I suppose that many of us have tried our hand at cooking something at some time or another, with varying degrees of success. And if you have been very lucky,(hopefully when someone else has been paying!) you have tasted the work of a master chef. But award winning chef or just cooking at home, I guess that we have all experienced meals that have been better than others.
Accepting that everyone has different tastes, chefs try to create something that will appeal to the majority, recognising that there are always going to be outliers who would prefer something else, or who are allergic to certain foods, or who are just picky. Chefs experiment. A little pinch of this, a teaspoon of that. They taste, they modify. They know that when they have created something unique, different, but appealing to the senses of sight and taste, it is the result not of ingredients hurriedly and haphazardly thrown together but it has involved patience, trial and error. And they get it wrong sometimes. It has parallels in performing arts, too, where the "overnight sensation" is rarely "overnight", but has been lucky enough to have been spotted after many years of training and hard work. Of course as always there are exceptions, but I believe the general rule holds good.
A good Chinese meal, with its many courses, provides contrasts in taste and texture.
So where I am I going with the culinary tales? A city is like a number of dishes under preparation which, when combined, should create if not a feast, at least a decent dinner. The leader of the city is hopefully a "master chef" who, with the assistance of his or her staff - Government/Civil Service (in Hong Kong), aims to create a meal which the majority can enjoy without indigestion. Creating a variety of dishes that, by the way, are subject to scrutiny along the way by a panel of judges (the Legislature) - some expert, some not!
But for that meal to be filling, nourishing,tasty and appealing it needs many ingredients.
A city cannot be just a place, let's say, for business only. It would be like serving one dish consisting only of pak choy (白菜) and calling it the whole meal. It needs meat, fish, soup, vegetables, rice, accompaniments, seasoning and desserts to make it complete.
A city needs a similar amount of variety. It has to have a heart and soul. It needs its support activities; its doctors, teachers, hospitals, schools, police. It must have a social structure and an integrated community to make it work. It needs its culture, for example the arts, in all their various forms. It needs its sports and social events that are appealing not only to the local people, but to others from overseas who in coming to the city spend money in our shops and businesses.
And here is where I think our Government and our Legislators might let us down.
Take, for example, the vote in the Legislative Council last Friday where the Government request for funding to host the Asian Games in 2023 was comprehensively defeated. Now actually I am not against the decision. The Government should never have put in a request that it seems was financially flawed. It initially understated the amount needed, which brought into question just how open-ended was the financing likely to be. But just as important to the failure was the headline assertion that holding the Games in Hong Kong would be good for our elite athletes. Umm, yes I am sure it would, but actually wouldn't it have been even better for the thousands of school children and adults who would have benefitted from having newer, bigger, better facilities? In other words, wouldn't this have gone down a lot better as a community project (and if the arithmetic had been better)?
One of Hong Kong's more international attractions is the Hong Kong Sevens. The annual rugby tournament that visitors from all over the world come to see in our 40,000 capacity stadium, built by courtesy of the Jockey Club. But remember, this is NOT actually the Hong Kong Sevens. It is the International Rugby Board (IRB) sevens that happen to be played in Hong Kong. Already hugely popular, it is continuing to grow in interest and stature, and annually people are left looking for tickets because the allocations have all gone. But let's say that Singapore builds better facilities, a 60 or 75,000 capacity stadium for example and provides Government support, then the IRB may well say - "okay, we're going to hold the event in Singapore in future".
Meanwhile back home, Hong Kong is playing with the idea of building a new stadium in Kowloon that may be ready in another 5 years, if we're lucky. Capacity? Around 42 - 45,000. By the time it is complete the rugby could have long gone, and how much revenue is then lost to Hong Kong, permanently,as a result?
And then to the arts where Funding remains an issue in Hong Kong. It has never been high on the "dishes" list of the "complete meal" and, as has happened in Britain recently, is usually the first to have its funding cut in a downturn. In fact an article in the UK Guardian a week ago deals with the issue of the arts humorously and compellingly, making the case that although everyone believes the Arts to be loss making it is actually a profitable part of the overall picture. Maybe our legislators should take a look at what happens elsewhere before consigning requests for funding to the scrap heap.
Maybe, just maybe, rather than knocking the Government for everything it does and creating collateral damage as a result, the Legislative Council could be creatively constructive and suggest ways these projects could be made more palatable or acceptable.
The Government coffers are not exactly empty. And there has to be some room to help the master chef create a better dish for the benefit of many - not just a few.
And no, of course we must never ignore the plight of the poor, the homeless, and the apparently hopeless. They have them everywhere in the world too - New York, London, you name it. But equally we should not ignore some of those other things that cost some money to create but which help to make the meal whole.
Dear Mr Eldon,
The incidence on last Friday is just another examples showing that our current administration is not an executive led government. Instead of adopting a directive approach and lobbying support from essential stakeholders to ensure sufficient votes for hosting the event, the administration let the whole thing sounds wish-washy, which creates a good opportunity for the LegCo members to stir things up.
Posted by: Helen Tsui | 19 January 2011 at 11:48