A PERSONAL VIEW
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ambitious Chinese-or Japanese or Korean-can and will. Having had secondary education, he will take perhaps two courses at night school after his work has finished-English, say, and a special subject. If he is good enough and lucky enough, and also takes on additional part-time work, he may be earning, after this teenage cramming, up to $2,000 a month before he is 30. If he wished to save and continue his studies, he could not afford to marry until he was in his thirties. He would probably be contributing also to the support of a father or mother.
New Towns
One of the under-played stories of current Hong Kong development is the expanding programme for the creation of new industrial towns, with modern accommodation, in the New Territories.
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At least three are in hand-Tuen Mun, Sha Tin (with the territory's second racecourse) and Tsuen Wan-and extensions are also in progress at Tai Po, in the heart of the New Territories. The Governor informed the Legislative Council that 55 million square feet of private agricultural land and four million square feet of building land will have to be resumed for the development of these new towns. "The disturbance to existing rights is great', he said, 'and it is most important that fair and reasonable compensation be offered when lands are acquired'.
It is already expected that, when the resumed villages are absorbed in the new towns and new residents are attracted by the modern facilities, the present population of the New Territories, which has an area of 370 square miles, will increase from 700,000 to one million by 1980 and two million by 1985.
There are difficulties in resumption of old farmhouses and primitive villages— even when the alternative is modern, low-rent apartments, with schools, hospitals, supermarkets, sewage disposal, fire stations and recreation facilities. Many rural Chinese are reluctant to quit family huts, however crowded, uncomfortable and ill- equipped. But the trend has set in and foreign industrial concerns are manifesting strong interest in the possibility of establishing factory plants in the new towns. At Tai Po alone, industrial companies in the United States, Australia and Japan have already prepared to build 15 factories covering 30 acres for heavy engineering, forging and foundry work, and hand-tool, aluminium and chemical treatment plants. It is also hoped that British light industry will be attracted and that Hong Kong industries will install factories in the area.
Young villagers will soon realise that higher wages and better accommodation are available in a shift to the new towns. Rural committees who are co-operating with government officials are pointing out to villagers that they can move into one-room modern apartments with kitchen and bathroom for rents as low as $40 a month. Also villagers in the resumed areas, after receiving compensation for their huts, livestock and small crops, will be able to live together as continuing neighbours in the new town.
A visitor to the new town of Tsuen Wan is astonished at the existing handsome, high-rise apartment blocks, and the wall-maps of well-planned expansion, with special provision for a swimming pool, parks, educational and shopping centres-all set amid