View from our hotel.
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December 19,2008
Today we are doing some last minute visiting with family and then tonight we are hosting the Winter Solstice Feast here at the hotel for the extended family and friends. Should be a merry fest; I think we have twenty-two planned to be with us.
A word on Winter Solstice: the Chinese holiday. I know all of you know what Winter Solstice is, but probably have never thought of it as a very big Chinese holiday; in fact one of the biggest.
It is the closest thing to our Thanksgiving Day as it gets, and in fact many westerners call it “Chinese Thanksgiving” since it is a celebration of all the blessings in life. In the old days this was the time when the farmers basically finished their harvest and celebrated a good year. We are not going to have turkey, but it will be a celebration for all the good things all of us share in life.
Infrastructure: there has been a lot said recently about spending a lot of money on infrastructure to reduce unemployment and jump-start our economy in the States. There is no doubt about it, we need to spend a lot of money in the States on bridges, airports, roads, railroads and you name it! Of course you and I know that much I it will be wasted on “pork projects”.
Hong Kong infrastructure is amazing. The money that has been spent over the past thirty years on many of the area mention above is too large to comprehend. The sub-way and rail system is as good as any in the world.
The US is way behind the world in these areas. I mean have you been to some of the modern airports built around the world in the past ten years. Enough said!
December 20th - Although we have another day here in Hong Kong before we leave, this will be the last “Letter” for this trip. I would like in this last to disscuss what Hong Kong has contributed to what has amounted to a significant change in China in the past thirty years; since China opened its doors, so to speak, to the world in April 1978.
First, what has been accomplished in China over these past thirty years is just short of a miracle. As I have said before to some of you, history will show that more people have been lifted out of poverty during this period of time than at any time in the history of the world.
China has come from near bankruptcy, at the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976, to becoming the fourth largest economy in the world. Some writers have indicated that upwards to 200 million people have been lifted out of poverty and it could well be more. In the early ‘80’s when I made my first trip to China with my son, Rob, bicycles were everywhere. Today, automobiles and motorbikes are everywhere.
Does China still have a long way to go in terms of human rights? Will China ever be as free as America once was? Yes, of course and they will get there, but the Chinese way. A quote from a speech made at Harvard University by Huang Mengfu: “A democratic path with Chinese characteristics has already been chartered.”
What does that mean? I think it means what they have already accomplished in the last thirty years: continue opening up China, but under the controlled leadership of the Communist Party. Any other way would be a disaster, certain in the near-term. And one day, probably not in my lifetime, China will be as free as America.
I didn’t answer my premise that I stated regarding Hong Kong’s contribution to China’s rise in power; I’ll have to make that over a beer or sweet-tea when I return.
So goodbye from Hong Kong! I leave you, again, with the view from our hotel room for the past two months!
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