By YVONNE FRENCH
Hong Kong's transfer this month from British to Chinese rule is not so bad as the Western press paints it, said participants in a Library symposium on Hong Kong history and culture on May 30.
"The last thing the Chinese want to do is take this glittering financial center and turn it into a garbage heap," said Burton Levin, U.S. consul general in Hong Kong from 1981 to 1986.
"If you read the Western media, they treat the changeover suspiciously. They say the bill of rights is being emasculated, a puppet governor is being installed, and that the Chinese will abolish the legislature and conduct a popular election. But the stock market is at a record high, property values are up, and the polls show growing confidence.
"The Chinese want a post-1997 Hong Kong that operates the way Hong Kong has always operated -- a government run for the benefit of business, a club conducted for and by business," Mr. Levin added. Although most of the six speakers alluded to the July 1 change, Mr. Levin was the only one to discuss it in detail.
Marking the opening of the exhibition "Hong Kong: From Fishing Village to Financial Center," the symposium consisted of two panels. Prosser Gifford, director of the Office of Scholarly Programs, moderated the first panel on the history, economy and legal system of Hong Kong. Chi Wang, head of the Chinese Section, moderated the second panel on Hong Kong culture and society. Carolyn Brown, assistant librarian for Library Services, welcomed panelists and 250 guests. Helen Poe, chief of the Asian Division, offered closing remarks.
On the first panel, Elizabeth Sinn, chairman of Asian Studies at the University of Hong Kong, gave a historical sketch of Hong Kong Territory beginning before the 1841 colonization. "Hong Kong history did not begin in 1841, neither will it end in 1997," said Ms. Sinn. She traced the area's growth from 150 villages two centuries ago through the arrival of British merchants and missionaries who considered Hong Kong the portal to consumers and converts in mainland China. During the first Opium War (1839-1842) over the drug's trade, the British retreated from the Territory on the mainland to the island, which was ceded to them in 1841-1842. The first colonial governor immediately declared its biggest city, Victoria, a free port.
"Hong Kong's metamorphoses into a city was almost overnight. The harbor soon became one of the busiest in the world," said Ms. Sinn. She and other speakers stressed the role of the Cantonese in industrialization. "Manufacturing in Hong Kong was almost exclusively Chinese owned," said Ms. Sinn.
Jerome Cohen, a senior partner in the New York law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, considered the judicial system, saying that the transfer wrought by a 1984 agreement between the United Kingdom and China created a federal system "with words that will require interpretation by the ... central government's supreme court. ... Over time the challenge will be whether the judiciary can withstand nepotism, personal advancement ... and the informal ways Chinese people best work."
On the second panel, James Watt, director of the Asian Art Department at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, described the sudden westernization of art in Hong Kong. "What transformed Hong Kong culture from a vibrant, healthy, local [scene] was the development of Hong Kong as a city and the disappearance of village life." In one instance, "in less than 20 years, what had been a living culture became [artifacts in] a museum of folk art."
Stanley Karnow, a journalist in Hong Kong for 15 years with Time and Life and other media outlets, talked about Hong Kong communities. He said there was a caste system. "Race was a defining factor. The poorest European benefited from privileges over the richest Chinese. ... The groups respected each other because they were both dedicated to making money," Mr. Karnow said, adding that colonial rule was pragmatic; it was composed of a "stable British administration and dynamic Chinese enterprise."
He said it was "unfortunate" that just as Hong Kong residents are "beginning to develop an identity they must swear allegiance to China and adopt a Chinese identity."
Helen Siu, an anthropology professor at Yale University, answered the question "Who are Hong Kongers?" They are "racially mixed expatriates and Chinese merchants. It is a multicultural society. In a word, Hong Kong has left the China orbit, both in terms of ideology and social reality, and turned to the world on her own almost by default."
The Hong Kong exhibition features 45 documents, books, maps, photographs and manuscripts and depicts, from an American perspective, the history, economy, culture, society and art of Hong Kong during the British colonial period.
A grant from the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office made the symposium and exhibition possible. Speaking at the opening, Deputy Librarian Donald Scott thanked the Trade Office and said: "While the press speculates about the future of Hong Kong, the Library's Chinese collection documents how Hong Kong arrived at its present moment. We have over 800,000 volumes in a collection that started in 1869."
Kenneth Pang, Hong Kong commissioner to the United States, said: "We are honored to be working with you to show the American public the tremendous transformation that Hong Kong has made over the past 156 years and its promising future. 'From Fishing Village to Financial Center' presents a wonderful perspective and allows visitors the opportunity to get to know Hong Kong either for the first time or a little better."
The symposium and the exhibition opening, which concluded the Library's Asian Pacific American Heritage Month celebration, were timely and topical and provided a historical and cultural perspective on Hong Kong's changeover, which officially took place at midnight June 30.
Ms. French is a public affairs specialist in the Public Affairs Office.
"Hong Kong: From Fishing Village to Financial Center" is on view in the foyer of the Madison Building , 8:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. Monday through Friday and 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturdays, through November.