10.
life. In the passing of driving tests, they say, in the obtaining of houses, in the retention of profitable shoe-shine stands, in countless little matters of everyday life bribery can tell. I am told that firemen sometimes demand a bribe before they will turn their hoses on or off. But it is nothing like as bad as it is elsewhere in Asia, and there has not lately been a major scandal in Government. Even the police have stayed out of trouble since the late 1970s, when 140 officers were arrested for involvement with crime syndicates, and in a last brave flourish of tradition some of them tried to break into the ICAC offices to destroy the evidence. 'This is certainly the right place to be a policeman, I said one day to an expatriate officer at a well-known border smuggling point, thinking of the possibilities of excitement.
'Not since the ICAC it isn't,' he replied,with a wink, thinking of the possibilities of graft.
1
I should add that the Hong Kong fire brigade can be very efficient. I rang them up once from Central; and they appeared in a trice.
The RIPA experience on systems for the prevention of fraud is established: yet these problems may need some creative
thinking.
2.23.
"Lifestyle" and 1997
"Lifestyle" will not be understood by people outside Hong Kong if the dilemma of 1997 is not understood. How do Hong Kong people feel about 1997? How do they see their relationship with the PRC? These are two questions among others. Is the following representative?
"[The emigrant Chinese] like to think of themselves as the agents
of enlightenment, projecting modern styles of thought and ideology into the medieval bog of the mainland, but actually it has always been the other way round, and China has ever been the spur of their intellectual life and the catalyst of their political awakening. It was the students demonstrating for democracy in Peking, for example, who raised the political consciousness of the people of Hong Kong, not the other way round. "
"China has repeatedly dashed their hopes, and remains to this day a
country to occasion despair, a country to get away from, so limited still are its material and social possibilities, so harsh and despotic its political exactions. Even so, the millions who live outside it will never cease to wish it well, to want for it a place among the great nations, not only for the sake of their own pride and dignity, but because they find it hard to resist its
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