BOOK RE-REVIEW The day Britannia sailed away Farewell, My Colony by Todd Crowell
Reviewed by David Simmons
HUA HIN, Thailand - As 10-year anniversaries go, the commemoration this Sunday
of Hong Kong's handover from British to Chinese rule is not likely to be
earth-shaking for anyone who is neither British nor Chinese, or has never
otherwise been connected with Hong Kong. To most of us, Hong Kong is just
another city; indeed, many Hongkongers themselves today look up the road to
bustling Shanghai or even nearby Guangzhou and neighboring Shenzhen with
increasing anxiety, as Hong Kong's relevance is more and more in question.
Even in July 1997, the Hong Kong handover was overshadowed by other events,
especially the lead-up to the Asian financial crisis,
which ironically was triggered in part by overall uncertainty among global
investors about the wisdom of exposure to the "Asian economic miracle" when the
very symbol of world capitalism in East Asia was being taken over by the
long-dreaded "commies". On July 2, 1997, the day after the handover, the Thai
baht was de-pegged from the US dollar and lost half its value nearly overnight.
Perhaps, though, the importance of Hong Kong was already becoming a myth, as
the new "Asian economic miracle" - the opening of mainland China - was well
under way; and it was the West's failure to understand Hong Kong that
contributed to the financial crisis of 1997-98.
In the reviewer's then-home city of Vancouver, Hong Kong was just another
exotic Asian city, the land of Jackie Chan, the triads and Li Ka-shing - who
had been at the center of one of the few Canadian political scandals worthy of
the name, one that ultimately brought down the premier of British Columbia. In
the lead-up to the handover, though, Hong Kong's influence spread to Vancouver,
driving home prices up beyond the reach of ordinary families as fat-cat
Hongkongers fled the impending doom of the communist takeover, and pissing off
the locals, including the city's large and well-established Chinese community,
by importing harsh Hong Kong economic and social values into the easy-going
Canadian west-coast lifestyle.
Meanwhile on the other side of the Pacific Ocean, "old Asia hand" Todd Crowell
was observing and documenting this unique event whose historical importance is
still a matter of controversy 10 years later. Farewell, My Colony is a
first-hand look at those events that avoids the temptation of making
predictions, or of getting bogged down in the haughty cliches typical of
longtime Hong Kong expatriates, or in political/economic ideology. All of this
combines to make the book a fascinating glimpse of the immediate pre-handover
era.
"I was one of the optimists," Crowell confesses today. "I believed the handover
would be a success."
Many others were much more anxious. Early in the book, we learn about the
impending arrival of the People's Liberation Army troops who were set to march
proudly across the border and take over the new Hong Kong Special
Administrative Region (SAR) from the British military. Security duties were
being hastily reassigned to ensure continuity for the law and order that were a
hallmark of British-ruled Hong Kong but not so much so on the mainland;
questions were being asked about such things as how troops from relatively poor
China would adapt to life in one of the world's most expensive cities:
Many
Hong Kong people were happy to hear that the troops would be mostly confined to
their bases and probably allowed to venture into the capitalist enclave only in
bunches under close supervision, like guided tour groups. In fact [a private]
is paid only US$5 a month, roughly the cost of one beer in a Wanchai bar, so
duty here does not hold out the prospect for much fun. [Major-General Liu
Zhenwu, named as commander of the Hong Kong contingent] himself, who is
presumably the highest-paid soldier, earns less than a third of the minimum
wage for a housemaid. Some legislators are talking about ways Hong Kong might
augment the pittance soldiers now get. Call it luxury pay? (p 29)
In fact, uncertainty about the future spread through all classes. The book
describes the vast queues that snaked through the city as people clamored for
special British travel documents that would ease their escape from the new SAR
if things got dodgy under the communists.
Outside Hong Kong, of course, the fate of ordinary people was the last thing on
anyone's mind. Of much more interest was the guarantee, wrested by the British
from Beijing through years of hard bargaining, that the new SAR would maintain
capitalist principles for 50 years after the handover. Part and parcel with
this - possibly to maintain the dearly held Western myth that capitalism and
democracy must go hand in hand - was the hasty institution of some basic
democratic "rights" by the outgoing administration of governor Chris Patten.
Thus the West was wringing its hands about whether Hong Kong's (merely months
old) "traditions" of democracy and human rights would be "maintained" by the
evil communists.
For more pragmatic-minded Westerners, of course, the question was far more
basic: Will the handover of this capitalist enclave to communist Beijing make
it easier for us to get fat and rich off the gigantic mainland China market?
Crowell's lively writing style makes the lead-up to establishing Hong Kong's
new system of governance, especially the process of appointing Patten's
successor, the first "chief executive" of the HKSAR, a good read, but to most
outsiders Hong Kong politics is a pretty dull affair. Hong Kong is, after all,
just a city, and its vaunted Legislative Council not much more than a city
council. In fact this reviewer, who arrived in Hong Kong late in the game and
who has had the privilege (let's be kind) of working for both of the city's
major English-language dailies, was reminded in those times of nothing so much
as his introduction to journalism covering the meetings of suburban city
councils and school boards.
On the very eve of the handover, the ambivalence of the international media
about the importance of Hong Kong seemed apparent. Crowell writes:
Thousands
of journalists descended and began poking around the city looking for stories.
For a while the press pack, tantalized by the news of Cambodian mass-murderer
Pol Pot's apparent capture, hurried off to Phnom Penh. But the reporters
drifted back to Hong Kong when it became apparent that he wasn't about to
emerge from the jungle. In the last week before the handover, it seemed
impossible to walk around Central without running into a mini-cam ... "This
will be the most over-reported event of the century," complained Heung Shu-fai,
a Chinese news media executive. (pp 161-162)
But for
international players, there were political points to be made from the handover
- or so some thought. The Anglo-American "democracy crusade" that would reach
its most absurd heights nearly six years later with the invasion of Iraq was in
evidence, as Tony Blair and Bill Clinton issued collective "tsk, tsks" at
Beijing for its intention to shut down Patten's partially elected Legislative
Council in favor of a "provisional council", with elections to be reinstated in
the near future.
Britain's effort ... to demonstrate solidarity with
the outgoing Legco by boycotting the swearing-in of the incoming provisional
council seems to have failed. Only US secretary of state Madeleine Albright
agreed to join prime minister Tony Blair in giving the investiture a miss.
Every other country, including such bastions of democracy as Australia, Canada
and Japan, indicated they planned to send their most senior people to both the
handover and the swearing-in ceremony that takes place one hour later. So
London climbed down. (p 163)
In an interview (easily arranged,
as Crowell now works for Asia Times Online's Thailand Bureau), the author
snorts at questions of Hong Kong's relevance. "Of course it's relevant, how
could it not be? It's a world city. That won't change, even though China now
has other world cities."
Well, yes, but you could say the same about any major city. Like none of those,
Hong Kong under British rule staked out a place in the world that was unique,
as the gateway to the Middle Kingdom. And it vowed to continue that role,
albeit with Chinese and not British characteristics, after July 1, 1997.
Success, or not?
"Post-handover Hong Kong's 'relevance' has never been about Hong Kong. It has
been about China," Crowell says. "China made certain promises that under its
sovereignty Hong Kong would maintain its unique character. And despite what
many believed, inside and outside Hong Kong, China has kept those promises.
That has been extremely important as China has taken its place in the world.
"I lived in Hong Kong for many years before the handover, and for about seven
years afterward. Even now, I don't see much difference between before and
after. The flags are a different color, and so are the mailboxes. But Queen
Victoria's bust still reigns over her park in the heart of the city; the old
names of the streets have not changed. Even the same people are there - Donald
Tsang, Martin Lee, Christine Loh."
Much more important than those trappings, in Crowell's view, is that by and
large, Hong Kong's strong traditions of rule of law have been maintained.
Crowell is surprised not so much that Beijing has done nothing to reverse those
traditions as by the fact that it has done so little to import them on to the
mainland. China can't survive on spectacular economic statistics and stock and
property bubbles forever; eventually it will have to stabilize, and to do that,
it needs to adopt the very principles that have enriched Hong Kong for decades.
"My impression of Hong Kong Chinese now, when I visit there, is that they think
of themselves as Chinese first, and Hongkongers second." In other words, 10
years on, the mainland has affected Hong Kong, and not - or at least much less
so - vice versa.
Through it all, Hong Kong has always been different things to different people.
The reviewer and the reviewee have starkly different opinions about its
qualities; for Crowell, its magic remains, while to those of us whose Asian
comfort zone is found in the steamy chaos of places like Bangkok, Manila or
Jakarta, Hong Kong is nice but a bit too much like the sterile places we fled -
other than having a really big and especially savory Chinatown.
Nonetheless, the importance of Sunday's 10th handover anniversary must not be
shrugged off, hence this tribute to Crowell's glimpse at history - probably
Asia Times Online's first "re-review" of a 10-year-old book. In conclusion,
then, one of his impressions of July 1, 1997:
Of the poignant farewell
at Tamar, the Royal Yacht Britannia bathed in the white glow of giant light
globes, Patten slowly working his way through a crowd of old friends and
colleagues, stopping for a kiss here, for a bear hug there, his three
daughters, eyes glistening but heads held high, crossing on to the yacht, the
strains of "Rule Britannia" as the ship gradually pulled away from the dock and
steamed slowly eastward through the Lei Yue Mun gap, Patten and the Prince [of
Wales] waving goodbye from the upper deck. (p 169)
Farewell, My
Colony: Last Days in the Life of British Hong Kong by Todd Crowell.
Hong Kong: Asia 2000 Ltd, 1998. ISBN-10: 9627160547. Price US$14, 184 pages.
David Simmons is an Asia Times Online correspondent based in Thailand.
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
In the reviewer's then-home city of Vancouver, Hong Kong was just another
exotic Asian city, the land of Jackie Chan, the triads and Li Ka-shing - who
had been at the center of one of the few Canadian political scandals worthy of
the name, one that ultimately brought down the premier of British Columbia. In
the lead-up to the handover, though, Hong Kong's influence spread to Vancouver,
driving home prices up beyond the reach of ordinary families as fat-cat
Hongkongers fled the impending doom of the communist takeover, and pissing off
the locals, including the city's large and well-established Chinese community,
by importing harsh Hong Kong economic and social values into the easy-going
Canadian west-coast lifestyle.
