21
-
2
From perspectives to scale: you could drop the
whole of Hong Kong's 414 sq. miles into the City of Los
Angeles' boundary and still have lots of space left over.
Yours is a largely horizontal city, spread from shoreline to horizon. Ours is vertical, battlements of high-rise
hugging the shore-line and clinging to precipitous hills. In fact, all of our city and its satellite new towns lumped
together occupy only 45 square miles. Into this we squeeze
almost all of our 5.7 million people. Around and between is the sea that gives us our magnificent natural harbour and the mountains which give us quiet contemplation.
But this has been an unquiet year. Let me share
with you a few of the symptoms. From early in the year, the trickle of boats from Vietnam with their sorry cargo
became an armada. 32,000 people in this year alone. We had hoped that the problem had gone away. It had not.
Instead, it had changed.
Previously we, and the world,
were dealing with political refugees from the south. Now we find ourselves dealing with northern Vietnamese, not
fleeing persecution, but looking for a better life. No one
can blame them for that. They want to come to the United
States. Who could possibly blame them for that?
Unfortunately, in the eyes of countries like your own,