The View Across the Border part 1

Ever since last October when I watched Hong Kong celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Communinist takeover of China, I have become very interested in Hong Kongers’ view of China.

We live in a bit of an expat ghetto here at ICS, so whenever we get out and about, I am always glad for the chance to chat with local Hong Kongers.

During a warm weekend a while back, we were at the beach. Annika and I swam out to a big raft. As I am wont to do, I got to chatting with an ethnically Chinese Hong Konger on the raft. He was born in Hong Kong but went to university in England. He had visited the States several times and spoke perfect, idiomatic English. He was very cordial.

Because I genuinely want to understand, I started asking questions. Our conversation veered toward the current state of affairs in China. He explained to me that, yes, the communist party does form a ruling elite in China, but it’s really no different than in the States where you have the ruling elite of the Ivy League Old Boy’s network.

Come again.

With all sincerity, he compared the control exerted by the communist party to an archaic Old Boys network that is increasingly irrelevant and is undermined and outdone in a thousand different ways every day by people outside of that network.

The implication was clear: what we in China have going on is really not fundamentally different from what you have going in the West.

These are exciting times to be in Hong Kong. In part, I think that Hong Kongers are still so relieved that the Red Army didn’t come rolling over the border in 1997 and nationalize everything in sight that they have been happy just getting back to the business of doing business.

When the Chinese took over Hong Kong from the British, they promised to maintain a “One Nation, Two Systems.” At best it’s an awkward arrangement, because at the end of the day, the systems these two places are built on are incompatible. China is among the least-free places on earth. Hong Kong is among the most free. The equating of the Ivy League Old Boys network and the ruling communist party is –I think- an example of the lengths one has to go to in order to resolve the internal dissonance created by this unavoidable fact.

I am truly trying to make sense of what I see and hear. I have a long ways to go. I guess I’m having difficulty reconciling the view of China that I have as an American with the view of China that is held by some of the people I’ve chatted with here in Hong Kong.

Maybe the only dissonance is in me.

There is a lot I don’t know.

But I do know that my daughters would be a lot happier if I would quit striking up quite so many conversations with strangers and get back to doing back flips off the dock.

(Okay, I just made up the part about the back flips.)

-Jack