New money in China, and its effect overseas...

I haven't been writing in my journal for a couple of months now, mostly because our family has taken a couple of months to travel to Asia during the summer. Between kids' activities, gatherings with friends, work and family engagements, there isn't much time left for anything else. Now that the summer vacation is winding down, it might be a good time to jog down some thoughts:

1. One would think that, since I grew up in Hong Kong, I should be accustomed to its heat and humidity. I'm still amazed by how much it gets to me, every time I travel back to my hometown. The constant sweating and stickiness can be quite unpleasant. It's no wonder why everyone (no exception) seeks out A/C treatment, even for however brief a moment. We're never big on A/C, but I'm almost saddened, to have to say that we can't sleep without the A/C on. How ironic it is, for a city that is actively promoting going green.
   
   
2. On going green, Hong Kong has come a long way. But whatever it is, the most powerful behavior changer is always with money. These days, with all supermarkets and convenience stores charging an extra HK$0.50 for a plastic bag, almost everyone brings their own shopping bag. While HK$0.50 might not be much, it can quickly add up, with multiple trips to grocers. I'm impressed by how pervasive the behavior has changed among all walks of life, judging by BYOB ("bring your own bag") is practiced by most everyone, including the very old. When I was going up, my mom used to use her own wicker basket to buy grocery in the wet market. I'm glad that people are reverting to the old tradition.
   
   The success of other green measures though, is less than stellar. One of which is the half-hearted measure of recycle bins. There are groups of recycle bins for metal, plastic, papers, but alas - no glass! They are strategically placed at busy intersections in busy residential areas (but almost none to be found at commercial districts like Central). Very, very rarely would you see any overflowing recycle bins, most likely because you can still easily see the recyclables like plastic bottles and cans being dumped as trash. By jove, in our condo building in US, the recycle bins 50% bigger than the ones used in Hong Kong would have been filled up within two days after they are cleared. I'd say, if the Hong Kong government has really wanted to increase the level of recycling, they can easily have put out coin machine where each can or plastic or glass bottle is reimbursed by just HK$0.50 or even HK$0.10. I can bet ya, it'll overwhelm the system with recyclables within days.
   
   
3. Hong Kong is forever changing, sometimes to my dismay. There seems to be less and less interest among the locals to value history, like old style restaurants or historic buildings. In the past, Hong Kong government has made it more of a point to promote its history (eg. floating an old-style fishing boat in Victoria Harbor that signifies the fishing root of Hong Kong more than a century ago). That's because western tourists appreciate its uniqueness. These days, with an overwhelming majority of tourists in Hong Kong coming from mainland China, no one seems to care. (Afterall, mainland China has been busy shedding its own history, racing to pull down historic districts, replacing them with skyscrappers.) One time, when I was walking into this really old teahouse style of restaurant in Central, I overhead a few mainland Chinese tourists thrashing this restaurant, saying that they have "lots of these" dingy restaurants in their hometown in China. When they come to Hong Kong, they want to see new things, buy new clothes and jewelry. They have no interests, whatsoever, in seeking out the history of Hong Kong which makes it so unique. That makes me both angry and sad, all at once.
   
   
4. Which brings my thought to the new wealth from those mainland Chinese, alot of them tourists, but with an increasing number of them coming to Hong Kong just to shop, invest, and move/park their monies. For this, you would have to be physically in Hong Kong to truly experience these new wealth coming from China. In the olden days, you would identify mainland Chinese by how backward-looking they dress. These days, you can quite easily pick out those who are from China by how they look too, but now, it's those who go shopping with their luggage (on trolley wheels), and by counting all the incredibly expensive brands that you can't possibly imagine, all on a single body, from eyeglasses, to earrings, to necklace, watches, rings and bracelets, clothes, handbags, and shoes, most of which in very loud colors. The kind of gawdiness can blind you instantly. The ones that tops it all, were one young couple (in late teens to their early 20s) I saw on a bus on the Hong Kong island. The boy dressed in the most asexual way, with full collections in Prada and Louis Vuitton. The girl dressed likewise, but with a blinding diamond necklace and bracelet that would make evening gown look dim. To top it all, he was picking her ears...publicly on a double-decker bus.
   
   
5. And yes, that brings me to another thought, of how uncivilized the mainland Chinese can behave. Apart from the ear-picking episode on bus, I've also seen another young couple scratching and picking each other's feet while waiting for a cross-harbor ferry. Even my youong kids are flabbergasted when they see it; how can it be that these young adults can be so oblivious of how terrible that looks in public? Do they do the same in China too???
   
   
6. The other thing that you won't believe it, is the amount of wealth that these mainland Chinese bring to Hong Kong (for shopping and investment). It's not uncommon to see outrageously priced luxury condo being bought by mainland Chinese, or the jewelry and skin care products...all in cash. One time, I was in this watch shop in Causeway Bay browsing. The sales assistant in the shop was trying to entertain a small group of unruly mainland Chinese. They were asking "which are the most expensive watches?" to which the shopkeeper points out the Vacheron Constantin to them. These mainland Chinese men were suitably impressed by the price tags (upward of HK$200k), but one of them thrashing them, saying"Cons-si-what?" in Chinese.
   
   
7. One has to ask, where does all these wealth come from? One would not imagine that they come from the monthly savings from salary of regular workers. The consensus answer comes from government stimulus. When the government turns on the spigot, monies flow left, right, and center, to officials and those businessmen who pay to get results from these officials. Everyone worries about the possibilitiy of collapse of this not-so-invisible bubble in China, even the thought of a slowdown sends shudder around the world now.
   
   While there's no doubt about the red-hotness in the Chinese economy, one has to wonder, how real is the statistics put out by government. How much of those 8-9% GDP growth have ended up in private pockets, rather than going towards public good, like the social safety net for healthcare?
   
   
8. Beneath the almighty China lies the small but dynamic Hong Kong which is famous for reinventing itself. I've slowly come to the realization that Hong Kong is losing its own uniqueness, while trying to mimic itself as another Chinese city like Shanghai or Beijing. With its gradual loss of grip in manufacturing and potential financial sector, would it one day have lost its way in reinventing itself with a new sector? Its education system has been on shaky grounds since its handover back to China in 1997, with shifting focus from English to Mandarin, then to dual language, then back to try to hold onto English, with a lost generation of teachers having the capability to teach English. The mass production of graduates from the many universities (promoted from little more than community colleges or technical institutes) with depreciating level of competitiveness, offers little comfort. To be sure, I emphasize with the younger generations these days, whose starting salary of graduates is on par with my starting salary 20 years ago. How they survive, with higher inflation and cost of living, is quite beyond my imagination.
   

Next week, we're going to take a trip to China to see how it looks there. It'll be interesting to see how things are like on the other side of the fence....