeds, and moved their families there permanently. Their wives are attending diligently to their children's education, making certain that the latter are learning to speak perfect Mandarin Chinese at school, while keeping up their Hong Kong Cantonese at home. Meanwhile, the three men have continued to work in Hong Kong in order to support their families.
They live in the territory with their father, all crammed together in one apartment, and visit their families in China regularly.
Our neighbors in Calgary and my friend's relatives, impelled by the same fears, have made different choices. Perhaps my friend's relatives would have taken the same path as our neighbors have, had they possessed the resources to do so. However, that a future in south China has come to be seen as a viable alternative to a future in the territory is certainly also a measure of the economic and social progress that China has made in recent years, and not perhaps simply a gauge of the fear of what life in Hong Kong might become under Chinese rule.
No. 9
July 2, 1997
On the afternoon of the last day of British rule over Hong Kong, the Central business district was filled with people celebrating, protesting, or simply milling about, watching the various events being held in the square in front of Hong Kong's Legislative Council building.
We (I, my husband, and two non-local friends) paused to watch as well, then continued on. We were on our way to observe the British farewell ceremonies from perhaps a better vantage point than nearly everyone else would have, with the exception of the 4,000 specially invited guests gathered in the HMS Tamar, the headquarters of the British forces in Hong Kong, where the ceremonies were to be held. Our invitations were somewhat less glamorous, however. They were for a party to be held on one floor of an office building overlooking the HMS Tamar.
We showed our passes, then entered. Most of the people present were dressed lavishly--in tuxedos or in silken Chinese-style clothing. "Most of them are whites", one of my companions, a Chinese-Canadian, commented of the guests.
We headed towards a private office with one of the best available views of the HMS Tamar, and installed ourselves there. Strangely enough, nearly everyone else chose to watch the events from a television set installed in a large conference room nearby, although little could be seen of the actual ceremonies from this room. Meanwhile, matchless views were to be had from the individual offices, several of which remained empty. Evidently, most people felt that they could derive a greater sense of occasion in the company of others staring at a television screen, in a room well-stocked with food and alcoholic drinks, than in a small private office, peering with their own eyes at real figures moving in the distance.
At the conclusion of the British ceremonies at about 8:30 p.m., we left the building and walked toward the square. A rally organized by democracy protestors began at 10:30, and lasted until about 1:30 a.m. It was a trial of endurance in the heat and humidity--but we stayed throughout the entire event. I do not think that it was my imagination that at least as many journalists, tourists, and visitors were present as local residents. In the days preceding the handover ceremony, I had asked every local resident I encountered what his or her plans were for that evening. One and all told me that they planned to stay at home and watch the events on television. Few exhibited any real joy or excitement. A local Hong Kong Chinese resident we had invited to come with us refused, saying that he was not very interested in the ceremonies. Another sent me an e-mail, of which the following is an excerpt: "Within one hour, the communist government will replace Britain as our sovereign state. It is so strange that I do not feel happy. Because Hong Kongers will be forced to face the autocratic power that dared to react to people's demands by suppression."
A journalist friend lucky enough to watch the handover ceremony (as distinct from the British farewell ceremonies) held in the newly-built Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre told me that the atmosphere at that event seemed strangely lacking in warmth or celebratory feeling. She also commented on the fact that the only languages used during the ceremony were Mandarin and English--and not Cantonese, the native language of most Hong Kong residents. Again, it seems, other voices will dominate local ones.*
Yesterday, on the first day of the existence of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, we walked down to Central. It was strangely quiet. No one would have guessed that this day was anything more special than an ordinary public holiday, had it not been for the fact that every newspaper vendor seemed to have completely sold out of papers, although it was not yet noon. That evening, a spectacular fireworks display was held, but the daylight hours showed little indication of any spontaneous popular celebration of the birth of a new era. Was it was just the rain, falling intermittently throughout the day, that made everything and everyone seem so subdued?
A new era it will be. With the departure of the British, the already strong mainland Chinese presence will, of course, strengthen and certainly become the paramount influence in Hong Kong. But the Chinese will not be the only ones to fill the void left by the British. A few weeks before the handover, I recall a businessman acquaintance telling us that he anticipated the need for his company to begin to hire more Americans, instead of the citizens from Commonwealth countries that the company has found appropriate to employ thus far. With the departure of the British, he said, would come the increasing irrelevance of British practices, laws, and influence in Hong Kong. On the other hand, the power and wealth of the United State has meant that, to a greater extent than ever before, international practices have come to be equated with American ones--and this will inevitably be reflected in Hong Kong after the handover, much more so than before.
On the last evening of British rule, amidst the Union Jack costumes, I saw one person waving the Stars and Stripes. Someone else besides the mainland Chinese, I thought, who will have something to say here after the stroke of midnight.
No. 10
Aug.3, 1997
It began to rain in Hong Kong on the night of June 30th, during the ceremonies marking the end of British rule here. Somewhat ominously, for those who set store on the political significance of natural phenomena, the rain continued for nearly two weeks after Hong Kong's reversion to Chinese rule, with almost half of Hong Kong's total annual rainfall occurring during the first four days alone of the existence of the new Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR).
It was at this time that, exhausted by the stream of visitors and guests, by the handover-related events and parties, by the bad weather, and by jokes about the bad weather ("Don't you know that takes an awful lot of rain to wash away 150 years of shame?", etc.), I headed back to Canada for a welcome break to visit family and friends.
Even there, it was impossible to escape the subject of the Hong Kong handover. In Toronto, an elderly waiter in a Chinatown restaurant, effusive in his happiness over Hong Kong's return to China, insisted on giving me free food when he discovered that I had just come from Hong Kong.
In Calgary, I discovered that my father had been made honorary chairman of the Calgary Chinese Cultural Centre's ceremonies in celebration of the Hong Kong handover.
I do not mean to imply that, during this North American trip, I encountered anything like uniform enthusiasm and pride among ethnic Chinese over the fact of Hong Kong's return to China--only that I encountered more genuine joy over the handover during the two-and-a-half weeks that I was there, than I have in two years of living in Hong Kong.
Hong Kong has been of immense economic use to mainland China. And in taking back sovereignty over Hong Kong, China's central authorities have been able to put Hong Kong to substantial political use, as well. Even people who have suffered under Chinese Communist Party (CCP) rule still see justice in the return to China of a territory seized from her under unsavory circumstances, and have managed to feel at least some pride in the event. Certainly, the Hong Kong handover was heavily promoted within mainland China, and to some extent outside of it, in order to stir up a nationalism that transcended and, at the same time, validated the CCP.
As a society to a large extent made up of refugees and the children of refugees from CCP rule, one could not have expected Hong Kong people to greatly rejoice upon once again finding themselves living under the jurisdiction of this same party, or to be particularly responsive to its propaganda on Hong Kong's role in the enterprise of "national reunification".
However, Hong Kong people are probably not the main targets of such propaganda. Analysts of China have said, again and again, that the main political use to which Hong Kong will be put is to entice the government of Taiwan into engaging into serious reunification talks with the government of China. Therefore, it is said, the Chinese government has a compelling reason to do everything in its power to adhere to the promised formula of "one country, two systems", as it is this formula that will be held out as a model for Taiwan's re-integration with the mainland.
Such analysts may be correct. However, the pitfalls to the Chinese government of relying too heavily on the success of such an approach are obvious. The well-being of Hong Kong under Chinese sovereignty is an experiment whose success is by no means guaranteed. Mainland authorities can, and are, helping to engineer confidence in Hong Kong's economy in this handover period by encouraging mainland companies to invest in Hong Kong, but the best efforts of any government cannot ensure the continued strength of any economy, particularly one as highly developed and possibly overheated as Hong Kong's.
Nor should it be imagined that such politically-related matters as the safeguarding or promotion of civil liberties and the rule of law in Hong Kong (or indeed elsewhere in China) lie entirely or even substantially within the control of China's central authorities. It is currently being amply demonstrated in China that regional and local governments, and even individuals, play at least as important a role as the central government in ensuring the smooth running of society, with initiatives from the latter to impose law and order in an area often being frustrated by the former. It is not inconceivable that those who have expressed fears of central Chinese government interference in Hong Kong's affairs may, ironically, one day find themselves calling for firmer central guidance over the SAR.
No, it would be foolish for the Chinese government to attempt to bank too much of its credibility upon a place whose future political and economic development may lie further from their reach than they may wish or imagine.
Whether or not the Chinese government can squeeze any more political capital out of Hong Kong following this immediate handover period remains to be seen. Perhaps, after all, the success or failure of Hong Kong under Chinese rule is not as important a political matter to the Chinese government as has often been presented by the China analysts.
That waiter in Toronto and my father in Calgary are both proud of Hong Kong's return to China, not because of the mere fact that China has reclaimed a lost territory, but far more because of what China itself has become by the time of this event, and by what it promises yet to be--a great, perhaps rich, superpower.
In the end, the importance of the Hong Kong experiment in "one country, two systems" pales beside the great experiment currently taking place within China itself: the attempt to create a rational, coherent, and humane whole from a confusing mixture of authoritarian and anarchic, socialist and capitalist systems and features. Any discussion of Hong Kong's role in promoting "national reunification" should take into account the fact that the Hong Kong experiment will be very much evaluated in light of the success or failure of this latter, much greater, effort. It would be misguided to imagine that it will take anything less than a positive outcome in that great experiment to impress the people of Taiwan.
No. 11
August 25, 1997
Last year, my mother and her Canadian friend, Ruth, came to visit my husband and me in Hong Kong. Ruth watched as my mother unpacked the large suitcases she had brought, stuffed to the brim with gifts for us. I saw Ruth's eyebrows shoot up.
"Is soap very precious in Hong Kong?" she inquired, incredulously eyeing the dozens of bars of Ivory soap that my mother had brought with her from across the Pacific.
My mother continued to pull out the other items in her suitcases: dozens of bottles of shampoo, tubes and tubes of toothpaste, and a bag full of toothbrushes and dental floss. I had stopped looking at Ruth by then, but I think that her eyes were probably still bulging. After all, wasn't Hong Kong supposed to be a shopper's paradise? Ten years ago, when I studied in Beijing, I and fellow foreign students would stock up on humble items of everyday life each time we went abroad. Such products, if not unavailable in China, were of relatively low quality there. I never imagined that it would be possible to draw a comparison between my experience living in the bleak, backward, closed environment of mid-1980s mainland China, and my life today in modern, international Hong Kong. But on my recent trip back to Canada last month, I found myself again including a large quantity of such items as soap and shampoo on my list of things to take back with me to Hong Kong. In fact, we bought everything we possibly could in Canada: clothing (down to socks), stationery, books, computer parts, and so forth.
No, post-handover Hong Kong has not come to resemble the deprived mainland China of the past. We, and many others in Hong Kong, purchase whatever we can from abroad for one, simple reason: because nearly everything is much cheaper even in high-tax Canada than in Hong Kong, where few taxes are levied on consumer goods. In some cases, prices for the same items are two or three times lower in Canada than in Hong Kong.
Not so many years ago (as late as the late 1980s) I recall people speaking excitedly about their wonderful shopping expeditions in Hong Kong. North American and other tourists found the selection here enticing, and prices irresistable. Now, I have heard British expatriates say that they find even items like electronic goods, once a staple tourist purchase in Hong Kong, more costly here than in London (a terribly expensive city to a North American). A shopaholic Hong Kong woman of our acquaintance also told us that she found shopping in Paris (another high-cost city for the North American) for clothing and shoes cheap compared with Hong Kong. Again, these are items which were once considered so inexpensive here.
Nor is it simply Western goods that are less costly in the West than in Hong Kong. A Chinese-Canadian friend of mine who used to frequent Toronto's Chinatown, relocated to Hong Kong about two years ago. When we got together soon afterwards, he gasped: "Even grocery products from China are cheaper in Canada than they are here!"
Of course, it is probably not true that everyone from Hong Kong brings back mounds of toiletries from their overseas trips, as we do. However, I do know of at least two professional women who do so--and this is out of a very small sample of about five people. (This is, you see, not really a question that I have felt comfortable asking a lot of people.) I was interested, but not really surprised, to discover that a Canadian friend of mine living in high-cost Japan also does the same. Clearly, Hong Kong has entered the ranks of INCREDIBLY EXPENSIVE CITIES.
Yet Hong Kong's reputation as a shopping mecca still persists. Luxury goods are apparently still a good buy here for wealthy tourists from the nearby high-tariff countries of Southeast Asia, Taiwan, and Japan. And shoppers from mainland China flock to buy gold jewellry--still a bargain here.
It is, however, a dying reputation. The many visitors from the West that we have had since we moved here two years ago, took away with them few purchases from Hong Kong. They have undoubtedly spread the word that, due to cost, there are now few things worth buying here. On the other hand, those who have also visited mainland China returned laden with purchases, and with that gleam of the satisfied bargain shopper in their eyes.
To mainland Chinese visitors, too, Hong Kong once seemed like a vast emporium of goods which could not be obtained in China. Now, as a friend of mine from Beijing sniffed: "We can get anything we want in the mainland". She, too, bought little in Hong Kong last year, during her one and only trip outside of mainland China. "I'll wait until I get to Guangzhou to buy my gifts", she told me.
What are the implications for Hong Kong of having such high land, labor, and other costs that even the same goods brought in from neighboring mainland China (perhaps even from towns right across the border) are more expensive for consumers here to buy than for those thousands of miles away? I do not know, but I suggest that, for those who seek to forecast Hong Kong's post-handover future, this may be a more significant fact to ponder than the fact that the five-star red flag of the People's Republic of China now flies above Hong Kong's Legislative Council building.
No.12
Sept.1, 1997
Two weeks ago, I had occasion to enter one of the chambers of Hong Kong's Supreme Court building. My visit was not associated with the need to resolve any legal problems. For once, this encounter with the legal authorities was to be an unequivocally happy one. In the previous fall, my husband, Brian, had written and passed the last qualifying examinations for overseas lawyers held in Hong Kong under British rule. Now, he was to be among the first few batches of people admitted as a lawyer in a Hong Kong under Chinese sovereignty.
In accordance with an English practice continued after the handover, each participant in the ceremony had to come equipped with a black robe, a white shirt with a special collar, a wig (if one was to be called as a barrister), and a sponsor, similarly attired. The sponsor, in Brian's case, was Stephen, an English senior partner at his firm.
Dressed in their long robes, Brian and Stephen fluttered from their offices to the court building, like two bats in search of a perch.
Stephen, we were told, takes great delight in such occasions. It later became evident that he has a particular flair for public speaking. Apparently, he has sponsored (or "moved") many people in the fourteen years he has spent with the firm in Hong Kong.
On this Saturday morning, sixteen people were scheduled to be admitted as either solicitors or barristers. As we entered the building, we picked up a list of the participants' names and those of their affiliated firms. Stephen scanned the list quickly and remarked, "Hmmm, only three expat names. Not long ago, you could expect at least forty percent of the names to be expat ones."
How long ago? I pressed him. Five years ago, maybe? "No, no--as late as a year ago. I guess people aren't coming out here anymore."
When Hong Kong was still a British colony, lawyers whose first qualification to practice law had been received in England, could come to Hong Kong and acquire the credentials to practice as lawyers here without having to take any further examinations. Lawyers qualified in countries of the Commonwealth needed only to pass two sets of exams: in property and conveyancing, and ethics and accounting. This second regulation remains unchanged. But after the end of this year, lawyers qualified in England will have to pass the same exams as those required of Commonwealth-qualified lawyers in order to practice as Hong Kong lawyers.
Perhaps it is, in part, the knowledge of this new regulation that is responsible for the apparent slowdown of British lawyers seeking to qualify here. More likely, however, recovering economies in Britain and elsewhere are keeping many people home. Most of the foreign lawyers in Hong Kong are here, one suspects, not because they originally wished to be, but because serious recessions in their home countries, coupled with a buoyant Hong Kong economy, caused them to come.
Foreign lawyers may also be deterred from coming by a possible perception of blighted career prospects for non-Chinese speakers in a Hong Kong under Chinese rule. It is certainly true that a knowledge of Chinese is becoming highly valued in international law firms in Hong Kong. Partnership in such firms is still attainable by those without a command of Chinese, but the ability to speak Chinese is coming to be regarded as an important criterion for advancement, unlike in the past.
I watched as the sixteen candidates for admission on that day were introduced by their sponsors, and called up one by one by the court clerk. Some chose to swear an oath on the Bible, and others merely to make an affirmation. The entire ceremony was conducted only in English. Curious, I later asked Stephen whether, in his experience, candidates to the Hong Kong Bar had ever been required to swear an oath of allegiance to the British queen (as is the case in some Commonwealth jurisdictions), and whether the ceremony has changed in any way since the handover. According to him, it has not.
The changes, perhaps, are to be found in the backgrounds of the participants themselves. Of the thirteen Hong Kong-born candidates, one had chosen to take his basic legal training in China, at Beijing University. Of the three expatriate candidates (a Singaporean of Chinese extraction, a Briton, and a Canadian), one (Brian) had spent some years studying in China. A sign of things to come?
For now, being a fully-qualified Hong Kong solicitor does not appear to have brought any tangible benefits to Brian's life. There are, apparently, several partners in his firm who are not qualified in Hong Kong. They are mostly Americans (many of whom speak Chinese), for whom admittance would require the passing of more examinations than the number demanded of Commonwealth-qualified lawyers. Their careers appear not to have been impeded in any way by the lack of a Hong Kong qualification. Brian's status within the firm does not seem to have risen after the event. Nor, more pertinently, has his salary. He is, however, now able to call himself a Hong Kong lawyer (rather than a foreign legal consultant), and to sign documents in that capacity.
And somehow, although we cannot yet say how, this privilege seems to be more important than it used to be.
No. 13
Sept.8, 1997
Fresh from small-town southern Ontario, Ken, one of my oldest friends, arrived in the big city of Toronto fifteen or so years ago to attend his first year of university. He was to live on campus, for he had secured a place at one of the undergraduate residences of the University of Toronto. His new roommate, Ed Wong, had made a rather longer journey to arrive at the same destination. Ed was from Hong Kong (also something of a small town fifteen years ago, if the accounts of some of its present-day inhabitants are to be believed).
Ed's parents, in common with so many others in Hong Kong, had been refugees from Communist Party rule in China. They lived in the working-class Hong Kong district of Shau Kei Wan, and it was only by dint of great sacrifice that Ed's parents were managing to support their son in his overseas studies. They were, apparently, "eating less" for his sake. It therefore pained Ed to see Ken regularly forgoing his meal-plan breakfasts for a little more sleep. Sometimes, Ken would find himself being shaken awake at 7:30 a.m. by his roommate and encouraged to take advantage of the pre-paid morning meal.
According to Ed, his family's hardships could, to a great extent, be blamed on one man--a certain "Mou". One didn't know what suffering was until one had suffered under the hands of Mou, he declared. Though born and raised in Orillia, Ontario, Ken was no ignoramus. It took him only one month to realize that the "Mou Cha-tung" of whom Ed spoke so often and so bitterly in his Cantonese-accented English was not some local bully or Shau Kei Wan triad figure, but China's late, great, Chairman Mao Tse-tung himself.
Haunted by his family's sufferings and sacrifices, Ed drove himself mercilessly. During the academic year, he took seven courses--two more than the average full load. In the summertime, he received permission to take three courses--one more than normally allowed.
At the end of the summer following their freshman year, Ken invited his roommate to return with him to Orillia to experience something of Canadian life, and to take a more than well-deserved break. Ed's diligence had been such that he had hardly ventured outside the university campus. Thus, despite having lived in Canada for nearly a year, Ken's home was the first Canadian house that Ed had ever set foot in. In fact, it may even have been the first whose EXTERIOR he had had a chance to examine properly.
"He went bananas," Ken told me. "He was so excited when he saw our house that he called his girlfriend in Hong Kong to tell her about it. They talked for two hours!" When one remembers how much higher long-distance telephone tariffs were back in the early 1980s than they are now, and Ed's stringent financial circumstances, one can begin to gauge the depth of Ed's astonishment .
And yet, Ken's parents live in a house considered quite unremarkable in Canada. Ken is from a middle-class Scottish-Canadian family. His father is a high-school principal and his mother, a housewife. For Ed, however, a dwelling as large as theirs was nearly beyond imagination. His family of five lived cramped in a flat of a size sometimes described in North America as a "junior one-bedroom apartment".
As planned, Ed successfully completed his four-year commerce program one year early, despite the fact that English was not his first language. He then immediately returned to his family in Shau Kei Wan. He and Ken lost touch with each other soon afterwards.
Although we do not know for sure what happened to Ed Wong, it is possible to make a very good guess. Hong Kong's remarkable transformation in the past ten years, from a manufacturing to a services-based economy, has meant that people with an educational background like Ed's have prospered greatly. It is more than likely--nearly a certainty--that Ed is now able to afford the outright purchase of a home in Canada at least as large as the one owned by Ken's parents. He may even have become a Canadian citizen, along with thousands of others from Hong Kong.
Under Ed's influence, Ken began to learn Chinese during his undergraduate years. He is now able to read both classical and modern Chinese, and to write Chinese characters in a very creditable hand. Ed's discipline, however, has been more difficult to master. It is something of an irony that the house that had once seemed like an unattainable dream to Ed would now be within his reach--but is beyond Ken's, and indeed mine.
Today, it is the students from mainland China, much more so than those from a now affluent Hong Kong, who remind us of Ed Wong. Many are also from families who suffered under Mao Tse-tung's policies. Sometimes, as I watch these students, I think that their determined pursuit of economic and social advancement seems driven not only by the desire to seize new opportunities, but by a hunger to make up for lost ones, whether their own or those of their parents.
As this society is composed to such a large extent by past refugees from mainland China, it is puzzling to me to hear Hong Kong people sometimes mock the poverty and unworldliness of the new immigrants from China. But even as Hong Kong people laugh at these immigrants, I think they must know very well that they may as well be laughing at Ed Wong of Shau Kei Wan.
No. 14
Sept. 19, 1997
Earlier this month, it was with bemusement that I came upon another article in the South China Morning Post by David Chu, advocating the promotion of Chinese patriotism in Hong Kong's educational system at all levels, from primary to tertiary.
Mr. Chu is a member of the Provisional Legislature of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR). The last time he wrote on the subject, he provoked a debate leading to a dispute of such acrimony that the affair was reported briefly by the international press.
The offending article appeared in the South China Morning Post on July 10th, only a few days after Hong Kong's return to Chinese sovereignty. That same evening, I met with Richard Baum, an expert on Chinese politics at the University of California at Los Angeles, who was here as a visiting professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. The subject of Mr. Chu's article came up. I had not read it, since I had stopped reading David Chu's columns some time ago.
When Prof. Baum mentioned that he planned to write a letter to the editor responding to Mr. Chu's arguments, I found myself thinking, "Why bother?" It would, I believed, be a wasted act of rationality.
I had failed to consider, of course, that Legislator Chu is worth listening to, and worth responding to, for the simple fact that he is a high-profile member of that unelected body created by the Chinese government to guide the SAR in the twelve months following the handover. Indeed, in his July article, Mr. Chu announced that his first motion in the Provisional Legislative Council would be on educational reform in Hong Kong. Mr. Chu is thus in a position not simply to introduce his views to the Hong Kong public, but to impose them.
And impose them he certainly attempted to do. When Prof. Baum took issue with some points in Mr. Chu's July 10th article, and when Tim Hamlett, an assistant journalism professor at another Hong Kong university, disputed Mr. Chu's claim that Hong Kong during the handover was "overwhelmed by reunification celebrations geared to a feverish pitch", Mr. Chu apparently wrote to officials in their respective universities in Hong Kong suggesting that the two be fired.
When this action came to light, Mr. Chu initially criticized the two academics' condemnation of his behavior, saying: "I have nothing against foreigners. Hong Kong is an open place--but that does not mean we are open to interference." Later, Mr. Chu denied having actually attempted to get both men removed from their Hong Kong university positions. He did, however, apologize profusely for any rudeness he may have exhibited towards Prof. Baum and Mr. Hamlett. "Maybe I picked up something of this in my American education," he is reported to have said.
Mr. Chu's reference to his American education points to an interesting fact. This fervent advocate of patriotism towards China moved to the United States with his family at the age of fourteen. Moreover, until recently, the fifty-three year old Mr. Chu was an American citizen. He is now a full-fledged Hong Kong person, having renounced his American citizenship three years ago. As such, Mr. Chu need no longer pay U.S. taxes on the fortune he has made in property development in Hong Kong--although there may be no connection between this fact and Mr. Chu's move to take up Hong Kong Chinese citizenship.
The dispute itself has been resolved, but the issues at stake--freedom of expression and the future direction of education in post hand-over Hong Kong--have not.
Less than three weeks after the handover, the City University of Hong Kong issued a reminder to its staff of a regulation which, among other things, requires academics to seek prior approval from university authorities before giving interviews and preparing manuscripts for publication in books and journals. This regulation had not been applied in the past. Will it in future?
In addition, only a few days ago, the president of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Woo Chia-wei, advised staff organizing a seminar on Taiwan to use the term "Chinese mainland" rather than "mainland China". Use of the latter term, he said, implied the existence of more than one China." Prof. Woo denied having any intention of harming freedom of expression, saying that he had only wished to point out the correct term.
Should "patriotic education" be introduced in Hong Kong, it is difficult to know what this might entail. Patriotism is a singularly vague term which, in his recent article, Mr. Chu has attempted to define in a singularly vague manner. Patriotism towards China, he says, is "none other than pure and profound affection for China" instilled by means of education in the "language, culture and history of those with whom we have close affinity". Many will find no particular argument with this aim, but determining the substance of these words will be more difficult and controversial than their articulation.
It may be the case that community leaders and educational advocates such as Legislator Chu may be able to teach Hong Kong people something about the meaning of patriotism. But, in view of the above, what, one wonders, might these lessons be?
No.15
Sept.26, 1997
Supplying oneself with the basic knowledge to attempt predictions on developments in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) is a tedious process. It involves activities such as scrutinizing articles about often difficult-to-comprehend proposals for future electoral arrangements, reading the shipping supplement in the daily newspaper, and striking up conversations with investment analysts, bankers, and lawyers (people I would normally avoid) at parties. Beyond the need to follow events occuring within the SAR itself, it is also necessary to keep abreast of developments in places with which Hong Kong holds close ties: mainland China, Taiwan, and Southeast Asia.
But an easier way may exist to predict Hong Kong's future. Last week, when a lunar eclipse occurred during the Mid-Autumn Festival (a traditional holiday to celebrate the largest full moon of the year), the thought came to me. Instead of reading newspapers, one could, I mused excitedly, resort to reading natural phenomena or interpreting chance to see the things yet to come.
The problem with such a method, in the case of Hong Kong, is that the portents of 1997 all seem to point to one conclusion: unmitigated disaster for the SAR.
The first ugly omen emerged immediately, and in a spectacular manner. In a Chinese New Year parade in February, organized by the Hong Kong Tourism Association, a British tourist was killed by a runaway float. Tourism is one of Hong Kong's largest sources of foreign exchange.
February also saw the death of Deng Xiaoping, China's paramount leader. It had been Deng's long-stated wish to be present in Hong Kong to personally witness the handover. As the architect of the "one country, two systems" arrangment under which Hong Kong was returned to China, Deng had pledged that Hong Kong's capitalist system would remain in place for at least fifty years following the transfer of sovereignty.
Next, a few weeks before the handover, a large sculpture known as the "reunification tripod" was damaged during installation at a public venue. One of its three legs snapped as it was being installed, so that it could not stand upright without first undergoing repairs. The tripod had been a present from mainland China to Hong Kong in celebration of the handover.
Then, beginning with the evening of the handover itself, it rained and rained. We received nearly half of the average total annual rainfall in the first four days of the existence of the new SAR alone. Statistics released by the Hong Kong government show this past summer to have been the wettest since records were first kept in 1883. The rain caused landslides and flooding in Hong Kong, and flooding in mainland China, as well. It also forced the suspension of a newly-inaugurated railway express service between the SAR and China's capital, Beijing.
And finally, last month, Diana, Princess of Wales, died tragically. What special connection did she have with the Hong Kong SAR? Why, she had been born on July 1st--the same day as the anniversary of the establishment of the SAR.
These signs may mean little or nothing. But can it really be only coincidence that tourist arrivals in the first six months of this year have dropped 2.9 percent from that of last year--and an astonishing 35% in July (the first month of the SAR) compared with the same month one year ago? Tourism figures for August have not yet been released, but are expected to be similarly discouraging.
And is it also pure chance that, since the handover, property values have dipped somewhat, that residential property transactions are down an incredible 40%, and that as many as 30% of all real estate agencies in the SAR may have to close down? Or that, in the month following the handover, Hong Kong's visible trade deficit doubled to HK$14.4 billion HK from HK$6.6 billion in the same month last year?
Despite these developments, the people of Hong Kong (often considered a superstitious lot) have not shown any particular signs of panic. It has been nearly three months since the return of Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty and Hong Kong people seem, if anything, to have become much more confident about their future now than they were before the handover.
There are many reasons for their evident equanimity. Although tourism levels are down from the previous year, last year's figures were unusually high, as people came to visit Hong Kong before its return to China. Moreover, some one-time factors (such as mainland restrictions on Chinese visitors to Hong Kong during the handover) may have contributed to keeping the this year's figures low.
Similarly, Hong Kong experienced frenzied activity in its property markets in the months prior to the handover. Thus, a slowdown in property transactions and some correction in values were to be expected. A moderate cooling down of what many regarded as an overheated economy can, in fact, be considered a positive development.
And, even as Hong Kong's visible trade deficit widened, invisible trade registered a strong surplus. Indeed, Hong Kong's economic fundamentals have been sound enough to allow the value of the Hong Kong dollar to stay firm, despite currency turmoil in Southeast Asia.
The actions of Hong Kong's new leaders have also contributed in no small way to instilling a feeling of confidence among the public. In a boost for the continuity of the rule of law in Hong Kong, the government anounced earlier this month that two serving British Law Lords (top-level British judges) will serve on Hong Kong's Court of Final Appeal as part of that body's non-permanent panel of judges.
In addition, tolerance has been shown to a wide range of political activities. Walking in a crowded shopping area about two weeks ago, I saw one political party in the midst of a fund-raising effort. Their eye-catching banner in Chinese read: "Donations for democracy!" (Wei minzhu juanqian). Democracy activists have also not been prevented from holding numerous small demonstrations since the handover.
The handling of the latest democracy protest, however, may be some indication of the limits to which the Hong Kong government will tolerate political dissent. The other day, during the current IMF/World Bank conference, demonstrators gathered near the conference's main venue called for the removal of two of China's top leaders, Premier Li Peng and President Jiang Zemin. The 15 activists were surrounded by an overwhelming force of 230 police officers. Five of the demonstrators have been arrested. It does not seem encouraging that so many were deployed to control so few--and cold comfort that, in the context of the ruthlessness displayed by Chinese authorities towards similar activities in the mainland, the treatment of these Hong Kong demonstrators might be considered restrained.
I intially regarded the total lunar eclipse that occurred last week to be latest portent of 1997. Perhaps this omen, at least, would be a good one: the last time such an eclipse occured in Hong Kong during the Mid-Autumn Festival was in 1978, the year that China opened its doors to the outside world and initiated far-reaching reforms which have directly contributed to Hong Kong's current prosperity. However, a researcher at Hong Kong's Space Museum has assured the public that lunar eclipses hold no particular significance for interpreting the affairs of man--only solar eclipses count.
It seems, after all, that there are no short-cuts to the time-consuming business of Hong Kong-watching. The skies, the supernatural, and chance may provide only hints to Hong Kong's future. To supplement their insufficient clues, it is still necessary to painstakingly study the current and past affairs of man in order to make sense of developments in the SAR. For in human endeavor, it appears, are powerful antidotes to the malevolence of the stars.
No.16
Oct.13,1997
Whatever the uncertainties surrounding post-handover Hong Kong, two things were always clear. First, that the Oct. 1st national day of the People's Republic of China (PRC), Hong Kong's new sovereign power, would be publicly commemorated here as never before. And second, that such celebrations would be prohibited for the Oct. 10th ("Double Tenth") national day of the Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan, as they had not been prior to the handover.
And indeed, on this past Oct. 1st, the PRC's five-star red flag was to be seen everywhere around Hong Kong, on roadsides and public buildings. While major government buildings of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) had been flying PRC flag since the day of the handover, on July 1st, National Day was the occasion when the flag was raised for the first time over many other publicly-funded structures, such as schools and hospitals.
By contrast, the ROC's red flag, with a white sun on a blue background, was almost nowhere in evidence on Double Tenth. Some activists defiantly hung a few ROC flags over footbridges and beside roadways, but these were taken down by police. For the most part, pro-Taiwan groups in Hong Kong respected an agreement reached beforehand with the SAR government not to fly the flag publicly in the streets. Meanwhile, the Hong Kong government showed a light hand in not immediately removing those ROC flags that had been raised in public venues, but allowing them to remain for about sixteen hours after they were first discovered.
More interesting to observe was how private celebrations of Double Tenth would be handled by both sides. Under Hong Kong's Public Order Ordinance, police are permitted to prohibit not only the public display of flags, banners, and other emblems if they believe such a display might cause a breach of the peace, but are also, for the same reason, empowered to remove these displays from private premises or vehicles. Moreover, a breach of the peace, according to a high-ranking officer of the Hong Kong Police, need not involve violence. In the end, what transpired was that most (although not all) private Double Tenth celebrations were flag-free--most notably that presided over by Taiwan's de facto representative in Hong Kong. Those that were not saw no interference from SAR law enforcement officials. That all sides cooperated to play down public celebrations of the Double Tenth holiday in the SAR was to be expected. The governments of mainland China and Taiwan might tangle over other issues, but neither has any immediate reason clash over Hong Kong. Taiwanese companies have invested heavily in China, and the island maintains a favorable trade balance with the mainland. With direct trading links still prohibited between Taiwan and mainland China, Hong Kong continues to benefit by serving as an important conduit for this trade.
One year ago, on Oct. 10th, knowing as a certainty that that day would be the last Double Tenth Celebration in which the ROC flag would be officially permitted to hang over the streets of Hong Kong, I made a special trip to Nathan Road, a major north-south artery on the Kowloon Peninsula, in order to take photographs. ROC flags have traditionally been suspended on the lampposts running down the center of the entire length of Nathan Road--a very dramatic spectacle.
I found more than photo opportunities--I found a flag that had been torn down by a vandal and discarded on the side of the road. I picked it up, brought it home, and put it away in a closet. Throughout the debate over whether displays of the ROC flag would be permitted in the SAR, there it lay, as torn and dusty as the day I had found it.
I did not feel compelled to hang it up anywhere on Double Tenth--and not through fear of the consequences of displaying it (I did not believe that there would be any) or because of any lack of support for the government on Taiwan. Neither did I even consider hanging the flag of Hong Kong's new sovereign power on its first national day since Hong Kong's return to Chinese rule. This was also not due to any particular lack of support for the handover or for the current government of mainland China.
Rather, my indifference to either flag stems from a feeling that I believe is shared by many in Hong Kong: that both flags should perhaps be regarded more as historical curiosities than as meaningful national symbols. A decidedly Communist-looking red flag of China with yellow stars seems devoid of conviction when Marxist ideology and state control over the economy of the People's Republic of China are being redefined into forms which would have been unrecognizable to the traditional Communist state. The red flag of the China with a white sun is similarly unconvincing when the Chinese Republic for which it stands essentially ceased to exist 48 years ago, when its government fled to Taiwan.
To change the flag or the name of a country is no easy matter--it might, perhaps, require something of a revolution for such things to happen. What kind of revolution (social, economic, and/or political, peaceful or violent) is impossible to say. But one can certainly say that a revolution of some sort would have to occur for mainland authorities to succeed in their stated aim of bringing Taiwan into their formal political sphere. Should this happen, it might be expected that Beijing authorities will seize the opportunity afforded by the occasion to jettison not only the flag and name of the Republic of China, but those of the People's Republic of China as well, (and also the name and symbols of the Communist Party of China)--and to, in fact, formally redefine itself and the nation.
After all, it is entirely conceivable that a government of China that manages to bring about a "reunited China", including both Hong Kong and Taiwan, would no longer need cling to the faded names and forms of a founding ideology, in order to find the legitimacy to continue to rule.
No. 17
Oct. 23, 1997
About a month ago, Patrick, a partner at the law firm for which my husband works, failed to come to work. My husband was scheduled to meet with him that morning to discuss some documents they were examining. Tension mounted as the hours passed, and Patrick still failed to put in an appearance. It was only dispelled when news came that the normally reliable Patrick had not suddenly taken to his heels in a fit of mid-life crisis, but was in fact lying on a hospital bed, having received about a dozen hammer blows to the head during a burglary at his flat in the early hours of the morning.
Patrick and his wife were attacked, tied up, and robbed by two men suspected of being illegal immigrants from mainland China. The news was only shocking to us because this was the first time that such a thing had happened to people with whom we were actually acquainted. Otherwise, such an incident would have not have seemed particularly noteworthy. Crimes committed by Chinese illegal immigrants are frequently reported by the Hong Kong media--particularly when they involve robberies of wealthy and high-profile residents of the Peak, Hong Kong's most exclusive residential area, where Patrick and his wife live. However, it is not only the wealthy who are robbed. Villagers living in secluded areas near the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR)'s land border with China, or on its quiet, out-lying islands have also been attacked by desperate and hungry immigrants in hiding.
There are many reasons, including that of family reunification, why people from mainland China attempt illegal crossings into Hong Kong. But one motive stands out. Hong Kong is a place where salaries are among the highest in the world. Mainland China is a place where they are among the lowest. No border, however strictly patrolled on both sides, by land and sea, could be anything but porous before such facts.
The wonder is not that so many illegal immigrants are coming from the mainland (about 50 have been repatriated every day since the establishment of the SAR on July 1st), and that some are committing crimes when they enter Hong Kong. Rather, what is surprising is that only in the last two years has the problem has reached a level where the general public has begun to worry about its safety. Patrick, for example, had been living in the same place without security for the past seven years without incident. After the burglary, he hired a Gurkha to guard his flat full-time. We humbler denizens of less desirable neighborhoods have resorted to much simpler security measures. For instance, instead of leaving the windows of our fifth floor apartment open all night, we now make certain they are fastened, and sleep with the air-conditioner on, even during relatively cool nights. Two years ago, this had not seemed necessary, but reports last year of break-ins by agile burglars made this seem advisable. We and others have now also become more cautious about engaging in such activities as walking or hiking in secluded or quiet areas, whatever the time of day. Last year an elderly man, a non-resident of the Peak, was robbed and stabbed to death while walking along one of its popular trails with his wife at noon during a weekday. His Mandarin-speaking attackers were almost certainly illegal immigrants.
The SAR's political reincorporation into China, and its ever-increasing economic integration with the mainland, may be partial factors behind the recent increase in illegal immigrant crime in Hong Kong. The root cause, however, probably lies in changes taking place within the mainland itself--changes from which the SAR, because of its geographical location, cannot be immune--whatever the state of its relationship with the rest of China. Until perhaps the mid-1980s, strict controls on internal travel and residence in China made it difficult for people to visit or relocate from one part of the country to the other. The gradual relaxation and even lifting of such controls, coupled with economic reforms centered on selected coastal cities have, in the past ten years, resulted in massive migrations from the interior of China to its coast, and from countryside to city. Many of the illegal immigrants arrested by Hong Kong police have been speaking, not the Cantonese of neighboring Guangdong province, but Mandarin in the accents of provinces as far inland as Hunan, and as far north as Shandong. Clearly, this same process of migration from interior to coast is at work in Hong Kong, although the influx here has been controlled by the effects of strict mainland and Hong Kong government policies and police.
Hong Kong also attracts illegal immigrants from China's largest and wealthiest coastal cities, who have better contacts to facilitate their entry into the SAR and to possibly provide them with jobs. As economic reforms in China deepen, and more urban residents are laid-off by the financially-strapped state enterprises for which the majority of them still work, illegal immigration from such cities may increase. One of the two burglars who attacked Patrick, in fact, spoke in Shanghainese.
Some days after the attack, Patrick returned to work with a scar running down his forehead, a bandanna wrapped around his injured head (which, unfortunately for someone in his profession, gave him a slightly piratical look), and a strong disinclination to speak about the event. Not so the Hong Kong press, which continued to splash pictures of him and his television presenter wife on its pages, and to discuss the problem of illegal immigrant crime with greater spirit than ever. Recently, they revealed the rather sensational news that even the police on Peak Road station have now become so fearful of break-ins by illegal immigrants that they have taken to locking the station from the inside in the evenings, in order to protect the officers within.
No. 18
Oct. 29, 1997
It may sound somewhat heartless to say so, but watching a stock market crash is fascinating, particularly in a place like the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR), and particularly at a time such as this, only a few months after Hong Kong's return to Chineserule.
The well-being of the local stock market directly affects people in the SAR to an extent perhaps seldom seen in other places. Brokers' fees are low, and the Hong Kong government levies no taxes on capital gains or on interest income. As the individual is taxed only on income from salary (i.e. money earned by the sweat of the brow), chasing fast money is virtually a universal pastime.
After holding out for the two years that we have been in Hong Kong, my husband and I finally succumbed to the general fever for stock market investment. A few weeks after the handover we bought shares in some property development companies on the advice of an investment analyst friend whom I consider (and still do consider) brilliant. Thus, last Thursday, when the market registered its single greatest points loss in the history of the exchange, we were not entirely disinterested observers--especially since we had bought at the peak level, and since property developer stocks have been among those most heavily affected in the meltdown.
Under other circumstances we might not have considered our losses small. On this occasion, however, studying the faces of some of the people around us, we know that they are trifling. It has been easy to tell which of our acquaintances hold large investments in Hong Kong stocks and property, and which do not. Stiff upper lips can look very stiff indeed. Meanwhile, some appear undisturbed, and even somewhat exultant amidst the general despondency--and it is clear that they cannot help but feel satisfaction in seeming to have judged a situation correctly, when so many others have not.
Apart from the ample opportunities this crisis can give a person to observe human nature, it is also affording a chance to witness more of the process of the transition of sovereignty from one state to another. This crisis in Hong Kong is, of course, intimately connected with happenings unrelated to the handover--namely, the currency crisis in Southeast Asia. As a regional financial and shipping center, and major tourist destination, Hong Kong cannot stand isolated from developments in the countries surrounding it. However, it is arguably the case that some of market's recent volatility can be directly attributed to the handling of the handover itself. Prior to the handover, few of the discussions on the SAR's future focused on the fundamental economic issues that Hong Kong would have to face in the future, including the very near future. Political problems naturally took the limelight with foreign and local media. In addition, many truly did believe in the mantra that Hong Kong is so important to China that nothing could possibly go wrong here in the short to medium term.
But it is certainly also the case that, in the months preceding the handover, many of those with serious concerns about the SAR's potential economic problems did not consider it expedient to express them in public. During a period of political uncertainty, both private individuals as well as the three governments involved--Hong Kong, China, and Britain--had every reason not to wish to bring up confidence-shattering economic questions to add to the confidence-shattering political questions that were already being bandied about.
For individuals there was the obvious fear that by doing so, they would only add to the already damaging uncertainty that threatened their personal interests in the territory. There was, moreover, the fear of being accused of deliberately trying to sabotage the future success of the SAR. As for the governments involved, in trying to diffuse the tensions resulting from political moves such as the dismantling of the Hong Kong legislature, rollbacks in popular franchise, and new legal restrictions on freedom of assembly, all sought to highlight the economic achievements of Hong Kong, past, current, and potential.
And they succeeded. The handover proceeded exceptionally smoothly. Confidence soared, and so did the stock market. Especially notable were the performances of the shares of the China-related companies. It can be argued that the extent, if not the fact, of the market's recent plunge, and its continuing instability is in part the result of earlier optimism based on less-than-honest public discussions of Hong Kong's future. What is good for China is good for Hong Kong, and what is good for Hong Kong is good for China, so the saying uncritically went.
And so the saying still goes. Mainland China may become Hong Kong's future economic competitor, but it is seen as Hong Kong's economic savior now. The discussions now, however, are much more probing. Hong Kong cannot completely sink as a financial center, it is believed, when the huge endeavor of state enterprise reform in China, requires the mainland to raise foreign capital in Hong Kong. But, it is being asked, will such a function be sufficient to ensure prosperity in the face of declining competitiveness in other areas?
And what will the effects of such a function be? Why, in fact, is Hong Kong considered indispensable to China as a place to raise foreign capital? Is it primarily because, with the political leverage it now holds over the SAR, mainland (and mainland-related) companies will not have to meet the strict listing and disclosure standards demanded of other financial centers? Will Hong Kong therefore, in order to accommodate China and to save itself, be forced to relax some of the standards that have given it credibility as an international financial center in the first place? Would such a development lead the way to an erosion of the promised arrangement of "one country, two systems"?
These questions are only truly being raised now. A plunging stock market may not seem like a small thing (especially to those who have lost heavily), but as a test of the strength of Hong Kong's economy, this is in fact what it is. More, and greater, tests are certain to come later. But, at least, this first small test has brought about a belated, first, truly multi-faceted, general public discussion of the future of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.
No.19
Nov. 14, 1997
Across the road and down the hill from my home is a street market where vendors sell vegetables and other daily necessities. About once a week or so, I go halfway down this hill and make my regular purchase from an elderly woman there. I never buy very much, but then she never has much to sell--just a few bunches of green onions and a few sprigs of parsley. The total (retail) value of her stock is not more than about HK$15 (about US$2).
I am not sure what her profits can be, or what difference such earnings might make to her life in this, one of the most expensive cities in the world. I only know that she sits by the side of the street for hours each day, hoping to sell her small stock, and that she has been doing so at least ever since I moved to Hong Kong, more than two years ago.
She is not unique. I have seen two or three other elderly women like her in that market, selling goods of a similar value. Like her, they can sometimes also be seen collecting old newspapers to sell to recyclers. In fact, numerous impoverished, frail, elderly people can be seen regularly around the streets of Hong Kong, pushing or dragging large, heavy loads of old cardboard, newspapers, cans, and other scavenged materials for sale. It is an incongruous and painful sight in a wealthy city, and amidst a culture that intones respect for the elderly.
This is especially the case since it is generally conceded that misfortune, rather than personal failure is the cause of the financial straits in which these old people find themselves. Indeed, it is often said that these are the people who have helped to build Hong Kong into the bustling and prosperous center that is today. If, in all their hard-working lives, they have in old age failed to attain the rest that they deserve, it is generally because they lack families in Hong Kong to help support them, and because their own savings did not keep up with the rising prices and high inflation that Hong Kong has been experiencing for the past several years.
Certainly, the elderly woman down the hill does not behave like a person used to, or willing to, accept charity--or anything even faintly resembling it. Pitifully small though her little stock is, she always gives an old customer something extra. And, two months ago, when heavy rains in Hong Kong and south China caused vegetable prices here to double, she flatly refused my offer to pay her a price in keeping with the temporary surge in inflation.
Public assistance, in the form of the Comprehensive Social Security Assistance (CSSA) scheme is available for the needy elderly (those aged 65 or over, with savings of less than HK$35,000, or about US$4500) in Hong Kong. This comprises a payment of HK$2440 (US$313) a month, and includes rental assistance and free medical care. Although barely adequate in high-cost Hong Kong, the government has been reluctant to raise levels of support significantly because of fears that such a move would encourage personal irresponsibility and lead to intolerably high increases in governmental expenditure in the future, if not in the present, as Hong Kong's population ages.
Fortunately, Hong Kong's return to Chinese sovereignty is providing the Hong Kong government with new options in planning for the care of its population of senior citizens. Last April, the government announced a plan to make the CSSA monthly payment portable to southern Guangdong. Thus, an elderly person who has received such payments in Hong Kong for three years, and intends to live in Guangdong for at least 180 days in a year, can now continue receiving the same payments while residing in the mainland, where the same amount will go much further.
When I heard about the scheme, I was very happy at the thought that, now, the old woman down the hill would be able to retire in comfort to her native village in Guangdong. But the response to the portable CSSA scheme has so far proven to be less than overwhelming. To date, only about 450 people have applied to join the program, and about 320 of these have been approved--a figure comprising about 0.2% of all elderly CSSA recipients. The main obstacle to greater acceptance is said to be that the portable scheme does not currently include free medical care, which is available to recipients living in Hong Kong. Besides the cost of such care in Guangdong, concerns have been expressed that both access and quality are inferior to that offered by Hong Kong hospitals. Perhaps, too, there are other reasons for the reluctance to return to China. After decades in Hong Kong, many may simply have no one to return to. A native village may seem stranger and less welcoming than an adopted city, where the streets, however cold, are at least familiar, and contain familiar faces.
Whatever the current obstacles, the fact that Hong Kong is now part of China is making it possible for both the Hong Kong government and private citizens to begin to negotiate such things as medical plans for elderly Hong Kong residents in Guangdong at local, mainland rates, and the setting up of retirement centers there for Hong Kong residents. All concerned should benefit: the Hong Kong government may be able to reduce spending per person or at least be able to offer senior citizens a better lifestyle for the same level of expenditure, and the mainland economy will welcome the additional income.
The old lady down the hill is certainly more bent and frail this year than she was two years ago. I fear that these changes, when they occur (and they surely will occur), will come too late for her. But I fervently hope that, one day, if I should find her missing from her accustomed place on the market street, it will only be because she has gone to a happy retirement a few miles across the border.
Josephine Khu
khu1099@cuhk.edu.hk
Research Associate
History Department
Chinese University of Hong Kong
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