Happy "Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Establishment Day". A Hong Kong holiday.
28 years ago that Hong Kong was handed over to the Chinese government, by the UK government.
In Chinese it's 回归, Hui Gui, which is much simpler and much more descriptive. It means "the return of Hong Kong to our beloved motherland".
28 years ago, last night, Jing and I sat in a Wanchai Bar, watching the proceedings. All the Chinese army waiting on the Shenzhen side, to cross over into Hong Kong on the stroke of midnight.
It was a very wet, rainy night. Prince Charles was here for he handover, and famously described the Chinese bureaucrats at the ceremony as "appalling old wax works". It would be good if he was as honest today about Islam in Britain as he was then about those appallling Chinese apparatchiks.
Jing was pregnant with John, who was born two weeks later.
The Chinese largely kept out of Hong Kong politics, until forced to do so by the riots of 2019. But even then, I think it's fair to say, they handled that with a light hand, given what they could have done and many people, including people here in Hong Kong, were calling for them to do.
One simple thing to note: unlike most post-colonial places, Beijing has not demanded the change of a single name of a single street or building in Hong Kong. It's still Victoria Harbour, Victoria Park, Queen Elizabeth street, Pottinger St, Des Voeux road, and so on. I'd guess there's been more renaming in Australia than here in Hong Kong.
