Bill Clinton, German romantic
CEASER, JAMES W.
Scenes from the Handover by Meredith Berkman Hong Kong ¦y ess than 12 hours before the formal ceremony I at midnight on June 30 during which the Union Jack was lowered in Hong Kong and the...
...she asked...
...But there was a distinctly ghoulish quality to the pre-Handover frenzy...
...Everyone from Time Warner chairman Reginald Brack to big-haired Texan tourists was caught up in the excitement, snapping up Chinese-flag baseball caps or quilted purple-silk slippers as fast as the store could be restocked (a new shipment was needed by midday...
...At the hotel's Chinese restaurant, a pair of high-ranking European diplomats seemed to mistake a Chinese insurance-company magnate for a Communist party official...
...The possibility of losing that opportunity is perhaps the biggest fear of all...
...When the royal yacht Britannia sailed away shortly after midnight with Prince Charles and outgoing Hong Kong governor Chris Patten aboard, Winnie began to cry...
...Things were good under the British," she said...
...Hong Kong is filled with hard-working pragma-tists, people willing to adapt to almost anything if it means they have the opportunity to achieve economic prosperity...
...And in a city where many residents own fleets of Rolls-Royces and Mercedes, the traffic got so bad that many people were forced out of their chauffeured cars and into the narrow streets...
...Her husband ran outside to wave farewell...
...I'm Chinese and so I don't want to say the Chinese are bad...
...People whose parents fled the mainland Communists to make their fortunes in Hong Kong—which was little more than a barren rock when they arrived—are now faced with living in the reunified "Motherland...
...A few British women tried on support bras in the dressing room...
...Meredith Berkman is a freelance writer living in Hong Kong, China...
...One woman was literally desperate to find a scarlet-and-orange jacket in her size before sundown...
...The chic Hong Kong boutique—which sells everything from lime-silk Mao jackets to silver chopsticks to Deng Xiaoping watches—was packed with hot-handed foreigners eager to feed their capitalist hunger for merchandise "made by Chinese...
...I'm Chinese but my nationality is British...
...Hundreds of taxis were already flying the new red SAR (Special Administrative Region) flags from their radio antennae...
...I have to wear something Chinese...
...We had freedom and we could say and do what we wanted...
...But just across Queens Road, at Marks & Spencer, the British outpost that is a cross between Macy's and J. C. Penney (with a dash of Dean & DeLuca thrown in), the store was virtually empty...
...I'm supposed to retire in a couple of years, and I'm scared...
...I think I'll be a little wary to say what I think now—you don't know who someone is or who they're talking to...
...They all left empty-handed...
...Like the thrill-seeking Wash-ingtonians who packed picnic baskets to watch the Civil War's Battle of Manassas in 1861—later racing home in panic when they realized the Union was being routed—Hong Kong's visitors seemed almost oblivious to the harsh political reality lurking just behind the highly choreographed media event, a uniquely scripted piece of history...
...Public squares were elaborately decorated with pink flamingos, multicolored silk dragons, and red paper lanterns...
...The skyline, which resembles a high-tech Lego set, was ablaze with festive red, yellow, and green lights that adorned the front of almost every towering skyscraper...
...I don't believe the government when they say they'll give me my full pension...
...In the days leading up to the Handover, Hong Kong looked and felt like the site of an end-of-millen-nium Mardi Gras...
...What do you tell your kids...
...she cried...
...I don't trust the Chinese government," said a veteran police officer patrolling quiet Barker Road the other day...
...But I'm worried...
...The only bad thing was that it wasn't our country...
...an eerie stillness had settled over the aisles...
...The club costs $20,000 to join...
...Hotels were buzzing with the reflected glory of powerful dignitaries and international tycoons...
...Scenes from the Handover by Meredith Berkman Hong Kong ¦y ess than 12 hours before the formal ceremony I at midnight on June 30 during which the Union Jack was lowered in Hong Kong and the Chinese flag was raised, Shanghai Tang had metamorphosed into the old Filene's Basement...
...At the Grand Hyatt, hotel staff dropped to their knees to greet the Queen of Thailand...
...Even Winnie believes that Beijing probably has very little interest in her political views...
...It was impossible to get a table for dim sum at the exclusive China Club even if you were a member...
...The night before, Winnie and her husband— bankers who moved back to Hong Kong last December after 14 years in Canada, where they are now citizens—had joined friends for a small party at a Kow-loon hotel...
...A good sign is that the new government decided not to take action against the 3,000 protesters who staged a democracy march through Hong Kong's central district on July 1. Of course, the cameras were rolling that day, and it's no secret that dissidents will have a tougher time in the future...
...But despite the dozens of glittery Handover balls, the public concerts and art exhibits and the five-day public holiday, people really weren't rejoicing at all...
...Most people—even if they turned out for the massive June 4 democracy demonstration—are less worried about another Tiananmen Square than they are about their quality of life...
...Certainly, "Red China," as many working people here still call it, has progressed a very long way from where it used to be...
...I have so many mixed emotions," a woman named Winnie told me as we ran on adjoining treadmills at the gym in our first full day as residents of Hong Kong, China...
...No one really expects Beijing to willingly—as one Cantonese taxi driver put it—"kill the chicken that lays the golden egg...
...Just beneath the surface of all the swirling activity was a pervasive ambivalence...
...A Hong Kong Chinese woman with a toddler in tow inspected the sensible white-cotton T-shirts...
Vol. 2 • July 1997 • No. 43
