10 Years On

Now that I have thought about it it seems that many momentous things happened ten years ago which are being talked about and remembered now. Tony Blair was elected Prime Minister and ten years on is being replaced by Gordon Brown. Princess Diana was killed in a car crash in Paris and yesterday we had the Concert for Diana to celebrate her life. Hong Kong has been officially known as HKSAR, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, for a full ten years as of 1st July 2007. Prince Charles and Chris Patten left on Britannia that famous rainy night in July 1997 watched by millions of people all over the world. Where were you? I watched it on telly in our house in Holmfirth while making plans to move to Bahrain. Ten years on and I am actually living in Hong Kong and able to watch the fireworks over Victoria Harbour first hand. I witnessed a little bit of history yesterday. Am I a being over dramatic? Well probably, but I was keen to be there and see it for myself if only to remind myself that time flies, is it really ten years? Gulp! Watching the fireworks in Hong Kong is a spectacular event and I am always utterly impressed at the crowd control that slips into place around the water front and streets leading to it on such an occasion. The authorities are truly the experts at managing people in a calm and safe way. There is never a hint of danger, a distinct lack of alcohol induced rowdiness and definitely no fights. Hong Kong people are very compliant, they follow the instructions given on banners and the traffic police who patrol the roads and pavements and the whole event, be it Chinese New Year, New Years Eve or yesterdays celebration goes off peacefully and when it’s over and everyone has ‘Waaaed’ at the pretty fireworks they turn around and go home in an orderly fashion. Now that I am a well established member of the expat community I was offered a ‘special ticket’ to watch the fireworks from an exclusive vantage point in Tsim Sha Tsui. Was it from the Felix Bar in the Peninsula Hotel? Was the top floor of the Sheraton, the Intercontinental or the Marco Polo, or had someone booked me a $3,000 table in Aqua? None of those things I’m afraid…I had a special ticket to watch the fireworks from a car park above a shopping mall! After a panicky start when I thought I was going to miss them, they started at precisely 8.13pm and I was still on street level when the first ones shot into the night sky. It was a mad dash through the mall and up the slope (pant, pant) to the said car park. I did witness them first hand and it was fab. (Thanks Carol, Madeline and Tracy) You can experience this now by watching my 15 second video clip. Note Amazing Grace in Cantonese playing as background music.

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