欣賞香港 My Hometown

圖片取自波士頓環球雜誌 Globe Magazine。

By Neil Swidey   MARCH 16, 2016

LOCALS IN HONG KONG drink something called yuanyang, which is an appealing blend of coffee and milk tea, expertly strained and lightly sweetened. At Lan Fong Yuen, a no-frills Fotomat booth of a stand in the middle of the Gage Street Market, the $2.50 drink is the house specialty. As I savor my cup while trying not to get run over by the stream of honking delivery trucks pushing their way down the crowded street, it dawns on me that the beverage is a metaphor for Hong Kong.

For decades after World War II, this city was the perfect blend of East and West. Its position as a vital gateway between two worlds infected the place with a go-go philosophy and showered it in prosperity. That was particularly true during its final years under British rule, which had spanned a century and a half. And it remained largely true for a decade and a half following the 1997 handover ceremony, when Prince Charles stoically watched as the Union Jack was lowered and the red flag of China raised.

Hong Kong became part of the People’s Republic of China, but with special allowances, including permission to maintain its humming capitalist economy, under a plan called “One Country, Two Systems.” It worked because mainland China needed Hong Kong as its trade and banking portal to the West. And Hong Kong needed the mainland as its supplier of goods and grains — and even of Chinese visitors, to compensate for the devastating falloff in international tourism right after the SARS outbreak in 2003.