What has changed since the
handover in
It has already been 12 years since the handover of Hong Kong to China from the British in 1997, and stayed here continuously as a permanent resident well before and after the handover, we have seen quite a lot changes occurred during this time in this cosmopolitan city and have endeavored here to list them in the ways that have directly or indirectly affected our way of life, meantime, readers are hereby notify that it is just the reflection and view of the author and does not represent or claim the views and opinions from other peoples as a whole or in part whatsoever in this article.
The brain drain is completely
reversal-
when the handover was approaching, people were scared of the
uncertainty and a
thick cloud of doubts were hovering always over the sky, consequently,
the rich
and educated were trying to secure an alternative ways for them and
their
families by getting foreign passport and the numbers by that time was
definitely alarming. That very fear was allayed and cleared just in few
years
time after the actual handover with china’s hands off policy and
keeping the
status que for
Mandarin was much important than English- English has been always the main language of the international business in this business oriented society, even though it was rather Chinglish than English before, people were at least trying very hard, however, after the handover, it has taken even much backseat, mandarin was the main language that people wanted to learn in either schools or in other institutes, private learning centers were mushrooming almost everywhere, fluent mandarin was the first and most qualification requirement for any jobseekers to have on their otherwise perfect CV, without it you were certainly a handicap for that dream job, it was that so important.
Consumers products were suddenly very cheap- the first 1-2 years, consumers products, such as clothes, food and groceries were suddenly very cheap than before the handover, as the main gate to the direct supply chain from china was suddenly opened, everything became very cheap, you could get two full bags of groceries from the supermarket shop within the budget of one hundred HK dollars, whereas before the handover, you should have spend at least two hundred HK dollars, that was a real surprise gift for the low earners like us, however, the prices are gradually crawling up now by every year and reaching at the point where it was before the handover, nevertheless, if you know where and how to find it, they are still relatively very cheap even today, meantime, I just can not imagine how hard the life would have been, had the handover was still few more years away and the prices were keep going up.
HK dollars was the king- in early nineties, HK dollars was the main currency even in China and everybody just loved it, the official rate used to show the RMB still bigger in value than the HK dollars but in the local market, specially in the southern china which is nearer to HK, it was the real king, the highest rate I could still remember is one HK dollars to one RMB and forty five cents, today the reality is the other way around, the official rate now is one RMB to one HK dollars and fifteen cents, and the ironic is that in the local market, nobody accept the mighty HK dollars anymore now, the king is already overthrown by now.
We were meant to be the head but ended up tail- due to its status as one of the best financial centers in the world and its know how of advanced technology, international trades and services and being rather free and democratic world, at least compared to china at that time, HK was touted and perceived as the head of the giant sleeping dragon called china, that would certainly roared to the prosperity for sure, every media channels, newspapers pages, websites and speeches were full of such prophecy and people were never tired of repeating this again and again and that was not only true but also practical on that time, however, HK was unfortunately too small to be its head, perhaps, eye would have been rather ideal, the sleeping giant was so big and powerful that as soon as it got woke up and cruised so fast ahead that it just overwhelmed us and by the time we realized it was already far ahead of us and we just ended up chasing its tail.
We are just one of the cities in china- it is just a fact that almost everybody in HK knew it well by now, before the handover, there was hardly a person you would meet on the public places who speak mandarin, it was mostly Cantonese and English that people used to speak everywhere, but now, you can hardly find a place where you do not find a person who speaks mandarin like in the other big cities in china, the reason behind that is just one, it is because of the request from our dear leaders in HK, every time there is downturn, any problems that affect the economy of HK, the first and foremost they did was to look at Beijing, as a hungry child to the mom for food, and the mom dutifully obliged, send more people as a token of food to HK to fill up, hotels, restaurants, buses, shops and streets, economy is sustained, everybody is happy and the result, we have mandarin speaking visitors all over the places and became just another city of china.
We have china, Singapore has nobody- the rivalry between HK and Singapore has been there for ages, both cities states fighting for the top honor of being the head of the Asian tigers, when both were in theirs own and the playing field was equal, both were best in their own merit, however, after the handover, the rule of the game has entirely changed, especially on the hard time, we have our motherland and Singapore does not, that is the big difference between them now, the help and support from china now is so big and vital that it is unfair and unrealistic to even just talk about the rivalry, let alone judge them, the playing field is just not the same anymore.
These are just the few things that I have listed here, even though there might be thousands of them and it will take a lot of time, energy and researches to fairly compiled them all up, however, whatever opinions or views people might have on this matter, there is one truth that definitely nobody can argue about it in HK for sure, that is, the handover to the motherland has always been the good thing for HK and its people and without it we might have struggle a bit and life would have been little bit difficult for sure, therefore, because of this historic event, we are all fine and doing great in this great city, we should be very proud of it and always appreciate it, sometime in life, we just do not have the way to know it that how fortunate we are and how good fate has been with us, we just have to shake our head, look around for a while and try to see things from different views, thence we will be able to realize our true situation and believe me, that is not very hard to do but once it is done, it is very rewarding! You heard it first just here!