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being much lower. One reason for this may be connected with our public image. In the past, our leadership has been closely tied to the Hong Kong "establishment", and in tone and membership the Society itself was outwardly and distinctively British. We were probably more interested in learning and passing on information about China to other expatriates than in encouraging local Chinese membership. We could be snobbish and certainly inward-looking, and with very little difficulty could easily degenerate into a cosy little club of people who all knew each other and were mutually comfortable in the association of like with like.
By degrees, as Hong Kong changed, and as the knowledge of English widened to include a very large school population being educated up to secondary level and above, the Council had become more concerned with encouraging Chinese membership, especially as the Shanghai Chinese element mentioned above had diminished with the passage of time. We had thought of going bilingual, as one or two other of the local cultural societies had done from time to time. We also wondered whether we should change the Society's name by dropping the "Royal" prefix; though this has never been a bar to the continued existence, and undoubted success, of the RAS Branches elsewhere in Asia.30 These and other topics were discussed at length during a well-attended Symposium on the present and future state of the Society held in 1987, carefully prepared and largely motivated by the coming reversion of Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty in 1997.11
Following the Symposium, there was a gratifying and considerable increase in membership, perhaps due to the re-energizing of the Society that took place then, and the number and quality of its programmes. However, to this day, there has been no great interest among the English-speaking Chinese public in becoming members. The fault may of course lie in ourselves, through being too British. Yet we have usually prided ourselves on being friendly and outgoing, especially in the last decade; and our venues have been popular and easily accessible ones, like the Urban Council's lecture rooms in the High Block of the City Hall in the Central business district and the lecture room at the Hong Kong Museum of History in Kowloon Park. Partly offsetting this discouraging trend, it should be noted that the Council and its working sub-committees have always included keen Chinese members who contribute much to the Society and its work.
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