Hong Kong: A lit review (of sorts)

This essay was originally drafted in the fall of 2019.

Greetings from row 71, seat G of a Boeing 777 en route to Hong Kong. The in-flight map tells me we are about to begin flying over the Hudson Bay. The flight could take up to sixteen hours, but with good conditions we can hope to land after only fourteen and a half, give or take -- but who’s counting? 

In the preceding weeks I’ve done what I could to learn a bit about Hong Kong. I like to think of this as a sort of field trip, an opportunity to cross reference what I’ve absorbed from PBS history programs, BBC documentaries, New York Times articles, and podcasts episodes. 

But what is it that I’ve absorbed? Let me tell you. 

According to the 2005 Dorling Kindersly Hong Kong Travel Guide I picked up at the Ely Public Library, 

“The end of the 20th century has seen communist regimes toppled across Europe, but the present government has made it all too clear that there will be no political change in China in the foreseeable future. Politics, although almost invisible to visitors, still enters every aspect of life, including the training of tour guides to provide cultural and historical information that supports the view of China the Party wishes to promote. Like many peoples, the Chinese are sunk in political apathy, believing that as individuals they can make little difference.” 

But I don’t think of myself as going to China. I think of myself as going to Hong Kong. 

About seven and a half million people live in Hong Kong. That’s more than twice as many people as inhabit the Twin Cities, yet in an area less than 1/10 the size. As such, Hong Kong is a vertical city, boasting of more skyscrapers than anywhere else in the world -- a factoid which is a little difficult for me to place into context, given the general lack of skyscrapers in my daily life. Apparently 300+ is a lot. 

Hong Kong is a port city, noted for its especially valuable anchorage. The harbor is deep, uniquely capable of harboring, if you will, ships. British ships, most famously. Hong Kong is a semi-autonomous region of China: “A cathedral of capitalism on communist shores.” How did this come to be? What does it mean to be “semi-autonomous”? 

In the 19th century (1800's, for people like me who struggle with that colloquial conversion) the British were importing a lot from China, but China was not importing much from Britain. China prided itself on being self-sufficient. Allow me to cut to the chase and say that, ultimately, the British strategically stoked the fire of opium addiction among the Chinese people in order to increase demand for their one unique export to China, thus leveling the scales on the trade imbalance. 

You see, the United Kingdom held India as a colony at the time, and opium was readily available in India. They took the opium and brought it to China. However, the Chinese government recognized the epidemic of addiction as a public health crisis, and some high-ranking officials ordered that a stock pile of “British” opium be destroyed. 

This incensed the British government, who (again this is very reductive, but hopefully functional portrayal) sent ships to China to retaliate. The British empire was in its infancy, and subsequently Chinese leadership made the mistake of underestimating it. 

The industrial revolution had done wonders for the British naval fleet and weaponry. Consider consulting A Modern History of Hong Kong for more details. Suffice it to say, there were wars. China was defeated and forced to cede Hong Kong to Britain in the Treaty of Nanking, signed in 1842. Thus Hong Kong became a colony of the British Empire.

Fast forward: In 1997, Hong Kong was “given back” to what had become communist China by the United Kingdom. “The handover” was conducted under a stipulation that there would be a fifty-year transition period, during which Hong Kong would be a democracy. 

“Now Hong Kong people are to run Hong Kong.” 

This is a good time to bring up Taoism (Daoism), the religious philosophy most known for the symbol of the yin and the yang, representing the duality of nature. A blending of contrasts. Everything is both -- all -- of its dualities. Hong Kong: a city with more than 150 years of British colonial influence, and more than 4000 years of Chinese tradition. A marvel of free commerce and skyscrapers, built with bamboo scaffolding in an authoritarian country. Two opposing things can be true at once. Hannah calls it China Lite. 

Hong Kong Harbour is one of the busiest ports in the world. Twenty million shipping containers full of globally-traded goods pass through it annually. (I wonder how much of it is plastic garbage produced for Western glut?) It is therefore not surprising that the semi-autonomous region features some of the most expensive real estate in the world. Lots of people, small geographical footprint. 

In spite (or because?) of the fact that Hong Kong is among the biggest global financial hubs, over 200,000 people are estimated to live in so-called cage communities. Opportunity and inequality are like the two Pisces fish, garroted together, swimming in opposite directions but in an infinite circle. One man featured in a BBC documentary series called The World’s Busiest Cities, pays about $230 USD/month to live in a bunk with a sliding metal door, large enough for a bed and a few shelves, but not tall enough to stand inside. 

This is only one of the many realities of Hong Kong that has led to the months of protest featured in the news as of late. Hong Kong was meant to be democratic throughout this fifty year transitional period, but the people of Hong Kong were denied the democratic elections that had been slated for 2014, sparking the Umbrella Movement, which is still alive and well today. Indeed, it was an announcement from the Hong Kong government that Hong Kong people would be subject to extradition to China for crimes committed in Hong Kong that sparked the resurgence of protests this summer. 

If Hong Kong is a semi-autonomous region, a democracy with its own government and laws, why would someone charged with a crime in Hong Kong be sent to China -- with an entirely different judicial system -- to be tried for said crime? Why would a hypothetical crime I commit in Minnesota, as a Minnesota resident, be tried under Wisconsin law? One could argue that it should not…. 

In the weeks after the extradition law was proposed, over two million people took to the streets of Hong Kong in peaceful protest. Young people took to the streets to stand against what they believe is a threat to very basic rights: freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and a just rule of law. 

In the year 2047 China will be able to do whatever it wants with Hong Kong. 

One man biding his time waiting to board the airplane asserted in a cavalier tone that anyone who has a problem with how things are ought to get out now; “China will do what China wants.” 

“The present government has made it all too clear that 

there will be no political change in China in the foreseeable future.”  

In the meantime the protests have grown more complex. Some of the peaceful protestors became radicalized by police use of tear gas and rubber bullets. Some of the police force has become radicalized by rampant vandalization by protestors. The chicken and the egg continue to reproduce. The protests have evolved into an amoeba of angst against income disparities, police brutality, and state-sanctioned curriculum in the public schools perceived as egregiously favorable to the mainland, and more. 

Why should the children of Hong Kong, an English and 

Cantonese speaking region, be taught Mandarin? 

As an outsider it’s easy to lament the damage done to bystanding property, but pray tell: How else can one be heard? Democratic elections? No. Peaceful protest? No. The people of Hong Kong were flatly denied democratic elections after a previous series of peaceful protests. According to various journalists on the ground, many of the protestors genuinely feel they have no alternative. “We have to tell the government that we are not satisfied with what the government is giving us.” 

And so here I sit. Hours later, about to enter Russian airspace. I took a break from writing to eat dinner, have a couple plastic cups of wine, and watch Booksmart (10/10, highly recommend). Once again thinking about freedom and what it means, for whom it rings. Trying to remember that it’s more complicated than all that, and I’m not going to Hong Kong to develop definitive opinions. 

Ultimately Hannah and I are traveling to Hong Kong to attend a wedding. On this little field trip we’ll go to the top of Victoria’s Peak to see the skyline from a close distance, we’ll have a vegan lunch at a Buddhist monastery, we’ll attend a Cantonese wedding. But hopefully, as we are ambling about, we'll also be contemplating and confronting Chinese history, British history, Hong Kong history, global trade, democratic ideals, eastern philosophies, and the culinary arts (aka DIM SUM). 

Perhaps that’s a lofty goal, but at least for once I attempted to do my homework.