REVIEW
7
Nonetheless, there is affluence in Hong Kong that may look rapacious in the circum- stances but is, in fact, only a fraction of its annually accumulated wealth. This is more accepted as an incentive to others striving for material well-being than something to be tolerated by those who always naturally are seeking better pay and fringe benefits. It is perhaps best explained by those who claim the average Hong Kong worker looks upon his current job as rather temporary until he sees the opportunity to get to the top. This view seems to be supported by an indifferent and falling union membership, except on issues that could affect their current level of material well-being such as a rise in bus fares. Anyhow, only unions in life-time careers such as civil servants, airline people, etc. seem to be well-organised and to be gaining in membership. At least for the rest, the importance of the Hong Kong pressure-cooker producing copious supplies of capital for formation in an expanding economy seems silently accepted.
The homogeneity that's in the pot also diminishes the chances of a destructive class-struggle. The boss is seen as one of them who's made it to the top as all would like to do. He's that neo-hero. Besides, many Chinese believe in the three-generation clogs-to- clogs syndrome. Indeed, the shannanigans of second and third generations of successful men provide most Hong Kong Chinese with a major form of entertainment. True-life examples, sometimes thinly disguised, are dramatised in soap operas that command Hong Kong's highest television viewer audiences. But such is the social chemistry that no one, after watching an episode in monthly serials, would think of getting up and going out to scratch the boss's car. The boss is more respected than envied and he is depicted on television in that role.
Sages not Systems
Though Hong Kong is part of the New World encroaching on the old, its people's roots remain in the Old World. They admire sages not systems and quote examples from their history of good and bad on a much higher altruistic plane than Westerners might believe from superficial observation of the helter-skelter struggle for self-betterment. Billy Graham on a crusading visit attracted two stadiums-full of young belongers at the one time, not for free bibles nor even his religion, but for the ideals he preached. The Hong Kong community that daily puts itself to the modern mandarin test may well come to accept a nine-to-five-o'clock day of competitive capitalism, and leisure evenings in a sort of socialist society.
Nearly half of the population enjoy that ambivalence as tenants of the free world's greatest effort in public housing. Half of Hong Kong's strained and inflated building resources are absorbed in a unique effort to put the most needy into housing estates, each with their own infrastructure of shops, schools, clinics and indeed, practically everything needed for self-contained, civilised life. Each estate houses 40 000 to 60 000 in high-rise buildings that squeeze a medium-sized city on to a site no bigger than the average railway terminus in Britain.
Thus, Hong Kong has within the total community of at least part of the most deserving, a privileged group who enjoy relatively cheap rents. Though their flats are mostly one-room and small the opportunity for self-betterment is being nurtured. Both parents can go out to work, for the average housing estate has creches and kindergartens run either by the government, by subvented voluntary welfare agencies, or privately. As this sort of nuclear family grows up the children also begin to work and the disposable income of the family expands. Clothes are cheap so the balance is often spent in restaurants where food and drink costs up to four times what it would at home. Or, the family decides to buy a car. Car