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PROVISIONAL URBAN COUNCIL
services crowd upon their mind with myriads of thoughts and heave a deep sigh! When throwing myself into municipal services in those days, I never dreamed of seeing helplessly the Council being "cut up" and "dismembered" wilfully and "completely destroyed". The achievements made by our predecessors for more than a century are now being wiped away. How can one not feel sorrowful!
I recall that on that day of that year, a lady came to my office saying that she would soon take up the post of the Director of Urban Services with ambitious plans to effect and lofty aims to attain. I was happy and yet worried at that moment. I was happy because the Government abolished the old practice and introduced a new one by unprecedentedly appointing a lady to head the Urban Services Department ever since its establishment over a century ago. I was worried because of the ancient sayings that "a beauty often incurs disasters" and "a woman usurping man's leading power will bring calamities". It was hard to predict whether her appointment would bring fortunes or misfortunes. As expected, she just used some of her tricks to alter the finalised layout plan of the Central Library, which resulted in "Chairman Leung" being "thrown off his feet" and the Council being "killed before us". As the old sayings go, "one's death could be of great importance or without significance" and "a real man should gallop across the battlefield and be buried with his corpse wrapped in a horse's hide after his death, how can he be killed by a woman?” It is regretted that the Council will go to its doom and get "killed" by a lady.
My career as an Urban Councillor is spanning two eras in the history of the Council. The purposes of being an Urban Councillor on my part are to serve the people impartially and selflessly; to plead for the people, fearless of the powerful and influential figures and dare to speak the truth. For these reasons, I always incur the displeasure of the people in power. I have also seen many new Councillors awarded the titles of what "P" and "E" etc. in a very short time. However, the majority of my colleagues who have served the people wholeheartedly and discharged their duties fully and diligently have never won any recognition. This may give people the wrong impression that we, being a group of people working silently, are just providing mediocre services to the people. In fact, we have targeted our services on the people, which are absolutely not for the purposes of pleasing those in power. However, the efforts of those distinguished persons who have been serving the community enthusiastically and wholeheartedly may have been disparaged as this title awarding system is fraught with selfish motives and private ends. As far as I am concerned, the services I have provided over the past ten odd years can be regarded as selfless. I feel no qualms upon self-examination. In fact, my services, which have been recognised and affirmed by the people, are worthy of the trust being placed on me by the electors and the public. This is best evidenced by the fact that I have been re-elected Urban Councillor in all the