Hong Kong sizzles

HONG KONG - It was mid day when we landed at Kai Tak airport yesterday in this British colony until 1997. But its fresh, nippy spring air is in contrast to the sultry, sweltering heat of Manila.

It's nearly 10 years ago since the last time we came here with my family during the turnover of the colony to Chinese authorities and we made a side trip to Shenzhen, the epitome of China.

In a 10-hectare lot, China made a replica of the whole of China and its tourist spots.

Hong Kong still sizzles and its strides have kept the pace with modern progressive small compact states.

That's Hong Kong with a personality of its own, snooty like the British, shy like the true Asians but as a whole a proud people because they can afford to hire people from neighboring countries to run errands for them and serve as their servants.

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We are here, ten members of the Sunshine Boys with the room pairing of Ric Yanson with Ed Mercado, Pompeii Querubin with Toti Ramos, Manolo Lopez with Hermes Aguilar, Nordy Diploma with Alex Mirasol, and Marianing Tuvilla and myself.

Pompeii had a good laugh when six of us paid immigration fees at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport, and he, Ric, Ed and Hermie just breezed through after he introduced himself as Col. Querubin. They thought he was Ariel. But we had the last laugh later when the four were not allowed to board without paying.

Why are we here and going on a trip to Macau tomorrow? We are here to see, observe, and learn many things.

Marianing asked me weeks ago, what will he tell his wife Nenit (the former Ma. Socorro Yulo, member of the provincial board) is the objective of our trip?

I told Marianing that we are going there to observe the operation of cable televisions for our Sunshine Cable 14. Marianing liked my "brilliant" idea. We will also observe sugarcane farming in southern China provinces because Marianing is a sugarcane farmer, too. If it will be too far, why we can go to the libraries in both Hong Kong and Macau and study them.

While in Cagayan de Oro recently, Marianing and myself studied pineapple planting because he has pineapple plants too. The other day, he gave me two sacks for planting.

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Hong Kong was a colony of a foreign power, the British, as the Philippines was a colony of the United States. China ceded Hong Kong to the British in 1843 because the British wanted to use it as its base in Asia.

Much as China wanted to expel the British, it could not because the heathen Britons in their battle with the Spanish Armada were favored by the waves and the wind. So, China, knowing the principle that those you cannot beat you join ceded Hong Kong in 1843. This was followed by its ceding Kowloon in 1860, and the New Territories in 1898 about the same time Spain sold the Philippines to the U.S. in the Treaty of Paris on Dec. 10 of that year for only $10 million. Very cheap!

But Hong Kong, like two other British colonies Singapore and Malaysia, is progressive compared to the Philippines.

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In 1995 I was also here, two years before the turnover because the bank where I worked had its financing branch here.

I don't know the facts now but in 1995 there were six million Hong Kongers, with 397,000 foreigners. Of these 132,000 were Filipinos, the biggest foreign population. In second place were the Americans with 30,200. The third largest group of foreigners were the Cambodians with 26,000 and in fourth were the Thais with 25,000.

Then came the British with 21,300 followed by Japanese with 21,200, the Indians with 20,100, Australians with 19,000 and Malaysians with 3,000.

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Hong Kong is small. It is only 77.5 square kilometers while Kowloon is 11 square kilometers, and the New Territories is composed of 235 islands of a total of 980.5 square kilometers.

But how it has improved. I recall in 1979 when we first came here with my wife, the peso was more costly than the Hong Kong dollar. Now it's the reverse.

The most memorable tourist spot I visited here was the ancestral home of a revered head of a clan. Tai Fu Tai. In 1995 we paid HK$250 or at that time roughly P800 tour agency charge.

This ancestral house was built by Man Chung-huen for the clan.

And who is Tai Fu Tai? He was an aloof, snooty, proud leader that Ilonggos must have adopted the term.

In Ilonggo women who are pretentious and aloof are called, "Daw si Tai Fu Tai." Or like Tai Fu Tai.

The term is still being used. I don't think we have time to go to visit the ancestral home of Tai Fu Tai any more.

If fax transmission will not pose problems, we will send our column from her over the following days.*

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