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REVIEW
If the heart-scarred were going to be shocked out of their minds it would have happened to them a long time ago. Shrewdness, not madness, is the product of the Hong Kong pressure-cooker. More relevant, I suggest, were those visiting biologists late last year who wanted to do research on the early impact of learning the Chinese language on the maturation and plasticity of the human brain – a difficult basis learning task that seems to develop the Chinese aptitude to focus on a hard task, to remember, to concentrate and to listen and apply the knowledge they acquire.
The broader vision of travel is now enriching Hong Kong Chinese aptitudes. One has to take a plane to have a holiday outside the pressure-cooker. Increasing external business also requires travel. Aptitudes enriched through travel lead to more capable penetration of whatever economic challenge Hong Kong poses to the rest of the world. Conversely, Britain's greatest ambassadors of understanding from outside have been people like the Beatles and Cliff Richard who won the hearts of the Hong Kong young who have not yet travelled.
The consolation in the Hong Kong challenge, if consolation is needed, is that what is being done in the pressure-cooker is motivated by a desire to improve human dignity and not at the expense of human freedom - whatever may be happening north, south, east and west of Hong Kong. The climate established is the greatest of the British contributions to the remarkable success of the place they administer. Some cynics say Hong Kong is a place where a British administrator jumps every time a Chinese complains. But that is not a British colonial conscience purging itself. Rather, it points to a unique measure of British concern and to the degree of understanding and respect that has been built up for the people's human values. And that is the basis of the extraordinary harmony that exists in Hong Kong between the races. After all, even Britons come to Hong Kong to better them- selves. Yes, materially.
My personal experience of questioning senior administrators tends to support these views. Often, I have come away from interviews with the embarrassing feeling they were more genuinely involved in trying to do the right thing for the people than I had believed when I went in. These people are not politicians but concerned with ethics, and they can find criticism dismaying. Hong Kong is not a democracy. But, in weighing the checks and balances, I sometimes commit the ideological heresy of thinking it produces better and quicker results. The direction is more stable, pressure groups are recognised for what they are and the aim more accurate generation of human resources to create wealth for economic expansion and a better quality of life, without deprivation of freedom or directing each man's destiny.
Free Criticism
But this is only one dimension of what makes Hong Kong. The government proclaims on television and elsewhere that it responds to public criticism. Critics deride that statement and none louder than a Briton herself, Mrs Elsie Elliott, who has been awarded the Magsaysay Prize and an honour from the Queen for crusading for social justice for all. A lively Press is often just as critical in exposes and editorials. At least their demands for instant accomplishment keep all the bureaucrats on the hop. Not being afraid to speak out is a relatively new thing in Hong Kong and a remarkable back-handed tribute to the administration.
In a place where rapid change is the norm it is hardly surprising the freedom to criticise is often used impatiently. There is a constant demand for instant social reform. But while the government responds to a lot of this it does hold a steady course on fundamentals that