So Hong Kong is facing big challenges. What’s new?
- Since the 1980s alone, Hong Kong has grappled with stock and property market crashes, financial crises, protests and pandemics
- The city is uniquely defined by its challenging history, where people have always managed to pick themselves up and carve out a better future
For me, it was a memorable introduction: an unexpected thrill, accompanied by just a whiff of danger.
In the decades since I first arrived, the real Hong Kong has continued to reveal itself. I know it now as a place animated by its challenges. It rises time and again to meet them. If the past is any predictor of Hong Kong’s future, today’s problems, daunting though they seem, will be overcome.
And there is much to overcome. Few would disagree that recent years have been tough for Hong Kong.
That is a lot to deal with, and rose-tinted nostalgia for a kinder and gentler past is tempting. But the “good old days” never really were. Major challenges have always characterised Hong Kong’s existence, just as they do today.
For illustration, beginning arbitrarily in the 1980s, the list of challenges Hong Kong has faced is a long one.
Competitive paranoia certainly helps to focus minds in Hong Kong. Perhaps more importantly though, the city turns challenges into success through the talent and attitudes of its people and the new people it attracts. With virtues such as an open economy and low taxation, Hong Kong has always attracted people who have confidence in themselves and risk takers who seek a challenge.
In the years since I first had the thrill of landing at Kai Tak and saying my own hello to Hong Kong, I have come to understand that the city has been uniquely defined by its challenging history. The uncertainties of Hong Kong can sometimes be frightening, and positive outcomes are far from guaranteed, but time and again, Hong Kong’s people have picked themselves up and carved out a better future, for themselves and the city. I see no reason to expect that will change.
Robin Hibberd is a financial services executive and long-time resident of Hong Kong