It’s always a pleasure returning to cities you know so well that it’s like coming home. I know quite a few cities well enough to know my way around but for me only London and Hong Kong have that quality of home. Bali feels like home too but it’s nothing like a city and while I’ve had a house here for nigh on 12 years it’s only in the last 3 that I’ve been here most of the time. In fact I’ve hardly been out of Bali except to go on various expeditions to the Central Australian Desert and Arnhem Land, so my life as a city slicker has been rather curtailed of late.
Not that I mind greatly. I enjoy living in Bali too much for that. But I do find things tend to grow on you if you stay here too long without a break, rather like being part of the greenery. Old standards can slip away too, which can be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on what it is and how you look at it. Dresswise, smart casual is about as formal as it gets in Bali and that can be very attractive after a place like Hong Kong, where everyone wears a suit and tie despite the heat and humidity levels of over 98% (that’s why they all succumb to SARS yer see, their immune systems are challenged ‘cos they don’t wrap up well in the arctic air-conditioning). Left to my own devices I would no doubt dress increasingly like a slob. Thankfully I’m blessed with a partner who’s not about to let that happen. Now when I hit the Big City it’s fun to dress up and I actively enjoy wearing a jacket and tie, sometimes even a suit.
I have observed though, that for more than a few foreigners living here letting go simply means forgetting good manners. Thanking your hosts after a dinner for example. Punctuality goes out the window to the extent that it’s OK to seriously inconvenience others without a second thought. Then there are those ghastly would-be social animals who commit to all and every social engagement deciding at the last minute which invitation to accept and never bothering to inform anyone else foolish enough to have invited them.
Such people, if they think about it all, like to excuse their lack of manners as being the “Balinese way”. Well it isn’t, not in my experience at any rate. And even if it were, which it ain’t, they are not Balinese.
Hong Kong is back....?
Hong Kong seems at last to have got over it’s 7-year malaise. When I was there the weather was at its best. Cool, sunny and blue skies, when you could see them through the diesel haze that still envelops the city that is. Nothing brought back my fondness for the place quicker than to be barked at in that abrupt English Canto-sprach. My partner and I both collapsed in delighted giggles within minutes of landing. After the circumlocutions of English as it is spoke in Indonesia it was refreshingly different. Absence sure makes the heart grow fond.
But what for me really signaled Hong Kong’s return to form was the way a million Hong Kongites peacefully hit the streets to see off the attempted imposition of beefed-up security and sedition laws by C.W. Tung, Hong Kong’s ill-starred Chief Executive. Best yet it worked. So fed up with the Chief Executive’s record of failure and utter lack of common touch that Beijing loyalists deserted the cause in droves and the wretched Tung was forced to backdown. Clearly, even Beijing itself has lost confidence in their man. Last time anyone challenged the will of China’s leaders in such a way it ended badly.
This, it seems to me, is hugely significant not just for Hong Kong but for China too. China may be booming economically but there’s been little change when it comes to the rule of the Communist Party. There are no guarantees of personal freedom or rule of law and commercially it remains a jungle. What happened in Hong Kong quietly but potently reverberated throughout China. For the first time under Communist rule Chinese people said no, the government backed down and not a drop of blood was shed.
They used to say the Hong Kong people were apolitical and only cared about business. That was shown to be untrue in 1984 in Tien An Men Square and again in September, 2003. The thing is that Hong Kong people are different from the rest of China. They grew up under a colonial system, which despite its many faults and while certainly no democracy, did operate under the rule of law. The people of Hong Kong may be happy to be part of China again but they’ve been internationalised and don’t see why they should give up their freedoms. To them China is the one that should change. Back in the lead-up to the 1997 handover that was always a fond hope. Now intriguingly, seven years on the possibility doesn’t look quite so remote......
Shanghai swings.....
The vicissitudes of the last 8 years, the 1997 handover, the financial meltdown that same year, depressed stock and property markets, the ineptitude of the goddawful C.W. Tung, the erosion of the rule of law, the looming pre-eminence of Shanghai, SARS and the implosion of the retail and tourism industries, all combined as a crise de confidence for Hong Kong. It seemed as though Hong Kong was fated to become a backwater, “just another Chinese city” as people said. The place went flat as a pancake.
To me Hong Kong appears chastened and much-slimmed down, as though newly emerged from the hydro. The old style bravura of monied arrogance seems to have been kicked out of it. That mantle has now descended on Shanghai. The lingering relics of colonial admin are gone. All of which is no bad thing. In its place the city seems younger, more professional and more international than it was. Unquestionably a Chinese city, but a genuinely international one in a way that no other city in China can match. The buzz and the excitement commercially and culturally is now with Shanghai, once again reclaiming its title as China’s premier city.
But once the bumbling Tung is gone (roll on that good day...). and his masters in Beijing don’t fear its example, Hong Kong will forge a new role for itself, I’ve no doubt. An open civilised city, somewhere between the order and sterility of Singapore and the sheer energy of a Shanghai, back on form after a 50-year relegation from the major leagues.
Circus for the People
While in Hong Kong I was putting up at the Island Shangri-La, which is a pretty nice pub, once you get used to all that Kuok kitchieness and the aroma of expensive cigars that pervades the lobby. Curiously it seems the owners (if not the management) are wedded to the idea that the smell of a good cigar is the epitome of luxury and all men and women of discernment will appreciate the reek. Well, you can’t have everything....
The Island Shang is situated right on top of Hong Kong’s premier shopping mall in a park with lots of green, with magnificent views over the Peak and the harbour. With a great breakfast thrown in and one of Hong Kong’s best gym’s I was as happy as Larry, what with a broadband connection to boot. Up there on the 42nd floor we had a spectacular view of Tung’s latest folly. There, far below on acres of barren asphalt, where last I had seen a weeping Patton with his pretty blubbing daughters sail away with Prince Charles on HM’s Yacht Brittania having just given away Hong Kong , was a rock stadium no less.
Not content with such white elephants as Disneyland, Cyberport and any number of billion dollar ad campaigns to “re-brand HK” C.W Tung in a desperate attempt to curry favour with a disenchanted populace had decreed a month-long circus for the masses in the form of a succession of pop and rock stars. Quite a roster in fact, no wonder Hong Kong’s cash reserves are dwindling so fast. In a little over 3 weeks Jose Carreras, the Rolling Stones, Prince, Santana, Air Supply, the Gypsy Kings, Neil Young,. Craig David, Atomic Kitten plus a bevy of Japanese, Canto and Taiwanese pop stars, whose names alas mean nothing to me, were scheduled to hit the boards.
Unfortunately anything the hapless Tung turns his hand to seems to go wrong. The festivities were entrusted to a senior civil servant, a non-tenured American hired at huge expense to the taxpayer charged with bringing investment to Hong Kong, in cahoots with the American Chamber of Commerce, whose President reckons he knows a thing or two about popular music. It was an odd decision and things did not go well. Each evening half the seats went unsold and had to be given away and still they couldn’t fill the place. People complained about the noise, people who bought the most expensive seats complained the people who hadn’t paid rushed to the front and they couldn’t see a thing and most of all, people complained about the mismanagement and the colossal amount of money being spent. To cap it all a major scandal developed when the press discovered that Amcham President, businessman Jim Thompson owner of packers Crown Pacific, had set up the organising company for the all the concerts in the name of his wife and himself, in order to take advantage of the anticipated profits it was said. Not that there were going to be any profits mind you, more like mega millions down the drain. But no need to worry about Lucky Jim, shrewd businessman that he is, he still gets a handsome fee for organising the gala disaster and the government gets to foot the bill. Nice one C.W!
I wonder why it is that whenever people are looking for a solution to whatever collectively ails them or they want to get back on the map, as it were, they declare a Rockfest as the answer to all their problems? I seem to recall similar attempts in Bali recently, also with less than stellar results......
ParacelsusAsia to Defect!
Meanwhile back in Bali I see the vexed visa question drags on and on. It really does seem quite bizarre. I suppose it won’t really be resolved until after the presidential elections next year. Then hopefully it’ll all go back to the way it was. Though quite why the Minister of Human Rights & Justice in his wisdom is so determined to push through such a bad idea remains a mystery. Balinese people in the travel industry I’ve talked to seem to think the Minister is incensed because he and his friends were themselves subjected to the gruesome visa application experience for Indonesians going to the US or Europe. They gotta point, but then if reciprocity worked like that Indonesia would be lending billions of dollars to the US, most of which would end up in Dick Cheney’s pocket, so where’s the logic in that? Either that, or he wants to punish the US, Britain and Australia for invading Iraq and generally being arrogant Westerners. Whatever it is, all agreed that no one in Jakarta gives a damn about Bali.
One of the reasons for my trip to Hong Kong was to renew my passport which despite having 4 years to go had run out of space, what with all those enormous visa stickers I have to go to such trouble to get stuck in it. Now I don’t care what colour my passport is and I have no particular nostalgia for my blue and gold hard back passport of yesteryear, but I sure as hell do miss those 90 pages.
Thing is, I see that along with the ASEAN countries Hong Kong is to be exempted from all the new visa requirements. So as a Hong Kong permanent resident my next sojourn here may well be under the aegis of the People’s Republic of China. Now that’s a thought.......
Curiously the owners are wedded to the idea that the smell of a good cigar is the epitome of luxury and all men and women of discernment will appreciate the reek.
