Unenviable Enclave

Unenviable Enclave

1985 5 May 22-23 Unenviable Enclave (446) In September 1984 Britain concluded a treaty with China formalizing the arrangements for transfer of power in 1997. Capitalism has been highly successful in Hong Kong. So much so that even Communist China has agreed not to tamper with the present system for at least fifty years after Hong Kong reverts to Chinese rule. The British Foreign Secretary, Sir Geoffrey Howe, commenting on the agreement, said it was astonishing “that the world's largest Communist country is setting out to maintain probably the most lively, most dynamic, most successful, capitalist community” (The Guardian, October 7, 1984).

Yet the “success” of Hong Kong, which has impressed even the implacable foes of capitalism in Peking, is a very superficial one. If one looks beneath the glossy surface, one finds minds seething with discontent, souls pining for inner peace. The Chinese in Hong Kong have a saying that “one in ten go crazy.” According to the territory’s chief Psychiatric Consultant, Dr. W.H. Low, cramped living conditions, intense competition at school and work, noise pollution, long working hours and the frenetic way of life, all contribute to high levels of stress and neurosis among the Hong Kong people.

Common symptoms of stress are present in abundance, with one in ten of Hong Kong males, aged 40-60, suffering from peptic ulcer in any given year. As for functional dyspepsia, gastroenterologist Professor S.K. Lam says it affects “about four in five of our patients. The patient complains of constant stomach pain, but when you investigate you find nothing except that there is a lot of tension in some part of their lives.”

Chaplin Marvin Wray, who runs a stress management clinic, says that the symptoms of stress are more acute in Hong Kong than in the United States. Family breakups and alcoholism are on the increase. Noise pollution is also a major problem, with motor ways often passing within as little as two feet (less than a metre) from people’s homes. “It is not unusual,” says Rob Law, a spokesman for Hong Kong Environmental Protection Agency, “to find that someone who has run amock and chopped up his neighbours did so because they had the T.V. on too loudly.”

This is the reality that lies behind the glittering facade of Hong Kong’s affluence. The truth of the matter is that the price that has to be paid for material affluence is spiritual bankruptcy. That is why the Qur'an calls the benefits of this worldly life “poison” to which one should not strain one’s eyes (20:131). To set one’s sights on the fleeting pleasures of this world is to forfeit both inner contentment in this world, and eternal blessings in the life to come.