By Hong Liang (China Daily)
Updated: 2007-08-14 06:55

On my first visit to Shanghai several years ago, I found that being a Hong Kong person gave me certain privileges, like getting a table in a busy restaurant, or the undivided attention of the usually indifferent shop attendants.

Not anymore. I get the feeling Shanghai people no longer think of us as anything special. The bragging rights are theirs now. Shanghai has taller buildings, fancier restaurants, more million-dollar apartments, and, most importantly perhaps, a bigger and wilder stock market.

Like many other Hong Kong people in town, I have learned to take the decline of our collective status in my stride. But deep down, we have remained confident our core values will continue to ensure Hong Kong a meaningful role in the economic development on the mainland. That confidence was brought to the fore recently, not by some chest-thumping politicians at home, but, more sweetly, by a noted Shanghai writer and scholar-turned-talk show host.

In an article that appeared in her personal blog, Cheng Naishan, who has written several popular novels, expressed her deep admiration for the show of generosity and tolerance by Hong Kong people toward the thousands of Filipino maids who gather every Sunday in the parks and public places in the central business district where land prices are among the highest in the world.

Like many visitors to Hong Kong, Cheng was particularly impressed by the architecture of HSBC's Hong Kong headquarters building. But she admires it not for its futuristic structure of steel and glass, but rather for the cavernous street-level podium that is open to the public at all times.

This is truly a generous expression of civic responsibility, considering the very high price of land in central Hong Kong, Cheng said. The bank could have created a cash cow by turning that podium into a shopping mall, she said. But it didn't.

Every Sunday, that podium, together with the neighboring parks and pedestrian-only streets, are turned into a fair ground for Filipino domestic helpers working in Hong Kong. Few Hong Kong people have ever felt too much bothered by surrendering a slice of their recreation facilities for the benefit of these foreign workers. That, to Cheng, is a forceful statement of tolerance and openness.

"Here is something we can learn from Hong Kong," she wrote in her blog.

Professor Yi Zhongtian, who has made a name for himself as a writer and TV personality, recalled in a talk show his first introduction to Hong Kong's competitive environment that seemed to him to have pushed most people to do their best.

It happened when he asked a uniform guide at the Hong Kong airport for directions. After taking him to where they wanted to go, the person stayed with them until they sorted out their travel arrangements.

"We thanked him and, in reply, he said, 'It's my job. If I didn't do it right, I'd get fired'," Yi recounted.

Such a reply, so plain and succinct, represents, to Yi, a strong sense of accountability that is shared by management and workers at all levels.

"I finally understand what makes Hong Kong tick," Yi said.

In announcing the results of a poll which showed Hong Kong people enjoy the highest living standards and economic well-being among all Asian economies other than Japan, the Asian Development Bank's chief economist, Ifzal Ali, was quoted by the local media as saying: "Hong Kong is famed for its governance, for its law and order, good investment and business climate. It has become one of the leading financial centers in the world and this is what has made Hong Kong what it is today."

Need we say more?

E-mail: jamesleung@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 08/14/2007 page10)