After a trip to Europe, visiting ancient Roman ruins and Greek antiquities, I found myself at the ancestral family estate in Buckingham Shire, England. My distant cousin, the lord of the manor, told me that he found it fascinating that I lived on the fringes of Western civilization. Any more step and I’d be speaking Chinese: we both laughed. But should we have?
On my relative’s visits to the United States or Canada, it was usually west to Hong Kong. Here, as we all knew, those who wanted a silk suit or an expensive outfit or diamonds, could get earrings, necklaces of exquisite design at a price as low as could never be bought anywhere else in the world.
All of us of a certain age knew this, thanks to our wealthier friends who would drop by from time to time, showing off their wardrobe, one new suit or one pair of shoes at a time. And we would all be amazed. How could the starving shopkeepers of Hong Kong ragged in the midst of the abject poverty of China and all of Asia around it create all these bargains?
We all shrugged our shoulders and didn’t think too much about it: virtually free labor from nearby China, the British are turning away from capitalism and being allowed to unleash their talents. And how they prospered.
A small fishing port in a vast deep harbor in 1843 had become British Territory in a ninety-nine-year lease, a base in the western Pacific prepared for the British navy on the move, with the occasional need for limp to a home port for repairs either by gold typhoon gunboat
And so Hong Kong built wooden structures with mixed Chinese and British designs, under British rule and law, but with full rights for all. And the Chinese kept coming to this part of China that wasn’t China and you could get rich.
The brutal occupation of Japan during World War II caused misery and hardship for all. The end of the war brought the British back and even after the revolution and communist takeover of mainland China, Hong Kong was wisely left alone.
And this would become one of the most amazing transformations of a powerful nation and following the European theory of communism until it became the path to common ruin. China helped keep the West at bay in Korea, but in the decades that followed, a great order was in flux.
Beginning in 1950 and the police action in Korea, the United States helped Japan, Taiwan, and Hong Kong build shipyards nearby, and each nation learned how to be an exporter to the United States in force. And in general, all have incorporated since Greek antiquity the democratic tradition of a voice without fear and a vote for all.
Thus, in harmony, Japan and Korea were rebuilt on the Western model of Greek democracy, and Hong Kong remained a colony ruled by London but allowing free British capitalism. The United States had forced Japan to adopt both democracy and Western capitalism.
Korea and Taiwan adopted both, as do most Asian nations now. Democracy most silenced, but modified, Adam Smith’s British rules, adapted through the eyes of America and now seen through the eyes of Asia.
If, as it seems possible, this brings us all a little closer to peace and goodwill and more understanding between people everywhere, it is. a good thing.
Buddha and Jesus, so different, shared so much. But above all, the people adorned their highest ruling groups with rare examples of their special status. Having elegance was one thing, but did your mind also shine like Aristotle?
And even Aristotle only retired to his village and did not go out with Alexander to spread his wise words to the east. And to make fun of the famous fast track of a century ago, when men could travel around the world in 80 days, we found it fascinating that it took more than 800,000 days for democracy to become a reality in mighty China.
Although capitalism is doing so well that the Chinese are buying back their wealth, even though they still have to be careful not to criticize the government in the open society. But it is coming, comrades, don’t worry. History has ways of lifting us further from our inner wild beast to decent and impartial peoples. The descendants of the same Vikings who cracked the skulls of European citizens like melons now have the highest standards of self-esteem in the justice of their laws and the respect of the world.
So, Genghis Wong, show us how you manage this next leap towards true civilization and, indeed, deserve to finally enter the fully respected family of civilized nations of the modern world. Everyone with faults, everyone working honestly on them, and with hope for everyone, finally working on everyone’s shoulders at the wheel of a cleaner and fairer world, support yourselves here.