Physical size doesn't matter

Hong Kong – When it comes to economic might, physical size doesn’t matter. Governance does. Singapore proved that and so did Hong Kong. In the case of Singapore, it was a homegrown leadership that proved to the world Asians can graduate to world class status if there is a dedicated leadership that is not corrupt. Hong Kong’s many years under the British Crown gave it one of the world’s best civil service bureaucracies and made what it is today possible.

I have been spending my time off here in Hong Kong people watching and observing how the city functions. It reminds me of the New York kind of hurry with an Asian face. There is order in the streets. People generally stop in pedestrian crossings when the red light is on even if there are no cars approaching. Amazingly, drivers of public utility vehicles seem to follow traffic rules, not like back home in Manila… or in Shanghai where traffic flow is also quite chaotic and drivers undisciplined.

Sometimes I wonder if we should just lease out one of our islands, something along the size of Marinduque or Romblon, to Singapore and let them run it as they would run their city state. The experiment may yet show us how to govern the rest. It worries me that Singapore is reported to have agreed to help Myanmar get their economy going... that’s one more laggard whose dust we may soon be eating.

Hong Kong and Singapore have proven physical size of a country and the size of its population hardly matters when it comes to economic progress. Both cities have also proven things can work if there is order and discipline. Hong Kong’s population at 7,122,508 (July 2011 est.) is just about half of Metro Manila’s 10-12 million. Hong Kong only had 3.1 million in 1960. I have read estimates of our country’s total population already crossing the 100 million level.

The folks in Hong Kong are still occupying essentially the same land area last reported at 1,042 square kilometers in 2010. In comparison, our country, the Philippines has approximately 300,000 square kilometers.

Hong Kong’s nominal GDP was in the vicinity of $224 billion in 2010, ours is not far at $216 billion. In terms of GDP per capita, the IMF lists Hong Kong at number 25 in the world at $34,393. On that same list, the Philippines is at number 125 with $2,255 per capita.

Could it be that we were left behind because our problems are just so huge we just got deeper and deeper into our quagmire, while a leaner and meaner Hong Kong was able to speed ahead to be among the world’s most prosperous societies? I don’t think so.

Hong Kong’s only natural resource is its people. When the British first established a base in Hong Kong, it was nothing more than steep hills and rocky outcrops from the sea. We have always had gold, copper, fresh water, lush forests and many other natural riches. Yet, there they are and here we are.

Maybe it was the challenge of survival by making something out of nothing that made them what they are. On the other hand, the abundance God gave us proved to be our curse... made us soft.

Maybe, they are richer but we are happier people. They do live in rather extremely close quarters and the tension of daily living must be more than a lot of us would want to impose on ourselves. But somewhere in between must be a kind of sweet spot we should be aiming for.

It should be interesting to take a longer visit to Hong Kong one of these days and get the chance to talk to our OFWs there. It would be enlightening to listen to their observations and views on what makes Hong Kong what it is and why they have to be in Hong Kong away from their families to make a living.

It was Valentines Day on my first full day in this visit and people, a whole lot of them, were out in the streets even before nightfall. Then again, it was difficult to distinguish day from night because of all the bright city lights (cheap power?). Young people were hurrying for their Valentine’s Day date… with bouquets of flowers and a silver balloon in the shape of a half moon given out by Canon.

The whole scene would have been understandable if I was in Makati instead of in front of the Times Square Mall at the Causeway Bay area. I am sure Confucius would have been confused if he materialized in Hong Kong that evening. I also don’t know how Chairman Mao would have reacted to all these Western decadence (there is even a Valentine tree in Sogo department store where you can pin your Valentine’s message) but this is Hong Kong, one country, two systems and this is the other system.

I get the impression that beneath all this ostentatious display of commercialism is a basic insecurity among the people of Hong Kong. They must worry a bit about what Beijing really has in mind for them. That’s why many of them are testing the limits of the “two systems” principle. There are constant demands for greater freedoms and more autonomy. For now, their city’s economic prosperity defines Hong Kong’s identity. It is probably also their assurance that the overlords in Beijing will let them be for now.

But tensions have erupted, as I wrote last Wednesday, on the people level. There is this resentment of their mainland cousins. Just today, there is this report in the Financial Times about a protest rally against a government decision to allow tourists from the mainland to drive their cars to Hong Kong. 

In mid-January, a quarrel erupted on a Hong Kong metro train when locals called out a mainland family for eating dried noodles despite a ban on eating and drinking there. Hong Kongers are strict with rules. Mainlanders like many Pinoys think of rules as mere suggestions that could be ignored.

But some mainlanders seem to think of Hong Kong as a kind of insurance policy. A rising number of mainland women come to Hong Kong to give birth and guarantee their child Hong Kong citizenship. Hong Kongers don’t like that.

In reality, their fortunes and futures are intertwined. At Canton Road in Kowloon’s tourist shopping district, long lines of mainland tourists are waiting for their turn to enter stores of Louis Vuitton, Hermès and Chanel. Security guards limit the number of shoppers entering the store. Still they patiently wait their turn to spend hundreds of thousands of their yuans on luxury bags and fashion accessories that were probably manufactured in the mainland too.

The Chinese tourists, the biggest shoppers in Hong Kong now account for 67 percent of the city’s tourists. The spending power of the mainland visitors has been boosted by the yuan’s appreciation. At least they are recycling all that money they are making all over the world through Louis Vuitton, Hermes and Chanel. Europe including once triple A rated France could sure use every bit of it.

As for this tourist from Manila, it was strictly window shopping. A lot of stores have big signs that advertise so-called “sales” with discounts as large as 70 percent. But that’s only for winter clothing. You find something you like, you try it on, it fits well, you fall in love with it only to find out it is part of the spring collection and not on sale.

Also, the Apple i-Phone 4S is about P10,000 cheaper at the real Apple store. Not enough reason to hop on a plane but perhaps, if it included a weekend of eating, a trip to Hong Kong could be well worth it. Hong Kong’s Cantonese cuisine is what would make it exciting for people like me who are quite contented with getting everything else back home.

Corona

But if I took a brief respite in Hong Kong to escape the compelling drudgery of the Corona impeachment trial, it didn’t work. We are just too connected these days. And if you are with Pinoys, that’s eventually the subject matter.

Everyone I talked to seem to agree with a status post I made on my Facebook wall last week. Essentially, I broached the idea of making it standard and mandatory for all public officials to waive their privacy rights to bank accounts when they sign their oath of office/appointment papers. Unless we do this, making them file that SALN is just a cruel but useless joke on the Filipino people. Former Prime Minister Cesar Virata also mentioned this proposal to me and he supports the idea of P-Noy making it mandatory for all presidential appointees by executive order. The law to cover all government officials can come later.

Apparently, Sen. Chiz Escudero has a similar proposal pending in Congress. Let us get on with it then. Let P-Noy certify this bill. Let us make use of the one big lesson we learned from this teleserye of an impeachment trial.

Why

Here’s something that once made my grandson laugh.

Why do gorillas have big nostrils?

Coz they got big fingers!

Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is [email protected]. He is also on Twitter @boochanco