Beyond the Skyline

This marks almost a year and a half of living in Hong Kong. By now, my views and perspectives on the context here slightly surpasses that of a passerby. Over the year, I've immersed myself in the working lifestyle, local culture to some extent and learning Cantonese to the best of my limited abilities. As a result, I have to admit that it was harder than I thought it would be, to integrate my Western lifestyle to that of the East, even in Hong Kong, where the British have established themselves up until 1997. I have yet to truly affiliate with local culture here, as it is so colloquial that you would need to have grown up here to truly understand how people think and do things here.

Hong Kong leads the extreme of extreme case of free market economy, maximized development density--population per sq meter, heightened GDP, and more. It is obviously manifest by its array of horizontal and vertical skylines, and the arduous working attitudes of its people. More than anything, it is the height of achievement measured by time in dollar amount, reflected through not mass consumption but vast luxury consumption and lavish lifestyles.

As I move beyond the wonders of what Hong Kong's vast city has to offer and dig into the reality of the nature of it's development state, I wonder if a state of balance and peace could ever be achieved here. In a city (which you could not quite define as a country) or more like in a political border, where it is a master of its people, the state of control, obedience and order allows for such extremities to function... I wonder whether the idea of "democracy" through it's free flowing markets, where start up businesses pop in and out, can actually hold common principles in America's ideals in ensuring each individual's life, liberty and pursuit of happiness (at least in the time it was conceived).

Ultimately, I wonder if my inner needs for pursuing individual goals could be attained in a system where the units work for the better of the whole. Where, the pursuit of individual freedoms/happiness is overwritten by the purpose of the greater whole (even if I get a taste of all of the dim sum I want eating together at the round table and forgo my individual choice of selecting a meal). I believe that in order to change society (for the better), one must obtain his/her own state of fulfillment or happiness, whatever that may be. That is what fuels societies with meaning to yield distinct types of cultures. Without that, you are contributing to the machine i.e. the corporate structure, in which a set goal is expected to be achieved by the whole, with the limits of purely meeting economic and production targets.