Tsim Sha Tsui teems with life - no shortage of optimism here
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This is my second experience of Hong Kong and my wife's first. I came here alone in 1996 just before the end of the colonial era lease. I was one of the last to have the dubious pleasure of landing at Kai Tak airport. Really, flying down the high street with Mrs Wang's underwear scraping the end of your wings is something else. The "new" airport at Chek lap Kok is not pretty but it is highly efficient, like most things in the East. I still miss the excitement of that last minute right turn and the sheer sense of awe at the skill of those pilots.
We are on the first leg of a fairly major (for us) tour of South-East Asia. We will be going on to visit Bangkok, Singapore, Bangkok (again) Hua Hin, Penang, Pangkor Laut, Kuala Lumpur and Beijing before heading home on Christmas eve. Every time I travel eastward I am aware of an optimism gradient. I inhabit the extreme western fringe of Europe, the Old World. Rather like any elderly being, Europe is sclerotic and lacking in ambition. It naturally feels it has achieved most everything possible and is now due a break. Hells bells we had the renaissance, reinvented democracy, fought in two world wars, enough already! When is it kinder to put an old man out of his misery? We never have the courage. No, we say "let him have his dignity" he contributed so much. Still, he will be gone soon. In Wales especially, the funeral is long overdue. Now the old guy is getting to be a bit of a drag. Sure, the coal was useful but do we have to pay forever? Here in the East there is a sense of anticipation. Like a bunch of teenagers sensing their burgeoning sexual prowess and discerning their fathers' impending impotence, India, Malaysia, Korea, China, Thailand, Indonesia and The Philipines stand ready to take over. Japan sits as a slightly dodgy uncle, possibly having a mid-life crisis, chronically depressed, not to be trusted. America the adversary soon to be left behind, less decrepit than Europe but hog-tied by debt and future debt in particular. The biggest debt, the one that accountants and politicians never acknowledge but which is strangling the welfare democracies is the debt of expectation. Pensions, a future life of parasitism. Education, your debt to other people's fecundity. Oh and did I mention Arabia, Brazil, Russia, AFRICA? The future of the world economy seems unlikely to be dominated by WASPs.
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This is my second experience of Hong Kong and my wife's first. I came here alone in 1996 just before the end of the colonial era lease. I was one of the last to have the dubious pleasure of landing at Kai Tak airport. Really, flying down the high street with Mrs Wang's underwear scraping the end of your wings is something else. The "new" airport at Chek lap Kok is not pretty but it is highly efficient, like most things in the East. I still miss the excitement of that last minute right turn and the sheer sense of awe at the skill of those pilots.
We are on the first leg of a fairly major (for us) tour of South-East Asia. We will be going on to visit Bangkok, Singapore, Bangkok (again) Hua Hin, Penang, Pangkor Laut, Kuala Lumpur and Beijing before heading home on Christmas eve. Every time I travel eastward I am aware of an optimism gradient. I inhabit the extreme western fringe of Europe, the Old World. Rather like any elderly being, Europe is sclerotic and lacking in ambition. It naturally feels it has achieved most everything possible and is now due a break. Hells bells we had the renaissance, reinvented democracy, fought in two world wars, enough already! When is it kinder to put an old man out of his misery? We never have the courage. No, we say "let him have his dignity" he contributed so much. Still, he will be gone soon. In Wales especially, the funeral is long overdue. Now the old guy is getting to be a bit of a drag. Sure, the coal was useful but do we have to pay forever? Here in the East there is a sense of anticipation. Like a bunch of teenagers sensing their burgeoning sexual prowess and discerning their fathers' impending impotence, India, Malaysia, Korea, China, Thailand, Indonesia and The Philipines stand ready to take over. Japan sits as a slightly dodgy uncle, possibly having a mid-life crisis, chronically depressed, not to be trusted. America the adversary soon to be left behind, less decrepit than Europe but hog-tied by debt and future debt in particular. The biggest debt, the one that accountants and politicians never acknowledge but which is strangling the welfare democracies is the debt of expectation. Pensions, a future life of parasitism. Education, your debt to other people's fecundity. Oh and did I mention Arabia, Brazil, Russia, AFRICA? The future of the world economy seems unlikely to be dominated by WASPs.
Hong kong Harbour ferry - still only costs 35p (English money about c50 in USA)
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Standards of service in hotels, spas, restaurants, taxis in South-East Asia continue to astound and delight those of us used to the derisory "have a nice day" culture in the West. Why the difference? Because here the level of competition is incomparably higher and the buyer really is king. Standards of living have not yet risen so high that anyone can afford to be blasé about the next customer's opinion. Will that change? Well probably yes but in a timescale that rescues the West from economic oblivion? I don't think so. Can the West stay ahead by being clever or better educated? Are you kidding? Most Western universities increasingly rely on students from South-East Asia to fill their coffers and provide talent.
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Standards of service in hotels, spas, restaurants, taxis in South-East Asia continue to astound and delight those of us used to the derisory "have a nice day" culture in the West. Why the difference? Because here the level of competition is incomparably higher and the buyer really is king. Standards of living have not yet risen so high that anyone can afford to be blasé about the next customer's opinion. Will that change? Well probably yes but in a timescale that rescues the West from economic oblivion? I don't think so. Can the West stay ahead by being clever or better educated? Are you kidding? Most Western universities increasingly rely on students from South-East Asia to fill their coffers and provide talent.
The Northern shore of Hong Kong: Victoria Harbour Skyline at night
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Hong Kong is, of course a unique experiment. For 150 years a British colony leased from Imperialist China then coveted and suspected by the communists in equal measure, now undergoing a slightly uneasy assimilation into a China itself undergoing transition toward an open pluralist economy at a startling rate, the tension here is palpable. Yet, walk the streets, stroll through the malls, observe young men trying on clothes in Burberry or Prada and you realise their aspirations are the same as youth in any part of the globe. The difference becomes apparent when you see the older men and women still hawking their wares around the streets of Tsim Sha Tsui. These guys work for peanuts, and carry their entire business home with them after a 16 hour day every night. How many people do you know in Coventry, Cardiff or Connecticut who do that? Bet they're all immigrants.
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Hong Kong is, of course a unique experiment. For 150 years a British colony leased from Imperialist China then coveted and suspected by the communists in equal measure, now undergoing a slightly uneasy assimilation into a China itself undergoing transition toward an open pluralist economy at a startling rate, the tension here is palpable. Yet, walk the streets, stroll through the malls, observe young men trying on clothes in Burberry or Prada and you realise their aspirations are the same as youth in any part of the globe. The difference becomes apparent when you see the older men and women still hawking their wares around the streets of Tsim Sha Tsui. These guys work for peanuts, and carry their entire business home with them after a 16 hour day every night. How many people do you know in Coventry, Cardiff or Connecticut who do that? Bet they're all immigrants.