Hong Kong 1997

HONG KONG IS LIKE AN EX

To me, Hong Kong is like an ex-boyfriend: I remember how it all started, I have evidence that we had fun, there were moments of anger and hate, I'm glad we have moved on, the break up was weird, and I have no regrets. In fact, I have TWO ex-boyfriends associated with the five years I lived in Hong Kong, so 3 really is a magical number. I'm now a Torontonian and I have been since 2002. Married with kids no less. Hong Kong really was the one before the One.

Hong Kong was the one before the One.

WHY A LOVE LETTER TO 1997 HONG KONG IN 2020?

Being at Home in 2020 COVID-Style

When one is used to working out of the house, leaving at 7 am and not returning home until at least 6 pm, one can only mutter at the clutter and grumble at the dust. But when one is IN the house 24/7 COVID-style, bingeing on Netflix, doing family activities with hubby and two sons, napping, rearranging furniture, planting basil plants, baking soft pretzels, and keeping the floor clear become sanity-savers.

After many distracting types of activities, it became clear that I needed to develop sustainable strategies to manage runaway stress. Medication, meditation, mindfulness. Exercise, eating heathier. And... decluttering!

Decluttering

(Yes, Yes, I am Getting to Why Hong Kong...)

What many people don't realize is that clutter really isn't just about the physical stuff (if you have more stuff than you have space, you will have clutter). It actually can involve a lot of emotions. There is a lot of decision-making about what to keep, where to keep it, how to categorize and organize things, what to get rid of, how to get rid of it, living the past, symbols attached to the thing or the giving of the thing, relationship with money, relationship with people, and relationship with yourself.

Some of the decluttering was fairly straightforward once I put my mind to it and had enough sleep. Closets, pantry, kitchen stuff... not too bad. A few sticky discussions with the husband, but for the most part, we were able to donate or toss a great many bags of stuff, which essentially made the little townhouse feel better. But...

Memorabilia about Hong Kong

I must have bins and bins of memory things: photos, postcards, journals, day timers, photos, souvenirs, year books, presents... but what really stood out was my box dedicated to the 1997 handover/return of Hong Kong back to the People's Republic of China. As I went through it, I got lost in my thoughts about Hong Kong and felt compelled to curate the items I saved into something more organized and reflective. Now that I have some COVID time on my hands and a decluttering mentality, I have a chance to remember how much I love(d) Hong Kong.

Now that I have some COVID time on my hands and a decluttering mentality, I have a chance to remember how much I love(d) Hong Kong.

MY HONG KONG CONNECTION

I was 27 and followed a boyfriend from my master's program in the UK to Hong Kong, where he was from. It was an exciting time. Everyone was wondering how the jewel of Asia would change by going from the 156 years under British "sovereignty" (which was mostly freewheeling capitalism and gateway to China) to the ironfisted centralist ruling approach of the Chinese Communist Party, from a colony to a Special Administrative Region.

Hong Kong was already losing some ground as the financial centre of Asia to Singapore and Shanghai. Some expats had already started moving their families to Singapore and foreign HQs were getting relocated to Shanghai. But it still had energy of party central (no pun intended) with expatiates drinking in the middle of the street in Lan Kwai Fong amidst the enormously tall buildings all around the island. People were still making money hand over fist. Hong Kong was still the place you had to stopover first before making a trip to other parts of Asia, including China.

Our cousins were Hong Kong born, as were some of my friends. In junior high school in Taipei, parents who went on business trips to Hong Kong, brought back Big Macs from McDonald's for us, because Taiwan didn't have many western run corporations.

Arriving in February of 1997, I started a job with the Bank of Nova Scotia Hong Kong regional office working for the VP of Product Development. She was this Amazonianly tall red-head who did not suffer fools wisely. Under her guidance, I learned that just working hard and then going home was not going to cut it. She made me go to Friday happy hours, she encouraged me to join the Board of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, and she introduced me to her network of friends. She was a great boss and mentor.

By 1997, most of the best chefs of Hong Kong had already emigrated out of the territory (word on the street is that a lot of them are in Vancouver) and the wealthy families all got their additional passport from the UK, Australia, New Zealand, or Canada in case they had to get out fast.

Other than the pomp and circumstance as well as the overnight change of the Union to the Five Star Red, daily life for the common people did not change that much. There was an increase in self-censorship in general and a lot more shopkeepers spoke Mandarin than before, but other than that, the life of a young Canadian professional did not change much.

(By the way, true story: storekeepers used to be really mean to you if you didn't speak Cantonese. That incentivized me to learn Cantonese within months of arriving to Hong Kong. That, and the boyfriend's mom not speaking anything but, inspired me to learn this Chinese dialect that sounded like you were fighting or exaggerating Putonghua words loudly.)

There was an increase in self-censorship and a lot more shopkeepers spoke Mandarin than before, but other than that, the life of a young Canadian professional did not change by much.

MONEY

In Hong Kong, everything was about money. Really. It was that simple. As my ex-boyfriend used to tell me all the time, breaking my bubble, "if you have no money, you are nobody". It was a weird ah ha moment for me, as this is not how I felt about life in general, but it did seem to capture the atmosphere of Hong Kong at the time. It marked the beginning of the end of my feelings for the boyfriend and a little bit of my love for Hong Kong withered too.

On the other hand, I've always loved Hong Kong coins. How much sense does it make to be able to reach into your pocket and without looking at all, pull out the exact change you need in 2 seconds? That changed too though. Of course the old coins and bills had to be replaced. Hong Kong was no longer a colony of the British Empire.

SOVEREIGNTY VS ADMINISTRATION, HANDOVER VS RETURN

Depending on your perspective, the words used referring to this transaction of Hong Kong being a part of China rather than being run by the Brits were very different. Depending on your economic ties to China or your opinion about democracy for Hong Kong people, you had a very different attitude towards July 1, 1997.

The Americans and the Brits were of course really making it about the Hong Kong people losing their human rights and power over themselves, even though, well, the Hong Kong people really weren't ruling over themselves, because the Brits were. Meanwhile the Chinese were pretty unhappy with the unfair treaty signed after the end of the Opium War and were absolutely ready to welcome the territory back to the homeland as a Special Administrative Region, or SAR.

Would Hong Kong have been such a global financial success without the British? Maybe not. But if the British had not strategically tried to get everyone hooked on opium because they ended up planting poppies instead of cotton, well, there wouldn't have been an Opium War to fight and a weakened Qing dynasty to negotiate with in 1842. Winners write history and these things are very complicated. As I am not a historian, I will leave the details to them.

In modern days, there were a lot of different attitudes: some people embraced a closer relationship with China and access to the huge economy and consumer population, while others feared a clamp down on political control and human rights, such as free speech, you know, the right to disagree with the stance of the leaders of the Chinese Communist Party.

Winners write history and these things are very complicated. As I am not a historian, I will leave the details to them.

MACAU AND TAIWAN

Okay, so this I did not know until I actually looked it up, but the Portuguese proposed to give Macau back to China in 1978. Some left-leaning officers overthrew the right-wing ruling government of nearly 50 years and they were committed to decolonization. But China rejected the proposal, worried that it would destabilize relationships with Hong Kong. So they didn't actually do the transfer until December 20, 1999. China played the long game. There wasn't a peep in 1999.

There was a chant going around: 1997 is Hong Kong, 1999 is Macau and 2001 is Taiwan. One China.

As a person born in Taiwan, but with origins from China, reunification is a topic that brings me a lot of stress. On the one hand, there is something incredibly powerful about Chinese people being a part of one country and one HUGE economy. The past few decades have seen unprecedented economic growth and prosperity for the Chinese people. The government tightly managed everything, working to make decisions that benefit the whole, and not always the few. However, what was the cost? Taiwan has also grown, but has simultaneously valued democracy, spirituality, and community. No single country, nation, territory (whatever you want to call Taiwan) is perfect. But watching Taiwan handle COVID has been a huge source of pride for me.

We all have friends and family who were born and raised in China. We have all had weird conversations about politics that most of us try to avoid whenever possible. At the end of the day, we are all Chinese... well, we are all human. Some of us have diluted our Chinese lineage with other races to end up with beautifully mixed race kids. So my feelings about China are complicated. Sort of a love/hate relationship.

There was a chant going around: 1997 is Hong Kong, 1999 is Macau and 2001 is Taiwan. One China.

TIBET

Again, this is also new to me, but Tibet was sort of annexed when the Mongolians took over China when they established the Yuan Dynasty. Tibet also has a complicated relationship with China. There are many ethnicities and languages that are considered Tibetan and certainly very complicated territorial skirmishes involving Brits via India. (Those Brits again!) Tibet is has politically supported other territories that sought to be free of Chinese rule. The Chinese government has done much to maintain control over this territory. My nonexpert opinion is that China does not want to give anyone a precedent-setting example of Chinese weakness. A discovery of a large mineral deposit under the Tibetan Plateau (estimated value of $128 billion in zinc, copper, and lead) probably does not give the Chinese government any incentive to let Tibet leave. Plus border issues with India...

Anyway, all to say, I don't see them giving Tibet independence unless a bigger stronger ally or enemy got involved with figuring out a win-win-win set up that lets them keep face and not lose the intension of bringing Taiwan back into the fold. Again, I'm not a historian or political scientist, but the main reason why the Hong Kong handover was such a big deal is because of all the politics around all of China's 'territories'.

I'm not a historian or political scientist, but the main reason why the Hong Kong handover was such a big deal is because of all the politics around all of China's 'territories'.

1997-2002

For 5 years, I lived in Hong Kong and enjoyed this amazing international metropolis. I met friends from around the world, who came and left or came and stayed. It was a very transient city, but also one that some people ended up permanently staying in.

The range of socioeconomic situations was HUGE. One day you could be yachting in the Hong Kong harbour with friends whose family owned some of the biggest companies in the region and the next, you could be sitting in a stall with friends living in public housing, chomping on the tastiest yet cheapest Hong Kong breakfast of macaroni soup with ham.

You might fly with friends over the weekend to KL or Singapore. Or you might cross the border to Shenzhen to shop for 'LV' luggage and tailormade work clothing.

We spoke in a mishmash of many languages, we got incredibly full body massages for cheap cheap cheap, we ate at fancy restaurants with food from around the world, we worked super long hours and partied even later...

We drank incredibly strong coffee milk tea (yuenyeung) and philosophized about life, religion, governments, and fashion. We had a lot of fun!

One day you could be yachting in the Hong Kong harbour and the next you could be chomping on the cheapest Hong Kong breakfast of macaroni soup with ham.

AND NOW, MY LOVE LETTER

Dear Hong Kong,

You were incredible!

You had so much energy, so much to offer an ambitious girl in her late 20's, early 30's. You were everything I had hoped for and more.

I think maybe I got burnt out and just didn't see a future for us together. You weren't someone I felt like I could settle down with. For one, I'm not sure I could have ever afforded to buy my own house. And I don't know that you ever truly felt like home to me. I think I was scared of what a future with you would look like. You offered me a permanent residency if I would have just stayed another 2 years, but the Asian Economic Crisis had quite the impact on my career prospects.

You were so great, I brought my sister over and she ended up getting married and having 3 kids with you! You were so great, I met my next boyfriend through you. You were so great, I developed incredible friendships that have lasted the past two decades!

So... I must tell you that I will always love you. I will always worry about you. I will always cherish the time we had together. And I have grown up because of you. I am in a good situation because of you!

Please continue to be resilient and smart and flexible and beautiful. I will come see you again in the future.

Love,

Sherry