picture of Hong Kong and imagine what it will look like when as in the anecdote the sign has been put up, saying: "The last person to leave turns out the light".
God, how dark it will be here in this place which, during a period of 40 years, two generations, developed into one of the most sophisticated societies. in the world.
At the beginning, before 1842, Hong Kong was an almost uninhabited rock at the mouth of the Pearl River. For a long time it remained the British Empire's remotest outpost, a sleepy hole, less important than Bombay, Calcutta, Rangoon and Singapore. It had a splendid natural harbour but no natural resources.
The colony was a British class society with a bizarra hierarchy of "fashionable" clubs and less fashionable tradesmen, the so-called taipans and administrators with stubbly moustaches and sun-helmets. They had the same mildly racist, patriarchal relationship with the natives as colonial Britons had in Africa and India.
Japanese occupied Hong Kong half as big as the Swedish island of Öland - and after the Second World War the number of inhabitants was still less than 600,000.
Hong Kong, as a concept, was not created until 1949, when China had fought a civil war. The communist army won and masses of people from Shanghai and Kanton fled to the British colony. The stream of refugees continued to flow for some decade.
This developed into the diligent, low-paid, ingenious, day-and-night working, economical Hong Kong. People literally slept in shifts since flats were so small. It had a stroke of unreality.
I remember exactly the first time this Hong Kong found a place in my mind. I was working at Kvällsposten, a local newspaper in Malmö. The newspaper arranged a competition and the first prize was a trip around the world. The newspaper's best reporter accompanied the winner on his trip around the world and when he came back he told us about one of the stops.
"What a place! Look here. The suit. They tailored it in 24 hours. And what a night life. 'Mistel, you want nice, beautiful girl. (No). Okay, sir, you want my young sistel. (No). Okay, sir, then I give you my young blother
I stared at the suit, tailored so incomprehensibly quickly, my ears grew bigger and devoured the sinful story. Hong Kong!!
Hong Kong had its harvest time. Together with South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore, the colony became "the four dragons", the East Asia miracle. The Hong Kong Chinese continued to work six days a week, but they also started to consume, enjoy their wealth, speculate and adorn themselves with symbols of philistinism.
Today, when they gamble at the race-course in Happy Valley, they stake SEK 110 million. This is really the Year of the Horse!
When a car company launched an advertising drive recently and offer a small discount, Hong Kong bought 300 Mercedes cars à SEK 400,000 in a week. In no other place there are so many Rolls Royce cars per capita as in Hong Kong. The local expression says: purchasing energy.
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When they buy shares, it is not to safeguard their savings. It is gambling involving the same wild hopes as when Swedes take part in the Lotto lottery - for quick money. In Hong Kong speculators keep their shares for only two days on an average. Hong Kong: Buy and sell.
The people of Hong Kong, who were once refugees or children of refugees, are getting prepared for becoming refugees again. They trust their experience and instincts more than the leaders' reassuring words.
They can see changes for the worse every day. Their TV stations dare not broadcast a documentary on China without cutting 16 minutes of "material which our neighbour could interprete as a provocation".
Beijing demands that the British governor should strengthen Hong Kong's democratic alliance. The concepts of freedom and their human rights are being
there are about 51 of them tampered with. Newspapers
know that their days
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