Are They Ruining It?

      One of the worthwhile books about Hong Kong I've read in the last few months is Jan Morris' Epilogue to an Empire.  Morris, who's a British historian and travel writer, wrote the book a few years after Britain and China signed the 1984 agreement that would hand over control of Hong Kong to China as a Special Administrative Region in 1997.  It's interesting to look back now 25 years later after Morris wrote the book.  She was not optimistic that China would basically leave Hong Kong alone, which was the stated plan in 1984.
     Morris writes about many parts of the Hong Kong story that aren't a credit to the British, starting with British businessmen's eagerness to claim Hong Kong Island in the 1840's in order to make it easier for them to ship more opium from India to the growing number of addicts in China.  The relentless search for business opportunity continues to draw people to Hong Kong.  A laissez-faire fostering of capitalism still dominates government decision-making, as well as the general atmosphere in Hong Kong--not always a good thing.  At the same time, the British have created orderly and stable systems here over the years that have seemed to work.  Hong Kong has prospered, has developed an educated, ambitous and generally content middle class, and has funded a decent social welfare system.  The same cannot be said for the People's Republic of China, looking back over the past century and a half.  In the end, the British did quite a lot more good than harm in Hong Kong, says Morris, and it would be a shame for China to dismantle Hong Kong's successes.
     So far, 15 years after the handover, Morris' worst fears have not come to pass.  However, some would say that there are unsettling subtle changes afoot.  One of Terry's colleagues recently made a not-subtle comment about China's involvement in Hong Kong affairs:  "They're ruining it."  Something that particularly bothers this colleague is China's increasing involvement in the education system here and the growing emphasis on learning Mandarin in the schools while the emphasis on English decreases.  Until recently English proficiency has always been important for success in the school system here--that's what's needed by the work force in this international business community.  Mandarin, with its tonal and pictographic features, is not and likely will not be the lingua franca of business anytime soon.