What “Red-white-blue” means to you? An old-fashioned term or a granny’s old saying? Or you even don’t hear about it. If you do so, you’re outdated! In recent years, some western designers have employed red-white-blue bags in their designs, turning them into brands of international high-class consumer products. In contrast, red-white-blue bags have become a household word in Hong Kong since the 1970s. As many Hong Kong people used them to carry goods and clothes when they returned to their homeland in China, making the red-white-blue bag a byword for homecoming.Red-white-blue bags have virtually come a long way to attain such prestigious status thanks to three Hongkongers. Stanley Wong, an artist, created a series of red-white-blue works infused with the Hong Kong spirit seven years ago to express Hong Kong people’s perseverance and flexibility. Tse Kung-chiu’s father first introduced red-white-blue fabrics into Hong Kong. Tse Kung-chiu has now inherited the family business that trades red-white-blue material, which is in fact his next of kin. In addition, 80-year-old Lee Wah created the first red-white-blue bag in Hong Kong. He came across this unique fabric by chance and was deeply affected, thus launching his creative insights on turning this unique fabric into red-white-blue bags of all sizes and shapes.

These people have embodied the Hong Kong’s spirit – creative, indomitable, flexible. They learnt from red-white-blue which actually stands for the positive spirit of Hong Kong people, it is once a byword of bad taste and low-class design, however. Red-white-blue is not invented by Hong Kong people but Japanese, yet Hong Kong people can still put red-white-blue into our local unique culture and even on the stage of the world. These characteristics we share with red-white-blue bags are the factors that making Hong Kong from a fishing village to a metropolis. We should preserve them in a bid to our next generation can be proud of it, and find their identity as a hongkonger.

     “A new direction for Hong Kong” is what Mr. Donald Tsang, the Chief Executive promised to give us stated in the recently proposed 2007-08 Policy Address. The Policy Address is rich in content, which covers economics development, community development, environmental protection, new education policies, as well as the democracy progress proposal. But I would like to mainly focus on the social cares parts in the Policy Address in this article. For instance, what the problems are we facing? How Mr. Tsang will react? And finally, will these come to effect?

First, is our society harmonious in your eyes? In my opinion, Hong Kong is now facing several situations that make our society not in harmonic. Apart from the political considerations, poverty is always one of the causative factors for inharmoniousness. Actually, we are in a quite serious situation of uneven distribution of wealth. In other words, there is an extreme disparity between the rich and the poor. Mr. Tsang has also noticed that the extent to which different sectors of the community share fruits of prosperity varies, despite of the encouraging figures of toady’s economics growth. Mr. Tsang and his team have planed to implement some measures for the sake of narrowing the wealth gap, namely, to prepare legislation on a statutory minimum wage for security guards and cleansing workers. At last, it comes to the legislation. In fact, I do think that Mr. Tsang believes in idealism. For the reason that Mr. Tsang thinks many employers will join the Wage Protection Movement (WPM) in the beginning. Unfortunately, in the reality, the result turned out was unsatisfactory. Nothing short of a gun can force employers to pay reasonable salaries to employees. People are able to earn their own living, but the living is too unreasonable that are not proportional to their efforts.

In addition, the Government cares about the disadvantaged. The Commission on Poverty plans to relax restrictions on disregarded earning under the Comprehensive Social Security Allowance Scheme. Also, the authorities will establish a Child Development Fund for the needed children as well as providing additional residential care places for the elderly. Nonetheless, I always believe that teaching one to fish is better than give him a fish. The financial aids are also essential, but should be only in a short-term and in emergency situation. It is suggested the authorities to establish a scheme that helping the people to re-join the society. One of the feasible ways is to subside the people who live in the districts that away from the urban area, northern and western New Territories. As the transportation fee of theirs to work is a considerable expense. That can use the limited resources in a more meaningful way.

To alleviate the poverty and make the society more harmonious are neither one-day job nor one-man project. It takes time and people to partake in. Remember actions always speak louder than words. We can give our helping hands to people in need at any time. No policy has comparability with that if we do so.

I have recently view the “Hong Kong Connection” produced by RTHK. The program has recently started a research about the impact of the handover of Hong Kong on the young generation. The research series is called “Ten Years On – The 1st generation of the SAR”. It is said that Hong Kong people lived with an identity crisis for over one and half century under the colonial rule of the British. However, there is still identity crisis nowadays, especially the young generation.

The program revealed that the Government has doubtless done countless works of national education on the students live beyond 1997, namely regular flag rising ceremony, national anthem before the news report everyday, yet there are still quite a number of youngsters are confused about their identity or they always consider themselves as a Hongkonger rather than a Chinese.

The program also pointed out that there is a pretty large difference between mainlanders and locals by comparing their sense of belongings and national knowledge they known. Most of the mainlanders are proud of their nationality while our citizens even don’t know who the President of China is.

Nonetheless, it cannot be denied that Government’s works are come to some effect. Hong Kong people know more about their motherland compare with the passed decade. At least, they are easier to acquire information from mainland. There is evidently a trend towards more concerns. They are glad to see the country’s progressive side, such as China’s first astronaut Yang Liwei and the privilege to host the Olympics in 2008. On the contrary, they are also learnt that there fake products on the mainland and toxic food.

I do think that it is unwise that to do one-sided national education in Hong Kong in this age of information. I believe that this generation is capable of selecting information. Hopefully, they can explore China themselves and find their identity on their own and say, “I’m Chinese!” proudly.

        “We are ready!” It is one of the Beijing Olympics theme songs. Its lyrics seems to tell us Beijing the host city of the 2008 Olympic Games is now ready for holding the Olympics. However, is it the truth? There are some questions to examine how well is the Beijing Government’s perparaion for the Olympics. First, is the road system capable of handling the traffic situation in rush hour? Second, is the sports venues and related facilities now available for the athletes from all over the world? Third, is the citizens’ moral education efficacious?

        To hold a global sports games, the first and the basic requirement is having a well-developed highway network. In order to cope with the traffic and environmental problems that the increase brings, especially with the Olympics around the corner. Traffic problems have already become a major stress on the city. It has been an upsurge in the number of vehicles since the China’s miracle of economic rise. Until now, there are more than 2.9 million cars riding on road and 1,060 more cars hitting the road every day in the city. In an attempt to ease this undesirable situation, the city is taking an aggressive stance on fighting the traffic problems, particularly through development of public transportation, to which the municipal government has committed 4.98 billion yuan, more than 1.3 billion up from last year’s allotment. Moreover, bus fares have been significantly decreased in the hopes of luring more passengers, and several new subway and light rail lines, nearly 1,000 additional kilometers, will be in place by the Olympics. During July 25 to September 20, 2008 which is the Olympic Days, officials have plans to ban vehicles around Olympic venues and to create special cars lanes for officials, athletes, and referees that will cover over 200 kilometers altogether.

        Despite the measures that have been taken, the enormous number of vehicles still brings Beijing an even worse problem, air pollution. The harmful automotive emissions are estimated to contribute to half of the city’s air pollution. Although the authorities claimed that they have already taken measures to improve the situation, such as some old buses and taxis have been taken off the roads and natural gas driven buses were put into operation, the situation dose not improve much at that moment. It is suggested that the authorities start to enforce the IV national emission standard for new vehicles at a early day if possible. That is a more effective way to ease the problem as the major vehicles in Beijing are private cars but not the public one.

        In accordance with the requirements of the IOC (The International Olympic Committee) and with due consideration to the state of the country and needs of city development, the sports facilities shall be designed and constructed with great care to fulfill the Government’s commitments as stated in the Candidature File and the Host City Contract. For Beijing Olympic Games, 37 venues will be used for competitions, with 32 of them in Beijing and 5 in other cities. Of the 32 venues in Beijing, 19 are new sites to be developed (including 6 temporary ones) and 13 are existing facilities to be renovated or extended which are not only few simple and threepenny tasks.

        For the accommodation for the athletes, which also should not be taken as a minor event to deal with. For the reason that the athletes need to have a place to take a rest and prepare for their competition. If Beijing Government cannot provide that, China may probably have to take the blame for this mistake and lose the rapport with other countries. Also, athletes and their people may have a bad impression on China. In fact, there are some venues and other facilities are still under construction, namely, the swimming stadium and the hockey stadium. There is no doubt that the construction of these venues and facilities is in full swing. Yet the situation is worrying.

        In the interium, the Beijing Government is making all-out efforts to ensure the Chinese, especially the Beijing citizens to show the highest moral and physical qualities to the world. Be that as it may, the situations of people spitting, littering, squatting on the ground wilfully are here and there and everywhere. Besides this, the mistranslated phrases and “Chinglish”on street signs and product labels have become an ordinary scene in Beijing. Examples like emergency exits at Beijing airport read “No entry on peacetime” and the Ethnic Minorities Park is named “Racist Park” which lead to a quite embarrassing situation.

        As mentioned earlier, there are still many improvements that the Beijing Government can make. There is still a long way to go while the time left is less than 365 days. The 2008 Olympics will be a great opportunity for China to show its charm. Ten thousands of people from all corners of the world will be attracted to go to Beijing to enjoy the thrilling events at the Olympics. Furthermore, the Olympic Games will give fresh impetus to the economic develoment in China and help raising the qualities of Chinese citizens. Hopefully, China can seize this golden opportunity provided by the Olympics.

 We’ve just finished our first podcast and I want to share with you right now!

My group mates are  Eric, Thoma, and Jay
our podcast titled: School Rules

Here’s  the download link: www.sendspace.com/file/a781jd