I am in the Causeway Bay area of Hong Kong. Opposite me in Victoria Park a group of elderly ladies are doing what appears to be a fusion between Taichi and Aerobics to the sound of Holy Night, Silent Night. This is Hong Kong! But is this also, a friend and I wondered while dining last night at a roof-top restaurant with a view overlooking the lights of Happy Valley, Hong Kongs Swan Song?

Admiralty, where much of the confrontation, some of it violent, between the police and the remaining Occupy Central with Peace and Love demonstrators has taken place these last couple of days, is two MTR MTR stations away. Yet here, a few occupation tents in the street notwithstanding, life goes on pretty much as normal. Hong Kong has been an important part of my life. I first came in 1950. I was aged five, but remember the throngs and throngs of refugees from the mainland pouring in. Throughout the 1950s my parents were based in Tokyo, but when going on home leave back to France, we would invariably stop for a few days in Hong Kong where my father had his suits and hand-tailored shirts made. Hong Kong was very poor. The main means of transport was the rickshaw, bicycle or simply man driven. Aberdeen Bay was where Hong Kong boat people lived cheek by jowl and tried to make a meagre living. Prostitution was rife, as was illustrated in the box-office 1960 hit film The World of Suzie Wong, starring William Holden and Nancy Kwan, based on a novel by Richard Mason. Hong Kong was also a setting for deep and highly emotional romance, notably in that great tear-jerker of all tear-jerkers, Love is a Many-Splendored Thing, starring Jennifer Jones and (again) William Holden, based on an autobiographical novel by Han Suyin, and with perhaps one of Hollywoods gushiest theme songs: Love is a many-splendored thing, and in the morning mist, two lovers kissed and the world stood still . Hong Kong remained closely associated with cinema, notably with the martial arts action films of Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee. And love is still in the air, as well illustrated by the film In the Mood for Love, nominated for the 2000 Cannes Film Festival Palme dOr. However in the course of the 1970s and on, Hong Kong became much more notorious for money! Hong Kong was one of the four dragons (along with Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan), that experienced stellar growth and saw GDP per capita income rise ten-fold (from $3000 to $30,000) between 1960 and 1997 the year of the handover. Currently, according to IMF IMF estimates, it stands at about $60,000, having surpassed the UK, its former colonial overlord. But today the mood in Hong Kong is quite grim. This is not so much about Occupy. It is about a feeling more deep down that the good times are over, that Hong Kong will become just another Chinese city albeit with Hong Kong characteristics and that prospects, especially for youth, are discouraging hence one of the reasons for Occupy. Two conditions afflict Hong Kong. Much of its strategy, success and money were based on promoting Hong Kong as the window on and gateway to China. But China is much more of an open-house than a closed-house these days. There are many windows. Hong Kong may have lost its niche. Thus in the recent launching of the connect between the Shanghai and Hong Kong stock markets, the overwhelming feeling in Hong Kong is that most of the gain went to Shanghai. Paradoxically, the more Chinese cities learn from Hong Kong in developing rule of law and establishing proper infrastructure for financial services the more Hong Kong stands to be left behind. The second is that while Hong Kong is an amazing economic success story, it is hardly a social model. Hong Kong escaped the proverbial middle-income-trap, but the middle in Hong Kong is not particularly conspicuous. There are the very, very, very rich the tycoons and the pretty, in some cases very, poor. Hong Kong has the highest inequality ratio of any Asian city and one of the highest in the world; it has some of the worlds least affordable housing. Officially 1,3 million people, almost 20% of the population, are classified as poor. These inequalities are visible in the physical landscape. Next Next to architecturally awesomely impressive skyscrapers are tawdry abandoned or semi-abandoned buildings. Whereas Hong Kong in the past contrasted with Chinese cities by its sleekness, increasingly the opposite is true. Perhaps the greatest indictment came with the recent news that people in Shanghai have higher English fluency capability than in Hong Kong. Ouch! So is it Hong Kongs swan song? One has to be reminded of the first Hong Kong CEO CH Tungs comment in 1997 that many people have bet against Hong Kong and lost. But this time, things may be more serious. Underlying all this is that while Hong Kongs civil service remains second to none, its government, in particular in the person of current CEO C.Y. Leung, is pretty dismal. Of course this is a global condition, affecting not only Hong Kong, though Hong Kong really does deserve better which is what the protestors and their sympathizers think! Hong Kong still has a tremendous potential. It has a role to play in Greater China, Asia and the world. It is, among other things, home to a number of world-leading universities. The entrepreneurial spirit is still there. Hong Kong is arguably Asias only truly global city while retaining local (Cantonese) characteristics. But it has to adapt to regional and global transformations. It has to reinvent itself. There is a lot to be done in refurbishing the city physically and aesthetically; including more greening. There is a lot of beauty, but too much ugliness. More significantly, it has to develop much more a sense of community. It should aim not only to have been an economic miracle, but also to become a paragon of a just and caring society. Hong Kong has been called a capitalist paradise: it should aim to be a capitalist paradise with a human face. This will be all the more important as the population ages. A city scene characterized by poor elderly persons hobbling about seedy streets is the most depressing one can imagine. A socially inclusive visually attractive culturally vibrant gastronomically rich China focused globally oriented center of expertise and entrepreneurship could be, on the other hand, a realizable dream!

Jennifer Jones in Love is a Many Splendored Thing

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Swan Song In Hong Kong?